A Far-Off View of My Hometown (2)
I leaned against the wall, one soldier’s cock filling my mouth as I serviced him with careful devotion. My hands braced against the stone, body stretched forward in a posture that looked almost like supplication.
Behind me, the second soldier gripped my hips and drove his own length into my most intimate place, stirring me with greedy thrusts. He held my entire lower body, lifting me just enough that my toes barely scraped the ground.
My feet kicked helplessly in the air while waves of ecstasy washed over me. I writhed and shuddered as the cold spring night wind brushed across our heated skin, offering the slightest relief.
“Oh… damn. Heh, I didn’t expect much from a girl who looks so young, but you’re pretty good at this. And that scent of yours—sweet and savory. Really nice.”
“Ehehe… mmmph, haa… hah, hihaha… ngh… please… more…”
I had worked for over half a year, yet most of the memories of servicing men had been erased when I rewound time. My actual experience and technique were far poorer than the length of time might suggest. I should not have been able to satisfy a man properly.
“Later… ugh, let’s switch. Her back side feels incredible too…”
Yet somehow my body earned high praise among the customers. Even without selling my virginity at an inflated price, I could still give a man the same satisfaction he might receive from an experienced whore. These soldiers seemed to share that opinion.
It wasn’t strange. More than half the men who had used me in that basement had taken my lower holes as well, and my toothless, perfectly safe mouth had been flooded with semen every single day.
It had been horrific, painful beyond measure. Still, to my shame, my body remembered exactly how good it felt to be broken and violated that way by a man.
It remembered how to roll my hips to excite him, how to use my tongue and throat.
Blindfolded, left hand bound, all other limbs gone, every natural tooth pulled, drugged until reason itself had been erased—I had been reduced to a beast, dignity shattered, treated as nothing more than a living onahole that moved on instinct.
At first I despaired, convinced I had reached the absolute bottom.
But even the strongest emotions eventually fade. In the end I was thrown into a swamp of apathy, emptiness, and crushing boredom.
I counted the number of customers each day. All I craved was stimulation—pain or pleasure, it didn’t matter. Anything that could pull me out of that lifeless tedium.
If I had not forced myself to write in Kaira’s Secret Diary every single day, if I had not clung to those memories and chosen to turn back time anyway… perhaps I would be living a little more like a real human being now.
“Huuuugh?! Hah, ahh… so, so good… Karin… I’m, I’m coming again… haaah?!”
Even as both holes were taken at once and most of my mind retreated into unconsciousness, a small, shrunken fragment of reason still clung to the corner of my heart. It gave them a false name so it would not be caught.
A filthy climax surged forward like a dark wave that threatened to burn my brain away.
In this filthy back alley, selling my body to worthless soldiers who had abandoned their posts for pocket change, I came without fail.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say I took pleasure in the very situation itself—the knowledge that I had fallen so low I would spread my legs for coins.
“Wow… Miss, you look so young. How long have you been doing this to get this good?”
I answered naturally, adding together the days I had been locked beneath Mittenburg.
“A… about a year… or so.”
Noticing the soldier who had been using my mouth looked slightly disappointed, I deliberately stammered like a shy girl and made an offer.
“Um… would you two… like to switch now?”
Men always fell for this kind of temptation.
“I… I won’t charge extra.”
It wasn’t a lie. Crushed beneath pleasure and despair until my reason had been ground to powder, money meant nothing to me now.
But my pathetic seduction did not work. The two soldiers exchanged glances, then scratched the backs of their heads with awkward smiles.
“Tempting, I’ll admit. I’d love to keep going, but…”
“We’ve been gone too long already. Both of us at the same time is pushing it.”
“I see…”
I let my disappointment show plainly as I sank to the ground. During the short time they had each spilled their seed, I had climaxed countless times; my waist and legs had no strength left.
“Well, thanks for tonight, miss. Take care of yourself.”
“If fate allows, let’s meet again.”
They each pulled a few small coins from their pockets and pressed them into my limp hand as I sat there dazed. It had only been a verbal promise made to a wandering whore with no pimp or bouncer; they could easily have walked away without paying.
They aren’t bad people, I suppose. Even if they did abandon their posts without hesitation.
I opened my palm. The amount was exactly what they had said. Far less than what I received at the brothel—barely enough to buy a single pair of shoes.
Still, it was more than the crude sandals I had been wearing. If I traded it for cheap bread and drinks, it might last three or four days.
Since no pimp would take this money, in a way it was better than what I earned inside the brothel.
I tried to stand, but my legs gave out and I collapsed again.
“Arun…”
He was dead. That had been the last sight of him.
I should have turned time back for him.
Everything… is gone.
Only then did the sobs tear out of me. I covered my mouth so no one living in the alley or the guards who had just been my customers would hear.
I had watched my father die before my eyes. My mother had vanished without a trace. The shop and house where I spent my childhood were both lost. Yet the hometown itself had remained.
I had thought that once people forgot the name Kaira, once they no longer remembered me as either hero or murderer, I could return to these market streets and walk them slowly.
I would watch the housewives buying evening meals, the children fighting with wooden swords in the alleys, the energetic merchants calling out, the wagons loaded with goods passing by.
Now even that was impossible.
Arun, my childhood friend who had shown me sympathy and pity even after imprisoning and raping me, was dead. He had been the last thread connecting me to this place.
Many of the people who once ran shops in the same neighborhood must have died as well.
And now soldiers like these blocked every path leading into our village.
Since people could no longer come and go freely even in the marketplace, those who had survived the plague would struggle to find a way to live. They would be forced into poverty or exile.
Had the witch—had I—really brought this strange disease from outside, just as the soldiers claimed? Or had the plague broken out by chance while I was here? I would never know the truth. But one thing was certain.
The place I could return to had disappeared forever.
I sat there crying for several minutes, perhaps even hours. Then a thought occurred to me. Perhaps… perhaps I could still turn it back.
I pressed my hand to the ground. I focused desperately, trying to feel as if the cold stones of the dark alley beneath my palm were the entire village.
Then I screamed inside my heart.
“Rewind… go back…!!!”
⟨ Time Reversal ⟩
Nothing happened.
I had felt it—the unnatural sensation of a change that defied the laws of the world. But instinct told me the truth: only the few paving stones directly beneath my hand had been affected.
So it really is useless…
It had been a ridiculous fantasy from the start. No matter how powerful this ability was, turning an entire village back to its former time was a miracle that could never occur.
After the pointless attempt, I staggered to my feet using the wall for support. Only then did I realize.
I lost the sandals…
I had planned to rewind their time and wear them home. But after luring the soldiers into the alley I must have set them down somewhere and forgotten.
I searched the area briefly, but finding anything in a lightless alley was impossible. I wasn’t even sure this was the exact spot where I had taken them off.
I could not use magic. If anyone saw a wandering prostitute casting spells, suspicion would be instant. I let out a long sigh and began the slow walk back to the banquet hall barefoot.
When I crossed the bridge, the two soldiers recognized me and called out their farewells. I waved weakly and turned away.
I reached the building being used as the banquet hall, stubbing my toes on the uneven stones, but the hall was silent. I looked at the sky. In early spring with its cold winds, that constellation meant…
It’s already close to midnight.
I searched for the carriage that might have waited for me, but it was nowhere to be seen.
It wasn’t surprising. The “colleagues” at the brothel who hated me had no reason to wait.
I looked around. There were no passersby to ask for help or directions. It was far too late for that.
I had been truly abandoned.
The night wind slipped between the shawl that did nothing but brand me as a whore and the thin chemise deliberately cut to arouse men.
It’s cold…
With that thought, I began to walk slowly. I felt every cold, hard edge of the paving stones against my soft soles.
Finding the way was not difficult. The sky was clear enough to see the stars, and I had walked this road once before. But that time I had worn sturdy boots suitable for travel. Now I had nothing to protect my feet.
I wanted to run in fear of the punishment the pimp would give me for being late, yet I could not even manage a normal stride. Every grain of sand, every pebble stabbed my untrained, delicate skin.
Each time a sharp stone cracked a toenail, each time I stubbed my toe on a poorly leveled edge, I had to stop and sit for a moment to soothe the pain.
It was too dark to see clearly, but I knew my feet were covered in cuts and bruises.
Once I wrote in the diary and rewound time, but after only a few steps I returned to the same injured state, so I gave up on using it. The longer I walked, the more exhausted and pained I became; my steps grew slower and slower.
By the time dawn broke and people began to fill the streets, I still had not reached the brothel.
A prostitute wearing only a whore’s shawl and a single cheap chemise, body streaked with dried semen like snail trails, walking barefoot with a vacant expression—I drew many stares even from people hurrying through their morning routines.
None of them spoke to me. No one offered help. Thankfully, no one openly blocked my path with clear ill intent.
But many pointed, mocked, and teased me from a distance.
Only one or two soldiers who appeared to be returning from night duty approached me directly. Not to help, but to demand in arrogant tones where I belonged.
They could not resist the chance to wield the tiny authority given to them as guards. How badly they must have wanted to see a lost whore answer in a trembling, frightened voice.
Exhausted from walking all night without sleep, feet raw and blistered, I finally reached Arto’s brothel long after the sun had risen above the walls.
I pushed the door open with my whole body.
Alber was cleaning the first-floor tavern now that the morning guests had all left. He turned at the sound of the door. I clung to the frame to keep myself upright and offered him a weak smile.
Alber’s eyes widened in surprise. He hurried toward me. The tension that had been holding me together finally broke, and my body collapsed.
My memory cut off there.