Subjugation on Broadcast (8)
Before the match between Cho Yu-min and Han Gyeo-wool even began, Yu-min was already working on her—sweet-talking, tempting, suggesting that maybe she ought to throw the game.
If Gyeo-wool betrayed Dong-hyun and folded every single bet, the structure of the match would make it impossible for him to win.
Choosing Confrontation over Coexistence had its advantages. You could toy with your opponent however you pleased. But in the actual game, it left you fatally exposed.
In the room next door, the team of Lee Jung-hwan—a middle-aged man—and Lee Seul-bi, a girl who still looked barely more than a child, was already locked in a match against a team that had chosen Coexistence.
Both of their opponents were women. One of them, however, possessed stamina far beyond anyone's expectations and had gone blow-for-blow with Jung-hwan, securing a comparable pile of chips. Seul-bi, on the other hand, hadn't moved a muscle during the mental game.
The same thing had happened with a male slave. Even after the bell rang for the physical contest, the man hadn't so much as twitched. Without a single chip to their name, defeat had been inevitable.
They were throwing the match on purpose—driven by a single, desperate thought: Anyone but you.
Already slaves, already stripped of hope, they had no will left to win. And that was the fatal liability hanging over every team that had chosen Confrontation: they had to drag those unwilling slaves along with them.
But for all of Cho Yu-min's confident talk, Dong-hyun's expression remained perfectly at ease.
The reason he hadn't pressed Gyeo-wool about her conversation with Yu-min back in the cafeteria was simple. He trusted her.
Trusting someone he'd known for a single day—someone he'd spent the entire previous night humiliating—should have been unthinkable. There was only one reason it wasn't.
The System.
In every quest Serién had ever generated, not once had a subjugated target betrayed him. Under every circumstance, without a single exception, they entered a state of absolute obedience.
Han Gyeo-wool, already broken by Dong-hyun, turning on him? Impossible.
"Well, Gyeo-wool? What do you think of my offer? I asked around—they said the collar can't even control you during a match."
In the next room, someone had already shouted "Shock!" at a slave who refused to move. It had done nothing.
Yu-min kept whispering, her smile bright and sweet.
"Shall we just play the game?"
What came back was Gyeo-wool's voice, ice-cold. Han Gyeo-wool looked at the staff member.
"Then I'll deal the cards."
Taking the hint, the staff member resumed the proceedings.
"Are you insane? You actually like being under that man?"
When Gyeo-wool didn't so much as flinch, Yu-min's words turned sharp. Gyeo-wool didn't answer. She simply placed the card she'd been dealt against her forehead.
"Y-you... you little—"
Yu-min was seething, barely containing her rage. Only after the staff member prompted her again did she reluctantly lift her own card.
The card above Cho Yu-min's head was a 9. Han Gyeo-wool's was a 3.
"The player with fewer chips bets first."
Confirming that Gyeo-wool's card was the lower one, Yu-min bet with a blank expression, adding three more chips to the pot. Gyeo-wool folded immediately.
A thin smile crept across Yu-min's face. Inwardly, she felt a twinge of disappointment.
And so their exchange continued.
Some time into the game, another 4 appeared above Gyeo-wool's head. That same thin smile returned to Yu-min's face. She shoved ten chips into the pot. Yu-min had twenty-eight chips remaining; Gyeo-wool had seventy-two. Yu-min was at a disadvantage, and she was betting hard.
Gyeo-wool considered for a moment, then reached out and called.
Yu-min grinned—then checked her card, and her face went rigid.
"Th-that's impossible... How the hell is it a 3..."
She'd lost by a single point. Cho Yu-min was down to just seventeen chips.
The cards were dealt again. This time Gyeo-wool drew a 5. It was her turn to bet, and she pushed ten chips forward without a flicker of hesitation.
What? Is my number that low?
Yu-min's composure cracked. The number above Gyeo-wool's head was neither particularly high nor particularly low. She counted her remaining chips, agonized over it, and finally called.
Yu-min's card was a 2. Gyeo-wool won again.
From that point on, Yu-min's expression deteriorated rapidly.
Gyeo-wool had been counting every card from the start, tracking every rank that had already been dealt, and she only pushed chips when she calculated a clear advantage. When four cards remained and she saw Yu-min holding a 3, the ranks still in the deck were 2, 4, and 5—giving her a sixty-six percent chance of winning. So she bet. And when she saw Yu-min holding a 2 on the following hand, she bet the same way. She knew that dumping a massive pile of chips would scare Yu-min off the pot, so she sized every wager just right to keep her calling.
After that, Yu-min's composure shattered completely. Six chips weren't enough to climb back.
"All chips in Room 7 have been exhausted. Room 8 is the winner. Ahn Jin-woo, will you enslave these two, or will you set them free?"
The staff member approached as soon as the game ended.
"Can I free Han Gyeo-wool as well? She's currently a slave."
Jin-woo asked about Gyeo-wool before either of the other two.
"A slave may be freed at any time—not only after a match."
"Good. Enslave those two women. Free Han Gyeo-wool."
"Understood."
At Dong-hyun's answer, the staff member approached Cho Yu-min, who sat staring blankly in the aftermath of her defeat.
"N-no!!!"
Yu-min thrashed as the staff member came toward her. The woman who had already been a slave accepted it without resistance. Swapping the chip in the collar she already wore completed the transfer with almost no effort. Then they subdued the struggling Yu-min and locked a collar around her neck.
"The command words are the same, but you'll need to specify Number One or Number Two when you use them. Whom would you like as Number One?"
With Gyeo-wool freed, Dong-hyun now had two slaves. He designated Cho Yu-min as Number One and the other woman as Number Two.
"Settings complete. You may return to the main hall."
When Han Gyeo-wool stepped out into the main hall, the relief of being free from that suffocating, hideous collar was written all over her face.
"That's your reward for working so hard."
"Thank you."
She was so happy she threw herself into Dong-hyun's arms.
Cho Yu-min's expression, by contrast, was ashen. She hadn't understood what it meant to own a slave—not until she became one. Now everything terrified her. Every casual cruelty she'd inflicted on her own slave the day before had come home to roost.
The main hall was in an uproar. Several teams whose matches had already ended were already out, and Lee Jung-hwan's team was among them.
The opposing woman had freed Lee Seul-bi from slavery—and enslaved Lee Jung-hwan. And now Jung-hwan was being electrocuted by Seul-bi.
"You son of a bitch!! Die!! Just die already!!"
Seul-bi was kicking Jung-hwan as he convulsed on the floor. Blood was already streaming from his nose; he'd clearly been hit more than once. Nobody around them lifted a finger to stop it.
And that wasn't all. A woman who'd kept a male slave was screaming.
"N-no!!!! Aaagh—!!"
She'd lost to her opponents and fallen back into slavery. Worse, the opposing team had been two men. What awaited her would be nothing short of horrific.
Watching all of this, Cho Yu-min's body began to tremble. In their faces, she could see her own future.
"What are you shaking for already? Keep up."
"I... I'm sorry... please..."
At Dong-hyun's words she trembled even harder, begging. Gone was every last scrap of the arrogance she'd worn until now.
The woman who had been Yu-min's slave, on the other hand, looked perfectly composed. She even watched the shivering Yu-min from behind with a thin, satisfied smirk.
"You wanna get dragged here while you're getting shocked, or you gonna walk on your own two feet?"
Dong-hyun had no intention of going easy on her.
"I-I'll walk... I'll go myself..."
Yu-min touched her collar as she spoke, as if terrified it might go off at any second.
Dong-hyun ignored the chaos outside and headed for his room.
On the way, he spotted another team emerging from a different room. It was the team with the man in glasses. To Dong-hyun's surprise, they appeared to have won—the man and woman trailing behind them both wore collars.
He had no idea how they'd pulled it off, but they were the only Confrontation team besides his own to have actually won. That earned them his interest. The man in glasses noticed Dong-hyun as well and gave a slight bow.
Other teams began filing out one after another. The ones that had chosen Coexistence had, after winning, enslaved the losing teams all the same. They hadn't chosen Coexistence out of principle. They'd chosen it because they were afraid of becoming slaves themselves. The moment they had the chance to own someone, they'd taken it.
Figures. All that holier-than-thou act...
Dong-hyun sneered at the people who'd treated the Confrontation teams like villains and refused to even speak to them.
Then the last team came out, and even Dong-hyun was startled.
It was Lee Su-hyun and Lee Yu-rim's team—and the man and woman walking behind them weren't wearing collars.
What? They chose Coexistence even now?
The way they carried themselves, as if they were some kind of righteous crusaders, soured Dong-hyun's mood. It felt like they were laughing at him—at someone who had spent quest after quest breaking people into submission.
Of course Lee Su-hyun had no such intention. But Dong-hyun couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been cast as the main villain of some novel.
Whether Su-hyun knew what he was thinking or not, he spotted Dong-hyun and bowed in greeting. Dong-hyun returned it. Su-hyun's eyes flicked to the collars on the two women trailing behind Dong-hyun, and something like a faint smile crossed his face—then he noticed that Gyeo-wool, who had been a slave, no longer wore one, and he looked mildly surprised.
"I wish you luck."
Su-hyun passed by with those inexplicable words.
"Same to you."
Dong-hyun had to walk into his room in a thoroughly foul mood.