Solid Castle
Solid Castle
Blood is thicker than water.
A saying I'd heard often growing up.
The old adage that however much you may, in the moment, treasure bonds with friends or lovers more, in the end what remains is family.
Bonds forged by blood aren't easily severed.
No matter how deeply you hate and despise them, no matter how utterly every scrap of affection drains away, at the very end an ember of lingering attachment still flickers.
Even I, with not a single good memory of family, am no exception to that.
What if.
The thought that trails after you — what if things had been just a little different back then? — was not something I could shake off easily even after all these years.
If even I feel that way.
How much more must Kang Ha-rin feel it, having grown up clinging to her siblings without parents?
To her, the existence of her younger siblings must have been her reason for living.
The only blood relatives she could rely on in a harsh world.
A life where she could do anything for them, resolved to sacrifice everything.
Devotion.
No matter how disillusioned she became, no matter how abandoned she felt, she wouldn't be able to cut them off herself.
And so, I planned this event.
It was improvised, but it was a process she would inevitably have to go through someday.
"Why... why are you doing this...?"
Eyes brimming with moisture.
A voice trembling without end, and breathing that refused to calm.
Kang Ha-rin looked utterly lost, as if she'd been dropped alone into the vast open sea.
Disappointment in her brother, resentment toward me, and even self-loathing born from the reality that she could do nothing but watch this situation unfold.
These emotions warped her expression into something grotesque.
It wasn't a smile, nor was it tears.
As if she'd lost control of her facial muscles, joy, rage, sorrow, and pleasure blended together in a chaotic mixture.
It was a truly pitiful sight.
I smiled bitterly and opened my mouth.
"Why else? It's all because of you."
"W-what...?"
"If you hadn't been so wishy-washy. If you'd known what to prioritize coldly and rationally. I wouldn't have gone this far."
Blaming her outright, straight out of nowhere.
At this, Kang Ha-rin's eyebrows twitched as if she were dumbfounded.
"...How, how is this my fault? You're the one who made Ha-jun strange. You changed him...! If you just hadn't laid a hand on him, that kid, that kid...!!"
As she spoke, her emotions seemed to surge, her voice gradually rising in a gradient.
Her black eyes blazed as if ready to chew me up and devour me right then and there.
I openly snorted as if she were pathetic.
"Ha! Then you should've pushed him harder before that! You should've made him know his place! If you'd beaten it into him hard and impressed on him that he had to adapt and submit to reality, none of this would've happened!"
Right. If that had been the case, I wouldn't have given the bastard the chance to liberate his desires.
If things had gone that way, he wouldn't have become a sex-crazed lunatic either.
Maybe, judging he posed no threat like twins, I might have just stopped at the enslavement scroll.
"But you... you didn't, did you? You just dealt with it passively, hoping only for my mercy. Didn't you just let him hold a grudge? If you wanted to change the outcome, why didn't you move?"
If she'd made the right judgment before things escalated this far.
If she'd properly scolded and forced her brother into submission before I dealt with him.
There would have been no need to play such a hard hand.
Is this sophistry?
Maybe it is.
But so what?
Ultimately, the root cause was that the bastard half-assedly harbored defiance and provoked me.
If that was the case, then as his older sister, she should have guided him onto the right path.
She should have helped him adapt to and accept his circumstances.
"In the end, I just did what you kept putting off, my way. Is it still not your fault?"
"....."
At those words, Kang Ha-rin tried to retort, but only her lips flapped like a goldfish, no more anger spilling out.
I grabbed her shoulders and forced her to face forward.
She flinched like a frail small animal, unable to offer even token resistance.
She simply let out ragged breaths, pulled along by my touch.
I whispered into her ear.
"Watch carefully. This is the price of your negligence."
A ring made of cold ice.
Reflected on it was the scene of two men grappling and rolling on the floor.
One to survive.
One solely to indulge his lust.
They waged a desperately brutal struggle, using every means at their disposal.
*
"AAAAAAARGH!!!!"
Nah Jun-ho let out a roar and charged at Kang Ha-jun.
Fists crossed.
Thwack!
"Kkeughhh...!"
As Nah Jun-ho's fist drove cleanly into his abdomen, Kang Ha-jun reeled back with a short scream.
Though he'd taken a hit to the face himself, it hadn't caught him on the jaw.
It was bearable enough.
But not for Kang Ha-jun.
The shock lodged in his liver was too much for him, having been an ordinary person, to endure.
He staggered.
Nah Jun-ho seized that opening.
He threw himself forward like an arrow and pinned him down.
"Get off! Get off me...!"
Kang Ha-jun, pinned underneath, struggled, but once caught in a mount, it was hard to escape easily.
Since there was a vast difference in their weight classes from the start, Nah Jun-ho held the advantage in a brawl.
"Just die, please! You have to die for me to live...!"
A cry consumed by desperation.
Nah Jun-ho pounded his face desperately, blindly.
There was no technique to speak of.
Only pure violence existed there.
— 'If you win, I'll let you live. I promise I'll send you off intact, without another word.'
Suddenly, the conversation they'd shared just before starting this farce flashed through his mind.
— 'Can't trust me? Hmph, but you don't really have a choice anyway, do you?'
He couldn't possibly trust it, but Nah Jun-ho had no other option.
Right, there were no other decent choices.
They were the insane group that had annihilated a street teeming with hundreds of zombies.
There was no trust, but refusing didn't offer any way to preserve his life either.
That's why he'd accepted this duel.
To kill a young man in the bloom of youth.
To commit a sin in order to live.
"Hey! Hey, Squirt! What are you doing!? If you lose, you gotta lick this bitch's pussy, you know!? Get up already!"
"Kyahoo! Nice, nice! Yeah! Kill him quick! Let me get my dick sucked by the noonas today too!!"
Around them, vulgar jeers and cheers erupted beyond belief.
For a moment, Nah Jun-ho felt his stomach turn.
These pieces of trash were even betting on someone's life-or-death struggle.
He realized it once more.
Wasn't everyone in this insane world a sinner from the start?
If wanting to live was a sin, he would gladly accept that fate.
'Dead, it's all over...! It means nothing...!'
"AAAAARGH!!!! Fuck! FUUUUCK!!!!"
He desperately suppressed the nausea rising within him and swung his fists even more madly.
As if wiping away his guilt, simply absorbed in it endlessly.
Thwack! Crack! Thud!
Amidst the one-sided beating fueled by sheer excitement, it was then.
"Haaaang!"
Abruptly, a woman's moan burst out.
It was a high and sharp tone, yet one Nah Jun-ho knew all too well.
Soon, his head turned with a sickening creak.
"Hngg! Haang! P-pull! Pull out...!"
Lim Da-hye.
His colleague and lover was being violated by a man he didn't know.
In a position where their joined genitals were explicitly exposed, she was being pounded relentlessly by the man.
"What the fuck...! What the hell is this..."
Nah Jun-ho's bewildered shout could not continue.
Thwack!
Kang Ha-jun, who had only been taking hits until now, finally fought back desperately.
Kang Ha-jun shoved him fiercely, taking advantage of his disrupted stance.
Offense and defense flipped.
Pinned in turn, Nah Jun-ho let out pained groans under the barrage raining down as if venting pent-up resentment.
"Urgh...! Ghhuhh...!"
"Die! You son of a bitch, die!!"
A hazy fog clouded his vision.
He'd been struck in the eye.
And his lip must have split too, as a coppery sweet taste filled his mouth.
This wasn't good.
At this rate, he'd lose.
Ironically, it was the man raping Lim Da-hye who came to his desperate rescue.
"Things seem heated up enough, so let's change the mood! Ha-yoon!"
Simultaneous with his shout, two small ice knives fell from the air.
Though they were a fair distance away, they were hilts that could be a brilliant move to overcome this crisis if only he could grab them.
'If I just have those...! If I just have those, it's all over!'
Kang Ha-jun and Nah Jun-ho simultaneously rushed toward where the knives had fallen.
Naturally, it was Kang Ha-jun who grabbed the sashimi-shaped knife.
Since he'd been the one to break from the mount position and sprint, he was bound to be faster.
Slash!
"Eek! AAAAARGH!!!!"
In a flash, Nah Jun-ho felt a searing hot sensation in his arm.
It hurt.
It hurt like crazy.
Regrettably, though he'd managed to grab a knife a beat later, Kang Ha-jun hadn't just stood there watching.
His arm was cut.
Blood gushed out, and with the onslaught of pain, he simply rolled on the ground.
"I just need to kill you...! Then I...! I...!"
Kang Ha-jun approached.
A turbid light had settled in his eyes.
Eyes stained with madness and base desire held not a shred of mercy.
Stab! Stab! Stab!
The cold sensation of ice burrowing into his abdomen.
It felt as if all five senses in his body were being twisted.
But it wasn't fatal.
The blindly swung strikes punctured holes in his organs, but weren't intense enough to kill him instantly.
Thus, there was an opening for a counterattack.
'You think I'll die like this...!'
In a 'if I go down, you go down too' gambit, Nah Jun-ho pulled Kang Ha-jun's head toward him and bit down hard.
"Ptui!"
"Gyaaah!! You crazy bastard!!"
As a chunk of flesh was torn off, an enraged roar burst out.
And there was a slight stagger.
Seizing that opening, he reached for his opponent's eye socket.
Squelch.
His thumb burrowed into his eye.
Just as he was about to push deeper and somehow turn the situation around.
"Hahk...! I-I'm, I'm cumming... Cuh-cumming...!"
"Yeah, that's it! I'll shoot it in real deep! You cum while watching your boyfriend go too! Let's both ascend to heaven together!!"
-Squelch squelch squelch squelch!
Along with the sound of flesh slapping together, a coquettish moan rang out clearly in his ears.
Again.
He knew he shouldn't, but Nah Jun-ho's gaze involuntarily drifted there.
"HAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!"
Splurrrrrt!
Love juice erupting like a fountain and semen overflowing, filling her insides and spilling out.
Witnessing this, Nah Jun-ho's eyes flew wide open.
"Ah...."
A small sigh.
Those were his last words.
Stab!
The cold ice blade lodged itself in the nape of his neck.
In that instant, he felt his consciousness flicker into darkness.
The blade had torn through skin and bone, precisely piercing his carotid artery, killing him in an instant.
*
"Hahh... hahh..."
Kang Ha-jun's condition looked extremely serious.
On top of being pummeled for a long while, one of his ears had been torn, and blood endlessly streamed from his left eye.
"Hey, you okay?"
Squelch squelch.
I approached the bastard with the woman still impaled on my cock.
His one remaining eye turned toward me with difficulty.
"...Keep your promise, please."
"Hmm. Of course. But hey. At this rate, you'll die, you know? Just so you know, I don't plan on healing you for free."
At my taunt, Kang Ha-jun's brow furrowed deeply.
His appearance, steeped in the afterglow of his first kill, was somewhat similar to when we first met.
Yeah, meaning he was considerably hostile.
He'd hidden it well until now, but it seemed he had no energy left to keep up pretenses even at this moment.
"...Then what do you want?"
"Simple. Give up this woman."
"...!"
In an instant, his one remaining eye flew wide open.
But at the pain surging from his ruined right eye, he grimaced with a groan.
"Then I... I gain nothing at all. What the hell did I even..."
"No gain? You seem to be misunderstanding something. This is actually me being generous in my own way. You think you can recover from those wounds here, with no proper medical facilities? Don't stake your life on a single piece of ass."
"....."
Only then did Kang Ha-jun quell his excitement.
The fact that he gained nothing seemed deeply unfair and irritating to him, but he didn't seem to have the guts to defy me further while I held his life in my hands.
Soon, he let out a sigh deep enough to cave in the ground and nodded slightly.
"...Understood. I'll do so."
"Good thinking. But while we're at it, let me ask you something. You've got something floating in front of your eyes, right?"
"Excuse me...?"
"I asked if you do or don't. Just tell me that."
At that, Kang Ha-jun hesitated for a moment, but his inner conflict wasn't long.
After all, there was no way he could resist, now that the enslavement had been engraved.
"...I do."
"What's it say? You have to confess honestly, every last bit. Since it's 'for my sake.'"
I smiled meaningfully as I said that.
Seeing my smile, the bastard mashed his lips together as if displeased.
"...It says Accumulation and Release."
"Hmm. Really? How exactly does it work?"
"That far, I..."
"Like I said earlier, you have to speak honestly. I told you it was 'for my sake,' didn't I?"
"...It says you accumulate received damage and then release it."
Indeed, isn't that a total extreme masochist trait? How does this guy always end up with crap like this... No, wait, maybe this is actually a good thing?
For a guy suited to the loser's position, this might be better than gaining an ability I'd have to watch out for.
For instance, he showed high potential as a discard piece — useful to throw in right before entry as a trap checker, or to drop right into the middle of the enemy camp.
"That's what's written, but... honestly, I have no idea how to go about it."
"Ah, well, that's fine. We can test it out later. More importantly, I'll heal you soon."
I answered with a weak chuckle and turned my back.
There, Ha Hui-ryeong and Jeong Ji-min were chattering noisily.
"Heh. See? I told you I don't fight losing battles."
"Eeeeek! This is cheating! Oppa kept interfering! This is unacceptable!"
"What are you on about? Shut it and get ready to lick pussy later. Isn't that what you're good at?"
"Uuuuughh...!!"
Unlike before, joy and sorrow had flipped.
Ha Hui-ryeong, who had been constantly annoyed, was now triumphant, while Jeong Ji-min, who had been cheering, ground her teeth as if suppressing her indignation.
Kim Ha-yoon, seemingly uninterested, was sipping canned coffee one after another, and Angelica had been staring only at me for a while now.
And Kang Ha-rin was....
"....."
Still in a wretched state.
She seemed considerably shocked by the fact that her brother had killed a person without hesitation, frozen like a stone statue and not moving a muscle.
As I approached her, I gave Ha Hui-ryeong a heads-up.
"Hey, Hui-ryeong. Heal that bastard over there for me. He's pretty beat up."
"Why would I? Why not just let him drop dead?"
"Then wouldn't that make our Ha-rin here a bit sad?"
I'd like to in my heart, but the time wasn't right yet.
It wasn't about shaking him off that way. Kang Ha-rin had to willingly sever the bond herself.
"Shall we head in first?"
No answer came back.
Kang Ha-rin was pulled along helplessly, her wrist caught in my grasp.
Seeing her like that, I gathered the corners of my lips in satisfaction.
Now, what I had to do was wedge myself into the cracks of her weakened heart and tear down that sturdy fortress.
The very sturdy fortress called family.