Chapter 65 — The Queen's Night (4): The Branding

Evening — attendance at the briefing on state affairs. In the council chamber where the ministers had gathered, more than a few frowned to see me seated at the far end of the table. Then the Queen declared that "the court mage's counsel was required," and their mouths snapped shut.

The substance of the reports: tax revenue falling across the southern fiefs, the land strangled by drought; demonkind sightings multiplying along the eastern border, with a request to dispatch the knight order; the royal treasury sinking into deficit under the weight of the King's personal spending; and conflict between the council and the crown, the council standing opposed to any tax increase.

Elena questioned each report in turn and handed down her directives. Clear. Always striking at the core. The ministers sweated through her questions.

A capable woman.

It confirmed, once again, that the kingdom's true operator was its Queen. Kalandel merely occupied the throne; every ounce of real work belonged to Elena.

...Fuck. An entire country turns inside one woman's head — and the one who's reached into that head is me. There's something laughable in that.

After the meeting, Elena called me aside.

"What did you think?"

"The royal finances are in danger. If the King's personal spending isn't brought under control, the crown will be bankrupt within two years."

"I know. But the King won't listen."

"I can help with that."

"How?"

"With [Common Sense Alteration], I can adjust the ministers' attitudes. Push them to speak frankly to His Majesty."

Elena's eyes narrowed. She knew it was a dangerous proposition. And yet...

"...I'll think about it."

One step forward.

It's a funny thing. Under the noble pretext of saving the kingdom, I'm threading a leash through that same kingdom's skull. The justification is so fucking airtight it only deepens the nausea.

The fifth night.

The moment the door closed, Elena kissed me first.

"Tonight, I set the terms."

She named what she wanted and when to stop, in her own words. I followed her lead, confirming her answers at every step. But at the moment her emotions shook hardest, I let the [Common Sense Alteration] I had planned seep in — so faint it was barely a whisper.

'A relationship with Do-hyun is a choice I need, as Queen.'

A single sentence, hidden in the space between pleasure and relief, to justify her judgment. I had not used my power over minds to alter her body's state or to pry anything out of it. The viler part was this: I had secretly slipped in one reason for Elena to believe the choice was her own.

After some time, Elena drew breath in my arms.

"Come morning, I won't regret this."

"That's right."

"I may call for you again tomorrow night. But every single time, I will be the one to decide anew."

"Understood."

There was no clean way to split whether those words were sincerity or the fruit of my ability. Into the space where [Common Sense Alteration] had lowered her resistance, repeated comfort and dependence were already pouring. Even as I became her medicine and her solace, I was the very author of that blurred line.

Would calling her my lover make the sin any lighter? No. Only the name softens; the chain I've fastened around her stays exactly as it is.

The next morning, as I stepped out of the Queen's chambers—

—I ran into her in the corridor.

Princess Lisette. Elena's daughter. Nineteen. Golden hair, violet eyes. A younger edition of Elena — only sharper. Eyes that had inherited the father's blade instead of the mother's softness.

"Court mage."

"Your Highness."

"You're up early."

"For Her Majesty's sleep therapy—"

"I know."

You know? Know what?

Lisette's violet eyes swept over me. Top to bottom. Then back up again.

...Fuck. My cock is reacting in front of the princess. I come walking out of her mother's arms, and one look from the daughter has my stomach tightening. Crush it. Keep the face in check. If she catches on, it's over, you pathetic wreck.

"Mother's expression has changed lately, you know."

"..."

"Brighter, should I say? It's the first expression I've seen on her face in three years."

"The sleep therapy seems to be working."

"Sleep therapy."

Lisette smiled. A meaningful smile.

"I suppose so. Your 'sleep therapy.'"

I could hear the quotation marks. Not as metaphor — the pronunciation itself carried them, plain as day.

"I'll take my leave, Your Highness."

"Do-hyun."

She called my name. Not the title. My name.

"Whoever it is that makes my mother happy... thank you."

Then she passed me by, the long train of her gown whispering across the corridor floor.

Nineteen.

A princess.

She's noticed her mother's change. And... gratitude, not hostility.

Interesting.

But dangerous. The more Lisette comes to know, the sharper it cuts. She could denounce me to the King. She could try to use me.

...No — I need [Memory Reading]. I have to see inside this princess's head. But we share too few points of contact yet. I'll have to manufacture a natural opening.

Fucking wonderful. A life where one word of thanks sends ice down my spine. It's been a long time since I became someone who can trust no one. And who's to blame for that? I'm the one making the world this way.

I sorted through my thoughts on the walk back to my room.

Queen Elena... secured. She had begun to depend on me — physically, emotionally, politically. And now her womb besides. A woman who, on her dangerous day, had begged me with her own mouth to finish inside her.

The three concubines... first stage of [Common Sense Alteration] complete. The dismantling of their blind loyalty to the King, begun.

...But the first stage is not completion. By my own count, they had only taken a first step. The hold was weak. A fixation ritual was needed — on the second visit.

So last night I had set appointments with all three concubines. Separate visits, before dawn today. Under the pretense of a 'tattoo ritual.'

Two in the morning. Lianne's room.

Lianne was waiting in her nightgown. Her eyes were red. The traces of crying.

"...Master Do-hyun."

"Lianne. We're here for the tattoo ritual."

"Yes."

"As I explained yesterday, this is an official rite, conducted under Her Majesty the Queen's approval."

A lie — but I had secured Elena's tacit consent. In substance, it came close to the truth.

Lianne nodded. With the first stage of [Common Sense Alteration] still active, there was hardly a flicker of doubt in her.

From my coat I drew out a rune-tattooing kit: magic ink, a rune needle, three small silver rings. Far finer instruments than the rune pen I'd once used on Irene. Unlike the tattoos of Earth, an otherworld tattoo is engraved permanently in magic ink, its placement and size bent to the caster's will.

"I'll mark them on your chest. Upper half of the breasts — hidden completely under everyday clothing... yet bare to the last detail the moment you're in bed."

Lianne swallowed.

"The nipples too?"

"The nipples get piercings. Silver rings — small and light. Nipple piercings deliver a constant, subtle stimulation that raises sensitivity. One for each breast. A matched set with the tattoos."

"...All of it?"

"All of it."

Lianne's eyes wavered. Eight years as the King's concubine. A permanent mark on the body was one of the royal house's taboos; a concubine was meant to remain a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠'recyclable resource.' Marked, she could never remarry. Cast out by the crown, she would have nowhere on earth to go.

And yet here was Lianne... accepting that taboo of her own accord. [Common Sense Alteration] had reframed her revulsion as a 'badge of freedom.'

...A badge of freedom. Nonsense I invented — but when the one wearing it believes it, nonsense becomes truth. Fuck. One sentence, and a human mind cleaves apart like this.

"...Please do it."

Lianne pulled her nightgown down herself, from the shoulders. Her collarbone emerged, then her breasts. Small but well-shaped B-cups. Eight years without the King ever once tending them had left them, ironically, close to virginal. Pink nipples, standing at attention the instant the cold air touched them.

"What design will you engrave?"

"Two runes — one set two centimeters above each breast. And between them, a small inscription."

"An inscription?"

"'This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun.' Read it aloud for me."

Lianne drew one slow breath... and recited.

"This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun."

Injection delivered: the mark upon the chest is proof of ownership, and this woman is Kang Do-hyun's. That definition nailed itself into the architecture of Lianne's self.

The rune needle touched skin, above her left breast. Every time the ink seeped in, a small bloom of heat.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Lianne held her breath — "Ngh... ngh..." The pain was faint; the magic ink numbed part of the nerve's voice. But not all of it. Each strike left behind a hot shiver, something uncomfortably close to pleasure.

Left breast, done.

Right breast. Same size, same runes. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Right, done.

Then the center of her cleavage. A small line of cursive: 'This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun.' A single line.

"...That's finished. Now the piercings."

Lianne closed her eyes. Tense. The piercing needle was thicker than the rune needle.

Left nipple. The needle went through.

"Hnngh!"

Lianne's body locked rigid — pain braided with a stimulation she had never once known. The instant of piercing lit up every nerve bundle in the nipple at once. The tiny gem at the end of the silver ring caught the moonlight and flashed.

Right nipple. The same process.

"Ah...!"

Two silver rings now hung from Lianne's nipples. The subtle stimulation began the moment they settled. Every movement of her body let the rings' weight tug at them — a pleasure trigger that never switched off.

"...Done."

Lianne looked in the mirror. Two runes above her breasts. One line of script in her cleavage. Silver rings through both nipples. Her chest now unmistakably marked as something owned.

"...It's pretty."

Lianne laughed, small and surprised. The shock and confusion on her face faded, little by little, into acceptance. Eight years as a concubine, and for the first time in her life — the sensation that her body had an owner.

The piercings' stimulation proved itself immediately. Lianne's breathing grew ragged. Even with her clothes back on, the rings brushed against fabric — and the circuit that translated that brush into pleasure wired itself on the spot.

"Master Do-hyun."

"Yes."

"I'm not His Majesty's property anymore. Your name is branded into my body now."

"Yes."

"I'm... yours, Master Do-hyun."

Injection complete. Acceptance surged to just shy of stage five.

...Eight years of one woman's life, rewritten by two marks on her skin. How fucking light it all is. If she'd collapse this easily, what in God's name had the King been doing for eight years? No — I'm the one who aimed for that vacancy. I don't get to curse anyone.

Three in the morning. Sophia's room. The same ritual.

Sophia was twenty-two. Younger and simpler than Lianne, her eyes sparkling bright and curious through the whole procedure.

"This won't ever come off?"

"It's a permanent tattoo."

"For my whole life?"

"Your whole life."

"The piercings don't come out either?"

"Silver rings. Locking ornaments. Lianne herself keeps the key."

"...I like that even better."

Sophia laughed — the easy laugh of a woman with little left to lose.

Sophia's chest was a C-cup: voluminous and springy, fitting for twenty-two, her nipples on the redder side. Through the engraving she reacted far more than Lianne, gasping "Ah!" at every strike of the needle.

"Sophia. Recite the inscription."

"'This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun.'"

Then the nipple piercings. Two silver rings through reddened flesh — and Sophia instantly clamped her thighs together, the weight tugging at her nipples shooting a current straight down into her hips.

"Ha... this... it stays like this?"

"Even in everyday life. Every time you move."

"...Shit."

A twenty-two-year-old concubine, swearing out loud. Words she could never utter before the King — and now they slipped out of her without her even noticing.

Sophia's acceptance climbed fast as well. The piercings' stimulation accelerated her settlement rate.

...That people with nothing to lose break easiest — I already know that far too well. Because I was one of those bastards once, too.

Four in the morning. Mireille's room. The third.

Mireille was twenty-eight. The oldest of the three, and the cleverest. Before the needle touched her, she had questions.

"Master Do-hyun. I'll ask you honestly."

"Please."

"Why your initials, Master Do-hyun? Not the King's. And why the chest? The collarbone or the arm would be far easier to hide."

A sharp question. I gave the answer I had prepared.

"His Majesty's mark is already registered, officially, for all three of you — on the marriage documents, the certificates of status, the palace registries, every last record. There is no need to engrave that onto your bodies. It already exists, in the official light of day. This tattoo... engraves the 'protector' who exists in no official record. The one who filled the three years His Majesty ignored. The only unofficial protector Mireille is free to choose."

"And the reason for the chest?"

"Two reasons. First: a chest tattoo is concealed beneath clothing yet entirely visible in bed — a dual-space design, invisible to the King, visible only to her true protector. Second: nipple piercings are a constant stimulant. Your body remembers even when your mind doesn't. The sensation stays in your flesh from morning to night. That is what I want. A structure in which Mireille's body remembers my existence, twenty-four hours a day."

It was sophistry. But there was a logic to it. Mireille paused for a beat — then nodded.

"...You're meticulous."

"If you dislike it, I can stop."

"No. Truthfully, that meticulousness is what makes me trust you."

Trust, earned through meticulousness. ...What a crooked fucking kind of faith. The more intricately a lie is woven, the more it resembles sincerity — an old truth among con men. And right now, the con man is me.

Mireille untied her nightgown herself. D-cup. A mature twenty-eight-year-old chest — the largest of the three concubines, and the most sensitive.

"Shall we begin?"

"Yes. And I'll recite the inscription first."

Mireille recited it before I could prompt her.

"This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun."

Then the tattooing. Two runes onto a twenty-eight-year-old woman's chest. One line of script across her cleavage.

The piercing stage. Mireille drew a deep breath and gave her consent. The moment the needle went through, she exhaled long and low — "Uuh... oh, my..." Twenty-eight, and her body answered that much more maturely; the conversion into pleasure was instantaneous.

"So this... really is constant stimulation."

"It is."

"I think I'll like it."

Mireille's acceptance was the highest of the three. A woman whose intellect absorbed quickly, layered with the pleasure amplification of a mature constitution.

When the tattoos and piercings were finished in all three rooms, I walked the corridor and added it up.

All three concubines: chest tattoos, nipple piercings, complete. In ordinary dress the tattoos vanish entirely — but the silver rings can trace their outline through thin silk. Exposure risk: low, not zero. At an official royal function, a sharp-eyed noble could sense it.

Let these three appear at a palace ceremony... and a few nobles would begin to whisper that the concubines' chest lines looked strange. Councillors would query the Queen. The Queen would brush it aside as 'the concubines' private ornaments.' The King would never know. He no longer visits their rooms.

And then the decisive moment. If the King, after a long absence, ever visited a concubine's room again... the instant her nightgown came off, he would find it. His own name branded across his concubine's chest, and the silver rings beneath it. The tattoo endures; the ornaments can be removed, each woman holding her own key. Whether they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stay is for the three of them to decide.

And what the concubine would answer in that moment — I had already hammered into place with [Common Sense Alteration].

"This body belongs to Kang Do-hyun."

All three concubines. The same sentence. Before the King. Without flinching.

I had prepared for the possibility of the King raging and ordering executions. But I had planted no self-harm commands in the three women's minds. That is not protection — that is hostage-taking.

Instead, with Elena's approval, I put into writing: escape procedures for each woman to reach the Queen's residence by separate routes; a protocol for sending records of abuse to the council and to their natal families simultaneously; and a principle, formalized in documents, that none of the three would ever meet the King alone. Each of them read the contents and signed with her own hand.

If the King touched one of them, three sets of evidence would open at once. Execution would become impossible — and so would a quiet, private removal. There was no official deed of transfer. But their lives no longer hung from the King's whim alone.

...Political safeguards: installed. The further Kalandel reaches, the faster his own record of abuse swings open first.

Fuck. The man who drafted all of this at four in the morning, needle in hand over three women's chests, is the same bastard who once couldn't scrape together a single line of his doctoral thesis in Korea. Everything goes so goddamn smoothly. Only ever in the business of breaking people.

Princess Lisette... a variable. Enemy or ally ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— undetermined.

Kalandel... marked for removal. But no hand may touch him directly.

The puzzle pieces were coming together.

Elena was addicted.

To my cock. To twenty-six centimeters of physical stimulation.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

To my suggestions. To the cognitive manipulation of [Common Sense Alteration].

To my existence. To the emotional dependence of being the only person who filled three years of her emptiness.

And to my seed. Taking it into the deepest part of her womb on her dangerous day, then begging me for more every single night — the Queen's body, a field whose owner has changed hands.

Cock. Suggestion. Presence. Seed.

Four layers of chain.

The Queen is mine. And whose the royal line's next seed will be — that, too, is already mine.

Time to play the next move.

The turn has come to bring down the King.

...The Queen is bitch number seven. I still can't quite grasp it — an entire otherworld kingdom, folded into a single line on the list inside my head. She took my seed on her dangerous day, so perhaps that list won't stop at the Queen; perhaps it will soak through the royal bloodline itself. Back in Korea, this would earn not handcuffs but international sanctions. But here, nobody knows. And that's the most fucked-up part of all — that the crime doesn't even look like a crime.

Just then, three precise knocks sounded from beyond my door.

On the seal the chamberlain held out, the King's name was stamped.