Atonement, About it’s Cruelty - Chapter 19

He poured a precious drug, worth hundreds of thousands of kerte per drop, into her mouth, where he wanted his tongue. Then, to prevent her from spitting it out, he covered her mouth with his hand. Although Seo-ah’s movements became more rebellious, it only seemed to intensify his excitement.

“Uhh, uhp, hup.”

“Just hold on a bit, okay? You’ll start to feel better.”

He gently caressed Seo-ah’s struggling legs.

“Did you bite me?”

Although Seo-ah’s bite made him grimace, the man grinned and suddenly slapped her cheek.

Slap!

“If you bite me again, you’ll be punished. No harm should be done, right?”

As he examined her flushed cheek, he idly toyed with her rounded ear and whispered.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?”

Seo-ah desperately exhaled.

The whisper that traveled through her ear seemed almost more maddening than her fading consciousness. Everything felt distant, as if she were falling into a bottomless pit with no end in sight. The certainty that everything would turn to nothingness if she fell into that abyss grew stronger.

She wished she had followed that man back then.

Even though fear was suffocating, she thought she should have followed him.

If anyone could pull her out of this hell, even if it was the devil, it would be worth it.

It was the same feeling she had when she was looking for the devil in the midst of hell.

She thought she heard a long exhale and smelled the acrid scent of tobacco. The movement of the person who had bound her also stopped with the scent of cigarettes lingering in the air.

Through her desperately clinging vision, she saw him abruptly turn his head.

Even in her dazed state, Seo-ah also turned her eyes to the direction the man was looking at. Even though she couldn’t turn her head, she rolled her eyes desperately. Her slow moving vision went from the ceiling to the door.

The dark room.

At the entrance of the room that she had expected to be a paradise was in fact an abyss. There was a man.

Even in her dazed state, Seo-ah recognized him immediately.

A man shaped by darkness.

The end of his cigarette glowed red with embers. That faint light was the only source of illumination in the darkness.

She hoped this was not an illusion.

The moment she fervently wished for the acrid, red light to be real, he spoke, his voice as flat and low as if he were simply asking a casual question.

“Do you want more?”

His voice was monotonous, as if the violence unfolding in this darkness were nothing significant.

“If you want more, I can wait a bit.”

He appeared nonchalant about her dire situation, as if it were trivial.

Seo-ah had no choice but to cling desperately to him.

Please help me.

She could not produce a sound. No, she didn’t even know if she could or couldn’t. All she could do was plead with her entire being.

Please help me.

She could only hope that her silent plea would reach him.

Please…. please don’t leave me like this.

Unfathomable situations sometimes lead to mistakes in proper cognitive judgment.

The one who had been fervently preparing to ‘train’ Seo-ah should have thought more deeply about who the man was who suddenly appeared at the door and how he had gotten in. Or perhaps he should have realized that the chill creeping up his spine was a warning from his instincts.

“If you want more, I can wait a bit.”

He should have properly understood that there was no self-awareness in the strange words thrown by the man

“Sir, are you sure you’ve come to the right room?”

The gaze that had been fixed on Seo-ah finally shifted. The cigarette’s end glowed red again. The man, deeply inhaling the smoke, exhaled with his words.

“Leave.”

The unnervingly calm demeanor sent a shiver down his spine. He inadvertently glanced around, hoping to see something reassuring. Fortunately, no one but the man was present.

The man’s sudden appearance and the eerie manner of his entry were unsettling, but he had been too excited to notice. The guards outside… well, they must have briefly left their posts.

They should have returned by now.

“You seem to have come to the wrong room.”

“……”

“The person who’s in the wrong room should leave, don’t you think?”

It was a moment when the voice was intentionally raised loud enough to be heard from outside.

The man who had been leaning against the door suddenly straightened up as if it were a lie. In the blink of an eye, he swiftly grabbed the man on top of Seo-ah by the back of his head.

Only after his neck was sharply tilted backward did his blue eyes come into view.

“None of you can understand a damn thing.”

Oscar let out a derisive chuckle and dragged the man out of the room. He forced the man’s knees to the floor, pinning his thighs, and shoved a cigarette into his mouth, forcing it down the man’s throat as he tried to scream.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, as smoothly and naturally as flowing water.

“Uuuuhp, uhpuhp!”

The man tried to open his mouth to scream from the agonizing pain on his tongue, but the pressure on his jaw prevented him from doing so. The force on his thighs and the grip on his head and jaw were overwhelming. His free hand flailed desperately but to no avail.

He felt like a bug trapped underfoot.

“Uuuu, huuuu…”

It felt as though his tongue was melting. The horrific stench of his own burning flesh made every second feel like an eternity. The blue-eyed devil gave no chance for mercy, merely watching with a chillingly indifferent gaze.

How much time had passed? Oscar’s gaze finally shifted away from the man.

Where his gaze stopped, the brothel owner, quietly dragged by the wolves, was standing in the middle of the hellish scene, staring blankly at the silent chaos.

“Uh…”

Oscar dusted off his hands and straightened up, having easily subdued the grown man. Now freed, the man began to crawl towards the brother owner with a beastly growl. Even after turning one man into a beast, Oscar seemed unchanged from the moment he first entered the mansion.

“You’re here?”