Memories That Should Never Have Been Rewound (3)

The thirty-fifth day since Zophy kidnapped me.

The days of quiet existence—free from torture or drug injections, occasionally serviced by the desires of those who attended me—came to an end.

That day, a whole group of people I had never seen before entered the room. Unfamiliar faces.

At first I thought they might be here to make me entertain guests sexually, but I soon realized the truth. They wore the same robes I had seen every day with the hero’s party before they set out on their journey, and they carried those terrifying instruments that had become all too familiar. They were doctors.

The moment I saw them, I understood why Zophy, who had sworn to shatter my mind, had allowed me to recover slowly for over ten days. She had even fed me a little meat.

It had been a recovery period to build up my stamina. Major surgery required a certain level of physical strength, after all.

The kind of major surgery that involved amputating limbs.

“N-no… please… I beg you, please… don’t… don’t do it……”

I pleaded desperately.

In my previous life and in this one, doctors were people who saved lives. I couldn’t comprehend why such people would listen to that wicked woman and lay hands on a healthy body.

Had they been promised an enormous sum of money? Or were they being blackmailed?

Some of them wore indifferent expressions, others looked apologetic, but none of them stopped what they were doing.

The doctors forced a sturdy gag into my mouth.

“Mmph……”

It was to prevent me from breaking my teeth or biting my tongue. I desperately let out pitiful moans through the blocked opening—begging them to have mercy because I was so pitiful.

Then, suddenly, an important question occurred to me.

…Did this world even have anesthetics…?

The answer came in the very next moment.

“Hrrrk—?! Mmph!!!! Uuuuuurgh!!! Hh, mmmph!!!”

It felt as if my entire leg had been plunged into boiling lava. As if my twitching brain had been ripped out and thrown beneath a bolt of lightning. I convulsed violently under pain so horrific I couldn’t even faint.

My wrists, ankles, elbows, and knees—every movable joint—had been nailed down with iron restraints.

With a body that could barely move, I thrashed like a madwoman. No, I truly had gone insane. I even tried to rewind the fabric wrapped around my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands, but it was useless.

Terror-driven struggling quickly exhausted me.

Just as my movements began to weaken, a massive saw approached the broken bone. The moment my tear-blurred vision caught sight of that terrible cutting tool, I thrashed desperately once more.

Naturally, the struggle was completely futile.

“Hrrrk—?! Mmph!!!! U-uuuuurgh!!!!”

The saw, as thick as my thigh, tore through living flesh as if it were the most ordinary tool in the world.

From the amputated thigh, blood welled up in spurts wherever the saw passed, pulsing in time with every heartbeat.

The agony—feeling as though someone were clawing at the raw cross-section, stabbing it with a razor, searing it with fire—shattered my sanity into pieces.

The doctors wrapped a tourniquet around the upper part of my thigh with all their strength. The rough fabric bit into the soft flesh. It felt as if the bound section would snap off completely.

My leg… my leg… is… gone…

They carefully bandaged the stump, and one of the healing mages cast a spell to slow the bleeding.

I was forced to watch the entire process without losing consciousness.

“Ugh… hrrk, mmph, huu… mph…”

At first I had screamed and thrashed wildly, but now I had no strength left to move. My body had become nothing more than an empty shell that could no longer react properly to pain. Yet I still felt every ounce of it.

I just… want to break here. I don’t care if my soul, my will, my mind, my reason all disappear. I just want to vanish right here…

I should have realized that thinking such things was still a time of happiness. Because the very next moment, the hammer and chisel flew toward my right arm.

I wanted to faint, but unfortunately consciousness wasn’t like a light bulb that switched off the instant you flipped it. I had to endure the pain of my bones snapping inside living flesh once again.

“Huuuurgh—?! U-uuuuurgh!!! Hmph!!! Kk, uuuuurgh……!!!”

My left leg—now freed from restraint but shortened to a stump—twitched feebly. A small amount of blood that the tourniquet hadn’t fully stopped sprayed from the wound, splattering the doctors below.

They simply continued their work as if it were nothing.

“Hahh… hah-heh…… hueh, o-oh… ooo…”

With my mouth firmly gagged and my limbs being severed, I could no longer form human words. Through a throat that produced only broken sounds, I begged for my life in a daze.

The doctors, unable to understand my desperate pleas—or perhaps unwilling to stop even if they could—simply picked up the saw and continued the surgery.

“Hooooooock!!! U-uuuurgh!!!! Mmph!! Uuuuurgh!!!”

The right side of my vision turned crimson. Blood sprayed all the way to the wall as the chunk of meat that had once been my right arm fell with a wet thud onto the restraint. I stared at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my right leg, which would soon share the same fate as my left leg and right arm. My ankle and knee were tightly bound, so I could only wiggle my toes a little. This would be the last movement my leg ever made. With eyes that had long since run out of tears, I looked down at those faintly twitching toes and thought inside my head…

Ehet… hehehet… ahahahahahaha……

I laughed.

That was how I lost both legs and my right arm—inside pain so terrible that falling into hell would have felt like mercy.

Only after amputating my right arm and both legs did the doctors inject me with a powerful painkiller that came with severe side effects.

I didn’t even have the presence of mind to resent them for not using it from the beginning.

My consciousness, already shredded from enduring the surgery, could not withstand the drug. The moment the needle was withdrawn, it went out like a candle flame. That day, I could not manifest my diary.

The thirty-sixth day since Zophy kidnapped me.

Through a hazy mind still intoxicated by the heavy dose of drugs from yesterday, I saw the doctors again. I couldn’t tell whether they were the same ones as yesterday or different people.

I couldn’t even think that they might be here for follow-up care or to ease my pain.

The terror of doctors had been branded into my very bones. The moment I saw them, I thrashed about, pathetically flailing the blood-soaked tourniquets and bandaged stumps of my severed limbs.

“It hurts… it hurts… so much……”

In the end, I had been right. They had not come to do anything good.

“P-please… kill… me… heuk?!”

With a tongue twisted by the drugs, I somehow begged to be killed, but the doctors instead seemed pleased that my mouth was open. The moment I began to speak, they forced something into it.

It was not the cloth gag I had bitten during yesterday’s amputation. This one was harder, designed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to expose only the front teeth…

My instincts screamed a warning through my scattered mind. Something terrible was about to happen.

But there was nothing I could do.

I could only twitch the blunt stumps of my limbs—more than half severed, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages and tourniquets. I no longer had the strength to struggle.

“Ah, ah…… ah, haa, ah…… ah……!!”

The moment they began doing something to me, I thrashed my tongue uselessly in the air and let out hideous shrieks.

The reason was obvious.

It hurt unbearably.

The only mercy was that the remaining drugs still had some effect, and that this procedure was not as extreme as yesterday’s, which had brought me to the brink of death by shock.

That didn’t mean I could ever get used to the pain of permanently losing parts of my body.

That was how I lost all my teeth.

An absurd amount of blood poured from my mouth. They stuffed hemostatic cloth inside to stop it.

As I watched one of the healing mages cast a powerful hemostatic spell to forcibly slow the bleeding, I fainted again.

The thirty-seventh day since Zophy kidnapped me.

Today, nothing was done to me.

The only unusual thing was that the thin porridge I ate every day came out stone cold, without the slightest trace of warmth.

It was probably to avoid injuring my now-toothless gums. If they got burned and infected, I might actually die.

The porridge contained finely chopped meat. It tasted familiar—I had eaten it once before.

It was the same meat they had given me after my father stopped coming, to help me recover enough strength to endure the amputation surgery.

It was delicious.

Of course meat tasted good. No matter what kind of beast it came from.

While my broken, clouded mind frantically gulped down the porridge that someone poured down my throat, spilling half of it, I heard the familiar voice of the ducal servant who had looked after me just enough to keep me from dying—and who occasionally poured his lust into my body.

“For the time being, you’ll be able to eat meat. Eat and recover quickly. After a few more days, you won’t even be able to taste this kind of meat anymore.”

As he spoke, the expression with which he glanced at the porridge bowl was one of pity mixed with… faint disgust. Was it the kind of cheap meat that ordinary people wouldn’t eat?

“Th-thank… you……”

Even touching my tongue to my gums hurt, but I forced out the words of gratitude with broken pronunciation.

The reply that came back carried a very bitter smile.

“Thank me? It was yours from the beginning……”

I no longer had the mental strength to wonder what that meant. I simply gulped down the cold porridge.

It carried the faint scent of freshly baked bread in its aftertaste—the same aroma that had always lingered in my father’s shop when I was young. That cold porridge.

After the servant left the room, I moved my remaining left hand and manifested my diary. I wanted to remember the taste of that meat I could no longer chew properly.

The fortieth day since Zophy kidnapped me.

I felt a fresh breeze on my left hand, which had been lightly secured to the iron restraint. The fabric that had bound it was removed. There was no way they had done it out of consideration. I could guess why.

They were finally ready to use me.

It also meant I could now use magic with my left hand. Though the only thing I could use was my secret diary.

Until now I had been anxious, wondering whether the cloth wrapped around my left hand might have blocked magic, rendering all my previous records meaningless. From today onward, I could preserve my memories properly.

I spent the single day of rest I had been given with care, and right before falling asleep, I manifested my diary.

The forty-first day since Zophy kidnapped me.

Zophy came in person. It seemed she wanted to confirm with her own eyes that I was still alive and healthy. Though whether this state could be called healthy was questionable.

“You’ve endured so well, my very own hero.”

Zophy smiled lightly, seemingly satisfied with my condition.

“No matter how powerful our family is, there isn’t a single person who wouldn’t be shocked or disgusted at the sight of a delicate girl with all her limbs amputated and tightly bound. Even though I’ve done terrible things to you, I am at least aware of that much.”

She explained this in a boastful tone, then gestured to the servant.

“For the guests, for you, and most of all for me, I will cast the mental magic you’ve been honing on every visitor. Your left arm will appear as ‘a mysterious clock excavated from some ancient ruin,’ and your torso will look like ‘a healthy prostitute on a business trip.’ So you need not worry about that part.”

Zophy added with a smile.

“I’ll fine-tune the illusion so the prostitute’s face resembles yours as closely as possible. After all, I graduated at the top of my class as a mage. That much is easy. You probably already know this, but you have a pretty face, don’t you? You could have lived well selling your body. Don’t you agree, my cute hero Kaira? I’m sure the visitors will like you very much.”

…At the time, I didn’t understand why she was talking about a prostitute. Because the servant had injected me with drugs while she was speaking. The moment I felt the sting, my reason blurred and I couldn’t think deeply about anything.

In front of Zophy, I received my first customer.

Today and every day that followed, thick blindfolds were placed over my eyes and gags were forced deep into my throat whenever I received guests. So I never knew what the first customer looked like.

I rewound the time of something that touched my hand by twenty-five years, exactly as Zophy had ordered. It was probably a person… a woman, I think. Because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right after I rewound the time, I heard the bewildered voice of a young girl.

Through my drug-clouded mind, I barely managed to think. Perhaps she had returned some older woman close to Zophy to her youth.

From now on, this was probably the only thing I would be doing—and the only reason Zophy was keeping me alive.

To make me live as nothing more than a living clockwork spring that rewound time for whatever the customers desired, for as long as they desired.

Like a mere cog inside a clock, without any emotion… with all the intelligence needed to even recall such feelings stolen away by strange drugs. That was how my first day as a spring passed.

The forty-second day since Zophy kidnapped me.

I received three customers.

All three of them muttered something in bewildered voices after their time had been rewound. They spoke with people who seemed to be their companions. Probably talking about the decades of memories that had vanished.

Did people really want to turn back the clock of their bodies so badly that they were willing to pay with their memories?

Two of them raped me. As if savoring the youth they had regained. Only then did I understand why Zophy had mentioned the illusion of a prostitute on a business trip.

The forty-third day since Zophy kidnapped me.

I received six customers. I was raped by four of them.

The fifty-seventh day since Zophy kidnapped me.

I received twenty-two customers. I was raped by thirteen of them.

The one-hundred-and-thirty-second day since Zophy kidnapped me.

Suddenly, I remembered the day I had realized my period had stopped coming—a day I could no longer clearly recall how many days it had been since the kidnapping.

At first I had desperately tried to deny it. There was no way I could have gotten pregnant so easily. It must just be irregular periods caused by malnutrition and extreme stress.

But now I could no longer deny it. Even though I had barely been eating, my belly had swollen enough for anyone to notice.

My child… my little sibling… was still alive and hadn’t died, even though their mother was in this state.

Today, for the first time, milk began to flow. Thin, whitish breast milk trickled down over my pathetic body that had lost one arm and both legs.

It probably wasn’t only because I was pregnant. I hadn’t even given birth yet.

I had once heard that among long-starved prisoners of war, there were men whose hormone balance had collapsed so badly that they began to lactate.

Forced pregnancy, endless rape, daily drug injections, and a nutritional state so poor that thin porridge mixed with grain husks was all I received. The conditions were more than enough to cause hormonal abnormalities.

With vacant eyes, I stared at the pale streams of milk flowing down my ribs, which stood out sharply. And then I laughed like a fool.

“Ahaha…… hah, ahahahaha……”

That day, I received six customers.

Five of them were overjoyed to see milk coming from me. One of those five seemed to be a female customer.

As if they had all made a promise, every one of them greedily sucked at my breasts—which had barely swelled to begin with and were now little more than traces after all the starvation—licking up the flowing milk.

All five of them raped me. Before I had even rewound their time.