Chapter 156: I’m a native of this world
Rover went completely silent.
Everyone else had been scrambling to escape the Resentful Spirits, and these three had gone out of their way to hunt them down, then put them to work.
If he were the one who designed that game, he would have banned all three of these people on the spot.
Well, except they were all his Tenants, and if he banned them he would probably get caught up in it too. Fine. A few exploits. Just pretend he didn’t see anything.
"So..." Rover pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed. "You cleared the quest that easily?"
"Not exactly." Selina smiled. "It’s a rare chance to go out and have fun, so obviously we had to make the most of it. I came up with a new rule: if anyone managed to escape the Resentful Spirits for a full hour, I’d let them go free."
Rover: "..."
He glanced at Selina, thinking that this woman who had once been a star capable of shaking the entire entertainment industry to its core was nothing short of a demon.
Selina continued: "They believed it, of course. And of course, not a single person managed to escape. On the bus, I’d already quietly collected a strand of hair from everyone on board and had Monica hold onto them."
"Once the game started, Monica began casting curse energy on each of them."
Rover glanced over at Monica.
She pursed her lips and said: "I didn’t hit them with a full curse or anything. Just enough to make them a little unlucky. The main thing was that inside that space, the curse energy on their bodies worked like a signal flare in the middle of a pitch-black night."
"The Resentful Spirits could easily sniff out curse energy. No matter where anyone hid, the Spirits would find them. Because of that, only one person survived."
"Heh?! One survivor?" Rover frowned. "That person actually managed to escape?"
"No." Selina smiled. "Master, Nanoe found that person interesting, so she put them into a fake death state and counted it as a completed objective on our end. Then we brought her back with us."
Rover: "..."
He was starting to feel like these three hadn’t gone on a quest at all. They had gone on a casual stroll.
What the hell! Did any of you stop to consider the feelings of whoever designed that quest?
It was like playing a horror game but laughing the whole way through like it was a comedy.
He shook his head. There were no words adequate enough to describe how he felt right now.
Nanoe walked over to him, her finger lightly tapping the tip of his nose. A sweet fragrance drifted into his senses and left him feeling pleasantly dazed.
It wasn’t the scent of her perfume. It was something that came from her innate gift, and she was using it deliberately to draw him in.
Rover frowned and said: "Nanoe, are you seriously trying to seduce me right now?"
Nanoe covered her mouth and laughed softly: "Rover, are you only noticing now? I want to enchant you so completely that you’ll never want to leave my side..."
"We’re already bound to each other forever at this point. Unless I die." Rover said with a shrug.
After all, the bond between them was the Owner and Tenant link. Unless he died, she would never truly be free.
Nanoe shook her head: "No, I feel like that still isn’t enough."
Rover frowned, genuinely puzzled by what she was doing. But Nanoe didn’t give him time to think about it and smiled: "Alright! I brought you a gift, come on out and receive it."
She said it while pushing him toward the door.
Rover didn’t fully understand but followed along anyway. The moment the door swung open, his eyes went wide with complete disbelief.
Standing before him was a beautiful woman with silver hair falling loosely past her shoulders in a slight tangle. Skin as white as snow, a lithe figure with alluring curves wrapped in a set of light armor.
What made it particularly striking was that she was currently bound in the intricately layered rope pattern commonly seen in Japanese action films.
Her mouth was propped open by a small rod wedged crosswise between her lips, saliva trickling continuously because those red-tinged lips could not close around it.
Her eyes were covered by a strip of black cloth, and muffled sounds of "Mm... mm..." rose from deep in her throat, something that sounded equal parts desperate, frightened, and somehow provocative in a way that stirred a man’s desires.
Nanoe stepped up beside him and smiled: "Like it? I put a great deal of thought into this gift, and it took quite a bit of effort to bring her home."
Rover: "..."
He glanced at Nanoe and frowned: "This person is..."
"Ah!" Nanoe pretended to recall something and continued: "She was one of the Tenants who ran the quest alongside us. I noticed she wasn’t just beautiful but still untouched, so I decided to bring her back as a treat for you."
Rover opened his mouth, stayed silent for a full beat, then finally said: "But... she’s someone else’s Tenant. How is it even possible for her to enter our room?"
"Ah, simple enough. I just kept her breathing suspended. Once you’ve had your fill, we discard her." Nanoe said it gently, as though the girl were a cheap disposable toy. "I don’t intend to keep her with us anyway."
Have your fill and throw her out.
What the hell! Even he, a grown man, felt a twinge of pity for the girl after hearing that.
She was trembling far more violently now, both arms bound behind her back, both legs lashed firmly together, her entire body writhing like a worm, and still she couldn’t break free from the ropes.
In fact, the more she struggled, the tighter they pulled, rising to positions that made even Rover’s throat feel a little dry.
The way the ropes were tied was genuinely masterful. They didn’t just accentuate her chest, her hips, and everything below. They were cinched at just the right tightness.
Tight enough that the person bound could feel the full weight of being restrained and the ache of it, yet just loose enough that pain and a different kind of sensation arrived together.
Rover glanced at Nanoe and shook his head: "This... isn’t something I want to do. She’s just a woman in the end. Not worth treating her like this."
He wasn’t a saint by any measure, and she really was beautiful, only a step below Nanoe’s group. But his room already had five people in it.
He was barely keeping up with what he had now. Adding another would probably kill him from overload. Besides, being with her would bring nothing more than a fleeting novelty. No Omni Points gained, no real benefit.
Work without pay wasn’t worth doing.
Whatever time and energy that would cost him was better spent with Nanoe’s group. At least with them, it wasn’t him forcing anyone. If anything, they were the ones pushing him.
"Oh." Nanoe heard that and smiled, a smile that carried both mystery and a faint edge of coldness. She looked down at the girl on the floor and said: "You heard all of that, didn’t you?"
"My master doesn’t want you. So... you can die."
"Mm! Mm! Uh!!!" The bound woman trembled violently, letting out a stream of muffled, low sounds as if desperate to say something.
"Alright. I’ll give you one more chance." Nanoe pulled the small rod from the woman’s mouth and smiled: "Tell the truth. If you don’t, I’ll hand you over to those men out there to use until there’s nothing left of you, then feed what remains to the monsters."
The woman’s body shook. Her red lips parted and trembled several times, then she clenched her jaw and said nothing: "You piece of trash! Don’t think you can..."
SLAP!
A sharp strike landed across her face. Her cheek flushed crimson, blood spilling from her mouth, a fresh red line running from her nose.
Rover shuddered. He had not expected Nanoe to have a face this cold and this full of killing intent.
Every day he had only ever seen her gentle, soft side, to the point he had almost convinced himself she didn’t know how to be angry, that she was like a merciful goddess who met every situation with a warm, forgiving smile.
But watching what Nanoe was doing now, he knew he had been completely wrong.
Nanoe grabbed one end of the rope binding the girl and yanked hard.
"AGH!!" The rope constricted and the girl cried out in sharp pain.
Nanoe released the tension and said in a cold voice: "I don’t have the patience to play games with you. I can promise you those men outside will use you until you break. They have every kind of method imaginable to make that happen."
"Cut off your breasts, drive a heated rod into your body, drive a wooden stake into your rear... hahaha... I genuinely want to watch just how long you can endure."
The woman’s body trembled.
Rover’s body trembled too.
What the hell! That was beyond cruel.
He hadn’t even thought about how S&M actually worked. When he got a little carried away, the most he ever did was spank his women, and even then he felt a little guilty if he went too hard.
But what had Nanoe just said?
Was this the ancient era? What the hell, even witches burned at the stake in the old days only got tied to a pole and set on fire, which compared to what Nanoe had just described sounded almost merciful.
"You... you..." The girl stammered for what felt like an age without managing to produce a single useful word, only tears streaming down her face.
Nanoe shook her head: "It seems your pride is worth more to you than your own life. Huh! Let me tell you something. Being attended to by my master would be your privilege."
"Do you know how many women would get down on their knees for my master and he would still turn them away for being beneath his standards? And here you are still clinging to that worthless pride of yours like it means anything."
"Fine. Let those men use you until there’s nothing left, and I’ll feed your body to the monsters. Then I’ll take your soul and use it as fuel for my Flamebound fire."
Hearing Nanoe say all of that, something inside Rover went cold. He found himself wondering: ’Is this the Nanoe I know? Why is she like this right now? This terrifying and this ruthless?’
But thinking it through, maybe this was the face she showed to everyone else.
After all, she had been the Chief Financial Officer of a major corporation. If she were a naive little rabbit or just an ordinary gentle woman, she would have been picked clean by the wolves long ago and not a bone would have been left.
But she had kept every one of those seasoned wolves pressed firmly beneath her, rising to become one of the pillars holding up an entire financial empire. She was never going to be someone easily described as kind.
And beyond that... Nanoe had once told him that her hands had been stained with blood before. That was why, when she first killed someone after arriving in this world, she hadn’t felt the slightest trace of fear or unease.
Completely calm. Calm in a way that was frightening. As if she had done it so many times that it had simply become ordinary to her.
The woman gritted her teeth, then finally stuttered: "I... I’m not a Tenant. I’m a native of this world."
Rover: "..."