Chapter 43
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: Contract Written in Blood (3)
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Thud.
Dane took a step forward to close in on him.
'A little closer.'
Kevin shuffled backward on his butt, feigning terror.
"Please... just spare my life. Just my life..."
He crept back like that, shrinking away,
thud.
deliberately pressing himself against the wall.
"Gasp!"
He acted startled, as if his escape was cut off. Luring the overconfident Dane in to finish him off.
"P-Please...!"
Thud.
Finally, one last step remained. Just as he waited for Dane to take that final stride.
Whoosh!
Dane's hand seized Kevin's chin. Far faster than Kevin could react.
"-!"
The grip was so ironclad he couldn't budge his jaw an inch.
"You're up to something amusing."
Dane's lips curled into a cruel smirk,
shhk.
and he pressed a dagger to Kevin's mouth.
"Mmph! Mmgh!"
Kevin realized what Dane intended. He thrashed with all his might, but it was futile.
Crack!
The dagger in Dane's hand smashed mercilessly into Kevin's jaw.
"Gaaahhh!"
A horrific pain exploded through Kevin, as if his jaw were being gnawed by dozens, hundreds of awls. His mind went blank, white-hot, unable to think.
Splat! Splaaat!
The unrelenting violence hammered down like a pestle into a mortar, until Kevin's jaw hung limp and powerless.
"Grgh! Grraaagh!"
Instinctively, people grit their teeth against agony. But with his jaw completely numb, even that was impossible.
"Grraaagh!"
All Kevin could do was curl up on the floor and wail in torment.
Drip, drip.
Blood poured from his shattered jaw. The gruesome sensation of something that should be attached to his face dangling loose nearly drove him mad.
"Grgh, grraa..."
Tears streamed down Kevin's face as his body trembled uncontrollably. Amid the flashing pain, a question surged up.
'How...'
Dane knew his last resort. Otherwise, he wouldn't have targeted the jawbone first.
"Grk, ugh..."
Lifting his blurred eyes, Kevin saw Dane staring down impassively, as if peering into his soul. He asked,
"Wondering how I knew?"
Tap, tap.
Dane tapped his own jaw with his fingers—precisely where the molars were.
"Helena told me."
"Gr...?"
"You implant poison capsules in the kids' molars, right? As a show of loyalty."
Kevin pieced together fragmented thoughts with effort.
'Helena? How? Did he torture her?'
He'd lost too much blood; his vision spun wildly. Thinking straight was impossible.
Shhk.
To make matters worse, Dane gripped one of Kevin's shoulders.
"Grk... graaagh!"
Unlike his earlier groveling act, this time Kevin desperately wanted to beg for real.
"......"
Dane's gaze lingered on him like a butcher pondering which cut of meat to carve. That was why it terrified him so.
If Dane had exuded killing intent, it wouldn't have been this frightening. He'd have proudly bared his neck, faced death with stoic calm.
But.
'Please, please...!'
Dane didn't seem the type to grant a clean death. The uncertainty of what horrors awaited was pure terror.
"Graaagh! Ughhh!"
No matter how Kevin bowed his head and pleaded with desperate eyes,
"Can't make out what you're saying."
Dane replied indifferently.
His expression was one of boredom, as if this were routine—like washing his face in the morning or eating at mealtime.
It was impossible not to feel utterly insignificant before him.
"I've got a reward for you."
Dane muttered something cryptic, then
slash!
sliced mercilessly into the muscle below Kevin's shoulder.
"Graaaagh!"
Kevin's eyes bulged as if they'd pop out. Not just from the pain.
Thud.
His arm was still attached, yet it felt alien, no longer his own.
"--!"
Kevin flailed, but Dane's grip on his shoulder didn't budge. The cruel other hand severed the remaining shoulder.
"Grk, ugh..."
Kevin's two arms flopped limply to the floor. No matter how he tried, he couldn't move them.
'Damn it all!'
He realized too late what Dane had done. He'd rendered Kevin's arms useless.
There was only one purpose for such an act.
'What... are you planning to do to me...'
Even without this, Kevin would have spilled everything if questioned. Dane was the type who killed assassins without digging into their backs, wasn't he?
He couldn't understand why do this now.
That was when it happened.
Bang!
The director's office door flew open violently. Kevin's eyes widened as he reflexively turned toward it.
"...Director."
A pale-faced Helena stood there.
'Thank God, she's alive!'
Joy and relief surged. Helena, her golden hair disheveled, looked like an angel descended from heaven.
"How...!"
Helena grimaced at Kevin's state.
'Yes, my sweet girl. That's right.'
Color returned to Kevin's face. Hope bloomed that his loyal servant and cherished daughter had come to save him.
And as he'd hoped,
thwack!
Helena charged straight at them—him and Dane. Kevin joyfully followed her trajectory.
But he didn't see what he'd expected: Helena lunging at Dane.
Crack!
Instead, the last sight was Helena's knee smashing into his face.
Crash!
Kevin tumbled backward, blood spraying from his nose.
"Wow, how."
Her voice dropped casually from behind, along with the impact to his back.
"Did you carve him up so neatly?"
Kevin writhed on the floor. Rage boiled at Helena's words.
'You crazy bitch...!'
Unable to push up with his arms, he strained his neck to look ahead.
"Pfft!"
Helena was laughing at him. Or was it crying? Her expression was twisted—lips curled, eyes glistening. But her cheeks brimmed with cruel delight.
"Look at that face. I want to cherish it forever."
Helena beamed with eyes that seemed ready to burst into tears. A face Kevin had never seen while raising her.
'How could you...'
He wanted to curse her, but
"Grgh...!"
Only meaningless groans escaped.
'Ungrateful wretch! After all I did for you!'
He felt something wet trickle from his throbbing nose. Unable to wipe it without arms, Kevin glared at Helena with bloodshot eyes.
"Director, why are you so mad?"
Even under Kevin's blazing glare, Helena remained composed.
"I didn't do it. The new master did."
Whether because Kevin was neutralized, or because an even stronger man stood nearby.
Either way, it choked Kevin with fury.
"Eek, Master. I'm scared. Look at those eyes."
As Helena pretended to cry, Dane twirled his bloodied dagger and replied,
"Don't lie."
"No fooling you."
Their exchange hinted at some prior agreement.
'That... bitch!'
Helena grinned at Kevin's widened eyes.
"Hurts that your precious daughter betrayed you?"
"......"
Kevin could only tremble—physically and emotionally unable to respond.
He didn't know how Helena had survived, but she'd clearly sided with Dane.
Obvious, wasn't it? Spread her legs as ordered and won his favor, no doubt.
"Bet you're thinking right now: How could my daughter betray me? Ungrateful after I raised her. Right?"
Helena's words pierced Kevin's heart exactly. Instead of showing it, he just glared.
"Spot on?"
Helena smiled brightly, then
"What father sleeps with his daughter?"
intoned chillingly, her face transformed.
Killing intent radiated from her, chilling Kevin's spine.
The girl who, no matter how wildly she acted, had always been under his thumb—perfectly submissive—now loomed over him. While he writhed on the floor, bereft of both arms.
Nothing could be more humiliating.
"Still think you're 'our' master?"
Helena's mocking words snapped Kevin alert.
Whip.
He twisted his head to the door, and
"......!"
saw the children clustered there.
Castor, always at his side; the ones he'd painstakingly trained with effort and expense.
"......"
They stared at him. No urgency to save their father in those eyes.
Dozens of gazes gleefully watched his downfall.
"So pathetic."
"Yeah. Looks like a doll with its arms cut off."
"Our doll now."
The children murmured as they entered, surrounding Kevin.
"Cry. Go on, cry."
"Bet he knows it hurts now."
"Plenty left to cut. Where to start?"
"I want the legs."
If they failed training, he'd whipped them; only success earned food and sleep. Raising them that way, Kevin had felt no guilt.
Pathetic lives begging on streets anyway.
He'd taken them in, shaped them into something useful—they should be grateful, he'd thought.
Now that karma boomeranged back at him.
"Helena, can we?"
"Ask the new master."
Their voices echoed dully in his ears.
"Grgh..."
Despair flooded Kevin's eyes.
He could do nothing. A wretched sense that his world had utterly ended consumed him.