Traces
Beep— beep— beep—.
An alien sound shattered the silence, punctuated by the red warning lights blinking inside the escape pod.
"Haah…!"
When Ceria opened her eyes, she found herself inside the cramped escape pod. Turning her head, she saw Riri and Kaila breathing raggedly beside her, consciousness slowly returning.
A blue coordinate message glowed across the main screen — exactly as Geon had promised, when he'd loaded them into an escape pod from the Dien fleet's main hangar bay and vowed to send them home.
And yet, in the stillness inside the pod, the three women's bodies trembled violently, drenched in sweat as if caught in a downpour.
The hypnosis had been released. Because of it, memories of what they had done aboard the Dien fleet the night before came crashing down on them with agonizing, crystal-clear clarity.
The hellish memory of being bitches — of their minds awake and lucid while their bodies were forced into surrender, sucking Geon's cock, crawling on all fours across the floor, licking each other's juices.
"Ah… aah…"
Ceria clutched her head and wept. Riri and Kaila, too, bit their lips against the surging tide of shame and despair, twisting their slick thighs together.
Before long, an Alliance patrol ship sweeping the territorial waters spotted the escape pod, and days of rigorous identity verification and emergency medical examinations followed. The minute neural modifications the Dien fleet's medical capsules had inflicted on them slipped right past the Alliance's crude medical scanners, and several days later, the three women were escorted to an emergency debriefing convenedd at Alliance Supreme Command.
"Only a single crew member operated the entire ship… A man called 'Geon,' and one support robot. That was all."
Neothera Alliance Supreme Command, Central Conference Room.
Ceria's icy voice filled the vast chamber. The commanders' eyes wavered roughly.
"What did you say? A warship of that enormous scale… was being managed by a mere single human and a single machine?!"
"Absurd! Even with a fully automated system, it would be impossible for two beings alone to operate a vessel like that!"
The commanders' incredulous cries erupted across the room, but Ceria shook her head with lifeless eyes. Beside her, Riri and Kaila nodded in grim, emphatic silence.
The Supreme Commander hastily manipulated the holographic panel. Moments later, an encrypted, top-secret video began playing at the center of the chamber.
Crackle—.
The skies above Imperial Orbital-04. A pitch-black demon god that had torn through the Machine Empire Arcadia's invasion force and the stolen Alliance machines alike in a mere 58 seconds, shredding them like tin cans. It was the legendary combat footage of a Chief God-class Machine — the apex craft that all three great powers, the Earth Alliance, the Machine Empire, and the Neothera Alliance alike, had been secretly trying to secure.
"Then… the owner of that 'Chief God-class Machine' that crushed the Arcadian forces at Orbital-04 in one stroke…!"
"Yes. It was Geon, captain of the Dien fleet."
When the truth finally surfaced through the three women's report, the commanders' suppressed gasps flooded the hall. The master of the Chief God-class Machine and the Dien fleet. At the revelation that such overwhelming power had appeared near Neothera Alliance territorial waters, the commanders' eyes glittered with naked greed.
Then, Ceria carefully broke the heavy silence.
"Has the technological analysis of the escape pod we arrived in been completed?"
The Supreme Commander frowned and pulled up another set of detailed data on the panel.
"We conducted a thorough analysis of the escape pod while you took your rest over the past several days. And I must say, it was most peculiar."
"Peculiar, sir?"
"The pod's basic mechanisms and control interface were… identical to our own Neothera Alliance technology, copied down to the last detail. Only its exterior looked like something built for refugees — the internal data structure was indistinguishable from Alliance tech."
"…!"
Ceria flinched, her pupils trembling violently.
The Dien fleet's medical capsules…!
A chill crawled down her spine. There was no doubt that while they lay unconscious inside the capsules, Dark — Geon's support robot — had extracted their neural data and their transport ship's records wholesale. The realization that he had stolen the Alliance's technology outright and used it to build the escape pod left her blood running cold.
The Supreme Commander, interpreting her horror differently, grimly ground his lips together.
"So in the end, we failed to obtain a single shred of the warship's over-technology or core intelligence. And we have no means of contacting that Captain Geon again, do we?"
"…No, sir. We do not."
A brief sigh swept through the conference room at Ceria's hollow reply.
"A pity. Very well. Your efforts are commended."
The Supreme Commander shut off the control panel, his expression turning grave.
"You are pilots by rank. In a few days' time, the Alliance Second Fleet will complete its resupply and return to headquarters. Rejoin the Second Fleet once their resupply and maintenance are finished, and return to the front lines."
"Yes, sir! Understood!"
"Until then, return to your respective homes and take ample rest."
The moment they stepped out of headquarters, as if bound by an unspoken promise, the three women came to a halt beneath the shadow of the building.
The hypnosis had been lifted — but the marks of physical modification carved into their bodies by the Dien fleet's medical capsules remained, cruel and unaltered.
Sfft—.
The mere brush of her military uniform's fabric against the tip of her nipple made Ceria's thighs buckle in a spasm.
'Hnngh…!'
A scream of shame burst inside her, but her sensitively modified nipples spewed jolts of pleasure at even the lightest friction.
"Haa… haa…"
Glancing sideways, she saw Riri and Kaila trembling as well, biting down on their lips. Even their tongues had been sensitized — the taste of their own nervous swallow was enough to drench them between the legs. A hellish aftereffect.
Unable to say a single word to one another, the three exchanged bitter looks and parted ways toward their respective homelands.
Ceria raised her father's gravestone on a windswept hill.
Deep into the earth beneath the stone she buried his rank insignia and dog tags — the ones Geon himself had recovered from the wreckage of Orbital-04 and pressed into her hand. All the while she smoothed and tamped the soil around the grave, the sensitivity inside her uniform, at her nipples and between her thighs, responded with brutal insistence.
"Father… I'm sorry…"
Tears fell from Ceria's kneeling eyes.
She had tried to endure it all through sheer force of hatred for Geon, but every time her collar brushed her skin, she had to bite her lip bloody to hold back the lewd moans trying to escape her mouth.
At that same hour, Riri and Kaila had returned to their hometowns as well.
"Riri! You're safe!"
"Kaila! What on earth happened?"
Warm welcomes and embraces of relief from their families.
But every time their families hugged them, the friction against their chests sent shudders of obscene pleasure through Riri and Kaila, and they swallowed their tears in silence.
Clunk—.
The door swung open with the rattle of an old door lock.
A cold, empty house with no one to welcome her home. Ever since her mother had vanished without a trace in her childhood, and now with her father gone from the world as well, the officers' quarters where Ceria lived alone echoed with nothing but a dreadful silence.
"Haa…"
Ceria quietly placed the dog tags and rank insignia on top of the worn desk her father had always used.
But as the stillness deepened, the physical reactions churning beneath her uniform only grew more vivid. The slightest graze of the military fabric against her chest or her groin sent a shuddering, obscene pleasure rippling from her spine throughout her entire body.
'Please… don't break me any further than this…'
Just as Ceria bit her lip and trembled, a bright alarm chimed from the communication terminal on her wrist, and a blue holographic screen flickered to life.
Crackle—.
Across the screen appeared a familiar, cheerful face. Elna — Ceria's most dependable classmate and friend, ever since their days at the officers' academy.
"Ceria! I heard you made it back safely! How's your body? I was so worried about you!"
"Elna…"
The moment she heard her friend's voice, Ceria's eyes reddened in an instant.
"Our Second Fleet is taking on resupply supplies right now. Once maintenance is done in a few days, we'll be heading back to headquarters — so the moment I arrive, I'm running straight to your house! About your father's passing… I'll come and give you a big hug in person, I promise. You have to stay strong, okay?"
"Yeah… thank you, Elna. I'm really… okay…"
Ceria forced herself to try a smile.
But in the instant she inhaled to answer, her uniform top pulled taut across her chest, brutally stimulating her sensitized nipples.
"Nngh…!"
The pleasure slammed into her brain, and Ceria's thighs shook without mercy. Her legs felt as though they would give out and drop her to the floor at any moment, and a strange moan climbed all the way up her throat.
"Hm? Ceria? What was that sound just now? Are you feeling sick somewhere?"
"N-no, I'm fine…! I'm just a little tired… I swallowed wrong, that's all."
Ceria clenched her fist so hard the blood stopped flowing through it, biting her lip until it bled. She could not let her friend on the other end of the line discover this horrifying, filthy trace of physical modification.
"Phew, okay then. Just wait a few days! I'll bring something delicious, so don't sit around moping by yourself!"
"Yeah… see you in a few days…"
The call ended, the blue light fading away, and Ceria heaved out the breath she'd been holding, slumping forward onto the desk.
"Haa… haa… sob…"
She had no strength left to hold on.
Ceria lifted her exhausted body, stripped off the uniform stained with sweat and shame, and flung it aside. Every time the clothing scraped across her hypersensitive skin, jolts of pleasure climbed her spine, but she clenched her teeth and made her way into the bathroom.
"Haa… ha…"
She turned on the shower, and warm water cascaded down. As if determined to wash away every trace left on her body and every filthy memory, Ceria stepped beneath the stream.
But that was a fatal mistake.
Shaaaaa—.
The moment the shower's intense water pressure struck her chest and drove directly into her nipples, a suppressed moan burst from Ceria's lips.
"Aahh…! Nngh…!"
The minute neural modifications the Dien fleet's capsules had carved into her caused even simple water pressure to register as rough caresses. A maddening, brain-rattling pleasure slammed through her whole body, and Ceria's thighs gave way in a spasm, dropping her to a crumpled heap on the cold bathroom tile.
"Haa, haa… why… why is this…!"
Kneeling on the cold floor, Ceria clawed at her wet hair. But her nipples were swollen stiff and quivering under the falling water. In place of the sponge she had meant to wash herself with, Ceria's trembling fingers drifted toward her chest.
'No… stop it… Ceria…!'
Her mind refused — but her modified body had already been wholly enslaved to pleasure. Wrapping one arm around her breast as if to embrace it, Ceria pinched and tugged the sensitively swollen bud with the fingers of her other hand.
"Haahng…! Ah, nngh…!"
Each time her own fingers touched her nipples, the memory of being Geon's bitch — of surrendering aboard the Dien fleet — revived in her mind like a hallucination.
As the water pressure and her fingertips' stimulation layered on top of each other, even the space between her legs began to soak lewdly. The bathroom she had entered to cleanse herself of filthy memories transformed in an instant into a hell where she fondled herself in solitude, surrendering to the traces of modification Geon had left behind.
"Father… I'm sorry… haah, aah…!"
Finished with her shower, Ceria toweled off her drenched body, clenching her jaw.
'I'm leaving your body's sensitivity exactly as it is. See how long you can endure it.'
Along with the echo of Geon's arrogant laughter, the chilling exchange between Geon and Dark she'd overheard just before leaving the Private Room slammed into her mind.
'You said there's a tteokguk among the Neothera Alliance's foods that tastes that good, didn't you?'
'There is one closely resembling a dish you favored most, Captain. I extracted it in advance, some time ago.'
Her body shook with surging hatred and shame at the realization that the reason he'd stolen their neural data was nothing more than to dig up information about tteokguk — of all things.
"Haa… haa…"
With trembling hands, Ceria dressed in civilian clothes and operated her wrist terminal, opening an emergency secure line to the Alliance headquarters' Reconnaissance Planning Department.
Crackle—.
"Ah… Officer. Have there been any additional observations near the territorial waters since we were returned by escape pod — any unconfirmed vessels, escape pods, even minor energy signatures?"
A short burst of keyboard clatter came through the line.
"None. We conducted precision scans of not only the zone where the Dien fleet was located but the entirety of the territorial waters, and no traces of craft or vessels of any kind were detected. You may rest easy."
"…I see. That's a relief."
Ceria let out a long sigh, her chest loosening. The mere fact that that overwhelming Chief God-class Machine and warship were no longer lingering near the territorial waters washed a wave of relief over her.
Then the officer added, as if rummaging through his memory.
"Ah, now that you mention it — this morning, the downtown airspace observation network did pick up one small orbital trajectory."
"…Pardon? A small orbital trajectory?"
"Yes. A meteor-shaped trajectory. The automated interception system had gone all the way to just before launch when — as if it had undergone a phase shift — the object completely vanished from our scans. It was logged as a simple sensor error, nothing more."
Ceria's eyes trembled violently for an instant.
'A phase shift… that evaded the interception systems?'
In that moment, the conversation between Geon and Dark she'd heard beyond the Private Room's door flashed through her mind. Ceria swallowed hard and fired an utterly absurd question at the officer.
"Um… Officer! Is there, by any chance, a famous restaurant in that city known for its tteokguk?"
"…Pardon? Tteokguk?"
Caught off guard by the sudden question, the officer hesitated.
"Uh… one moment. Let me look through the downtown information network… Ah! There's a place called 'Tteokok.' It's been passed down for three generations — an enormously famous restaurant nationwide. But why do you suddenly ask?"
"N-nothing! Thank you so much for the information, Officer!"
Click—.
The line went dead, and the blue holographic screen vanished.
But Ceria stood frozen in place, unable to move. The officer's words from moments ago and Geon's final parting conversation tangled together like a chain, striking her mind all at once.
'A phase shift trajectory… and Tteokok….'
A chilling shiver spiraled down Ceria's spine.
The real reason Geon had come all the way to Alliance territorial waters. And the spine-tingling intuition that the man might, right now, be infiltrating the heart of the Neothera downtown where they all lived — the very place where Tteokok stood — washed over her like a flood.
"Tteokok… if that man is really there…!"
Hastily pulling on her civilian clothes, Ceria flung open the front door and burst outside.
The strange pleasure wrapping her freshly showered body and the cold sweat soaking her skin be damned — she had no time to worry about such aftereffects now. Nursing a desperate, strangled hope — or perhaps the hair-raising intuition that that lunatic of a man really had appeared in the heart of Alliance downtown for a single bowl of tteokguk — Ceria hurried her footsteps like a woman possessed, straight toward Tteokok.
Meanwhile, in the heart of the Neothera Alliance downtown — beneath the dazzling signboard of the legendary, third-generation restaurant, Tteokok.
Geon, dressed in a jet-black suit, simply rested his chin on his hand with a troubled expression. Perched quietly on his shoulder sat Dark, the eagle-shaped robot, its red optical sensors glowing.
"Dark."
"[Yes, Captain.]"
"I've done another stupid thing."
"[What foolishness might you be referring to?]"
"I have no money."
"[…….]"
"I pulled this exact stunt last time, and I've blundered again. Not a single coin in my pocket."
At the rich, savory aroma of tteokguk wafting from inside the restaurant, his mouth flooded with saliva — but the rice cakes in the painting, as they said. Geon turned seriously to the robot on his shoulder.
"You wouldn't happen to have a good solution, would you?"
Dark's red mechanical eyes rolled slowly.
"[There is one method, though it carries a risk of death. Shall I inform you?]"
"A risk of death? Well, let's hear it. What is it?"
"[You immediately transmit a signal and location broadcast to the military police of the Neothera Alliance. As you are an Alliance citizen, they will come running the moment you make contact.]"
"……."
A cold chill shot down Geon's spine in an instant.
"Hey… that really could get me killed. Dark, you're awfully good at jokes… don't say things like that so carelessly. What if it actually becomes reality, huh? Haha…"
Just as Geon awkwardly laughed it off, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple—
Thump—.
Suddenly, from behind, someone's heavy, ice-cold hand bore down hard on Geon's shoulder.
"…!"
Geon's body froze. As he slowly turned around, a familiar face came into view, standing there and panting for breath.
It was Ceria — dressed in civilian clothes instead of her uniform, her bloodshot eyes glaring straight at him.
Cold sweat dripped down Geon's forehead, drop by drop.
"Uh… Ceria? How did you, uh, get here…?"
Ceria ground her teeth fiercely, and with eyes flashing red, carved out a murderous smile.
"Found you."
Geon's mind went blindingly white as if struck by lightning. Dripping with cold sweat, he scrambled to figure out what on earth to say. Then, with a devil-may-care look, he broke into a shameless grin and opened his mouth.
"See, uh… I've suddenly lost my memory, so I don't even know where I'm from, and I don't have a single coin in my pocket, so… would it be alright if you bought me one bowl of tteokguk right there? Haha…"
"Lost your memory… what did you say?"
At the shameless line that left Geon's mouth, a vein on Ceria's forehead pulsed and bulged.
At a street-side skewer stall on the roads of Orbital-04.
The exact same lie, word for word, that Geon had spat out back when she — mistaking him for a poor, drifting refugee — had bought him skewers.
Ceria was so dumbfounded that hollow, disbelieving laughter burst out of her.
"You… you're reusing the exact same con you pulled on me the first time we met?!"
"Huh… it didn't work? Dark, guess the shelf life on that line has expired."
"[Indeed, Captain. Your counterpart is an intelligent lifeform with the capacity to learn not to fall for the same trick twice.]"
At the dry mechanical voice of Dark on his shoulder, Geon broke out in a cold sweat and chuckled awkwardly.
Ceria's gaze settled on Geon's shameless face. This was, unmistakably, the man who had broken them like rabid dogs aboard the Dien fleet just last night, dragged them into a hell of pleasure, and sneered 'see how long you can endure it' as he walked away.
Surging fury and shame, tangled with the sheer absurdity of his unexpected audacity, chilled Ceria's red eyes to frost.
"Fine."
"Yes?"
"I'll buy it. The tteokguk."
Yank—!
Ceria seized the collar of Geon's leather jacket and hauled it down hard.
"But in exchange, you'll slurp up every last grain without leaving a scrap, and you'll answer every question I ask — obediently, without a single word of argument."
Wearing her murderous smile, Ceria shoved Geon forcefully through the glass door of Tteokok.
Even as he was dragged along, Geon whispered quietly to Dark on his shoulder.
"Dark, at least the tteokguk's secured."
"[Congratulations, Captain. Probability of nutritional replenishment has reached 100%.]"
Clunk—.
The door of the restaurant, rich with the aroma of tteokguk, swung shut — and beneath the red evening glow, the curtain fell on Chapter 8.