Torn Mouths
"I'll teach you that running your mouth can get it torn apart."
My icy warning made the chuckling mercenaries' jaws clamp shut.
"What? Has this pebble-rank bastard gone insane!"
The five furious Iron-rank mercenaries kicked the table aside and drew their weapons. A faint aura, typical of their rank, began to shimmer hazily along the edges of their swords and axe blades. According to Elara, inside the guild you could beat someone half to death without consequence as long as you didn't kill them; the victim was simply too weak, and no one would bat an eye.
I watched them raise their weapons with a blank expression.
Deep beneath my skin, the blood-red Ogre tattoo began to writhe with heat. I discarded any conventional technique of drawing mana from my lower dantian. Instead, I focused solely on the Ogre's explosive strength and a grip powerful enough to crush ankle bones, condensing it all at the tips of both feet.
Elara Style - Shadow Step.
Crack!
The instant I stomped the floor for propulsion, a spiderweb of cracks exploded in every direction.
"This crazy fucker wants to die—!"
The biggest one, a scarred bald mercenary, swung his heavy iron mace horizontally at my skull. The sickening whoosh of metal slicing air. Yet my mind stayed terrifyingly cold. I instinctively unleashed the bizarre, violent footwork I had learned from Elara.
Using nothing but the tendons in my ankles and the Ogre's overwhelming power, I wrenched my forward momentum into a near-right-angle turn.
Crunch!
My right ankle bone screamed as the joint twisted in a direction no human body should endure. The agony lasted only a tenth of a second. The Ogre's monstrous durability and the damage-absorption effect of my substitute doll restored the shattered bone and torn ligaments instantly.
"Huh...?!"
The bald man's eyes bulged in shock. The moment his mace cut through empty space and slammed uselessly into the floor, I vanished from his sight as if a frame had been skipped, then reappeared like lightning in the perfect blind spot inside his massive guard.
My right fist, loaded with the full condensed power of the Ogre, punched straight into his solar plexus like a cannonball.
BOOOOOOM!!!
His thick steel-reinforced breastplate crumpled like wet paper. The following crack of ribs shattering rolled through the lobby like thunder. The hulking brute—who had to weigh at least a hundred kilograms—flew dozens of meters and smashed into the guild's quest board, reducing both himself and the board to splinters.
"C-Captain! This insane tin-can bastard!!"
In the blink of an eye, the remaining four Iron-ranks encircled me and charged from every side.
Clang!
The sword that slipped behind me hacked down at my shoulder. The blade tore my shirt and bounced off my bare skin in a spray of sparks. There was no chance such cheap aura could cut through a body passively armored by the Ogre's thick hide.
"What the hell is this skin... Hic?!"
The panicked man's eyes met my cold stare. Without even glancing back, I reached out with my left hand, seized the wrist holding the sword, and squeezed.
Crack!
"Aaaaaargh—my wrist!!"
Using the sound of his bones being pulverized as my soundtrack, I yanked his arm forward to serve as a shield and drove a knee straight into the face of the man charging from the front. Facial bones caved in. Teeth scattered through the air. While blood sprayed down like rain, I stomped the knee joints of the last two men, forcing them to the floor.
The entire fight had lasted less than a minute.
The five beasts who had been spewing vulgar insults about a Silver-rank whore moments earlier were now crawling across the lobby floor with shattered limbs, drenched in blood, and groaning in agony. The adventurers stood frozen, overwhelmed by the surreal slaughter playing out before them, not even daring to breathe.
I shook the blood off my fist and walked toward the scarred bald man.
The tattoo on my chest pulsed hotly, feeding the Ogre's savage instincts. The blind urge to keep crushing flesh and bone, to drown myself in blood. Ever since receiving the tattoo, those instincts had been growing closer to the Ogre's own, gnawing away at my thin patience. The ordinary Korean service worker who had lived twenty-eight years on Earth felt his reason recoil in nausea at the horrific sensation.
Yet I rationalized the brutality as a cold calculation for survival and desperately held onto my sanity.
If I leave these bastards with all their limbs, they'll definitely gather some back-alley trash to stab me in the back. On this continent, half-hearted mercy only turns into a poisoned arrow in my own spine. The feeling of being eroded by the Ogre's nature is disgusting, but... this is absolutely necessary if I want to survive in Shedborax.
"D-Don't kill us... Murder is forbidden inside the village...!"
"I'm not killing you. You said not to cut off their limbs, just smash their jaws. I'm simply following your own rules."
I planted my foot on his thick elbow joint, shifted my weight, and ground down.
Crunch—Thud!!
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!"
The bone bent at an unnatural angle as white marrow burst through the flesh. I didn't stop. I mercilessly stomped the arm joints of the other four men crawling on the ground, turning them into perfect cripples who wouldn't be able to lift a spoon for a long time.
"Haa... Haa..."
In the center of the scream-filled lobby, Elara approached with light, graceful steps. Her gait carried the sticky heat of a bitch in heat, aroused by the scent of blood and my violent energy. But this was a public place with countless eyes watching. She suppressed the wetness tightening her thighs and wore the cold, arrogant smile of a Silver-rank adventurer perfectly.
"Mokwon. Don't you think it's a shame to stop after just breaking their arms?"
Elara twisted her waist seductively and draped her arm over my shoulder. As if flaunting her position, she deliberately mixed casual speech in front of the crowd to dominate the room.
"I wonder where all that spirit went—the one that was barking about me with that clever tongue earlier. Come here. You still have your mouth left."
Elara licked her lips sensually and nodded toward her prey.
The warning I had given right before the fight—that speaking carelessly could get your mouth torn apart—was never an empty bluff. Fully aware of its meaning, I silently drew the butchering bone knife from my coat to keep my promise. The sinister serrated edge glinted in the torchlight of the lobby.
Shiiing—!
My merciless slash split the bald mercenary's right cheek cleanly all the way to his ear. With his jaw now dangling grotesquely, the man foamed at the mouth and fainted. None of the strong fighters in the guild lobby dared intervene in the horrific punishment being delivered by this deranged outsider and the bloodthirsty Silver-rank thief. We tore the mouths of the remaining four men—who were crawling in their own piss—in exactly the same way.
I wiped the blood from the bone knife onto their clothes and cast a cold gaze at the mercenaries who stood frozen, not even daring to breathe.
"If you ever feel like spreading rumors about my companion again, make sure you're prepared to have both arms broken and your mouth ripped open before you speak."
At my chilling declaration, Elara gave a satisfied smile, lightly kissed my blood-stained cheek, and tightly linked her arm with mine. Her soft breasts pressed wetly against my forearm, perfectly capping the overwhelming battle.
