Handcuffs
The warehouse still reeked of Black Dragon blood.
The massive corpse had already tumbled down the mountainside, yet the foul black mist left by its mana had seeped all the way to the ceiling, turning the air thick and clammy.
Elion rested the dark-crimson Dragon Heart on her palm and stared at it for a long time. The pulsing heat, the endless torrent of fierce mana pouring from it—this was no ordinary treasure.
This might be the only key that could ever bind her.
“Lowen. Bring the mana engraver.”
“Understood, Elion.”
The golem, shaped like a burly man, answered in a voice as flat and mineral as stone. Lowen was the multi-purpose auxiliary golem she had crafted during her court-mage amusement phase. He had been designed to simulate emotion, yet the priority of emotional calculation sat far below motion control, command interpretation, and mana regulation; as a result he never quite drew the mana the system needed. The problem of storage and output was not easily fixed. Still, his response to orders was flawless. The neighbor’s golem, she recalled with a stray flicker of amusement, had tried to blow someone’s head clean off when asked to “cut the hair.” By comparison Lowen was practically a luxury model.
A moment later he returned carrying a mana engraver that resembled a silver-handled awl. It was a specialty tool made for working materials as delicate and mana-resistant as a Dragon Heart.
Elion set the heart on the workbench and took the engraver. Lowen stood beside her, watching every motion with quiet intensity. His blue eyes glowed faintly, tracking each movement of her hands as though scanning them. She had never seen him concentrate so completely without an auxiliary command.
“First… the magic circle that limits strength and stamina.”
She pressed the tip of the engraver to the heart’s surface and poured mana into it. The tip flared sharp and bright, biting into the crimson flesh.
The Dragon Heart reacted; its pulse of mana quickened and scorching heat flooded her palm. The engraver traced a slow line—the basic frame of a circular magic array. Inside it she began carving the binding runes.
“When worn, a foundational rune that drops physical strength below the average of a human female.”
With every rune the heart shuddered. Kron’s residual mana fought back, yet Elion’s overwhelming power crushed the resistance without effort. Sparks leapt from the engraver’s tip as the lines sank deeper. As the leftover mana was guided along the array, the dark-crimson heart gradually turned translucent, crystallizing.
For an ordinary mage, carving a strength-and-stamina restriction circle would have ended here—nothing more than a two-dimensional array etched on the surface.
Elion was no ordinary mage. During her fifth amusement, while living as a court mage, she had personally published the discovery that by rotating the mana lines output through a mana engraver one could pierce the surface of matter and affect its interior. That technique wove a two-dimensional array into three dimensions, creating extra space in which multiple layers of auxiliary circles could be nested—raising structural stability, duration, and efficiency all at once.
The golem never missed a single motion of her hands. At the precise moment he switched on the mana decelerator. The instant Kron’s mana slowed, Elion gave the engraver a subtle twist. The mana lines spun, bored through the surface, and began carving the array deep inside. Beneath the strength-restriction rune she layered a stamina-reduction rune in three-dimensional array, then wove a target-limitation rune beneath that to amplify the effect. Every rotation of the mana lines made the core tremble and the power surge.
“Add mana absorption and manipulation… so that whenever the wearer tries to draw mana, this crystal drinks it dry, and if mana is poured in from outside, the one who supplies it can write new behavioral rules.”
This rune was far more intricate. She spun the engraver in a spiral. Kron’s condensed mana writhed and tangled inside the heart. Heat rose like concentrated solar fire against her skin. Yet with every completed line the flow of mana steadied and a new light began to shine. At last it was finished. With this…!
Lowen, who had been silently matching her pace, spoke.
“Do you intend to set that crystal into one of the restraints you have already collected?”
“Yes. And after that I’ll need your help.”
“Of course.”
Lowen nodded and began tidying the tools stacked in the warehouse.
“Which restraint do you plan to use?”
“Good question… what would be best?”
She wanted to try every single item in the warehouse, so the choice was not easy—yet for a first test the answer was already decided.
“We start with handcuffs.”
Lowen returned from the warehouse with a plain pair of alloy handcuffs—the very first piece she had collected after developing an interest in BDSM. The problem was that she had once sneezed while wearing them and they had shattered on the spot. With this crystal fitted, that would change.
Elion drew a deep breath and locked the cuffs around her wrists.
Click.
Without the crystal the cuffs felt light. The slightest movement would snap them again.
“Lowen. Set the crystal.”
“Understood, Elion.”
He brought the crystal to the cuffs. They were ordinary metal with no socket, yet the moment the crystal touched them a crimson light flared and the magic circle activated. The crystal fused as though it had always been part of the cuffs.
In that instant the strength drained from her arms.
Elion twisted her wrists experimentally.
No matter how hard she strained, the cuffs only rattled; they would not break. The realization made her breath catch.
“…Lowen. Take these off.”
“Understood, Elion. Will that be all for today?”
“No. Cuff them behind my back. Be a little rough about it—better that way.”
“Understood.”
Lowen unlocked the left cuff, then brutally wrenched her arms behind her. Ordinarily she would have gone limp to make it easier, but even with only the right wrist cuffed she had no strength left; her body was dragged about helplessly at his will. Once her arms were locked behind her, her chest thrust forward and her balance collapsed. Lowen paid no mind and snapped the second cuff shut.
Ah…
Heat flooded her chest. There was no stopping now. She leaned against the wall beside the workbench and spoke.
“Lowen. Choke me… and touch my pussy.”
His blue eyes glowed faintly.
“Understood, Elion.”
His cold right hand closed around her throat. As the pressure slowly increased, her breath cut off. The wall at her back left nowhere to flee. Alien terror and electric pleasure rose together.
His left hand slipped under her skirt and found the place already soaked. At once he began rubbing her clitoris.
“……!!”
Her throat constricted, breath growing short, while the stimulation below grew steadily fiercer.
His fingers circled, then gave a sharp little pinch.
Pleasure signals raced up her spine and crackled through her entire body.
“…Clit… feels good……!”
The pressure on her neck tightened; her vision blurred.
Suffocating pain and the ecstasy surging from her clitoris tangled together.
Lowen’s fingers found a rhythm and sped up, while his grip on her windpipe grew more relentless.
She might actually die. She tried to move her hands to stop him, but they were bound behind her; all she could do was squirm.
“…Ghk…… can’t… breathe……!”
The choke tightened further.
She could draw no air at all, yet Lowen showed no intention of stopping. He kept tormenting the swollen, blood-flushed clitoris with merciless precision.
Elion choked and her eyes rolled back.
Faithful to the command, he pinched, rubbed, and pressed again and again.
At last a gush of fluid sprayed out and her whole body convulsed.
“Nnnghghgh!”
She thrashed like a landed fish while liquid poured from between her legs.
Still Lowen did not stop.
With the aftershocks of climax still shuddering through her, the continued stimulation mixed pain and pleasure until her head spun.
“St… stop… ghk……!!!!!”
The magic had dropped her strength so far she could not overcome his grip or even form proper words. Naturally, without a clear order, Lowen had no reason to halt.
His fingers dug deeper, scraping along her inner walls. Elion writhed in spasms.
“Nngh… nnnghgh……!”
Less than a minute after the first climax the second crashed over her. Pleasure poured into a body that could not breathe; thought vanished. Lowen’s hand kept its mechanical rhythm, stimulating her clit harder and harder.
“Ghhhnnngh… ghk……!”
Again fluid erupted between her thighs.
Even then his fingers never paused.
Her entire body convulsed; her legs gave out and she nearly slid down the wall, yet the hand around her throat held her upright, choking her so she could not fall.
“Ghk… st-stop……!”
At last the saliva and juices dripping from her mouth made his hand slip enough for her to force out the command to stop.
As though nothing had happened, Lowen released her throat and pussy and stood straight.
The moment the pressure left her neck, Elion collapsed onto the puddle of her own fluids, gasping for air.
“Haa… haa……!”
“Will that be all?”
The terror of breathlessness, the pleasure of utter helplessness, the lingering tremors in her body—this was the powerlessness she had longed for.
And yet the absolute obedience of the golem who never disobeyed her suddenly felt frightening.
“…Yeah…… that’s enough for today. Take the cuffs off.”
Lowen nodded.
“Understood, Elion.”