Chapter Five - Bad Side of Town

I stood in the middle of the tiny room and looked around with pity. The room was little more than a straw mattress, several small plants by a crack in the wall which passed for a window and some makeshift shelves holding what appeared to be junk she’d found. The entire area was perhaps 3 meters square at the most and barely tall enough for my not significant height to stand upright. I moved the threadbare blanket with the toe of my knee-high boots and sighed. She lived in a closet, for all intents and purposes, only accessible by a narrow hatch in the ceiling.

Despite Sayuri’s admonition to go straight to Drudge’s house and gut him, I decided to find Ashvallen’s house first to gather a sense of who this person I saw in the mirror was. Despite not being convinced in the least any of this was real, I was beginning to have a feeling I’d been Isekai’d. I scowled as I set my eye to the crack in the wall and surveyed the area. If my suspicion was true and I had been transported to a new world without getting hit by a truck, which seemed to be the general way these sorts of things happened, I was definitely cheated.

I wasn’t a powerful witch, or a graceful princess or even a proper big-breasted elf. I was a borderline starving, occasionally dead hardened criminal who couldn’t even manage to be a full elf with tits worth fondling. Although, I thought, my nipples were kind of pleasant. Plump and pink and puffy, the kind you…. no. What the hell was I thinking? This was no time to think of selfcest. There was some serious shit going on.

How in the hell had this even happened? Why had it happened? How did I stop it from continuing? What was going on with my own body back in Seoul? Where was Ashvallen? Honestly, I had enough questions to fill a reddit subforum and the only one who seemed to have any answers was the Ice Countess and she’d just walked off and left me twisting in the wind.

Ugh, I groaned quietly. The Ice Countess (I’d come up with the name myself in a stunningly inept attempt at cruel nicknames.) was a whole other subreddit by herself. Was she always a sadistic freak? How many other people like me had she tortured and killed? Were they all walking around still or was it just me that’d woken back up? She seemed enthused about me still being alive. Though enthused was probably not the right word. I wasn’t sure that woman had ever been excited about anything in her life.

And then there was the weird bond which made it impossible for me to do much of anything to her aside from coming up with lame, insulting names. Then there was the fact this whole world just, honestly, sucked ass. Not nice ass. Sweaty, gross, bloated ass. I shuddered at the mental image. This place was awful. Not at all like any Isekai world I’d ever seen in the anime. The city streets were dirty and disgusting, not a single ojou-sama to comfort me and make me feel loved and welcome. I hated this whole place. So many questions, so many things I didn’t know and not a snowflake’s chance in hell of finding any of the answers out.

I pulled the map out of one of the pouches on my belt and unfolded it. Sayuri had drawn it for me, including, unironically, the spots where dogs might be found, but she was definitely no Google-sensei. The sliver of the moon had already ridden high in the night sky and, from what Sayuri had told me, I was running out of time. I shuddered. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering killing someone. I folded the map up and clambered back through the hatch and onto the roof of Ashvallen’s home, such as it was.

Fortunately for me, I thought as I raced effortlessly along the rooftops, I’m not afraid of heights. No matter what else Ashvallen had going on, her body would make an Olympic athlete weep with envy. It was fast, agile, and powerful. It was strange how I had no idea how to do any of this climbing up pipes or leaping like a gazelle across yawning chasms between roofs, but this body did. It was like I was driving one of those expensive electric cars, but my hand was simply on the wheel to keep it from doing something awkward like turning unexpectantly and running through a petting zoo, while the car did all the work.

I had run across nearly a kilometer of rooftop before finding myself perched on a chimney staring across the street at a ramshackle brick building. The window in the center of the top floor was dark. Inside was Drudge. Presumably asleep, definitely disgusting, and waiting to be unshackled. I peered around me, but all was still and silent. I bet I look so damn cool right now, I thrilled.

Was it really selfcest or just masturbation? I thought as I loped along the edge of the roof and leapt across a gap and onto a lamppost, alighting for a split second before using the post to leap onto Drudge’s building. At this point I was leaning toward masturbation. But with a whole new body I could consider anything I did close to having sex! Right? Probably. Maybe. Honestly, I had no idea having no experience, but I decided it would at least be different.

All thoughts for another time, though, I scowled, dropping from the eave onto the window ledge outside Drudge’s room. I scowled as I peered inside, my eyes acting almost as a sort of enhanced night vision goggle. The room and its contents were plainly visible. My head began to thud painfully in my chest as I stared at the sleeping hulk of Drudge across the room. I took a deep breath to quiet my nerves. How to sneak in, though, I thought. There was a door, obviously, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to traipse through the building like a cartoon rabbit delivering candy grams. There was no way I’d be lucky enough for him to leave the window open. I pulled listlessly at the window. Or maybe I was lucky enough, I marveled. The window slid up nearly soundlessly and I crept into Drudge’s room.

The smell inside was like half the toilets in Seoul station had overflowed. The stink covered everything. My stomach roiled and it took everything I had to keep from throwing up. My eyes watered and I leaned over a nearby chair to regain my composure, forcing down the gag reflex. The state of the room made things clear old Drudge needed to change more than a sheet or two. Or better yet just burn the whole thing down and start over. I finally managed to gain control over my gag reflex and turned to the sleeping form on the bed. I nervously slid the daggers from their sheaths with a hiss of steel on leather and crept forward.

Careful to avoid the garbage, discarded food scraps and general repugnance on the floor I soon found myself crouched next to the bed, the rhythmic snores coming from the slumbering Drudge a welcome assurance. So, I fidgeted nervously, this is it. One little slice across his bulbous throat and my trial is over. One flick of the wrist and then…what?

I’m a murderer is what.

I chewed my lip nervously, my body seemed to be thrumming with nervous energy as I stared at Drudge’s back. My eyes studied his fat neck, the darkness pushed away as if it were mid-day. The base of the skull where the spine connected to his bulbous head was the target. I knew without thinking. A quick thrust with the blade between the skull and vertebrae, a twist to the side and a slice across the spine and he’d be just another pile of lifeless garbage in an already extensive sea of it littering his room.

I glanced down at the daggers in my hands. Could I do it, though? My hands were steady, my breathing regular, my heartbeat not even raised so I had no doubt in my body’s capability to end him. My mind, however, was hyperventilating. I scowled. Somehow, I didn’t think a mind could hyperventilate. If one could, though, mine certainly was.

I didn’t see many options, though. I could spare him, and the Ice Countess would simply find someone else to do the deed and, with my usefulness at an end, simply torture and kill me over and over again like I was in some sort of sadistic Groundhog’s Day. Either way, Drudge was a dead man walking. The only question was whether I would be the instrument. I stared at him so hard I was giving myself a headache before finally deciding. No. I couldn’t do it. I sheathed the daggers with a metallic sigh and turned to make my way back to the window.

I am such a coward, I mentally berated myself. I am the biggest hunk of worthless trash in this apartment. All I had to do was sever his stupid spine or slit his fat throat and I’d be done, running wild across the rooftops, and thinking of all the ways I’d be pleasuring myself later in a Drudge-free world. Instead, I was slinking back the way I’d come like a beaten dog.

I grunted as a force hit me from behind, driving me forward and slamming me against the wall. The world exploded in sparks as my head crashed into stone hard enough to cause of cascade of pulverized brick to sprinkle toward the floor.

“I figured you for dead, rat,” Drudge whispered in my ear, pressing me tight against the wall with his body. His stench invaded my nostrils as he licked my earlobe. I struggled weakly, trying to clear my head, knowing if I lost consciousness I was finished. “I’m sooo glad you’re still alive. I’m going to have a lot of fun fucking you to death. You should have killed me when you had the chance, rat. Because now, you will scream for me. Over and over.”