Ep.4 - The Queen (6)
Ep.4 - The Queen (6)
Delin sobbed silently.
With every pleasure he had savored and all the pain that followed etched deep into his mind and body, he wept sorrowfully.
Shifting his gaze among the knight, the thief, and the girl who were tied up helplessly, and groping with his hands at the empty spots where the wolf and the witch had been, he shook his head back and forth.
At first slowly, as if unwilling to accept the situation, then gradually faster, and finally so violently that he seemed barely able to endure such horrors.
Kwang, kwang-
Delin repeatedly pounded the floor with clenched fists and screamed. No sound came from his mouth, yet the Queen could hear the desperate scream that rose from within him.
"Why, why... this doesn't make any sense..."
She was the Queen capable of driving a person insane in a single day.
That a man she had painstakingly trained for a month would resist pleasure, pain, and commands was a phenomenon her mind simply could not comprehend.
"Eeek...! Come here, I said!"
The Queen's calm and beautiful facade began to peel away. For the first time in her life, she sputtered in bewilderment.
"I told you to come!"
Her lovely hand immediately seized Delin's leash and roughly yanked him, slamming him to the floor.
Delin grimaced, the pain as if his bones were shattering. Was it so severe that he could barely breathe? His mouth and nose heaved raggedly, and his screams dissolved into tears that seeped from his eyes.
The Queen climbed onto Delin, who lay writhing on the floor. She clenched her fist, intent on correcting this impossible situation...
"This can't be! It just can't be...!"
Peok- peo-eok-
The Queen's hand, which had always brought blood and pain, turned this time toward Delin—her punches fueled by anger and a deep sense of betrayal.
The hand that had always given him pleasure and discipline had at last lost its way, reverting to its true nature: to crush.
"You ungrateful little shit! After all I've done for you!"
She couldn't understand.
She hadn't tortured him like she did others, nor had she crippled him or gouged out his eyes.
So why?
"What's so good about those bastards! No matter how you look at it, I'm better! You... you whorish son of a bitch, you just need a lot of cunts, is that it? Is that it? Huh!?"
Delin, beaten mercilessly by the Queen's fists, was coated in tears, sobbing in agony.
But as before, not even a proper scream came from his mouth.
A time of silent outcry.
Though it was a space where five people breathed together, what filled the room was only the Queen's furious voice and the sound of punishing blows.
"You fucking bastard, dirty bastard, bastard who doesn't know your place... What are you? What are you to dare defy me? You think you're something? You're just a useless idiot! Just a goddamn idiot!"
The Queen spewed all manner of curses, the veins on her neck bulging. Delin's clothes under her were tattered beyond measure. How could they have lasted, yanked by the nape of the neck like that?
Blood flowed from the back of his head. He must have hit his head multiple times from the violent grabbing by the collar.
"Fucking bastard... stupid man who doesn't know gratitude..."
Grinding her teeth and glaring at Delin with hateful eyes, the Queen had no way to contain her boiling rage. Having never been this furious before, she naturally had no idea what to do to calm down. Therefore, just as she had done to Neva, who had dared to give her a [sense of betrayal], she began to teach Delin his lesson.
How dare he go against her will? How dare he abandon her, not knowing his place? Does he even know who she is? Dare against her? What does he think he is? Does he think he's something? It's not like she didn't do enough for him. You enjoyed it too. But now you want to go to those other bitches? After acting all cute like that, drooling spit and jizz all day long, and constantly showing that turned-on face as if you couldn't live without me?
"Just live as a son of a bitch...! Just live like that and die, that's all you need to do!"
The Queen wrapped both hands around Delin's throat and squeezed. His body, sensing the danger, screamed at him to escape, but his frail frame could not break free from her grip.
She, who had always lorded over others, strangled the man pinned beneath her with the intent to kill him.
"Just die...! You might as well die, die..."
But... her heart would not let her kill him.
"...Nggh-eut!!"
Tears welled in the corners of the Queen's eyes.
Her brilliant mind finally accepted the truth of her own heart.
"You son of a bitch..."
I... I must love this man.
"Son of a bitch... you son of a bitch..."
She cursed him with the vulgar insults of commoners—words she had never once uttered in her life. She cursed, resented, tormented, trampled, crushed, hated, loathed him. Yet she still loved him, grew despondent at the thought of letting him go, felt betrayed that he hadn't chosen her, confused by her own unfathomable emotions. Even in that confusion, she loved him. What remained in the end was a cold, cooling anger—fierce self-justification, and a resolve, not quite conviction, that even if he hadn't chosen her, she would ultimately possess him.
"Come with me. You... you are..."
She shut her lips,
grabbed Delin by the hair,
and dragged him out of the torture chamber.
"Yeah, huu... Okay. I guess I was thinking wrong. You have to treat a dog as befits a dog. Fine! Let's see who wins, shall we?"
A couple of teeth were broken,
the inside of his cheek torn and bleeding...
Dragged along in that state, Delin clutched at his hair, pulled taut, struggling to brace his legs, trying with all his might to resist.
"It's because I only trained you for a single month. From now on, at least three months, no! A year! If I do it for a year, you won't even think of this kind of crap again, right? Actually, that's better. Yes, good! I'll teach you properly this time."
His body was yanked up into the air.
"Don't even think about seeing sunlight. Let's enjoy ourselves in the training room all year long. Let's see who wins!"
At the sensation of his hair being ripped out, Delin slapped at the Queen's hand in resistance, but instead, his resisting wrist was seized, and he was only dragged higher.
It felt like his arm was being torn off. Hoisted higher than his own height, pain coursed through his entire arm.
Light was seeping from his wrist, pulled up to the Queen's eyes. A small inscription glowed faintly...
"Yeah... now I get it. This blessing is blocking it. That's what it was."
The Queen opened her eyes wide and glared fiercely at his wrist. She muttered as she looked at the inscription carved there.
"This isn't right. It was sent to me. Why...?"
Her sense of emptiness only grew.
Now the Queen began to desperately argue with the forgotten old god's blessing.
"It's mine! He's my toy, my puppy! I don't need any god's will!"
The highest among humans shouted at the god. She vented her anger, shouting at Delin's slender wrist and the empty ceiling.
"This is mine! I said it's mine!"
Holding Delin's wrist tightly enough to crush it, the Queen strode to the table where the torture instruments were laid.
From there, she picked up the chopping knife she had always valued most, raised it high, and said:
"I don't need this blessing...! Now he's mine!"
But her knife lingered in the air for a long time.
Who could dare fathom her heart, unable to bring herself to strike?
"I said he's mine... he's, he's mine..."
The Queen choked up.
She, who didn't suit crying at all, wiped away tears with the hand holding the knife and spoke childish words.
"He's mine... hhng... my puppy, I said..."
Delin cried, and the Queen cried,
the room was filled with weeping.
"Delin, you like me too, right? Hm? You like me..."
Ah.
Does first love always bring tears?
The heart of a woman who has learned love becomes uncontrollable, making her shed tears she had never shed before.
The first toy she, who had broken everything, could not break.
A plaything she did not want taken by another—even if the other was a god.
A first love she could not let go of like this, even though the realization came late.
An irreversible heart. A debt of sin she couldn't pay. A price she couldn't stop.
She regrets.
Though it was far too late to regret now.
"Just... just live as my puppy. Okay...? Let's just live happily like that..."
Her hand rose gradually. The knife-wielding hand trembled for the first time. The carving that had always been a joy was terrifying today.
"Just nod your head, and I'll forgive everything. I'll forgive everything... just nod..."
But Delin...
with his head hung low,
shook his head, tears dripping.