The Hero of the Benevolent Mother
In the pure white spring, plum blossoms bloomed.
Beneath the blazing sun, blue hydrangeas burst into full bloom, and in the gaelswind, pink cosmos flowers swayed gently.
When the red buds of camellias opened in the biting cold, she realized once again that the wheel of the seasons had turned.
Creak, creak.
The girl hated noise.
The spring frogs, the summer cicadas, the autumn crickets, even the winter mallards.
When the clouds drifted by and day became night, the cries that announced their return told the girl, once again, that the season had changed.
Ah. Yes, that was right. She used to sit in her room and listen to those sounds. Sometimes she left the window open and enjoyed the breeze, let herself grow drunk on the scent of flowers, and told the seasons apart by the clothes worn by passersby on the street.
Creak, creak.
Beyond the tightly shut window, all she could see was the outer wall of a towering stone building. No fragrance of flowers, no spring breeze—only loneliness so complete she could no longer even feel it.
Spring passed and the plum blossoms withered. Summer came and the hydrangeas fell. Even the autumn cosmos along the road were trampled without mercy by some child walking past.
And when she watched the proud red camellias of winter’s end fall to the ground, the girl let out a hollow laugh before she could stop herself.
Because only the pink camellia flowers given to her by a child who could never love her remained at the window, soothing her lonely heart.
Even so, the girl still hated noise.
Creak. Creak.
“...Huff. How much longer are you going to sulk, Alice?”
When the man stopped moving, the girl’s thoughts stopped as well. The beastlike coupling was over, and the man let out a rough breath as he slowly pulled his hips free.
Something that had been filling the girl slipped out of her.
It might have been dignity, though to someone else it was nothing more than lust. There was a lewd sound as the flesh that had clung to him, miserable though her heart might be, reluctantly let go, but neither the girl nor the man cared.
They were already far too gone to care about something like that.
Beyond the withdrawn member, the milky fluid gathered in her womb burst forth in a rush and streamed down between her thighs. The sight drew a fleeting sneer to the man’s lips, as though he found it amusing.
By contrast, the girl lay limp with exhaustion, her eyes empty. Shadows clung beneath her eyes, and her lips were bloodless; she no longer looked like anything alive.
She was staring blankly at her own sex.
For a moment, something like pity flickered in the man’s eyes as he looked down at her, but it was only for a moment. With a tired expression, he picked up the clothes scattered across the floor and put them back on.
Once he fastened the buttons of his shirt and shrugged on the outer coat covered in dangling medals, he had already returned to the image of a stern soldier.
“I’ve got news for you.”
The man’s gaze rested on his own bare wrist.
Then he glanced at the motionless girl, took a watch from inside his coat, and slipped it on.
“The stalemated Eastern Front has finally collapsed. The subjugation force is now clearing out the Demon King’s remaining troops and pushing forward step by step.”
He checked the time. “Not yet,” he muttered under his breath, and then placed his military cap—emblem of his authority—squarely on his head.
“All of it was Theodore’s doing.”
At the man’s words, the silent girl flinched. Her hazy mind sharpened at the unexpected name, and she slowly lifted her head.
“He wiped out that infamous King of Curses and the troops under him in the Maerchen Highlands region.”
Click. The man pressed the button on the edge of his watch. As the count fell, the number revealed was fourteen.
At the same time, a bitter smile touched the man’s mouth.
“It was enough to make the title of Hero feel embarrassing. At this point, no wonder people keep comparing us, huh?”
Slowly, the girl’s face twisted.
“...I asked you to leave him out of it. And you still sent that kid to the battlefield?”
“Of course. It was necessary. Theodore’s divinity was the perfect counter to the King of Curses.”
“He’s still just—!”
Her shrill voice cut off the man’s words. He fell silent and waited for Alice to go on.
“...He’s only twelve.”
“Before that, he’s a demigod. You know better than anyone that age is just an empty number to those kids.”
“Is that really something you should be saying about your own child?”
“Nonsense. In the first place, why do you think those children were born?”
The man clicked his tongue and shut his mouth. Further argument would only waste emotion, he decided. Instead, he added one more thing, as if offering advice.
“Alice, as the Benevolent Mother Hero, you should be aware of your role.”
“You mean the damned Hero of the whore.”
The girl gave a sneer and raised her middle finger. As if slapping the noble-sounding epithet of a benevolent mother onto it could somehow hide the filth beneath.
The man didn’t even answer. He simply pulled his cap low and walked out of the room.
He, too, believed nothing would ever change. So did she. They knew each other’s words were nothing but sharp needles, leaving wounds and never bringing change.
Alice stared irritably at the door, then crawled into the blankets and hid herself away.
She closed her eyes and curled her body into a ball, wishing no one would come looking for her like this. In the tiny room, the shadow beneath the blanket was her only refuge.
“Alice, your husband’s here.”
But peace did not last long. Before long, another man—one who carried lust in his body—invaded her space.
Through the gap in the blankets, the face of a rutting dog came into view. Aaron, was it? She muttered it blankly, but the obscene sight of a pig walking stiff-legged with his crotch jutting out made her shiver again, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
The man yanked the blanket away in irritation and stripped Alice bare. He thrust his vile thing at her and forced himself to match her belly to his.
The grotesque face rubbing against her made her recoil, but little by little she let the strength drain from her body.
Even if she hated it, she did not resist.
There was no reason left to struggle. She had thrown that away a long time ago.
The chilling sensation, like insects crawling over her skin, the revulsion, and the thick heat that blossomed between them all warmed her lower abdomen.
At first, Alice didn’t even know the name of it. That was why she had been afraid. The unknown made people panic. The fact that she wasn’t truly afraid of it only made her more afraid.
But Alice already knew.
She simply didn’t want to admit it. Because she already knew, she was afraid to realize it. It wasn’t the unknown; it was the process of understanding.
It began in ignorance, but after many times, she finally understood.
At last, on the creaking bed, in a man’s arms, the girl gave it a name.
To deny herself, to affirm herself, to yield, and finally to accept it.
The accursed feeling of pleasure was called pleasure.
Beyond her shaking vision, Alice panted as she sank into it. Each time the shaft thrust into her, ragged breathing and the obscene squeak of the bed rang out loudly.
The white sheets that had been spotless slowly turned gray from the slick leaking out of her sex.
The Great Wall Hero. His cock was needlessly huge and hard, finding the good spots almost instantly and driving her body wild.
As time passed, her lower back lifted of its own accord, and rough breaths spilled from her. Helplessness gave way to despair, and with it came tears and broken sounds.
It was not a voice a man should ever make.
It was the voice of a woman drowned in fleeting pleasure. The moans of a whore she wanted to deny.
Was my choice the right one?
There was no answer. Only the process. Which meant it wasn’t a question asked in hope of an answer.
The question only gave rise to another question, and she had brought it up merely because, for a moment, it let her forget the miserable reality.
Aaron pressed close and took her lips, his smell vile. His full weight came down on her, and she felt as if she might suffocate.
Creak, creak.
As Aaron’s fierce thrusts rocked the bed, Alice clutched the blanket with trembling hands and shut her eyes.
Feeling the member swell inside her belly, as though he were close to release, she once again began counting in the dark.
One, two, three...
A fire-hot liquid flooded her womb in an instant.
Her heart felt shattered and empty, yet the way the broken spaces were being filled was so nauseatingly, disgustingly pleasurable that it climbed her central nervous system and numbed her brain.
“Hah... a-ahh...”
When the tension finally eased, her tongue lolled and saliva dribbled down her chin. The shuddering sensation of climax made her legs reflexively clamp around Aaron’s waist.
The stimulation that kept crashing over her should have become familiar by now, and yet the fact that it always felt new made her think it was no different from a curse.
“You’re not even resisting anymore?”
“...What’s the point? You’d only enjoy it more.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying.”
He said resistance only got him hotter, and Aaron started moving again almost the second he finished.
Even a wild beast wandering the outskirts of a city would go soft after blowing its load once, and yet this bastard’s lower half recovered better than a beast’s ever could.
“Ghk! Khhk...”
“Feels good, doesn’t it? So why act like that? Use your fists like before. Scratch me, bite me, fight back!”
For all that he behaved no differently from some gutter thug in the marketplace, the world had a way of preserving its rot, and the instant he let even a sliver of the strength befitting a Hero show through, Alice was crushed beneath the pressure of death.
“Kgh... kahk...”
With her airway blocked and oxygen cut off from her brain, the world flashed before her eyes and then began to dim. Unable to endure it, she pounded Aaron’s arm over and over with her fist, but he only grinned and seemed pleased, with no intention of easing up.
“More. Harder. Do it harder!”
As she reached her limit, even Alice began to lose strength little by little. Her arm went slack, and Aaron’s mad voice drifted farther and farther away.
Beyond her fading consciousness, the last thing her bleached-out vision caught was...
The room door, half-open, with its doorknob smashed to pieces.
---