Chapter 38
Chapter 38
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Deliberately Stirring Up Anger (7)
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In that instant, the man's eyes flashed. Even in the darkness, his gleaming gaze was fiercely sharp.
'Eh?'
Pierre felt a sudden chill. Something told him this was bad.
But he didn't want to show fear in front of Matilda. So he braced himself and boldly spat out his words.
"Get out right..."
Pierre couldn't finish.
The man who had been at the door was suddenly right in front of him. The man's hand shot out like lightning, seizing Pierre's throat.
"Gah!"
Then he hoisted Pierre up and slammed him against the wall.
"Urk, gack."
The grip was so strong that Pierre's breath caught, his vision turning gold.
Pierre grabbed the man's hand with both of his, desperately trying to pry it off. But the man's hand didn't budge, like it was nailed to the wall.
"Gr, grrrk."
He thrashed with all his might, but the man showed no concern. Slowly, he raised his other fist.
"-!?"
Pierre's eyes widened.
He could guess what the man intended.
"W-Wai."
Bam!
A massive impact hit, like his face smashing into stone pavement.
No, not pavement. It was the man's fist colliding with his face.
Pierre blacked out for a moment. When he came to, he felt something trickling from under his nose.
"U, ugh."
Something sticky flowed into his mouth every time he parted his lips. The bitter metallic taste told him it was blood.
"Uuh?"
Pierre realized his voice sounded wrong. And he felt something loose and rattling inside his mouth.
It was his teeth.
"Ubuuuuh!!"
Pierre screamed. Or tried to.
But with his broken front teeth, mangled gums, and pooled blood, he couldn't make his usual sound.
"Ub, uer."
Only weak, crumbling moans escaped. Like a ridiculous child's lisp from when teeth were loose and new ones coming in, slicing through the silence.
"Huh, huer. S-slor, slorthuth..."
Every breath in and out brought a gush of blood from his nose.
Half ran down his throat, half pooled in his mouth and overflowed, streaming down.
"Slorthuth, thbl..."
Pierre clasped his hands together, begging desperately. His head spun, vision blurred, but instinct drove him.
"......"
The man stared at him with an expressionless face. His pitch-black eyes burned like rippling flames.
"Th, thbl..."
Pierre averted his gaze slyly. He couldn't meet the man's eyes.
The immense pressure emanating from him crushed Pierre. It raised the hairs on his skin, dried his mouth, curled his toes.
Pierre had never felt this aura before. Yet instinctively, he knew what it was.
Killing intent.
The man wanted him dead.
"Thbl, thbl..."
Pierre's voice trailed off. He was so terrified he wished he could just pass out.
The man seized Pierre's trembling jaw.
"-!"
Pierre flinched and looked up. The man gazed at him with an inscrutable expression.
His black eyes flickered like firelight. As if Pierre might get sucked into them.
The next moment,
"Eup?!"
Pierre jolted in shock.
The man's thumb had plunged into his mouth. The rough leather of the gauntlet tickled his tongue.
"U, ub, u."
"Shh."
The man whispered softly.
A rough, heavy voice, like something crawled up from the abyss, scraping at his lungs.
Like a monster hidden deep in a cave emerging to speak, echoing through.
No human could make such a sound.
"......"
Pierre shivered violently and swallowed hard. He felt saliva and blood trickle down his chin.
But he was too terrified by the man staring at him to care.
'Why the tongue...'
The man slowly stroked Pierre's tongue with his finger, as if pondering what to do with it, methodically.
Then he slowly withdrew his thumb.
"Huh, huuh..."
Relief was short-lived. Pierre's face drained white.
"-!"
The grip on his jaw tightened.
'N-No way?'
Pierre's eyes bulged. Only then did he realize why the man had grabbed his jaw.
"Th, thk, thkmuh."
Broken teeth garbled his words, and his body went limp, too weak to resist.
"Huth, huthmuu..."
Pierre just pleaded with desperate eyes. He gasped, twisting his face.
He had no idea why this was happening to him, but he begged and begged.
"......"
The man's lips curved into a smile. A sinister grin bloomed in the darkness.
Crack!
Pierre's jaw shattered.
"Kuaaaah!"
Beyond imaginable pain, Pierre let out a dying gasp and passed out.
Thud.
Pierre's body crumpled to the floor.
Clack, roll roll roll.
His bloody, loose teeth spilled from his mouth. With his jaw completely shattered, there was no room left inside.
"......"
Matilda's body slid down the wall to the floor.
She had just witnessed a man's face pulverized by a single punch, and what happened when a human jaw broke.
And how many teeth a human has, and what it looks like when they all fall out—in real time.
'S-Scary...'
The room, filled with incense, soaked in blood smell in seconds. The cozy space turned into a grim torture chamber.
All this in mere seconds. It felt like a dream that she'd been astride that guest moments ago.
'T-This is just like... that time.'
Matilda had seen such a blood-soaked scene before. When another prostitute tried to escape secretly.
'Aaaah!'
She'd been dragged back by her hair by thugs. Beaten savagely on parts covered by clothes.
Beside her was the man caught fleeing with the prostitute. His face swollen, nose bleeding profusely.
'That guy's face... wasn't this bad.'
Without weapons, you can't smash a person's face.
But this man did it. Bare-handed, he mashed a face like a pancake and crumbled the jawbone.
Matilda had never heard of such brutality. It was too horrific, too terrifying.
'Hic.'
She fought back sobs, clamping her mouth shut with all her strength to stifle any sound.
'I don't want to die.'
She just wished this intruder would forget about her and leave.
Matilda peeked at him through her fingers.
"Hmm."
The man stared blankly at the unconscious guest, then slowly squatted down. He tapped the guest's cheek with his bloodied gauntleted hand.
"Weakling."
He seemed unaware of the agony of a shattered jawbone.
"If you're gonna flap your tongue like that, you should've been prepared for this."
He muttered something nonsensical and chuckled. Each time, a bizarre laugh echoed like from a cave.
Matilda debated whether to cover her mouth or her ears.
As the man started to rise,
"Ah."
He paused, staring at the guest's arms.
"Now that I think about it, both your hands are fine?"
He grabbed the guest's wrists and lifted them.
"Mine has one broken, you know."
Matilda recalled, even in her fear: the man had gripped the guest's throat with one hand and punched with the other.
'Weren't both wrists fine...?'
But she couldn't point that out.
The man gripped one wrist with his intact hand. With his other intact hand, he bent the fingers back toward the back of the hand.
Crack, crack crack.
Horrific sounds of bones breaking and joints twisting followed in succession.
"-!"
Sharp pain made the guest's tear-streaked eyes flutter open. But the moment he regained consciousness, he saw,
"-!"
His wrist twisted at an impossible angle.
"—!"
The guest passed out again. Despite the horror, the man just smirked.
"Tch, no fun."
He moved to the other wrist and repeated the process. The chilling, spine-freezing sounds filled the room once more.
'Eek.'
Matilda gritted her teeth and plugged her ears. She wanted to run, but her legs were jelly.
Even if she could move, she doubted she could outrun him. He'd crossed from the door in a blink.
'Please, someone help. Please.'
Matilda prayed silently. When silence fell and she opened her eyes,
"-!"
She locked eyes with the man staring right at her.
"Hic!"
She recoiled in fright. But the wall blocked her retreat.
At the man's feet lay the guest, wrists broken, sprawled out. Foam bubbled from his mouth, mixing with blood.
He looked dead, so wretched. But his twisted wrists twitched faintly—he'd just fainted.
'...It's over.'
Matilda sensed she'd end up the same. Her short, wretched life haunting back alleys.
'But I never thought it'd end like this.'
So futile, so pathetic.
That very moment, as sorrow welled up,
Thud thud thud.
Heavy, urgent footsteps pounded from the hallway.
'Ah, no way?'
Matilda brightened, glancing at the open door.
"Who the hell is it?"
"Where is he?"
Voices she knew well—ones she'd always feared.
They made her shrink reflexively. But not now.
"It was definitely here..."
"Found him!"
"He's in here!"
Those voices filled her with such relief, color returned to her face.
The so-called thug quintet brothers.
The ones who dragged back runaway prostitutes or fetched new ones to stuff here.
Their rough faces appeared at the door one by one.
"Ugh, I was resting, what a mess."
"Haven't seen a fresh lunatic like this in ages."
The door was narrow, showing only two, but she knew the other three filled the hall.
'Ah, aaa. Thank goodness.'
Matilda closed her trembling eyelids.