“….Uuu”
I awoke standing up.
Both of my arms are raised above my head, and I can’t move either of them. Someone tied me up.
My body felt cold, and it took me a second to realize that was because someone had stripped off all my clothes with not a fiber of fabric left to cover myself up.
This is obviously going too far, so I started looking around the room to find Lily.
It only took a second to actually find her, but any thought of yelling at her flew away when I saw all the tools she had gathered in the room.
Saws, mallets, a sword, some weird contraption loaded with spikes, a wooden horse, and a whip hanging on the wall. Nearly everything was spotted with some form of reddish black stain. I don’t even want to think about what had to happen for them to get that way.
All of them put together reminded me of the conversation I had with Lily when we first got down here. The castle basement was once the royal family’s torture chamber.
Going by how Lily described things, this room definitely feels like it would suit the name. And Lily has successfully brought me to it. I don’t know why she took the roundabout way of knocking me unconscious to do it though.
More importantly, I hate pain, and all of this is definitely outside of my acceptable range. Maybe, just maybe, I could find some enjoyment from the whip, but even that is me making a pretty big compromise.
Lily is sitting at a desk in one corner of the room. It looks like she is sharpening a set of knives while cheerfully humming to herself. At some point while I was unconscious, she had changed into a simple white cloth dress.
“Lily-san! Please let me go! This is definitely not going to work out!”
Lily slowly turned her gaze towards me when she heard my voice. She smiled sweetly and came around to the desk to stand directly in front of me.
“What a nice expression you’re making. Distorted by fear. However, there isn’t enough pain there yet. Do not worry because I will soon make you mine. Just wait a little longer.”
Saying that, she danced back towards the desk and returned with a freshly sharpened knife in hand. ‘Danced’ wasn’t me being metaphoric either. She is actually dancing. I never taught her any proper moves, but each step she took was guided and purposeful as she twirled around the room.
Instead of performing some solemn ritual, it’s like she was about to spoil herself with some sweet treat at a party. She’s smiling, and I have never been more afraid in my life.
“L-Lily-san is acting weird today….”
“Oh, you think so? I feel as if I am the same as ever though.”
Despite having a knife in one hand, she was looking up at me like an innocent little girl being scolded by their parent. There are parts of me that even in this situation can’t help but marvel at how cute and beautiful she is, and those parts are what is keeping me from acting out more aggressively.
Lily put a finger to her mouth and looked my body up and down.
“You really are beautiful. Your skin is as white as snow, and you can make out the blue blood vessels running through your body. Where the blood flows. Don’t you think red would look better against white than blue though?”
“N-No, not at all. I like blue! White and red have never really worked….”
Lily wasn’t being very subtle. Red means blood. She is enjoying herself by scaring me with the knife like this. It’s unusually mean-spirited from her, but I tried turning her down politely since I didn’t want to upset her.
Lily still pouted when I told her I didn’t agree with her though and turned her back to me.
“I do not care about your personal tastes. White goes well with red. That much is obvious.”
I wanted to ask, “Then why did you bother asking me?” but when I opened my mouth, all I could choke out was a high, agonizing shriek.
Because when Lily turned back around, the tip of her knife whipped around with her and traced the edge of my arm. The pain came instantly when the metal dug into my skin, and a hot, burning sensation lingered afterwards that made it feel like my arm was on fire.
Lily looked tickled as she watched the small amount of blood that slowly flowed down my arm, ran along my side, and came to rest at the base of my feet.
“See? The red looks amazing with your white legs.”
Lily squatted down and ran her tongue along my ankle, lapping up the red trail that had formed around it.
Then up, her tongue continued to travel up my thigh, my flank, my armpit, all the way until her face rested right next to my own. A metallic red coated the area around her mouth that was not lipstick.
This is going way too far. There is no feeling of expectation or the excitement of some new door opening here. It just sucks. Something like this would just make me hate Lily from the bottom of my heart, and that should have shown in my face.
“Your face is beautiful.”
Not paying any attention to how I felt, Lily scooped up some of the blood with her finger and traced it around my lips. The smell of iron got stronger, but it was already bad in here with everything being coated in red rust.
“Stop this! Please!”
“Stop after only this?”
Lily moved her face to the other side of me and started licking the armpit where blood wasn’t flowing down. I know this is a trap. She’s trying to turn me on, make the pleasure outweigh the pain, and unfortunately it is working.
“Well…. maybe a little longer….”
As soon as I said the words she wanted to pull out of me, Lily moved away from me and towards a wall to the side of the room. She crossed her arms and began fretting over which tool she should use. She took down and examined each individually: the saw, a mallet, a whip, and a sword. I would like to refuse them all.
“Liffy, which one would you prefer?”
“I…. they’re all kind of….”
“Choose quickly. Which one is better?”
“Then….the whip?”
I assumed that would be the best option, but as soon as Lily picked up the whip again and gave it a few practice swings, I immediately regretted not choosing the mallet.
Slice through the air. I always just assumed it was hyperbole, but Lily’s use of the whip showed me exactly what it meant when people say whips could cut through a person’s breath. It felt like I could actually see the air itself split in two each time Lily flicked her wrist, and a loud crack echoed off the small room’s walls.
A sound louder than Don’s roar made my eardrums quiver, and the fear of unimaginable pain was soaked into my very bones.
“L-Lily-san, shouldn’t we head back to the others soon? We shouldn’t keep them waiting for too long.”
Lily looked me up and down while wielding the whip.
“Is that what you want? Even though you’re a stupid bitch who stole away that ring? Do you feel proud at how good you are at snuggling up to old, decrepit men?”
“W-Why do you have to say something like that!? I…. I’m doing my best here too!”
Lily’s reply was another crack of the whip. That noise alone was enough to make my whole body flinch away.
“No need to be scared. To begin, I will need to make you associate this sound with pleasure. Or perhaps you would prefer if we began with the pain instead.”
“No…. stop….”
I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. This can’t go any farther than this, but since Lily isn’t showing any signs of stopping no matter how much I beg, my heart feels like it is about to break.
I should just give up and let her love how she wants. A part of me started thinking that way, but another part was growing more frustrated seeing how happily Lily was handling that whip.
I mean, I can’t accept that I’m the one who always ends up getting beat. It’s not all bad since it feels good, but is it so wrong that I want to go on the attack once in a while?
Plus, Lily is going too far today. She should know I really hate this. Someone who can’t tell what is and isn’t acceptable like this has no right to call themselves someone’s master.
The anger that had been bubbling beneath all my fear and anxiety is finally boiling over.
“Enough screwing around lady! You can take this joke and shove it already!”
I fell back to using the words and accent I grew up with in the countryside. I figured it’d be hard for Lily to understand me since she grew up all proper-like here in the capital, but not only did she seem to understand me immediately, she started laughing as soon as I was finished.
“Stop joking. If you are willing to bite your master like this, you must need this training even more than I had thought.”
Another swing with the whip, the fastest one yet. That crack still scares me, but I’ve already had enough of this. I’m putting an end to it. I raised my voice once again with the determination to resist etched into my heart.
“I….”
*Bam!* The door flew open, and Lily walked in from outside. There are two Lilys. While I looked back and forth between them not understanding what the hell was going on, the Lily that just entered walked over and shoved a sword into the whip-wielding Lily standing in front of me.
I have no idea what to say. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. I tried piecing things together, but I only ended up overloading my brain having it run around in pointless circles. Before long I lost consciousness as if all that thinking had caused me to burn myself out.
♠
“….please! Get up! Liffy! Liffy Ruhuna!”
I woke up to the sound of Lily screaming. It looked like I was still in the basement of the castle, but at least I was back in the hallway instead of that room. I was lying down on the ground though, with my head on Lily’s lap and her arms around my shoulders.
But is she the Lily who helped me, or is she the scary one? Is she currently carrying a whip?
“No! Stop!”
“Calm down! This is reality. You were seeing an illusion.”
Lily was hugging me so tightly it was getting hard to breathe. That was able to help me calm down a little though. Before anything else, I first patted Lily’s back to secure my airway and let her know that her grip around my neck was too tight.
“Oh…. sorry. Have you calmed down?”
After letting me go, Lily backed away a little bit and stared at me. I could tell from how calm her eyes were that she had no thought about hurting my body even a little. I instinctively knew this was the Lily who saved me and let the tension run out of my body. Even though she took the care to give me some distance, I ended up leaning down on her again.
“You’re upset…. it must have been a terrifying illusion. That is why I tried to stop you from leaving.”
Lily once again said it was an illusion. I don’t really know what that means, but the pain in my arm is gone while the cut from Lily’s knife has disappeared.
“An illusion? ….What’s that?”
Lily started stroking the top of my head as if she were comforting a child. I appreciate her, but this is a little embarrassing. My body is too weak to shake her off though, so I let her do as she pleases. Since she is looking to pamper me though, I bury her face into her chest and enjoyed the nostalgic smell.
“This place used to be the treasury of the royal family. As such, it has both physical and magical protections to guard against thieves. You cannot shed blood on the king’s personal belongings, so instead they use magic to neutralize intruders by immersing them into a dream. That is what you were seeing.”
“But I didn’t see anything when we first came down here….”
“As long as you have a guiding stone, you are free to walk down here without the magic affecting you. My earrings here have guiding stone worked into them. You do not necessarily need to be touching them so long as you have are making some form of physical content with it. That is why we have been holding hands the whole time we were down here.
“So that’s why….”
I am an absolute idiot for getting all nervous just because we were holding hands. Of course it was something like that.
“For the record, the dream seems to reflect a person’s personal tastes. What did you see?”
“I am never telling you.”
“A pity. Perhaps I should give you a little more time alone.”
If I’m on my own, am I going to end up continuing that illusion until someone comes to save me? The thought alone was enough to make my body shake and the blood to drain from my face. Lily looked a little guilty for it and whispered, “Just kidding,” while pulling me to my feet.
Even though it is just meant to knock people out, that was one extreme dream. As Lily and I returned to our teams, I was left repeating to myself in my head how I do not have that kind of hobby.
“….Uuu”
I awoke standing up.
Both of my arms are raised above my head, and I can’t move either of them. Someone tied me up.
My body felt cold, and it took me a second to realize that was because someone had stripped off all my clothes with not a fiber of fabric left to cover myself up.
This is obviously going too far, so I started looking around the room to find Lily.
It only took a second to actually find her, but any thought of yelling at her flew away when I saw all the tools she had gathered in the room.
Saws, mallets, a sword, some weird contraption loaded with spikes, a wooden horse, and a whip hanging on the wall. Nearly everything was spotted with some form of reddish black stain. I don’t even want to think about what had to happen for them to get that way.
All of them put together reminded me of the conversation I had with Lily when we first got down here. The castle basement was once the royal family’s torture chamber.
Going by how Lily described things, this room definitely feels like it would suit the name. And Lily has successfully brought me to it. I don’t know why she took the roundabout way of knocking me unconscious to do it though.
More importantly, I hate pain, and all of this is definitely outside of my acceptable range. Maybe, just maybe, I could find some enjoyment from the whip, but even that is me making a pretty big compromise.
Lily is sitting at a desk in one corner of the room. It looks like she is sharpening a set of knives while cheerfully humming to herself. At some point while I was unconscious, she had changed into a simple white cloth dress.
“Lily-san! Please let me go! This is definitely not going to work out!”
Lily slowly turned her gaze towards me when she heard my voice. She smiled sweetly and came around to the desk to stand directly in front of me.
“What a nice expression you’re making. Distorted by fear. However, there isn’t enough pain there yet. Do not worry because I will soon make you mine. Just wait a little longer.”
Saying that, she danced back towards the desk and returned with a freshly sharpened knife in hand. ‘Danced’ wasn’t me being metaphoric either. She is actually dancing. I never taught her any proper moves, but each step she took was guided and purposeful as she twirled around the room.
Instead of performing some solemn ritual, it’s like she was about to spoil herself with some sweet treat at a party. She’s smiling, and I have never been more afraid in my life.
“L-Lily-san is acting weird today….”
“Oh, you think so? I feel as if I am the same as ever though.”
Despite having a knife in one hand, she was looking up at me like an innocent little girl being scolded by their parent. There are parts of me that even in this situation can’t help but marvel at how cute and beautiful she is, and those parts are what is keeping me from acting out more aggressively.
Lily put a finger to her mouth and looked my body up and down.
“You really are beautiful. Your skin is as white as snow, and you can make out the blue blood vessels running through your body. Where the blood flows. Don’t you think red would look better against white than blue though?”
“N-No, not at all. I like blue! White and red have never really worked….”
Lily wasn’t being very subtle. Red means blood. She is enjoying herself by scaring me with the knife like this. It’s unusually mean-spirited from her, but I tried turning her down politely since I didn’t want to upset her.
Lily still pouted when I told her I didn’t agree with her though and turned her back to me.
“I do not care about your personal tastes. White goes well with red. That much is obvious.”
I wanted to ask, “Then why did you bother asking me?” but when I opened my mouth, all I could choke out was a high, agonizing shriek.
Because when Lily turned back around, the tip of her knife whipped around with her and traced the edge of my arm. The pain came instantly when the metal dug into my skin, and a hot, burning sensation lingered afterwards that made it feel like my arm was on fire.
Lily looked tickled as she watched the small amount of blood that slowly flowed down my arm, ran along my side, and came to rest at the base of my feet.
“See? The red looks amazing with your white legs.”
Lily squatted down and ran her tongue along my ankle, lapping up the red trail that had formed around it.
Then up, her tongue continued to travel up my thigh, my flank, my armpit, all the way until her face rested right next to my own. A metallic red coated the area around her mouth that was not lipstick.
This is going way too far. There is no feeling of expectation or the excitement of some new door opening here. It just sucks. Something like this would just make me hate Lily from the bottom of my heart, and that should have shown in my face.
“Your face is beautiful.”
Not paying any attention to how I felt, Lily scooped up some of the blood with her finger and traced it around my lips. The smell of iron got stronger, but it was already bad in here with everything being coated in red rust.
“Stop this! Please!”
“Stop after only this?”
Lily moved her face to the other side of me and started licking the armpit where blood wasn’t flowing down. I know this is a trap. She’s trying to turn me on, make the pleasure outweigh the pain, and unfortunately it is working.
“Well…. maybe a little longer….”
As soon as I said the words she wanted to pull out of me, Lily moved away from me and towards a wall to the side of the room. She crossed her arms and began fretting over which tool she should use. She took down and examined each individually: the saw, a mallet, a whip, and a sword. I would like to refuse them all.
“Liffy, which one would you prefer?”
“I…. they’re all kind of….”
“Choose quickly. Which one is better?”
“Then….the whip?”
I assumed that would be the best option, but as soon as Lily picked up the whip again and gave it a few practice swings, I immediately regretted not choosing the mallet.
Slice through the air. I always just assumed it was hyperbole, but Lily’s use of the whip showed me exactly what it meant when people say whips could cut through a person’s breath. It felt like I could actually see the air itself split in two each time Lily flicked her wrist, and a loud crack echoed off the small room’s walls.
A sound louder than Don’s roar made my eardrums quiver, and the fear of unimaginable pain was soaked into my very bones.
“L-Lily-san, shouldn’t we head back to the others soon? We shouldn’t keep them waiting for too long.”
Lily looked me up and down while wielding the whip.
“Is that what you want? Even though you’re a stupid bitch who stole away that ring? Do you feel proud at how good you are at snuggling up to old, decrepit men?”
“W-Why do you have to say something like that!? I…. I’m doing my best here too!”
Lily’s reply was another crack of the whip. That noise alone was enough to make my whole body flinch away.
“No need to be scared. To begin, I will need to make you associate this sound with pleasure. Or perhaps you would prefer if we began with the pain instead.”
“No…. stop….”
I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. This can’t go any farther than this, but since Lily isn’t showing any signs of stopping no matter how much I beg, my heart feels like it is about to break.
I should just give up and let her love how she wants. A part of me started thinking that way, but another part was growing more frustrated seeing how happily Lily was handling that whip.
I mean, I can’t accept that I’m the one who always ends up getting beat. It’s not all bad since it feels good, but is it so wrong that I want to go on the attack once in a while?
Plus, Lily is going too far today. She should know I really hate this. Someone who can’t tell what is and isn’t acceptable like this has no right to call themselves someone’s master.
The anger that had been bubbling beneath all my fear and anxiety is finally boiling over.
“Enough screwing around lady! You can take this joke and shove it already!”
I fell back to using the words and accent I grew up with in the countryside. I figured it’d be hard for Lily to understand me since she grew up all proper-like here in the capital, but not only did she seem to understand me immediately, she started laughing as soon as I was finished.
“Stop joking. If you are willing to bite your master like this, you must need this training even more than I had thought.”
Another swing with the whip, the fastest one yet. That crack still scares me, but I’ve already had enough of this. I’m putting an end to it. I raised my voice once again with the determination to resist etched into my heart.
“I….”
*Bam!* The door flew open, and Lily walked in from outside. There are two Lilys. While I looked back and forth between them not understanding what the hell was going on, the Lily that just entered walked over and shoved a sword into the whip-wielding Lily standing in front of me.
I have no idea what to say. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. I tried piecing things together, but I only ended up overloading my brain having it run around in pointless circles. Before long I lost consciousness as if all that thinking had caused me to burn myself out.
♠
“….please! Get up! Liffy! Liffy Ruhuna!”
I woke up to the sound of Lily screaming. It looked like I was still in the basement of the castle, but at least I was back in the hallway instead of that room. I was lying down on the ground though, with my head on Lily’s lap and her arms around my shoulders.
But is she the Lily who helped me, or is she the scary one? Is she currently carrying a whip?
“No! Stop!”
“Calm down! This is reality. You were seeing an illusion.”
Lily was hugging me so tightly it was getting hard to breathe. That was able to help me calm down a little though. Before anything else, I first patted Lily’s back to secure my airway and let her know that her grip around my neck was too tight.
“Oh…. sorry. Have you calmed down?”
After letting me go, Lily backed away a little bit and stared at me. I could tell from how calm her eyes were that she had no thought about hurting my body even a little. I instinctively knew this was the Lily who saved me and let the tension run out of my body. Even though she took the care to give me some distance, I ended up leaning down on her again.
“You’re upset…. it must have been a terrifying illusion. That is why I tried to stop you from leaving.”
Lily once again said it was an illusion. I don’t really know what that means, but the pain in my arm is gone while the cut from Lily’s knife has disappeared.
“An illusion? ….What’s that?”
Lily started stroking the top of my head as if she were comforting a child. I appreciate her, but this is a little embarrassing. My body is too weak to shake her off though, so I let her do as she pleases. Since she is looking to pamper me though, I bury her face into her chest and enjoyed the nostalgic smell.
“This place used to be the treasury of the royal family. As such, it has both physical and magical protections to guard against thieves. You cannot shed blood on the king’s personal belongings, so instead they use magic to neutralize intruders by immersing them into a dream. That is what you were seeing.”
“But I didn’t see anything when we first came down here….”
“As long as you have a guiding stone, you are free to walk down here without the magic affecting you. My earrings here have guiding stone worked into them. You do not necessarily need to be touching them so long as you have are making some form of physical content with it. That is why we have been holding hands the whole time we were down here.
“So that’s why….”
I am an absolute idiot for getting all nervous just because we were holding hands. Of course it was something like that.
“For the record, the dream seems to reflect a person’s personal tastes. What did you see?”
“I am never telling you.”
“A pity. Perhaps I should give you a little more time alone.”
If I’m on my own, am I going to end up continuing that illusion until someone comes to save me? The thought alone was enough to make my body shake and the blood to drain from my face. Lily looked a little guilty for it and whispered, “Just kidding,” while pulling me to my feet.
Even though it is just meant to knock people out, that was one extreme dream. As Lily and I returned to our teams, I was left repeating to myself in my head how I do not have that kind of hobby.
