Chapter 54
#053
1.
Besides Arbel, who doubled as both diffuser and emotional-support cushion, we’d gained a new addition!
It was none other than the bunny-girl version of Jjapjo.
“Boksun, come here!”
“…I shall decline.”
“Oh? You’re mouthing off again.”
“…….”
Shion approached in a shuffling daze, like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse.
“...I, I... am not Boksuni. Shion Tsukimiya, the one and only Crimson Moon... a Jinjo....”
“Nope, your name’s Boksun from now on.”
I’d swiped something Geumriga treasured.
Under those circumstances, I couldn’t carelessly call them Shion, Jinjo, or Jjapjo.
“They say birds hear what you say at night.”
“Then why... of all things... that name...?”
“What, you want me to change it? Then I’ll make it Bokdori?”
“…….”
Shion clamped their mouth shut, tears welling in their eyes.
Ha, that’s so satisfying.
In web novels, there’s always that trend of ‘the boss goes completely insane and abuses power without realizing he won the lottery,’ so I used to wonder what the fun was in reading stuff like that... but.
This was it!!!
The delicious essence of power-reversal abuse!!!
So this is what I’d been missing for not having worked office life!!!
“Boksun, give your master’s shoulders a massage.”
“Are you telling this servant to wait on a man!”
“Yeah.”
“To treat this servant like this. Are you not even afraid? Show some respect, human...!”
Unable to hold it in, Shion put both hands on the waist and stamped a heel.
Ha, he still needed more training.
“Hey.”
As soon as I turned serious, Shion’s fingertips twitched in surprise.
“Damn, this feels lousy. Who asked for that kind of service? I said massage my shoulders. Is that so hard?”
“…….”
Biting their lip and trembling, Shion finally placed those tiny hands on my shoulders.
“When I... sniff! get my strength back... then I’ll really... you bastard... nghhh...”
“Silence!”
“………………sniff.”
Seeing it like this, I finally understood why cat bastards were always top-tier pets.
Inner beauty? That was useless for anything. You couldn’t see it.
In the end, this world was all about looks.
If something was cute to look at, it was hard to truly hate it.
In fact, if you were quick on the uptake, you could point this out.
No, in the last loop Jjapjo bolted the moment he got the chance, so why is he stubbornly enduring it while wearing a bunny-girl outfit this time?
Last time, sure, he settled down because I catered to him, but now shouldn’t he be fleeing the instant I leave?
Did he use some kind of hypnosis app?
That’s a fair point.
To explain that,
we need to go back about five hours.
2.
After going through several loops, I’d become confident in my own strength.
I could feel it even just by walking the streets for five minutes.
Necropolis was, by nature, a city of savagery.
Each citizen’s instinct to despise the weak was truly animalistic.
What I mean is, back when I’d just entered Necropolis and was walking the streets, right?
I could feel eyes raking over me nonstop.
The neighbors’ gazes kept following me, as if they were wondering what loot would drop if they stabbed this bastard in the side.
But now, there isn’t a single soul who’d dare throw such insolent looks at me on the street.
If anything, they look away when our eyes meet.
A seasoned, self-assured air naturally leaking out of me even without me going around saying, ‘Please beat me up.’
That aura had grown strong enough to work like mosquito repellent.
I had enough confidence to handle Jjapjo.
-Fwoosh!
“Don’t die.”
A newly acquired technique this time around.
I was about to unleash the black flames blooming from my fingertips at Shion... but hurriedly changed direction.
“...What are you doing?”
That was because Shion, who I’d expected to counterattack, was crouched down with both hands over his head.
Even his eyes were squeezed shut.
“L-let’s talk, let’s talk it out... human...”
“…….”
Wait, even Rank-0 Jjapjo is still a Jinjo at the end of the day, right?
He was this damn useless?
I asked the Jinjo, who was sneakily peeking out with narrowed eyes, in a snide tone.
“What magic can you use?”
“Ill... illusion magic.... And a little blood-flow alchemy. So please, stop the violence...”
“Blood-flow alchemy? Show me.”
Tiny bead-sized droplets of blood gathered at the tips of the Jinjo’s fingers and shot off into the air.
I watched blankly as the BB-sized spray vanished into the dark.
There wasn’t even an explosion or anything.
“That’s it?”
“As if that were all there is to it...!”
“Lie to me and you’re dead.”
“For now, this is all I have in terms of combat power...”
That had really almost screwed me over.
If I’d used Silence without thinking, that would’ve been the end of the loop right there.
Once I clearly realized that fact,
“Wow, Cedric really lost his touch.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
So the only magic he could use was the ‘Jinjo Fear’ he’d shown in the last loop.
That blood-spraying trick that could barely tear at the tip of an ear? Was that really all there was to it?
So it really was nothing but a bluffing gimmick?
I actually fell for that bullshit and went that far?
“Hey, you. Come here.”
“D-don’t bully me...! This servant is... the one and only Crimson Moon... Shion Tsukimiya.... Y-you should show respect!”
As I strode over, Shion shrank in on himself and made bizarre noises.
His two hands over his head were trembling spasmodically.
“Damn it, seriously...”
What was with this wimpy act?
I hadn’t even flicked him on the forehead once.
At that moment, a passage flashed through my mind.
<Case 61. █ year █ month █ day.>
Subjugation order and submission procedures carried out. Subject was uncooperative with every command. Resisted even the torture procedure. Died of cardiac arrest and cerebral hemorrhage ██ days later.
<Case 66. █ year █ month █ day.>
The subject who witnessed the experimenter displayed an extreme fear-and-hatred response. Confirmed that Case 65’s personality and memories remained in the subject. Reset failed. Disposed of.
<Case 82. █ year █ month █ day.>
Memory erasure procedure carried out beforehand. However, after factor injection, the subject’s consciousness information was overlaid, and “memory continuity” was observed. The doll is presumed to inherit memories the moment it receives the factor.
“...Uu, I hate pain.... I-I’ll behave, so... please stop the pain...”
“No... no, dammit.”
This is really fucked.
This made me look like the bad guy.
Was this my fault?
When the bluff worked, Jjapjo had been sucking me dry to the bone, and now that it’s been exposed, he’s immediately trying to play the sympathy card?
As if I’d fall for that.
“Hey, is the world really this easy on you? Pretending to be pitiful and that’s the end of it? This is Necropolis, you bitch.”
Of course I’m taking it all back with interest.
I actually had a good idea.
“Alright, I won’t make it hurt.”
“Truly...?”
“Take it off.”
“…W-what did you say...”
“I said take it off.”
The red eyes were drenched with shame and fear.
But in the end, he lowered his head as if resigned.
“T-this servant’s first time... in a place like this...”
As Shion shed the restraint suit, tears falling like beads...
“Now put this on.”
I handed over the bunny-girl outfit I’d just procured for Shion.
A little while later.
The rustling stopped, and Shion crept out hesitantly.
A tight pink suit that clung to his body. Fishnet stockings squeezing his thighs, and even a headband with twitching rabbit ears.
“Kya! I knew it’d be cute!”
The quality is seriously insane!
“T-this shameful outfit...! Who do you think I am!!!”
“Wow, your resilience is off the charts.”
Shion protested furiously as if all that crying had been a lie.
Anyway, from there I explained the rough situation and started sharing information.
“They’re after you over at Geumriga, and Twilight Resource Development is after you too. Originally, the two of them were keeping you locked up while planning to really rough you up, you know? But I sneaked you out.”
“Is that truly so...?”
“If you don’t believe me, go ahead and run now. You’ll be a lab rat again.”
As if the trauma had resurfaced, Shion held his breath.
“Th-then... what am I supposed to do...?”
“I’ll raise you.”
“Raise...?”
“I’ll feed you, put a roof over your head, clothe you, all of it.”
Shion rolled his eyes anxiously before asking,
“W-what do you... want from this servant?”
.
.
.
Rewind time once more to the present.
“C-could you... let me lick just a little more?”
“Oh, look at that tone.”
“Ngh... ngh...!”
I gave the pitifully clingy Shion a quick flick on the forehead.
Even while shuddering, Shion didn’t run and looked up at me with imploring eyes.
“What do you say when you’re asking for a favor?”
“Khh...!”
“Say it.”
“M-Master... please let me lick just a little more...”
“Good.”
I slowly held out my fingertip...
As if he’d never had any pride to begin with, he carefully wrapped my finger in both hands.
“Haaah...”
And then he stuck out his tongue and licked the wounded fingertip with little sucking sounds.
“Slurp... chup... chuu...”
A soft, warm sensation.
Shion drank my blood like a cat licking up churu.
Why had I been scared of this pathetic thing in the first place?
Looking at him again, I couldn’t find even a speck of dignity.
So this is why first impressions matter.
“Stop.”
If he kept licking like that, he’d get anemia.
Just as I tried to pull my finger away,
“Sluuurp! Sluuurp!!!”
Shion followed my finger as he kept sucking on it.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! This bitch is at it again!”
Anyway, as you can see, the negotiations were successful.
I guarantee Shion’s safety, food, clothing, and shelter.
The contract terms were that Shion would handle making Arbel a familiar, robot vacuuming, bunny-girl stand duty, massage-chair duty, emotional-support cushion duty, and emotional trash-can duty.
There was, however, one crucial point that still hadn’t been settled.
<Can create a familiar by bypassing the host body’s ██, but confirmed that the process rapidly consumes the subject’s vitality.>
This one.
In the previous loop, I’d only seen it in the documents, so I was still half-guessing.
So if Jjapjo creates a familiar, it drains vitality?
Got it.
So what happens when the vitality runs out?
According to him...
‘If I create a familiar in this state, this servant will die anyway...!’
...That’s what he said.
What Twilight Resource Development had tried to develop to compensate for that was the “Hongok” (紅玉).
In simple terms, it was an external battery for vitality.
With that, Jjapjo could create familiars without dying.
“But they were developing that Hongok when the project got scrapped, right?”
“This servant understood it that way. That is why this servant also fell into a long sleep.”
In that case, it was basically a dead end.
There was no way I could make Hongok, which Twilight Resource Development had given up on.
In the end, I’d have to get Shion to give up their own life and go through with the familiarization...
“Boksun, why don’t you just shut your eyes and die for me?”
“Hiiyaaaah!!!”
I guess I wouldn’t do it either if I were in Shion’s place.
No.
If it were me, I’d turn into a ghoul and die hurling shit everywhere anyway.
Which meant threats, coercion, and force were meaningless for getting cooperation.
“Hmm...”
“P-please don’t abandon this servant. I’m very useful.”
As I stared at him, Shion kept sneaking looks to gauge my mood.
Of course I had no intention of throwing him away.
It’s not some ‘if you pick up a cat, raise it to the end’ mindset.
Jjapjo’s power alone wasn’t enough to turn Arbel into a familiar, but without Shion, we couldn’t even get started, could we?
If I had the help of a life-system mage, I might be able to find a breakthrough.
But here was the problem.
The moment I told someone else about Jjapjo, a risk would arise.
It might easily make my intended ‘DIY familiarization to save Arbel’ meaningless.
I had no choice but to find someone with a very, very tight mouth, and who wouldn’t be marked by either Twilight Resource Development or Overnus Pharmaceuticals.
And I’d already been thinking about exactly that.
.
.
.
By my reckoning, it had been a while since I’d visited Isis’s clinic on Aquarium Street.
-Bang bang bang!
“Lady Isis! Please open the door!”
“Business hours are over.”
“What on earth are your business hours?”
“From 14:00 to 17:00.”
“What the... a French bank?”
Today as well, Isis appeared beyond the iron door through the peephole, her face as dour as ever.
She says that, but she usually opens the door pretty readily, doesn’t she?
“I have an emergency patient. And I brought money.”
“Come in.”
True to her money-goblin nature, Isis opened the door as soon as she saw the jingling money pouch.
“What hurts?”
“They say their stomach hurts.”
Without the slightest suspicion, she palpated the abdomen of the patient with the hood pulled down over their head.
Just as planned.
“……!!!!”
Her eyes went wide as lanterns.
She snapped her head around and glared at me, the guardian.
“You... what did you bring here?”
See? I knew it.
Isis is a mage specializing in life magic.
A woman who makes me wonder why she’s working as a quack doctor.
Even if she’s a money ghoul, her skill is absolutely the real deal.
And more than anything, remember the information I’d confirmed before?
‘Quack doctor Isis has a strict rule that she never divulges patient information.’
[‘Isis Yozora’ is telling the truth]
[「Truth Coin Toss」 remaining uses (2/3)]
If I handled this well, she might become the key to clearing this premium route.