Chapter 42

“Hey, get out. Hey!”

Erabelle startled awake with a sharp jolt. She had no idea when they had arrived, but the van door was already propped open, and Aries was shouting at her again.

Wiping the dried drool from the corner of her mouth, she scrambled to her feet. Breathing through her mouth all night had dried her saliva into a sticky residue, making it stubborn to clear. Scraping at her cheek with a fingernail, she stepped out onto the pavement—just in time to see Aries bury his face in both hands and let out a heavy, guttural groan.

“Ughhh, fuck...!”

What is his problem now? Hormonal imbalance? Erabelle quietly edged away from him and made a beeline for the elevator.

The air felt unnaturally sharp and cold. Perhaps it was just the early morning hour, but even her own shallow breathing sounded overwhelmingly loud in the quiet hallway.

She rode the elevator up to the executive floors. Just before stepping out, she caught her reflection in the mirror and peeled the bloodied gauze away from her nose. Tilting her head back, she inspected her nostrils; the bleeding had finally stopped. She adjusted her nose wings, took a quick breath, and headed straight for Dezeb’s office.

She knocked. “...Come in.”

Only after a long, agonizing pause did Dezeb’s voice carry through the heavy door. It echoed strangely in the silent corridor—almost eerie.

He was working.

For a long time, he did not even bother looking up, casually flipping through a stack of documents. The atmosphere in the room was suffocatingly tense, making Erabelle’s muscles stiffen instinctively.

“Muscle fiber enhancement, central nervous system regulation, sensory suppression, visual field extension paired with reflex modulation...” Finally, he leaned back against his desk and read off the diagnostic data displayed on his tablet screen. “At this point, you’ve essentially surrendered total control of your body to machinery.”

She had installed thirteen separate assistive units across her joints. Dezeb did not even need to ask why, yet he did anyway.

“Why go this far?”

“I was experiencing frequent injuries that compromised my operational efficiency, sir. These devices cause a degree of discomfort, but compared to the downtime from actual injuries—”

Dezeb listened without interrupting. The underlying logic was simple: pain from trauma versus pain from synthetic enhancement were functionally identical, making the option that maximized output the rational choice. It was a cold, perfectly logical conclusion—which was precisely why she had embedded thirteen support modules directly into her flesh.

“So, you really have no intention of living a long life. Is that it?”

Erabelle felt that was a remarkably otherworldly way to frame it. By Earth standards, she was managing just fine.

“You look as though you have something to say.”

“Yes, I—um, I wanted to ask about requisitioning an additional transport vessel.”

“A vessel? What for?” He cut her off, finally raising his eyes to meet hers.

“The delivery window for Waypoint 121 keeps slipping. Delays currently range from twenty-four hours to a full week. It appears to be a systemic logistical bottleneck caused by surging cargo volume and a shortage of available transports.” ℯℯ𝑙.

“Oh, and a new vessel fixes that?”

“Yes. Conversely, Waypoint 39 is experiencing the opposite trend, but management refuses to reallocate their ship, claiming conditions will stabilize soon. If we cannot reach an agreement, acquiring a new vessel is our only viable option.”

“All you ever talk to me about is work.” He let out a faint, dry chuckle before asking, “Did you pull an all-nighter?”

“W-well, I wasn’t sleepy, and I didn’t have much else to do...” She fumbled for an excuse—it simply felt like the correct response to offer. But it was also true. She had been completely incapable of sleep.

It had been a brutal night dominated by nosebleeds and violent nausea. When your nasal passages and mouth are both compromised, even breathing becomes a chore, making sleep impossible. Add bloody diarrhea to the mix, and obsessing over her favorite pop idols was hardly on the agenda. With nothing else to occupy her mind, she had channeled everything into work.

“You should have taken something to knock yourself out.”

“The sedatives were ineffective... due to cross-reaction effects—”

“More like tolerance.”

Erabelle wisely chose to keep her mouth shut.

“When is your departure?” Dezeb crushed his cigarette into the glass ashtray.

“Once the tag update is complete, I can take the standard commercial liner the day after tomorrow.”

“Fine.” He offered another faint, unreadable smile. “Let’s get the tag updated first.”

This quarterly off-site assignment followed a rigid, unyielding routine: three days spent idling in Dezeb’s secondary residence, followed by three days locked inside the Count’s secluded estate to update her implant tag. She could not simply wander around the capital carrying an unregistered Great Spirit inside her, so the procedure had to be executed there, quietly. It was a workaround she could only pull off because the Dogs provided political coverage.

“Ughhh...”

Her entire body was on fire. It felt as though thousands of microscopic insects were gnawing through her soft tissue, while the base of her skull was being scraped by a rusted sawblade. The sharp metallic taste of blood pooled behind her tightly clenched teeth.

There was only one strategy to survive the agony: systematically count whatever remaining memories she possessed, like grains of sand slipping through her fingers.

Mom... Dad...

My name was Min Jiwoo...

My friends were... Soobin, Kyung-a...

There was a corner market right in front of our apartment building.

Oh—and a laundromat next to it...

After thirteen years trapped in this world, as her past slowly eroded, she clung to those fragments with desperate fury. Yet it was never enough to dull the pain. If it could be weathered through willpower alone, it would not be called torment. The agony bleached her mind completely blank, reducing her to a state where she squealed like a slaughtered animal, proving that human intellect was utterly meaningless when confronted with pain intense enough to shatter bodily control.

The few memories she preserved were nothing more than brittle straw, but clinging to them was the only mechanism she had to stay sane. It would have to suffice moving forward—even if, at times, remembering was harder to endure than the procedure itself.

“Ugh... h-hh...” Erabelle writhed across the sheets, reaching out blindly.

The painkillers... She fumbled desperately for the auto-injector kit, her trembling hands cutting through hazy vision until a firm hand suddenly gripped the back of her neck and pinned her down.

Only then did she realize she was sprawled directly across someone else’s chest. Blinking to force her vision into focus, she looked up at the man beneath her.

“...You’re awake.”

De—Dezeb Avganis.

Dezeb Av—

A divine-class entity. A Level 13 threat. That quiet, terrifying laugh. The agonizing screams of his victims. The metallic stench of blood. Cold, lifeless eyes...

She was lying over his chest, his palm heavy against her nape. In that fraction of a second, the phantom agony of the giant injection needle piercing her spine made her recoil in visceral terror.

“...Mi... Miro—” Erabelle mumbled like a broken receiver static-buzzing on a dead channel. “Miro... I need to—”

“This is the Count’s estate.” Dezeb’s voice was unnaturally quiet, low and composed. “Where else would you go?”

She blinked up at him stupidly. As his hand gently applied downward pressure, her strength gave out entirely, and her head dropped limply back onto his chest. His breathing remained slow and rhythmic. He stroked her nape as if brushing away stray dust, until her eyelids fluttered shut once more.

She regained full consciousness two days later. The instant her mind cleared, she checked her surroundings and murmured, “...What time is it...”

Still lying beside her in bed, Dezeb shifted a cigarette from his fingers to his lips. With his free hand, he reached into the crumpled sheets and snatched his wristwatch.

“Just past nine in the morning.”

Relieved that she had not slept past her operational window, Erabelle’s body went completely limp again—only for Dezeb to scoop her effortlessly into his arms.

“Time to wash up.”

Is that really necessary...?

Before she could object, it was already happening. Carried in his arms, Erabelle stared blankly at the specks of dust floating in the quiet corridor.

The Count’s estate, long abandoned, was entirely silent. The Count’s family was so detached from capital politics that they dispatched proxies even for the annual New Year’s Festival, leaving the estate to rot. It was maintained in name only—repaired rarely, the gardens trimmed occasionally. Over the past eighteen months, Erabelle had cleared out just one small bedroom and a single bathroom for her personal use during field duty.

Honestly, she would have preferred to stay here for the entire duration of her trip, but Dezeb had rejected the idea, citing how dilapidated it was. Not that she meant she wanted to stay with him instead, but... it was undeniably old and run-down.

“Hnngh...”

He lowered her into a tub of warm water, and Erabelle let out a weak groan.

The implant tag served a dual purpose: absolute control and absolute fear. She had surrendered unconditionally to both. Even if she had tried to resist, she would have ended up complying eventually, so leaning into it voluntarily was simply the path of least resistance.

Now, she had bought herself another three months of relative safety. Strangely, that brought a sense of grim comfort; it meant she was still useful enough to keep alive.

“Open your mouth.” Dezeb gently cupped her jaw, applying pressure to loosen the joint.

Her mouth opened weakly. He inserted two fingers to inspect her gums and teeth before filling a glass with clean water. Erabelle rinsed, leaned over the edge of the tub, and spat it into the drain.

She was utterly drained. If he would just hand over the post-procedure injection kit and leave her alone, it would be a blessing. But recently, he had refused to let her manage her recovery unattended. She did not bother calling out the hypocrisy of him playing both torturer and caretaker—mostly because she was too terrified of him to try.

Dezeb rolled up his sleeves, one hand still cradling the back of her head as he reached for a bottle of shampoo on the ledge.

He froze mid-motion.

“...Erabelle, did you buy this shampoo from a pet store?”