Late-Night Snack
Late-Night Snack
Day broke.
Han-byeol sighed and stood before the capsule once more.
She logged in every day if only to maintain her ranking, but today, entering the game felt utterly repulsive.
Because she could clearly picture the sight that would greet her the moment she logged in.
"...Hoo."
But her hesitation was brief. Soon enough, she exhaled a deep sigh and connected to the game.
She had to log in first before she could do anything about it, after all.
Squeeze...
The moment she entered the game, a stifling sensation welcomed her.
Perhaps because the rope had chafed her skin, a faint sting seeped through her Assimilation Rate.
Well, still... it wasn't as unpleasant as she'd expected, which was a small mercy.
She planned to take a break from streaming for the time being. Showing herself like this would obviously invite endless mockery.
She scanned the cave, but Yor was still nowhere in sight.
It was early morning, so he might still be asleep. Or perhaps he'd gone out to hunt.
Just in case, Han-byeol twisted her body, but as expected, the ropes showed no sign of loosening.
Which meant she had to find another way.
And the method Han-byeol thought of was, naturally, suicide.
When Otherworlders died, their bodies were reconstituted for a time in the Otherworldly Sanctuary, and then they resurrected in the nearest village.
In other words, dying meant liberation from this place.
Of course, dying would set her back for a few days.
So Han-byeol's attention turned in that direction, and last night she had scoured the internet, looking through various sources.
Honestly... looking up suicide methods just to die in a game.
She let out a hollow laugh, thinking she must be the only person on earth searching for this reason.
Anyway, through that research, she came up with three possible suicide methods.
Biting her tongue, dehydration, starvation.
Among them, biting her tongue was the first to be eliminated.
Like the movies sometimes show, biting your tongue isn't some universal cheat code.
It hurts like absolute hell, and the odds of actually dying from it were slim. Worse still, there was no way Yor would just stand by and watch.
He genuinely seemed intent on keeping her locked up until he got his information. He'd definitely stop her. For the same reason, all other physical methods were rejected.
The next things that came to mind were thirst and hunger.
Amazingly, this game even simulated such minor details.
If you didn't eat, your health dropped and your body grew sluggish. When the hunger grew severe, your mind even grew hazy.
Meaning, if she refused all food and drink, she might eventually see results.
"...Ngh."
But she was equally hesitant about that as well.
For one thing, there were no cases of users dying that way. Who would deliberately endure starvation to death in the first place?
And Shin Han-byeol personally had an emotional aversion to it as well.
The process would surely be agonizing.
She never had much patience to begin with. And she had quite the appetite, too.
Back in her pro-gamer days, she'd needed to stockpile a lot of energy to endure that immense volume of training.
That habit had stayed with her, and her appetite was far greater than the average person's.
So whatever the method, it was bound to be unappealing.
Which was why she exhaled a deep sigh.
"Haa..."
...Honestly, there was one more method.
And the easiest, simplest method at that. Namely, giving Yor exactly what he wanted. She just had to hand over the Holy Water and tell him where she'd gotten it.
'Ugh, no...'
But that thought lasted only a moment before she shook her head again.
Because she disliked this one just as much. She'd rather die. The problem was that she was in a situation where even dying wasn't going her way.
Amid all her thinking, she felt a hunch deep inside.
That as time passed, she'd probably end up leaning toward handing over the Holy Water after all.
*
"Happy, time to eat~"
As time passed, mealtime arrived.
As always, Yor brought food on a plate. Despite the fact that she hadn't touched a single meal, he came three times a day, without fail.
His behavior almost seemed to border on madness.
What could he possibly gain by going this far?
Han-byeol simply couldn't understand it.
The plate arrived in front of her. Han-byeol immediately spat the saliva she'd been gathering onto the food.
"Ptui!"
"Ah, no! The food I worked so hard on!"
Yor looked utterly flustered by her behavior. Watching him, Han-byeol snickered inwardly.
This was the best method she'd managed to come up with while tied up all this time.
'Fine. Let's at least make him angry.'
She had to put up some resistance, at the very least.
Even if she got hit for it, she didn't care. No, it'd actually be welcome.
Not exactly because getting hit felt good. Really.
It was just... because there was a chance she might get hit and die!
If she could escape even by that means, then it was a gain for her.
Once again, she absolutely did not do this because she wanted to get hit. Truly.
"...Looks like you need some punishment."
Indeed, Yor seemed a bit angry at that, and his gaze turned icy.
The contemptuous emotion within it made something deep inside her tingle slightly.
'Good.'
Han-byeol smiled inwardly with satisfaction.
Maybe he'd slap her cheek like last time, or maybe he'd just straight-up kick her. Whatever it was, she was confident she could take it.
But what came flying her way was... a somewhat disappointing punishment.
A finger flick, to be precise.
Thwack—!
"Agh...!"
Of course, calling it a finger flick didn't mean its force was negligible.
Her head actually jolted backward from the impact. A stinging pain enveloped her skull.
See, she was the type to keep her Assimilation Rate set to at least around thirty per cent.
Because for someone who fought with finesse as her advantage, sensation was an extremely important factor. When the danger wasn't high, she even raised the rate further.
Perhaps that habit was why she'd been the fastest to acquire Sword Aura.
Anyway, the bottom line was, the pain was considerable.
"Aghhh..."
But this still wasn't enough. This probably wouldn't be enough to get beaten to death.
'Should I provoke him more...?'
The thought crossed her mind for a moment, but she soon gave up on it.
She was human, too; she had fears.
And admittedly, sometimes she derived a strange thrill from fear... but anyway, now was the time to hold back. It hurt more than she'd expected.
Besides, Yor didn't look like he was going to play along any further.
"I'm going hunting. Stay still until then, Happy."
"It's Shin Han-byeol...!"
With those words, Yor left the cave.
And so time passed...
*
Time passed, and the night of the following day arrived.
She'd been determined never to stick her face in a plate, so she had no choice but to starve again this time.
She'd logged out at every mealtime to eat, but the moment she connected to the game, the emptiness crept back in like a ghost.
Just what kind of insane technology was this...
Fortunately, he let her have water easily, so she wasn't thirsty, but enduring the hunger wasn't easy.
To make matters worse, she was in a situation where she even had to sleep in the game.
She was out of Fatigue Potions, so she had no choice but to sleep soundly in the game to endure the next day.
Why the hell did they even make a system like this? Shin Han-byeol cursed the game company as she fell asleep.
And so, Han-byeol's third day of captivity arrived.
That day, too, she skipped breakfast and lunch. Because her pride still wouldn't permit her to bury her face in a plate.
But the longer she held out, the worse her hunger grew.
Evening arrived, and Han-byeol, still refusing to eat, turned her head away once more.
And then night came again.
"Ugh, ughh... I'm hungry."
Having briefly fallen asleep, she had no choice but to wake up, overcome by hunger.
Grrrowl—
Her stomach clamored for something to be put inside it.
She might have lowered her Assimilation Rate, but that didn't mean it could completely solve even hunger.
Things like this had a psychological component, after all.
'What kind of hardship is this, seriously...'
She irritably rose from her spot.
She played games to level up, not because she wanted to experience famine.
As she was grumbling like that, something caught her eye.
The plate of food Yor had left for dinner.
She hadn't eaten it, but that didn't mean the plate had been cleared away.
The plate left at dinner was taken away the next morning.
Thanks to that, she'd been sleeping with food right beside her head.
Normally, she wouldn't have given it a single glance... but after starving for three whole days, it was starting to catch her eye.
...Gulp.
Her throat moved on its own.
The food had gone cold over time, but that wouldn't have changed the taste itself.
In fact, the savory aroma of meat was slowly drifting up into her nostrils.
What he'd given her this time was the same fried rice she'd seen before.
"..."
Han-byeol silently looked around.
It was a dark cave. She couldn't feel the slightest sign of anyone.
It was late at night, so Yor was surely deep asleep.
Various thoughts rose in her mind.
'One bite, should I try just one bite?'
'I'll just check the taste, then spread the rice back evenly; he won't notice.'
'No, no matter what, this is too much. How can I put my face in a plate like...'
The thoughts went back and forth.
Desire or pride.
Her eyes, staring at the dinner plate, only grew deeper...
*
"...Huh?"
Early morning.
As I was swapping out Happy's food bowl like any other day, I suddenly felt a sense of dissonance.
I thought I'd seen wrong for a moment, but I hadn't.
The amount of fried rice I'd given her yesterday had clearly decreased. By nearly half, at that.
Even more astonishing was that the fried rice was spread as evenly and smoothly as it had been yesterday.
As if she'd been wolfing it down in a panic, then thought, oh crap, and tried to fix the shape.
I silently stared at Happy before me.
"...What're you looking at."
As expected, she just glared at me, prickly as ever.
But I felt something slightly different there. It seemed like she was snarling to hide her own wrongdoing.
"...Hmm, never mind."
I considered interrogating her on the spot, then decided against it.
For a fisherman angling for a catch must also know how to be patient for the bigger prize.
I'll be honest.
Lately, I'd been feeling some lust.
Of course, I had no intention of jumping her. No matter what, she was someone who had tried to take my head. How could I do that?
But think about it.
Right now, in my house, there was a beautiful woman tied up for over three days. It was impossible not to pay attention to it.
Watching her struggling and whining in a corner of the cave stirred a strange sadistic pleasure in me.
And so I set a little plan.
To see, with my own two eyes, the sight of her burying her face in a plate.
A truly pointless and idiotic thought, but for that very reason, it was all the more worth attempting.
Of course, she did seem to have eaten last night, but that wasn't enough yet.
What I wanted wasn't an empty plate; it was the scene of her in the act of eating.
'I will, by any means, witness the sight of her eating with my own eyes.'
So thinking, I quietly distanced myself from her.