Establishing a Dual Relationship (1)
In the dim inn room, the ragged breathing finally subsided on the creaking wooden bed. After the beastly coupling in the alleyway, I hoisted the unconscious Elara onto my back and hurried into a lodging in the commercial district. I paid several days' lodging in advance, secured the room, then sank deep into a chair and stared blankly at the ceiling while rubbing my dry face.
'……How the hell did it come to this?'
Back on Earth, I'd been an ordinary office worker. The kind of petty citizen who glanced around nervously even when tossing trash on the street. Yet barely a month after falling into this insane Shedborax Continent, I'd already slit a man's throat and now dragged a Silver-rank female adventurer into an inn room like a kidnapping victim, laying her on the bed.
But there was no time to dwell on regret or guilt. The die had already been cast. This woman had tasted the energy of my Ogre Tattoo. If I released her ambiguously, her pleasure addiction might flare up again and turn the town into rubble—or she might expose the secret of my tattoos.
'I have to control her. Make her completely subservient to me.'
I frantically rummaged through the clichés from fantasy web novels and comics I'd devoured on my smartphone before bed back on Earth. The ruthless ruler with no blood or tears. The techniques of a trainer who breaks someone through pleasure and fear until they become the perfect loyal hound. Yes, to survive at the bottom of this other world, I had no choice but to play the part of such a merciless villain.
"Mmm……"
Before long, rustling sounds came from the bed. Elara opened her eyes with a furrowed brow. I quickly straightened my posture in the chair, crossing my legs and resting my chin on interlaced hands, trying my best to wear a cold, arrogant expression. But without any talent for martial arts or mana manipulation, it was a fatal mistake.
I had been suppressing the savage aura constantly emanating from the Ogre Tattoo, but the sudden change in posture and tension caused my shaky control to slip for an instant.
Woong-!
In that moment of unintended release, the overwhelming virility and violent scent of the forest ruler burst forth like a dam breaking, pressing heavily down on the entire room.
"Hik……! Ah, aah……"
Elara's shoulders trembled violently as she tried to sit up. It wasn't simple fear. The moment she was exposed defenselessly to the dense tattoo energy, her lower abdomen heated reflexively and a gush of arousal fluid spilled between her thighs.
I cheered inwardly. 'It worked. Fear and imprinting really are the best.'
While sweating inside, I slowly approached her on the outside, roughly gripping her trembling chin, and spat out the most ruthless, villainous line I could think of.
"Got a grasp of the situation? Your body has already become a bitch in heat that can't last a single day without my energy. Who was it that picked you up when you were rummaging through trash heaps looking for an ogre's cock? Answer me."
"……"
"Submit completely under me. Throw that pathetic pride and your Silver-rank thief status into the trash. You'll only receive pleasure when I allow it, and move only as I command—like the perfect tool. If you rebel…… I'll leave you to wither and die without ever tasting this energy again."
I was drenched in cold sweat inside. 'Shit, was that line too cringey? What if it doesn't work?'
But outwardly I maintained a perfect poker face, looking down at her coldly. Elara, chin still gripped, gazed up at me with large eyes.
In truth, Elara's inner thoughts were flowing in a completely different direction from my shallow calculations. The moment she had mingled roughly with Mokwon in the alley and received his dense energy deep into her womb, that energy had been less a "cure" and more a far more terrible and potent "drug." The orgy hallucinations planted by the ogre and the maddening withdrawal of stimulation vanished as if washed away. Or rather, they were perfectly overwritten by Mokwon's even denser, heavier energy, rewiring her brain's nerves to respond only to this man.
Thanks to that, the rampaging madness had subsided and the gears of her collapsed reason had begun turning again, yet she remained in a bizarre state of dependency where her body heated first at the mere scent of Mokwon.
'……An inn room?'
With her mind now clear, Elara was flustered. Every memory of what she had done with Mokwon in the alley came rushing back vividly. Just as despair threatened to surge, the ogre's scent pricked her nose. But it was different in texture from the beast's horrific stench. Still held by the chin, Elara quietly observed Mokwon looking down at her.
The scrawny outsider who had guided them out of the forest after saving Silas. Yet now this man was sweating coldly down his spine, forcing strength into his jaw, and reciting third-rate villain lines. Real villains on the Shedborax Continent didn't spout such lengthy explanatory speeches. They simply severed limbs or chained necks and got started.
'This man…… what is he? He's trying so hard to train me, but his energy flow is a mess and his fingertips are trembling slightly.'
Elara instinctively realized it. This man was not a monster evil to the bone. He was merely a clumsy human desperately trying to act like a villain while forcing out thorns. But without his energy, she would lose her mind again. Having coldly calculated reality, she concluded that staying by this man's side—the only one who would keep her—was the most rational way to survive rather than becoming a burden to her master Silas.
'Besides…… the way he's clumsily trying to control me while pretending to be a villain isn't so bad.'
Unlike the horrific violence of a true monster, Mokwon's forced domination gave her a strange sense of stability. Having made her decision, Elara began her perfect performance as a "fallen slave." She rubbed her cheek against the hand gripping her chin and looked up at him with large, moist eyes.
"Aah…… Y-yes, Master."
"P-please don't abandon me…… Without Master's energy, my body feels like it's going strange. I'll do anything, so please…… give me more of that scent…… that pleasure……"
"Uh, uh? Y-yeah, sure."
When Elara submitted far faster and more perfectly than expected, rubbing her thighs together, it was actually Mokwon—the one playing the villain—who panicked and visibly rolled his eyes.
"Ahem! G-good. I'll test just how obedient you are, so get down under the bed right now and prostrate yourself."
Suppressing laughter inside, Elara obediently climbed down from the bed and lay prone. She had decided to play along with this clumsy training act for the sake of her own safety.
On the fifth day since staying at the inn, Mokwon—firmly believing Elara had been tamed into a "perfect slave"—took out the old parchment scroll he had received from Silas.
"Elara. Come here."
"Yes, Master. Did you call for me?"
Elara, now changed into neat casual clothes, approached lightly and bowed her head.
"This is the 'Shadow Steps' manual your former master Silas passed to me. There's a bit of a…… gap between what I understand with my head and what my body can actually do. Since you're a thief, teach me the basics of this footwork directly."
The moment Elara saw the old manual in Mokwon's hands, her eyes widened slightly. She couldn't possibly not recognize it as something that had been in her master's possession. She realized the unspoken request her master had made by deliberately giving such a valuable manual to this man: 'Help Elara if she's in trouble.' A corner of her chest grew heavy. At the same time, a small feeling of gratitude bloomed toward this clumsy master who, despite his roughness, had ultimately kept her by his side.
"……Understood, Master. Shadow Steps isn't simply about moving your feet quickly. It's a tricky technique that requires riding the flow of mana and shifting your weight nimbly. I'll demonstrate, so would you like to try following along?"
The two stepped out into the empty lot behind the inn. Elara took a light breath, then slid across to the opposite side of the lot in an instant without a single footstep, as if walking on air. Her movements were hazy and agile, like a trembling shadow. The essence of a Silver-rank thief.
"Now it's your turn, Master. Concentrate mana in your lower dantian and think of shifting your weight starting from your toes!"
"……Hmph, techniques are nothing. Before overwhelming power, they're just petty tricks. Watch."
Mokwon screamed inwardly. 'Please, just succeed once! This is so embarrassing!'
He exhaled shortly and stepped onto the ground. 'Concentrate mana in the lower dantian, shift weight.' The formula was perfectly understood in his head. The problem was his body. Because the Ogre Tattoo was in a constant state of activation, his stats had abnormally surged, and with zero talent for martial arts, the very method of circulating mana through his blood vessels was as clogged as a broken sewer.
"Hup, go-!"
Mokwon kicked off the ground hard. Thud-! Unable to handle mana and relying only on brute force, his center of gravity completely collapsed and his body spun wildly in the air. He fell straight down, face-planting into the mud and rolling over.
"M-Master! A-are you alright?!"
Elara rushed over in shock. Covered in mud, Mokwon sniffled blood from his nose and got up.
"No, why did my feet get tangled! Ah……"
He bit his lip hard, suppressing the rising anger. Even to himself, it was an inexcusably stupid movement. His face burned with shame and frustration, but to maintain the "villain's dignity," he silently brushed the mud off his clothes.
'Fuck…… the mana isn't reaching my toes and is scattering in my calves. What good are raw stats if I can't control them?'
Mokwon chewed on his irritation while resenting his pathetic talent. He steadied his ragged breathing and silently trudged back to the starting line without a word. Instead of quitting out of wounded pride, the sight of him quietly correcting his foot placement to fix the mana circulation he had been pointed out was rather earnest.
Watching him, Elara bit her lip to hold back laughter that threatened to burst out. The overwhelming predator who had been coldly acting as her trainer just moments ago was gone. In his place was only an awkward man who couldn't even control his own body. He was desperately trying to act like a villain with all his might, but at his core he was just a human who didn't even know the basics of martial arts and was burning up inside alone.
'Haa…… He really is a master who needs a lot of looking after.'
This clumsy master had a side to him that made her want to tease him again and again. But at the same time, that strange sincerity—refusing to give up even while covered in mud—tickled a corner of Elara's heart. She let out a pleasant sigh and approached him.
"Come, Master. I'll fix your foot placement again. This way, please."
Before long, the heavy tension of the master-servant relationship had vanished, replaced by the tearful footwork training of strict instructor Elara and her mud-covered, talentless disciple Mokwon filling the backyard. Within Shedborax's cold food chain, the bizarre cohabitation of a selfish modern man and a fallen otherworlder was settling into a far more pleasant orbit than expected.