The Village
“How else? Just unlock the cuffs.”
Lowen paused for a moment.
“Understood, Elion.”
He stepped behind her and released the handcuffs. With a sharp click her wrists came free; Elion instinctively drew her arms forward and rubbed the raw skin. The red grooves stood out clearly, yet the magic that had been held in check now surged free and swept every remaining mark from her body in an instant. A faintly bittersweet sense of release washed through her as she spoke.
“…Let’s go to the village.”
“The village…?”
“Yeah. The Control Core—ah, the magic crystal I made from the Dragon Heart—from now on I’m calling it the Control Core. Anyway, detach the Control Core and bring it.”
Humming under her breath, Elion started to rise, only to plant her hand straight into the cold puddle of her own piss. She wrinkled her nose.
“Clean this up too.”
“Of course.”
Lowen bowed with mechanical precision and began wiping the floor. The moment Elion turned her back and walked away, he kept his head lowered toward the ground, yet his eyes alone tracked her every step.
The far edge of Bernheim market.
The hour when the crowds thinned.
The leader jerked his chin.
“Hey. Look over there.”
Water-blue hair, an expensive dress. A glittering bracelet on one wrist—its central jewel missing. No escort butler in sight.
“Never seen that face before.”
“New noble?”
“She’s alone?”
We cut the chatter and fell in behind her. Market noise faded; the alley narrowed. Dead end.
The leader smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Miss, wrong way—”
Crack.
A short, clean sound. His wrist bent sideways at an angle that had nothing to do with nature.
A beat of silence.
“…Hey.”
“You fucking kidding me?”
“What the hell just happened?”
The leader stared blankly at his own hand. The next instant every drop of color drained from his face.
“Aaaaaaagh!!”
He rolled on the ground screaming. The wrist dangled uselessly. The smile was gone.
“What did that bitch do?!”
“What do you mean what—you saw it too!”
A voice spoke from behind us.
“Miss. Did you not say you would refrain from using your hands?”
A butler in a black suit. None of us had any idea when he had appeared. Every survival instinct honed in the back alleys screamed warning.
Even the way she flinched and scratched her head made us swallow hard. The crimson eyes that clashed so vividly with her water-blue hair glowed with an almost lewd light.
“I just… did it without thinking…”
She stuck out her tongue, then held her wrist out toward the butler.
“…Control Core. Put it back on.”
The butler raised a hand toward the bracelet. A complex magic circle unfurled above it. A transparent crystal materialized in mid-air, drifted slowly, and settled into the empty socket as if it belonged there.
“Automatic transfer upon danger has been set. And—”
“Enough. Go.”
She cut him off. The butler hesitated, seemed to search for words, then gave up with a quiet sigh.
“…Understood.”
He bowed politely in our direction. A magic circle flared beneath his feet; in a swirl of light he vanished. Unmistakable teleportation magic.
Silence stretched.
High-ranking mage. We were fucked. Sorry about the guy on the ground, but the rest of us still wanted to live.
“Uh… look… maybe there’s been some misunderstanding…”
We edged backward, excuses tumbling out, when the bitch started walking straight toward us.
“Misunderstanding my ass.”
Not a flicker of tension on her face. Cold dread kept climbing my spine.
“You think I’ve only run into trash like you once or twice?”
She slapped the nearest man across the cheek.
Slap.
He stayed on his feet. Wait—had she held back?
“…Huh?”
Her expression hardened. Why?
Her hand rose again.
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
One blow after another, hard enough to leave her palm burning red. Still the man did not give ground. His head snapped left and right; his feet never moved.
“…That’s weird.”
She lifted her hand once more—and this time the man who had only been taking the hits seized her wrist.
“You finished?”
His grip crushed down. Her face twisted.
“Let go.”
She tried to wrench free; nothing happened. The man holding her smirked.
“What, nothing’s happening.”
The ones who had been edging away recovered their nerve and closed in around her.
“Heh. Yeah?”
“That guy earlier must’ve snapped his own wrist.”
“What strength’s a bitch supposed to have?”
The one still moaning and grinding his teeth on the ground had always been the clumsy one of the crew.
“No idea why that butler just left, but…”
She swung with her free hand; that wrist was caught too.
“Damn, look how small and pretty these hands are.”
He gathered both wrists into one fist, hauled them high, and tipped her chin up with the other hand so she had no choice but to look at him. Even with her arms forced overhead she tried to kick at his shin; it was almost cute.
Thud.
One of the circle drove a fist into her side.
“Guh—”
Her body twisted.
Again.
Thud.
Again.
Thud.
Before anyone quite noticed, the young lady whose wrists were still hauled skyward—unable even to fall—was taking a full group beating.
“Don’t know what you thought you were counting on,”
the man holding her wrists said, then drove a knee into her stomach, released her, and shoved her away like garbage.
“Uuuuugh…”
She slammed into the wall and crumpled. He grabbed a fistful of that blue hair and yanked her head up.
“You made a real big mistake today.”
He raised his free hand as if to strike. She squeezed her eyes shut and only trembled. The hem of her expensive dress was already filthy with dust; somewhere the sharp reek of piss had begun to rise.
Inside the underground warehouse we used as a base in the commercial district.
That arrogant bitch sat restrained in the chair in front of me. Even so—after all the shaking and the piss she’d already forgotten—she was somehow glaring at us again.
“I was going to take the ransom and let you go… changed my mind. Even if I did let you walk, with a personality like yours you’d never leave us alone.”
The bitch who had been staring daggers in silence flinched as if I’d hit the exact mark.
“So for a bitch like you, better to just kill you… or…”
I picked up the syringe resting on the crate.
“…make sure you can’t talk, then sell you off.”
Her expression cracked for the first time. She opened her mouth.
“My father—”
I clamped a hand over it before she finished.
“I don’t want to know who your daddy is.”
“Mmph!! Mmph!!!!”
“Even if you turned out to be a princess, I’ve already decided to sell.”
Her eyes went wide. Fear bloomed through the pupils the way black ink spreads through clear water. Still covering her mouth, I drove the needle into her carotid. Black-market anesthesia—bought at a steep price from an alchemist who swore even a dragon wouldn’t wake up after one dose.
The effect was solid. Her eyes rolled back and her head dropped.
I laid her out on the operating table we also used as a sex chair, then locked every limb, her waist, and every joint with heavy leather straps and iron rings. Anesthesia or not, there was no telling when it might wear off.
Once I was certain she was completely secured, I forced her mouth open and began extracting the teeth one by one. Young woman, healthy enamel—pulling them wasn’t easy—but ten minutes later only bloody gums remained. I roughly stopped the bleeding, then severed the tongue cleanly at the root and cauterized that too. Internal work has to be thorough if you want a high-quality finished product later.
After confirming the bleeding had fully stopped, I fitted the sewer-style gag. Ordinary models use a soft leather belt with a metal circular drain hole that forces the mouth wide; this one was custom. No belt at all—only silicone molded around the drain-shaped opening. The point is to seat the gag, then stitch the edges of the lips to the silicone with needle and thread. As the gums heal they fuse to the silicone, turning the sewer gag into a permanent part of the body. Sometimes the stitched tissue necroses, but that’s the buyer’s problem to manage. Once the drain was installed I poured water into her mouth to check for any leakage around the seams; nothing escaped.
Next came the eyes. Sewing the eyelids shut would have been simpler, but that produces endless eye gunk and ruins the look. Better to go to the trouble of fitting black lenses and making her blind properly. Of course I used special thread to stitch each lens directly to the cornea so they could never come free. The foreign-body sensation would be hellish, but no one gives a damn about a slave’s comfort.
I worked alone, chuckling under my breath, until she started making soft moaning sounds. Time to introduce her to reality.