Leisure Time (17)
After locating an abandoned factory with no one around, I extended my tentacles to their full length and stood them upright like antennas. I closed my eyes quietly and focused, directing every sense to the tips of those tentacles. Fortunately, there were no signs of people nearby—not even a single animal.
“Then shall we settle for this place?”
The business venture that had begun at Seo-hee unnie’s request. To launch the first phase of the plan, I had sought out a quiet space far from prying eyes. I brushed the dust from a steel remnant with my hand and sat down. All that remained was to wait for the two of them, so I allowed myself a small breather.
I pulled out my phone, sent unnie the location, and slipped it back into my pocket.
“Looking at it now, it really is funny…”
I pressed a hand to my forehead, thinking. Every memory, every speech pattern, every part of the life inside this head belonged to the original human—Lee Chae-yun. For an ordinary twenty-year-old college freshman to suddenly be doing something like a drug dealer was, in a way, utterly terrifying. Each time I did something the old me in those memories would never have done, I felt a contradictory sensation ripple through my mind. But now I was growing used to even that.
I am me, yet I am no longer myself. This feeling of snatching an entire life and claiming it as my own—I could easily become addicted to it.
“…Haa…♡”
I wrapped both arms around my small frame, steadying the body that trembled with ecstasy. It still wasn’t the time for this. The longer I spent alone in the early dawn, the more my thoughts chained together and branched off in countless directions without my permission.
Artificial moonlight mixed with darkness sliced through the gaps in the factory’s dilapidated ceiling, piercing the gloom inside and stabbing at my eyes.
“…”
From the dark sky came the sound of an airplane, like the cry of a whale, echoing in my ears. The human society we had witnessed in the Root’s Memory and the modern world were as different as heaven and earth. Unlike the era of our ancestors, when raw power was everything, the meaning of power for survival had changed completely.
So we had to change too. If we wanted to survive in this age.
The Root’s King story that Seo-hee unnie and I had jokingly tossed back and forth. It wasn’t the first time the idea had occurred to me. The day I obtained this body called Lee Chae-yun, the day I first met Chan-woo oppa, spoke with him, and kissed him. Recalling that exact moment, I gently stroked my lips, remembering the warmth I had felt for the first time after gaining a human body—the warmth of lips that had overlapped with his.
When I first kissed him and tasted Chan-woo oppa’s saliva, the only thought in my head was that I had gotten lucky. I had simply thought he seemed like a good man, felt something pulling me toward him, and approached. Never imagining he was a human carrying ancient human DNA.
At the time I had been satisfied with simply finding a male suitable for reproduction, but that thinking changed the moment I first tasted oppa’s semen. I hadn’t shown any reaction to him, but I had been utterly shocked. A genetic structure like this? What was it? There was nothing like it in my memories.
The instant I tasted and swallowed it, I felt my cells spreading through a body I had not yet grown accustomed to. After that I discovered my traits far faster than expected and used them to brainwash Seo-rin.
Remembering that moment, I drew a small tentacle from my mouth and let it wriggle before my eyes.
Anyway, that was when I began to wonder. Perhaps the human called Im Chan-woo was the Root’s King—or at least something very close to it. It made sense. Oppa’s genes accelerated our evolution at an astonishing rate. No matter how suitable for reproduction a male might be, causing our evolution to occur should have been impossible.
“…But I still can’t be sure.”
The Root’s King tale was an extremely limited story. The woman who met the king lived happily ever after. It was the kind of common fairy tale where details about the king himself remained vague. There was no simple account of the king granting us evolution, so all I could do was make inferences like this.
“…Really, oppa might actually be…”
I sighed and continued organizing the information in my head. That was when the factory door, which had been tightly shut, began to open with a sharp metallic screech.
We would have to think about this together later. I stood, brushed the dust from my backside, and walked toward the opening door. Two familiar silhouettes appeared, along with three or four women dangling in the air.
“Welcome,” I greeted them warmly.
“I knocked them out with anesthetic poison. They’ll wake up soon.”
“You always make me do the dirty work.”
Seo-hee unnie pulled back her hood and fanned the sweat running down her cheeks, trying to dry it. She walked past me and sat on the same rebar I had occupied earlier, breathing hard. Meanwhile Nabi, who was creating a bizarre scene with people suspended by her hair, spoke grumpily. She carefully lowered the sleeping women onto the dusty floor and shoved her hands into her pockets.
“Both of you worked hard. But why is unnie panting so much?”
“Because I carried them all the way down the mountain on my back.”
“I offered to carry them, but Nabi said it would draw attention…”
While Nabi spoke in a small, hesitant voice and kept glancing at unnie, I approached the collapsed women and examined each face one by one.
“Every single one has such a pretty face♡”
“You told me to bring women like that. So what are you going to do with them?”
“Put them to use, of course.”
I pulled a tentacle from my mouth and let it sway gently. Unnie nodded in understanding and gave me an OK sign with her hand instead of answering.
“Right, then. I’ll start with this one.”
Unlike during normal brainwashing, I extended only a single tentacle and slid it into the ear of the woman whose hair was dyed brilliant gold. I gave her brain a light caress.
“Kyaaak?! Wh-what…?”
The woman screamed and jolted awake from the direct stimulation to her brain.
“What are you doing? Wouldn’t it be easier while they’re still unconscious?”
I turned to unnie, who clearly didn’t understand my actions, and answered with a smile.
“Then I wouldn’t get to see their reactions♡”
The woman with long, wavy golden hair looked like the arrogant, high-maintenance type. Just as I had hoped, she immediately began to shout.
“…Who the hell are you people? Kidnappers?”
I smiled and nodded at the relatively composed woman. She grew even more arrogant.
“Do you know who I am? Are you after ransom? Fine. I’ll pay whatever you want, so untie me right now. If you do, I’ll tell my dad not to send you to prison.”
“…Hehe, your father must be someone important?”
“You don’t need to know that. Just untie me—!”
I slapped her cheek—made entirely of pride—with precisely controlled force.
“Kyaaak!!”
“This is exactly why girls with flower beds for brains never last. Don’t you agree?”
She still couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She looked around wildly, letting out a short groan at the pain in her cheek.
“…You—you—!”
“Kyahahaha!”
“…Hey, Lee Chae-yun. Take it easy and get on with it.”
“L-Lee Chae-yun?! I remember your name now. You’ll never see the outside world again for the rest of your life! Understand?!”
Her pathetic display made me burst out laughing. I clutched my stomach, unable to stop. Seo-hee unnie, unable to watch any longer, called out to restrain me. But the woman’s reaction only fueled my sadistic urges even more.
“Ahaha… It looks like you’ll be better off last.”
I left the cursing blonde where she was, grabbed the hair of the woman behind her, and hauled her upright. Then, right in front of the still-spitting blonde, I showed her a sight her common sense could never process.
“…You—what—?!”
Several long tentacles emerged from my mouth. I drove one into the head of the woman whose hair I held and gave her brain the same light stimulation I had used on the blonde. The second woman woke with a start. The moment her eyes opened, still hazy with sleep, she looked around trying to understand the situation.
“Wh-where…?”
I didn’t give her time to finish waking. I thrust numerous thin, long tentacles into both of her ears at once.
“Hiiit?!♡”
The woman who had stayed calm until now let out a high-pitched cry. Her face twisted with pleasure and pain as her body shook violently. She wasn’t the only one trembling. In front of her eyes, a woman she had never seen before was spewing tentacles from her mouth. The woman with tentacles buried in her skull was shuddering all over, wearing an indecent expression too obscene to show others, and had wet herself.
Continuing the brainwashing in front of the still-frozen blonde who had not yet processed the abnormal scene, I asked,
“How does it feel in there?”
“Aghk?!♡ Oh?♡ So gooood♡ So gooood♡”
I stroked every corner of her brain with the tentacles as though cleaning it thoroughly. The woman, already drowning in pleasure, no longer cared where she was.
“Unnie, you can release her now.”
“You really do have terrible hobbies…”
At my signal, Seo-hee unnie approached with her nails transformed into thin, sharp needles. She stabbed one into the neck of the woman whose brain I was still stirring and injected a blue liquid.
“Ohoooooh?!!♡ My head♡ My head is♡ sparkling, he, hehehe♡ Aghut?♡”
Her face was already a mess of tears, snot, and drool as she continued to babble nonsense.
“Does it feel good?”
“Yesh!♡ Feels good, hehe ahngut?!♡”
I gently massaged the ruined brain connected by my tentacle, completing the brainwashing.
“Then who is the one giving you this happy feeling?”
“Who?♡ Ahk?!♡ Chae, Chae-yun…?!♡ It’s Lee Chae-yun!!♡ Ahng♡”
I kept imprinting pleasure, the drug, and my name deep into her mind. The brain, made vulnerable by the substance, accepted the enormous flood of information I poured in. It was like the blank mind of a child.
“Good girl. Then as a reward I’ll make you feel even better.”
“Thank youuu♡ Ah♡”
I planted the fundamental suggestion that she would feel good every time she heard my command, driving it deep into her mind.
“Now do you know who I am?”
“Ah♡……Yes. Master…♡”
“That’s right. Good girl.”
I straightened out her irregularly flickering pupils and helped her mind settle back into place. She would be doing important work from now on; I couldn’t afford to turn her into a broken wreck.
Although she had regained some of her former composure, her eyes were damaged in some fundamental way. She looked up at me with flushed cheeks, not even caring that her pants were soaked with her own urine.
“Oh, right. I forgot to read her name. I’ll just call her ‘Toy No. 1’ that I created. Is that all right?”
“Yes!♡ Please call me whatever is convenient for you, Master. I am Master’s Toy No. 1♡”
Toy No. 1 smiled like a puppy enjoying her owner’s touch as I stroked her hair, an ecstatic expression on her face. In complete contrast, the blonde woman had gone pale.
“Ah, aah…”
All her earlier arrogance had vanished. Now she stared at me with tear-filled eyes full of terror.
“Then now…”
“Hiiik?!”
I licked her face with a tentacle.
“Shall we make Toy No. 2?♡”