Alkkagi (1)
The Demon King had brought back thunderbird steak and a gold kiwi parfait — high-end fare that ordinary adventurers couldn't even dream of. I'd changed my mind. I hoped she'd go out like this every single day.
Slice, slice. I no longer lost my dignity over scraps of food. Farewell to the sorry excuse for a human being who used to bury his face in a bowl of kimchi stew and slurp it down like a savage. Ironically, I had her to thank for that — the same woman who'd locked me up.
"How's it taste?"
"It's fucking delicious."
The Demon King propped her chin in her hands and asked,
"Sometimes you say things I don't understand. 'Fucking'? What's that mean?"
The crude swearing slipped out of me by habit now. Once upon a time, my language had been as wholesome as they came. Then I arrived in this world, lived among those bitch-ass women, and it went straight down the drain.
If anyone thinks that's a cheap cop-out, I recommend they spend some time with those women. Half a day and the rot coming off their mouths would knock a person flat.
"...Well, it just means... it's as good as a Six-Second Gust."
Six! Second! Gust!
She accepted that without a shred of hesitation. Fair enough — she'd felt it with her own body, after all.
"Ehehe, so that means it's fucking delicious?"
"...Don't use that word."
"Huh? Why?"
Hypocritical of me, sure — my own mouth was a filthy rag, and here I was telling someone else not to talk that way. But her language was as clean as her behavior was violent, and I didn't want to soil it the way I'd soiled my own.
Slurp.
Next came Black Sea turtle soup. Instead of a fishy ocean stench or some cheap saltiness, a subtle fragrance wrapped around my tongue.
...Superb.
A meal beyond reproach. After being treated this well, I was willing to humor her through a few of her exhausting games. She must have read it on my face, because she rummaged around and produced a box she'd brought in from outside.
"...Hehe. I borrowed it from the village kids."
"Yeah? There's blood on your hands, though."
"Oh my, I wiped it off earli— there's nothing on them at all?"
"Ah, must've been seeing things."
That thug of a girl.
"Guess what this is?"
She tapped the box with her finger, demanding I deduce what was inside.
"A game we can play together."
".....You don't sound very enthusiastic."
".....A game we can play together!"
"Uuum. That's not it... not enough sincerity."
"A game! We can play! Together! Would you hurry up and open the damn box already? I'm so excited I can't stand it."
"...Heehee. If you want it that badly."
She started unwrapping the box — the one containing the plaything she'd beaten a village kid for and stolen — with giddy excitement.
This is...
Familiar white stones and black stones. The wooden board with its grid of lines was a Baduk board — nothing unfamiliar to a Korean like me.
...Thank god.
At least it wasn't something like a revolver you took turns pressing to your temple. If it was Baduk, the violence level was downright civilized compared to the games we'd played so far. And I wasn't even bad at it.
Now I just have to lock down the penalty.
"The penalty is a forehead flick—"
"H-how about a shoulder massage for the penalty?!"
I jumped in just as those pretty lips of hers were about to spit out some catastrophe. That was a close one.
"...Fine. That works."
This is some insane survival technique. Me...
If I ever escaped this place, I figured I might write a book, Robinson Crusoe style. Title: Why I Survived the Demon King. It would surely prove an invaluable guide for anyone who, through some unfortunate accident, found themselves trapped alone in the Demon King's Castle.
I was in the middle of planting a congratulatory kiss on my own shoulder when the Demon King announced the game.
"Today we're playing Alkkagi. You know Alkkagi?"
...What?
Not proper Baduk. Not even Gomoku. Alkkagi?
...
Didn't really matter. Alkkagi was fine. Compared to something like arm wrestling... at least I wouldn't have to make physical contact with her.
"I know it, but it might be different from what I know, so explain it to me."
She picked up a white stone and a black stone and set them on the board.
"Watch closely. Like this. With a forehead flick."
....What? Hold on. A forehead flick?
Why were my ominous premonitions never, ever wrong?
TAAANG!
?
The black stone she'd flicked vanished with a sound like a rocket igniting. The heat grazing my ear told me everything I needed to know about its trajectory. I turned around with trembling eyes. There it was — a Baduk stone buried deep in the wall.
"Oh, don't worry about the stones breaking. I already buffed them all."
This fucking bitch! Of all the rotten things to go and learn!
She was a problem, sure, but so were those little shits in the village. What kind of parenting produces children who teach someone else's Demon King this kind of garbage? They'd gone and ruined a perfectly innocent girl.
Experience had taught me that once a game started, there was no going back. I needed to talk, and fast.
"Why don't we just play Gomoku instead? Gomoku is when you—"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's do that too. After this."
She paid me no mind and started setting up the stones of death. Fine. Different approach.
"How about flicking them a little more gently? It's kind of a pain to go pick them back up."
"Huh? I just hit that one super gently, though?"
...We're doomed.
I poured out every persuasion tactic I had to get the Demon King to change her mind, but she didn't care in the slightest and finished setting up all twenty stones. Friendship cancelled. We're through. You fucking bitch.
"Hurry up and set yours too!"
The Demon King, brimming with enthusiasm, excitedly cracked her fingers. I'd thought I was in the clear because there was no penalty. I was wrong. A penalty would've been better.
...This is the only way.
The key to this game wasn't winning or losing. There was only one way to survive her merciless stone bombardment.
She had the white stones. I had the black.
"...What are you doing?"
She stared at the formation of black stones I'd set up, looking completely lost.
"It's strategy."
Strategy it was. Just not the kind for winning — the kind for not getting my ass blasted by this girl.
Unlike the Demon King's stones, which were arranged in a zigzag at regular intervals, mine left the center completely empty, clustered densely at both edges. This way, when she fired a stone at whatever she thought was in the middle, I wouldn't get hit by it. Of course, this wasn't a hundred percent foolproof, so I was still a little nervous.
"Shall we start?"
TAAANG!
The first stone she fired sailed clean off into oblivion. Was she even trying to hit anything?
"...Dammit. I went so easy on it, why'd it fly that far..."
Her ability to moderate her own strength was, apparently, nonexistent. Then again, that was why she'd buffed every household item in the place.
"Your turn."
...The Demon King was, as expected, god-awful. I did the math. If I didn't throw the game, I'd win without even meaning to.
I have to let her win without her noticing.
I carefully took aim and flicked my stone. It rolled pathetically, hit nothing, and tumbled off the side of the board.
There was a slight flaw in my idiot act just now. Maybe because it had been decades since I'd last played Alkkagi, back in elementary school. A hint of artifice clung to the motion of my hand.
This much showing shouldn't be a probl—
"You're going easy on me right now, aren't you?"
She was dogshit at the game, but she had a supernatural nose for when someone was letting her win. Killing intent rolled off her as she glared at me. Things had been going well these past few days, and now this. Felt like old times. Needless to say, I was not fucking glad to see it.
"No? I wasn't going easy. This is hard."
I flicked my shooting hand with as disappointed an expression as I could muster. Looks like I'd have to actually land a few shots.
TAAANG!
Her eleventh stone flew off into empty air again. Naturally, it didn't even come close to any of mine.
"Awww, come ON...!"
She stamped her feet, lips pressed tight, and whined.
She is genuinely, fucking terrible. Dogshit terrible.
A memory surfaced of gaming with an old Bronze Tier friend.
"Seokhyeon. Why do you keep diving the enemy tower by yourself and dying?"
"Huh? Wasn't I supposed to take that?"
Watching someone play who's infinitely worse than you is, at times, its own kind of suffering. The Demon King was no exception. I wasn't particularly gifted at Alkkagi, but if they ever held a forehead-flick power-control tournament, she'd take first place from the back of the pack, which made losing to her even harder.
...Forget it. I'll just trade shots casually and then win.
TAAANG!
The wager was just a shoulder massage. Meaning I had nothing to lose...
...Wait a second.
The Demon King massaging my shoulders?
At that moment, apparently unable to contain her rage, the Demon King popped a stone into her mouth and started chewing.
Crunch, crunch.
"...Ptooey."
?!
The stone, glistening with her saliva, came flying out — its original shape long gone, mashed and twisted beyond recognition.
She's insane!
This girl is going to massage my shoulders? She can't even control her own strength? And she's this pissed off?
The kill window had gone razor-sharp, and my long-rusted survival circuits kicked into overdrive.
"What are you doing? It's your turn."
...
A sudden, bitter resentment welled up in me.
Why did I have to suffer like this every single day, wracking my brains just to stay alive?
We were friends, weren't we? She'd even hugged me earlier.
...
A fuse blew in my head.
I was done.
I was no longer her friend.
I would show her with this.
Crash!
"Kyaah!"
I flipped the Baduk board with my right hand. The stones on top of it spilled to the floor in a clattering racket.
Grab. Yank!
I snatched her tied-up hair and hauled her roughly upward. Her face went pale, like a fish being reeled out of the water on a hook.
"...You! Y-you, what do you think you're doing?!"
"Shut up and open your mouth."
"Wh-what...? Have you lost your—"
"Five, four, three, two..."
That was as far as she lasted. The Demon King couldn't hold out, and her mouth fell open. A face like a terrified baby mountain goat. I was certain the balance of power had completely reversed.
Plunge. Rummage.
I shoved my hand into the pot of stones and scooped up a fistful.
Unfamiliar terror welled in her crimson eyes, a sheen of tears gathering there. She couldn't even look at me properly — her unfocused gaze spun through empty air.
"Open up."
Shove!
"Gweh—?"
I started jamming Baduk stones into the Demon King's mouth, one after another — the same way she used to throw in the teeth of adventurers who'd challenged her.
"You're! Fucking! Terrible! So why! Do you! Keep! Throwing a fit! Huh?!"
Shove! Shove!
I put my full weight behind every word, every stone. Fat tears started rolling down her cheeks. I lost count of how many I threw. Soon her enormous mouth was packed so full of stones there wasn't a gap left.
"...Hah... huu... Answer me. Did you do wrong, or didn't you?"
"...I... wa... wro... ng..."
Her jaw couldn't even close around the stones crammed into it, and she couldn't get the words out properly. She looked so pitiful I let her spit them out.
"...Ptooey... hic, hhk... hhhk."
"Quit crying."
"..... Sniffle... Okay."
"Don't get angry during games from now on. Not unless you want to end up like that stone you were chewing on."
"...Okay... I'll, I'll remember..."
...
Heheh. Uheheheh...
"...Why are you grinning like that? It's creeping me out."
I had been soaring on the wings of imagination, fleeing from reality — and the Demon King yanked me right back down.
"Ah, s-sorry. My turn, right?"