Don't Let Him Take Your Picture!
Their master had left the sows behind in the camper once again. To be precise, he had told them to go wait inside first.
Tear tracks streaked the face of Mirele, who had been terrified out of her wits, while Jessica—and even Sayoko—heaved ragged breaths, trembling from head to foot.
"We almost died..."
Jessica's breathless whimper echoed through the cramped caravan. Detestable though the blonde cheerleader was, Sayoko and Mirele silently agreed with all their hearts.
As if by unspoken agreement, all three turned their eyes beneath the vanity—to a shadowed corner touched neither by sunlight nor Master's gaze, where a single photograph was pinned.
In the picture, a young woman clad only in dolphin shorts and a sleeveless tank top was caught mid-yawn. It was Go Iul, the fourth sow who had shared this caravan with them until not long ago. That picture had been her first—and her last.
"...She was indeed a remarkably diligent and zealous sow," Sayoko sneered, though her gaze darted away as if unable to meet the photograph directly. "Giving herself airs as if she were the mistress of this caravan, fussing over every petty detail and bothering Master with her suffocating devotion. But in the end, Master handed down the very reward such overzealousness deserved, did he not? She brought it entirely upon herself."
"Exactly!" Jessica snorted in derision, yet the corners of her mouth quivered, and the white-knuckled fist she had clenched began to shake. "Acting all cheeky like she was his big sister or something, daring to call Master by his name, looking down on him as 'our kiddo' whenever she felt like it. Completely ridiculous! Not knowing her place at all."
"She cooked tasteless breakfasts every single morning and bossed us around like she was in charge..." Mirele mumbled, staring at the floor, repeating the words like a protective chant. "That's why... it was only natural. Master's decision to do that was..."
They repeated it to themselves, desperately clinging to the illusion.
Yes. Go Iul had sinned. She was insolent, brazen, and full of herself. That was why Master had made her pay the appropriate price.
Master is always just and righteous in his treatment. If Master hands down punishment, there must be a valid sin behind it—even if the feeble intellect of a sow cannot comprehend his reasons.
Because if that wasn't true... If it had simply happened on Master's whim, without any fault of her own... If nothing a sow did could ever sway Master's choices... then they could meet the exact same fate at any moment. Every desperate struggle, every cooing flattery, every petty territorial rivalry, every shred of thought, effort, and agony—all of it would be utterly meaningless.
The three of them stared back at the photograph. The day Master took her picture was still vividly etched in their memories. It had begun as an ordinary morning, completely devoid of forewarning.
"Mmh... Hasu. We're out of milk. You'll have to drink your coffee black today."
Baring generous swaths of skin in her tank top and dolphin shorts, Go Iul gestured toward a steaming mug just as she did every morning. Beside it sat a plate of toast topped with a fried egg.
"And I've already dished out the feed for the rest of us."
"Ara ara~♡ Sayoko wishes to eat the feed Master personally ladles out. No matter how favored by Master you might be, Iul, taking the liberty of serving our feed yourself seems rather questionable, don't you think?"
"Totally! Stop acting so cocky. Hey, Go-ee, if you get to dish it out, I'm doing it next time!"
"Her name is Iul, and her family name is Go..."
"Shut up, Mirele! You think I don't know that?!"
It had been their usual bickering routine.
Master, a photography major who was always snapping pictures here and there yet strangely never photographed them, suddenly raised his camera.
"If you have a problem with it, you can make breakfast next time. Yaaawn... Hm?"
Click. A shot captured the moment she yawned. Click. Another as she finished yawning and flashed Master an affectionate smile.
Pretty eyes blinked in surprise. Go Iul was the first to laugh.
"Taking my picture? So diligent early in the morning, our kiddo. I hope my dark circles aren't showing too bad. Want me to strike another pose?"
With that, Go Iul turned sideways in the narrow camper and lifted one leg in an adorable cheerleader-style pose. The other sows were not about to sit by idly.
A rival pulling ahead meant falling behind. In other words, taking one step closer to slaughter.
"Master~♡ Did you like seeing her caught off guard? Fufu, then how about Sayoko writhing around on the bed? Or perhaps a picture of me outside, basking under the sun on the grass?"
"What the heck, Master! If you're taking photos, you shouldn't waste film on flimsy broads like them—shoot this killer body of mine! I'll do whatever pose you want! Shoot me! Point that lens right over here! Not at some scrawny girl doing half-assed poses!"
"S-Senior Jessica... your chest is pressing against the camera lens... If you damage such an expensive camera, Master will be terribly furious with you..."
"Hey! Do you know how many times I've had photos taken of me? You think I don't know my focal distance? Getting photographed was literally my job! Move out of the way and stop being an eyesore!"
"My, my~ Jessica seems to be confusing cheerleaders with models~♡"
Right as they were clawing at each other's throats as usual, Master grabbed Go Iul by the scruff of her neck.
"Let's step outside."
"Oh? Does our kiddo want to photograph big sis in the sunshine? Thanks, Sayoko~ Looks like he liked your idea."
"Master...?"
Giving a cheeky wink to the stunned Sayoko, Go Iul stepped out into the yard. The rest of the sows scrambled after her on all fours, green with envy and jealousy.
And then... out in the yard...
The sows squeezed their eyes shut, shying away from the sheer horror of that memory.
They did not know then, nor would they ever know, that at that exact moment, their master sitting beyond the computer screen had actually screamed:
"Holy shit! Why the hell are the hotkeys for Pet and Slaughter right next to each other?!"
On the campus hill leading up to the university buildings, my Assyrian classmate, Hammat—whose full seven-character name was quite a mouthful—interrogated me.
"What on earth did you do to them?"
"I have no clue."
I really didn't. Why had they been so petrified of a camera?
"You're not taking weird, perverted photos of them, are you?"
"No... Probably not."
My classmate squinted at me with deep suspicion. I racked my brain, tracing back my memories.
Although this was transmigration, it felt like continuing from my last save point at the end of the base scenario. That would explain why I recognized this classmate NPC, why the calendar showed only a brief time having passed since the semester began, and why there were only three heroines.
Come to think of it, the game started with four heroines. But now there were only three.
Tsk...
My stomach churned just thinking back to it. Right after the tutorial, I accidentally ground one of them into meat. What kind of psychopath developers put those hotkeys right next to each other?
What was the dead girl's name again? A Korean name, I think.
Since this trash game didn't have manual saves and only allowed a full restart, I had simply soldiered on. Well, that wasn't what mattered right now.
In the base scenario, taking photos was basically a mini-game. You lined up a moving frame and slammed the spacebar to get a photo in focus. Miss the timing, and you ended up with a blurry mess. And... that was it. Occasionally you'd take pictures for homework or classes to gain EXP. There shouldn't have been anything to scare the heroines so badly. Hell, I'd never even photographed them in the first place.
"I really don't get it."
"Well, whatever. If they're your emotional pets, stop tormenting them and just buy a few more heads for your photography practice. Sows are dirt cheap anyway. Use them however you like, then slaughter them for meat or toss them out."
"Mmh."
She was supposed to be the trope of a 'kind-hearted member of the ruling Assyrian class who treats colonial provincials as equals,' yet why did she sound like utter human garbage right now?
As if reproaching my uncharitable thoughts, a long, palm-like leaf slapped me across the cheek.
"Ouch."
"We're here. You brought your student ID, right?"
Student ID? I hastily patted down my pockets. All I found were my phone and a handkerchief.
"What are you doing?"
Hammat stood in front of an open-mouthed stone lion statue, unfastening a pouch hanging from her belt. Now that I checked, a similar pouch hung at my own waist. Tugging it open, I saw jingling silver rings, grooming tools, a menacing goblin-faced ornament, and several mysterious cylinders.
"...Does a digital mobile ID work?"
"Digital ID? Is there even such a thing?"
I rummaged through the pouch a bit longer before confronting the bleak truth.
"I didn't bring my student ID."
"What? Why wouldn't you carry it? Unbelievable."
"Because I didn't plan on coming to school today."
"You should still carry it at all times! You never know what might happen. What if you ran into a friend and wanted to grab lunch at the campus cafeteria? And besides, the guards..." She trailed off, deliberated for a beat, and sighed. "Well, you can't get in without an ID anyway. Guess we'll have to take photos together some other time."
"Sorry, Hammat."
"My name is Esharra-hammat. Whatever, nothing we can do. You're the one missing out, not me."
She clearly looked disappointed herself, but I didn't bother pointing it out.
"See you next time."
"Yeah."
Waving at me, Hammat drew a cylinder from her pouch and rolled it right into the maw of the lion statue beside the entrance. Red light flashed inside the lion's mouth like a barcode scanner. The cylinder rolled through with a clatter and popped out of the lion's ear.
With a heavy click, the door swung open. Hammat snatched her cylinder from the air and stepped inside.
"...Ah."
Now that I thought about it, that thing had been displayed right beside the in-game mini-map.
A Mesopotamian-style Cylinder Seal ID. So that was a student ID! Come to think of it, there were several cylinders in my pouch too.
Sifting through the various cylinder seals in my pouch, I pulled out the one that looked like a student ID. The upper section bore the university crest, while the lower portion featured my own face carved in relief. That had to be it.
Fortunately, the relief carving of my face was at least a 95% match, if not 100%, so it didn't look half bad.
"Hmm..."
Or maybe closer to 90%? Well, even photographs struggled to capture all of my handsome features, so a stone carving stood no chance...
"Out of the way!"
Just then, someone shoved right into me.
...To be precise, she tried to shove past me, but her push was so feeble that I barely budged, while she ended up bouncing right off me.
"Ah-eek!"
The woman landed flat on her backside, scattering her belongings everywhere.
She was every bit as gorgeous as Sayoko, Jessica, or Mirele, dressed in appropriately revealing attire. In other words, a typical female NPC in this game world. A slender, sexy build flaunting sideboob in exquisite imperial garb—magnificent. Her outfit marked her as an Assyrian citizen, and the slant of her eyes was fiercely sharp. Or maybe she just looked fierce because she was scowling so hard.
"What do you think you're doing, blocking the entrance like an idiot?!"
Snarling, she scrambled to gather her dropped supplies. Honestly, none of it was my fault, but standing there watching felt awkward, so I leaned down to help. The moment my hand neared her things, however, she recoiled in visceral disgust, so I backed off.
Looking closely, her gear looked suspiciously similar to what Hammat had been carrying...
"Excuse me, are you a photography student by any chance?"
"What's it to a monkey like you? Typical savage—all brawn, no brains, and zero tact."
With a sneer, she swiped her student seal through the lion statue and strutted right inside.
"..."
Did I just get racially profiled? A Korean, in Korea?
Well, it was Assyrian-occupied Korea, so I supposed it made sense.
The game had clearly depicted pervasive discrimination, highlighting Hammat as an eccentric exception for treating colonials decently. It was actually far more normal to run into bigoted bitches like that, even if I'd never seen this specific NPC before.
"Still, what a total piece of work."
There was nothing I could do about it, though.
On modern Earth, where discrimination was generally recognized as wrong, crying racism might at least prompt the university administration to pretend to investigate. But this was the Assyrian Empire. Fat chance of anything like that happening here.
"Hope I never run into her again."
In a proper degenerate game progression, an arrogant noble like her would end up collared as a sow later on... but dreaming about that right now was just pointless wishful thinking.
I toyed with using my newly found seal to follow Hammat, but I had zero desire to cross paths with that woman again—and more importantly, I had no clue what floor the darkroom was on. So, I meekly headed back home.
Time to put that venomous racist out of mind and go see my cute Sayoko, Jessica, and Mirele.
...They are cute, right? Their mental breakdowns from earlier should be all cleared up by now... right?