Transfer
Her chest was crushed into a grotesque shape.
The clamp bit down as if splitting her breast clean down the middle, sinking deep between the soft flesh until it seemed ready to burst. It hurt. It hurt so badly that tears sprang to her eyes at once. Simply standing still was already almost more than she could bear — and then Leviathan issued his cruel command.
"Jump. Don't stop until your cellmates finish their meal. Pause even for a moment and I'll give you ten demeanor penalty points on the spot."
"Mmph… nngh…."
She rose and settled into a jumping stance. The clamp was narrow, almost light. Separate from the way it gouged into her flesh, it had a faintly fluttering quality — and that only made her more anxious. If it had been heavier, at least the rebound might have been less severe. Already she could picture the clamp dangling from her nipple, swinging with every motion, and the agony that would follow.
"All right. The rest of you, open your mouths."
The order fell on her cellmates like the starting gun of a race. Leviathan began stuffing the food lumps into their mouths as he spoke.
"Begin."
At that merciless command she started jumping with her legs pressed tightly together.
"Fmmph! Mmph!"
Just as she had feared, the clamp hanging from her nipple bounced violently up and down. Inertia amplified the force, driving the pain deeper into the tender flesh. She clenched her teeth hard around the gag, overwhelmed. It was too much. It hurt. It hurt so much.
"Fmmph! Hnngh! Mmph!"
Jumping high made the rebound stronger and the clamp's bite fiercer; jumping low shortened her time in the air and made the swinging more frequent. Deciding that frequent lesser pain was better than rarer agony, she chose to bounce quickly on the balls of her feet. Her breasts jolted up and down; the clamp swung even harder. A sharp, stinging ache began to spread through her entire body in slow waves.
"Chew, chew… smk. Smk."
"Ahhk… ugh… smk… mmph…!"
"Gulp… hah. Hah. Hah."
Her cellmates chewed as fast as they could, trying to spare her. As always, Jaehee swallowed her portion first and gasped for breath. Luia followed, forcing her throat open in a desperate effort to get it down. The problem was Yejin.
"Haah… nngh… mmph… chew, chew… kkh…!"
Yejin was clearly hurrying for her sake too — working her jaw frantically, tipping her head back in an attempt to force the lump down. But misfortune had stacked against them both. Yejin was in no condition to swallow easily. The spore stirred again. Between the stimulation flooding her nipples and clitoris, Yejin's mouth kept going slack mid-chew; saliva dribbled from her lips as she let out strained little moans. All she could manage was to keep the food from falling out. The way she rocked her upper body and rubbed her thighs together looked so wretched that the narrator wanted nothing more than to tell her it was all right — that a clamp on her nipples was something she could endure.
But she couldn't say a word. The gag sealed her mouth, and worse, the spore planted in her own nipple chose that exact moment to writhe.
"Fmmph! Nngh!!"
Saliva spilled down her chin as she blinked hard. Tears of pain mixed with a lewd, rising heat born of the stimulation inside her, crushing her from within. Even a moment's lapse felt like it would drop her to the floor. Her legs trembled. The chest muscles pulled taut by the constant jumping burned as if they might tear.
"What are you doing? Eat already. Or what — did you two have a falling-out? Hmm?"
In the midst of this compounding nightmare, Leviathan sneered. He almost certainly knew both of them were suffering under the spores' stimulation. He knew, and he simply waited for Yejin to finish swallowing every last bit. In the past he would have force-fed her once the allotted time ran out. Now, because every extra second meant more agony for the jumping girl, he deliberately let the clock run.
"…Gulp…! Hah. Hah. Ah—!"
At last the torment ended. Tears streaming, Yejin forced the lump down and opened her mouth wide for Leviathan to inspect — proof she had eaten everything, and a silent plea for him to stop her cellmate's suffering.
"Oh-ho~ Look at that. The once-haughty A691 putting on such a desperate face? Heh. Was it the special execution that did it… or is it just that you care about your cellmate that much? Which is it, hmm?"
As he spoke, Leviathan reached toward the still-jumping girl. No order to stop had been given, so weeks of drilled obedience kept her bouncing — which made his hand feel like a sudden assault.
"Fmmmmmmpphh!!!"
With a merciless motion he ripped the iron clamp free from the tip of her nipple. The searing pain that tore through her swinging breast dropped her straight to the floor.
"Nnngh! Nngh… nngh!"
She didn't merely collapse. Warmth spilled between her legs. The pain had been so overwhelming that she wet herself without realizing it. Glancing down, she saw a vivid red line splitting her breast and nipple cleanly in two — a deep bruise left by the clamp after only a short time of biting so hard into the flesh. Her nipple quivered endlessly, still reeling from the agony of the clamp's removal.
"Well now? Filthy."
"Nnngh!! Fmmph!! Hnngh! Mmph!!"
Leviathan pinched that trembling nipple between his fingers and twisted. She had to force her shaking legs to move and stand again. Blood had barely returned to the crushed flesh; even the pressure of his fingers alone felt as if it might tear the nipple clean off. Strength drained from her body. Her mind went white.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
She shook her head wildly from side to side, the gag still filling her mouth, begging him to let go. Whether a scrap of mercy finally stirred in him or not, Leviathan jostled her breast for a while longer, peered into her eyes once, and released her. The saliva that had pooled in her mouth dripped free and struck the puddle of urine below, sending out little ripples.
"A522."
"Yes."
"Wipe up your cellmate's urine with your prison uniform."
"…Understood."
The moment Leviathan gave the order and unlocked her cuffs, Jaehee stripped off the uniform she was wearing. Completely naked, she balled the fabric into a makeshift rag and scrubbed away the urine and spit the narrator had left on the floor. The sight was so humiliating, so steeped in guilt, that she wanted to beg him to use her own uniform instead. But she couldn't even form the words. As if to twist the knife further, Leviathan casually brushed a speck of dust from her own clothes.
"I've finished cleaning…. May I put it back on?"
Still kneeling on the filthy floor, Jaehee already knew what the next order would be.
"Go ahead. Wear it. Live in it. A whole year with me and all you've gotten better at is reading the room, Park Jaehee."
"…Thank you."
Without waiting for an explicit command, she chose the harsher path herself. Jaehee pulled the soiled uniform back on and had her cuffs locked again. Clothed once more in fabric stained with her cellmate's urine, she looked up and offered a small, almost liberated smile. First Seoa before, and now Jaehee — every time her cellmates tried to lighten her burden, it only piled more guilt onto her heart.
I'm so… I'm so sorry.
"All right. Let's go."
But there was no time left for apologies. The next stage of the day was already waiting — enemas, training, and torture, the fixed routine of their lives. The day had barely begun. Still shackled, they dragged their chains across the floor and followed Leviathan.
After the enemas, he led them to the training area. It was the same wing as before, but not the section where they had trained their throats. Leviathan brought them to a space near the entrance that looked almost like a gym, lined them up one by one in front of the treadmills, and spoke.
"You've been busy with throat training for a while, haven't you? Looking at your previous records, it seems you can all take just about anything by now. So starting this week, we'll be working on your physical conditioning."
"Yes."
"And from this week on, under the warden's orders, the program content is going to change a little. The broad structure won't be all that different from before, but there'll be more cell-unit activities instead of individual ones. Keep that in mind."
Without examples, it was impossible to grasp exactly how the program would change. Looking around, the others merely nodded at the rough outline; no one seemed particularly curious about the details. She felt the same. As an inmate who simply had to endure whatever came, a change in the program didn't strike her as especially important.
"…Yes. Understood."
Perhaps that was why — everyone except her, who couldn't answer, replied to Leviathan's explanation in flat, indifferent voices.
"In that spirit, let me explain today's training."
But the moment they heard what today's training would be, they understood exactly what the new program meant.
"What you'll be doing this time is lower-body conditioning. There's been talk lately that the inmates' stamina is in poor shape. Looking at the labor results from our cell — which was supposed to be one of the fitter ones — this officer was thoroughly disappointed."
"…."
"So I chose the treadmill as your training assignment. Starting today, the four of you combined will have to cover fifty kilometers a day."
"…!"
So this was what a cell-unit program looked like. At the sudden announcement, every pair of eyes in the group wavered. Even Jaehee and Yejin wore awkward expressions; clearly nothing like this had ever been applied before. As if to confirm it, Leviathan continued.
"From today onward, every inmate's demeanor penalty points will be managed as a cell total. Executions will take the form of selecting one person from the cell with the highest points to take responsibility, and that person will be decided through a meeting between the cell's assigned officer and the inmates. It's a completely new program format that hasn't existed until now."
In other words, collective responsibility. Why they had chosen this system was anyone's guess, but the only thing that mattered was that no amount of discontent gave them the right to refuse. If they were told to do it, they had to obey.
"Leviathan. May I come in?"
"Yes. Come in."
A voice from outside the training room cut across Leviathan's explanation. Other cells' inmates arriving? Then a man stepped inside — massive build, gentle features, though the thick beard and large hands made him look older than his voice suggested. It was Marmon.
"I brought her."
"…I see. All right. Come this way."
And there was one more person. A small-framed woman who had been hidden behind Marmon's bulk. The moment the narrator saw her, her eyes flew wide. If the gag hadn't been locked in place, she might have greeted her without thinking.
"Ah…! Nngh."
Yejin must have felt the same; she accidentally opened her mouth, then snapped it shut and dropped her head under a single glance from Leviathan. Fortunately, it didn't seem likely to earn her any points.
"Go on, introduce yourself. A688. This is Leviathan."
"Hello, Leviathan, sir… Inmate A688, Kang Seoa. I'll be under your care starting today."
"Right."
Under his care…? Seoa?
"Listen carefully, everyone. Starting today, A688, Kang Seoa, has been transferred into our cell. A691 and A713 lived with her at the detention center this time, didn't you? Look after her."
"Yes. Understood."
"…Mmph."
Seoa had come to their cell. At the unexpected reunion she wanted to show how glad she was — but with two officers watching and both a gag and special handcuffs stripping away every means of expression, that freedom didn't exist. All she could do was roll her eyes toward Seoa. Still, she wasn't worried. Seoa had already taken in her condition and blinked a greeting first; answering the same way was enough.
"And… A711. Luia Chambers."
"Ah… yes!"
"You're scheduled for release tomorrow, so you're exempt from training starting today."
And then the additional news. When someone came in, someone else went out. Just as the narrator had begun to wonder whether five inmates could even fit in one cell after Seoa's arrival, Leviathan announced Luia's release.
"…What?"
"Didn't you hear me? Release tomorrow. Your sentence was only two months, so the release procedures will run over today and tomorrow. You'll be transferred to the detention center tomorrow, which means today you have a meeting with the warden and a physical exam. Consider yourself exempt from the program from this point on."
"…Ah…. Aah."
At those words Luia's eyes went huge and she sank to the floor. Whether it was pure joy at the long-awaited freedom or something else, the way her hands and feet trembled… was almost unbearable to watch. Here she sat with a gag in her mouth and special handcuffs locking even her fingers in place — and Luia was talking about release.
She had always known this day would come for someone. Facing it head-on, the envy was enough to kill her. …Then again, she had had her own chance. Only yesterday. If she had wanted to, she could have abandoned this place and gone home. But that wouldn't have been the right kind of freedom she was looking for, so she had come back. Luia was walking into true release. That was the difference between them. Even if it looked the same from the outside, she had to believe that. Otherwise the envy would drive her insane.
"Anyway, just follow Officer Marmon here. That'll be all, Luia."
"Yes… Leviathan, sir."
"You did well. We'll see each other tonight when you spend your last night in the cell."
"Yes. Understood."
The moment he finished, Marmon beckoned. Luia hurried over, glanced back at them with a faintly regretful little bow of her head, and left. Her empty place. And Seoa, newly joining them. Looking at the two inmates crossing paths, a nameless anxiety stirred. Was it only her imagination?
"The rest of you, I'll continue the explanation. Focus on me."
"…Yes."
But she had to set that thought aside. Luia was gone, and they remained. And for the inmates who had to stay, Leviathan's explanation was only just beginning.