Wandering Through Vol. 1 Chapter 17 - Imprisonment

Yiseo kept pulling on the doorknob, and within a minute, she slammed her palm on the door.

 

“Open up!”

 

At that moment, the door snapped open and split in two. 

 

The hand she swung scraped against the rough surface of the door. 

 

Several solid red lines were drawn across her white hand. Blood dripped from it.

 

The black coating that had hung like a curtain over the outer door dripped over the threshold.

 

Outside the door, it was pitch black.

 

Staring out into the dark pit of whatever was inside, Yiseo lowered her head to her bloodied palms.

 

Her thin fingers seemed unable to tear off the paper, let alone the door, no matter how hard she tried. 

 

But just as her fingertips reached the door, it split open…

 

Yiseo picked up the black ointment on the edge of the door.

 

It smelled like the sea. Even though she had never seen the ocean in her life, she thought of the Great Sea, filled with salt water.

 

It was a very familiar scent. 

 

It was the dragon god of the distant sea, the one she had worshiped in her previous life as the wife of the prince of Goryeo, and before that as a shaman.

 

Then she stared out into the darkness again. 

 

Out there, she could sense the familiar aura more clearly. 

 

Mesmerized, she tried to pull herself up, finally realizing she was naked, and wrapped her arms around the cloth she was holding.

 

As she staggered outside, she noticed that wooden stakes with red cloth tied to them had been driven into the north, south, and west sides of the outhouse.

 

Ignoring the dirt on her bare feet, she slowly stood in the center of the yard. 

 

A large smear of paint dragged on the ground.

 

Looking around in disbelief, she felt like she was standing in the middle of the ocean.

 

Outside the stakes, tangled ghosts were visible. Grotesque shapes huddled outside, unable to get inside. 

 

A normal person would have been horrified by the sight, but Yiseo, whose eyes had been opened to the memories of her previous life, simply watched.

 

A man who would have made a camp to keep the unseen out, and infused it with energy.

 

The master of the dark cloth she wore.

 

A man once told me that he couldn’t tell the difference between ghosts and people, between the living and the dead.

 

So it was with Yiseo in her previous life.

 

He must have been given the spirit of the dragon she had served in her previous life, and learned to manipulate its aura, exorcise it, see its connections…

 

“Ah…”

 

Suddenly, her right leg gave out, and she sprawled on the ground, looking back at the stakes in the yard.

 

Yiseo was the daughter of a dragon god.

 

The gods were always on her side. She had never doubted it, but why?

 

“You knew, didn’t you? You must have known…”

 

Yiseo muttered to herself, “You knew what he would do to me, but why… why?”

 

Why descended upon the man, lending him strength and eyes.

 

Another tear rolled down her cheek, one she had cried so many times she thought it was dry.

 

The god she believed would always be on her side, even if he wasn’t human, had abandoned her. 

 

It had landed on someone else’s body. 

 

In the body of the man who had violated her.

 

A shrine maiden abandoned by a god was like a child abandoned by a parent.

 

Yiseo cried incessantly as she fiddled with the dragon’s energies, as if that would bring the god who had taken pity on her back.

 

But it was not the gods who returned to her.

 

💫

 

‘Who are you trying to fool?’

 

That was Leegwang’s first thought when he saw her sobbing in the yard, wearing a giant cloth. 

 

It was too big for her body, and it didn’t cover her very well.

 

He hurried over to her, unable to take his eyes off the exposed nape of her neck and legs.

 

“What are you doing out here like that for?”

 

Leegwang bent down in front of her and locked eyes with her. 

 

Tears streamed from her red, bloodshot eyes and soaked her cheeks.

 

“Don’t you ever get tired of crying?”

 

With his hand, he wiped her wet cheeks, but only for a moment. 

 

Tears rolled down her cheeks without a sound and quickly soaked them again. 

 

He gazed at the corners of her eyes and the tip of her nose, still red, as he touched her damp cheeks with his fingertips.

 

There was a small pang of regret in his chest and heat beneath.

 

‘I don’t know if I should feel sorry for her.’

 

“Why are you doing this to me…”

 

He watched her sob and plead, her voice breaking his heart.

 

“I have loved you, I loved you…”

 

He smiled at the sincerity in her voice, wondering what he had done to deserve this.

 

“I know, and you love me.”

 

He cupped her chin and kissed her lightly on the lips, but just as he was about to slip his tongue in, she dodged away. 

 

He tilted his head and asked, “If you love me, why are you avoiding me?”

 

“Do you, do you love me?”

 

He laughed out loud at the shaky question. 

 

‘What a ridiculous question.’ 

 

He pushed her shoulders, causing her to fall backward. And then he was on top of her.

 

A little help means so much.

 

Asking questions without knowing the subject just because someone shows a little kindness.

 

“Get, get out of the way, why, why suddenly…”

 

Her frightened eyes instantly turned to stone. 

 

Being around this woman always made him feel like he was on the edge of his seat. 

 

“So you don’t like it?” he asked, pulling open the hem of her dress.

 

She nodded. Her eyes, restlessly rolling, scanned the room. It was dark outside here. 

 

‘No one passed through this area anyway.’

 

“But you love me in spite of this.”

 

He grabbed both of her hands, clutching the front cover, and pulled them apart. 

 

The hem of the covering parted, revealing a thin body wearing nothing.

 

And the countless marks he’d made on it, the marks of his past.

 

The mottled colors on the pale flesh of the body seemed so erotic to him. 

 

Especially since he’d left them behind.

 

She shivered in the chilly night air. Either that, or she was shaking from crying.

 

“No. Do you not love me anymore?”

 

It was a wonder she could cry like that and continue to sob. How she’d held it together all these years, crying so well.

 

“Don’t you hate me, not that I’m out there eating like an animal?”

 

“Hmph, gulp, hmph…”

 

There was nothing but sobbing moans and the sound of swallowing sobs. It fueled his bestiality.

 

‘If only you’d cry more, wail more, despair and suffer more.’ Leegwang thought.

 

If only you had gone all the way to the bottom, to the sunless mire, to the depths!

 

“Please. I’d rather be, ah, inside…”

 

The stuttering, pleading words were awful. 

 

This was what she had to do, not demand an answer from him, but beg, plead, beseech.

 

“Someone might come.”

 

“Who would come all the way out here at this time of night?”

 

He added, squeezing her thighs, which were stiff with nervousness.

 

“If anyone does come, it’ll be some scoundrel lurking to do something terrible to you.”

 

Annoyed at the words even as she spoke them, he sneered at her.

 

“Why, do you want to show off, your hole biting into mine?”

 

“No, no.”

 

Yiseo shook her head impatiently. He grinned crookedly at her pale face.

 

The hand that had been roaming her thigh groped her bottom. He slipped one finger inside her still-swollen hole, and she groaned.

 

“It’ll be worth it, to watch you squeeze mine so tightly here, with no gaps.”

 

‘I’d give my life for this.’ 

 

“Ugh, hmph…”

 

In the middle of the open yard, now barely covered by a single layer of fabric, she moaned loudly as his fingers probed beneath her.

 

In between moans that resembled cries, he asked, “Do you want me to stop?”

 

His pants dropped, and he already had the tip of his member lined up beneath her, as if he were about to withdraw.

 

When she nodded, he smiled and whispered low.

 

“Then tell me you don’t like me, that you don’t love me anymore.”

 

“I don’t…, I don’t…”

 

And so it was.

 

His drove in, hard, beneath her, unable to spit out more words. 

 

A short groan at the tightness beneath him as soon as he entered, and then he was on top of her, lips overlapping, tongues mingling.

 

So that she couldn’t say anything.

 

“Mmm, ah, ack, ugh, aw…”

 

A faint moan escaped through the cracks of her lips as they meshed in time with his thrusts, and when he pulled away to listen, he saw her cheeks were still wet with tears.

 

But even through all this weeping, she couldn’t tell him she didn’t want him.

 

It gave him almost as much pleasure as thrusting his member beneath her.

 

He stared with glazed eyes at her as she swayed frantically beneath him.

 

“You fool, do you still love me so much?”

 

No matter what I did, you had to tell me you love me, so come already.