A reddish glow trickled in through a single open window.

This was a small cheap bedroom inside a rickety inn. A thin layer of cracked plaster was peeling off the decrepit walls. The wooden beams on the ceiling looked like they were half-rotten, and the floor creaked constantly with the distant sound of footsteps shuffling around the building. Rusted iron pipes stuck out of the corner of the room, and an ugly corroded radiator beneath the window was clearly broken.

The outdoor view appeared to be some kind of dark medieval city that smelled faintly of sulfur. The dark skies were overcast and gloomy, and particles of floating black ash were adrift in the air. Black shadows and grotesque monstrous figures slowly lumbered through the dreary streets.

The black-haired woman was sitting on the bed with a rag blanket tightly wrapped around herself.

She was staring blankly out of the window. 

It felt like she was dreaming.

She had woken up in an unfamiliar bed a while ago, but the room had been empty.

Her eyes were swollen and puffy, but there was no use crying.

Instead, her expression was vacant.

Flashes of memories from the previous night shot through her mind, and it was impossible for her to escape from those traumatic thoughts.

The fresh piercings still hurt. On her nipples... and... that other unspeakable place... it felt like they were burning and they ached terribly. For ordinary piercings, she had heard it would take several days or even weeks for the soreness to go away. The dull gnawing pain was almost a constant reminder of the horrific nightmare that she had experienced.

It was confusing because, aside from the pain, all of her visible injuries were gone.

In fact, there was no sign of any damage anywhere on her body. Her nipples and clitoris looked perfectly intact and healthy, as if they had never been pierced with a diabolical needle at all. Xuelan stared at herself for a long time, trying to process the contradiction of how they looked fine yet burned as if they were on fire.

She gingerly touched herself, wanting to sooth the pain, but immediately learned a harsh lesson.

A powerful electric shock jolted through her the instant her fingers made contact. 

Xuelan cried out and folded over, spasming and trembling.

She... evidently wasn't allowed to touch herself in those places...

Based on various BDSM novels that she had read in her previous life, Xuelan generally understood that slaves often weren't allowed to pleasure themselves without their Master's permission. However, her current situation was clearly messed up. She wasn't even trying to masturbate. Her nipples hurt and she just wanted to touch them to alleviate the pain.

Whoever came up with this system clearly did not think things through...

...Or maybe it was intentional, and this cruel design was meant to maximize her suffering.

All of this was fucked up.

Having a BDSM fetish on Earth was one thing, but this wasn't BDSM.

It was pure sexual abuse, and Xuelan didn't find it arousing or erotic at all, especially since she was the one experiencing it.

This wasn't just a trashy online rape fantasy that she could simply tab away from with a mouse click.

+ + +

The door suddenly opened and Kien walked in.

When they saw each other, both of them froze in place immediately.

Xuelan stopped breathing, and her body started to tremble uncontrollably. It was a physiological reaction, and she couldn't even stop herself. It was almost as if her body subconsciously remembered every horrific detail that he had done to her, and his mere presence evoked a sense of PTSD.

The 24-year-old never saw herself as a weak girl, and in fact she used to be a member of her university's Aikido¹Aikido: A Japanese martial art. team. Ordinarily, she knew how to remain calm when facing someone much bigger than her in a tournament, and she was well-versed in the technique of disarming an opponent with a knife. East Asian martial arts typically had a component called ki (气), which referred to a person's fighting spirit, and Xuelan always thought that hers was rock solid.

However, facing her rapist was totally different from facing a robber with a knife.

This guy... Kien...

The collar around her neck suddenly felt tight, and the intimate parts of her body ached.

The memories of how he whipped her and mercilessly fucked her while she screamed were seared into her mind.

The strength melted away from her legs, and her knees shook violently.

"Xue..." His voice sounded hesitant.

He reached out his hand, but Xuelan flinched.

The incubus looked conflicted, and he immediately withdrew. The man seemed to struggle with finding the right words to say, and he averted his eyes towards the ceiling. Eventually, he appeared to give up on this difficult subject, and he awkwardly switched over to small talk to fill the tense atmosphere in the room.

Kien pulled a stale loaf of bread out of his bag.

"It's not much... but this was all I could manage to bring back..."

He placed the loaf of bread on a wobbly plywood table.

"I don't have much money... but I'm level 2 now... thanks to yesterday..."

Xuelan shuddered all of a sudden, and she didn't know why.

"I'm sure you must be disappointed... since this isn't the nicest room... and you're probably starving..."

Tears spontaneously started flowing from her eyes.

"If we work hard, we'll figure out how to survive in this place. With the two of us together, I know we can do it."

She didn't care about any of that.

She didn't care about stupid bread or this stupid dilapidated room he rented.

Why didn't he understand?

Why was he talking to her like nothing had happened?

Why the fuck was he pretending to be her friend?!

And treating her like a normal person?

Their relationship ended six years ago and it wasn't ever coming back.

"I'm your sex slave, dammit!" Xuelan suddenly exploded and screamed at him. "Your sex slave!! I'm your sex slave!"

Hot tears spilled out of her eyes in desperate fury and anger.

"So treat me like one!! Hurt me! Fuck me! Rape me! Use me like a dirty rag!! That's what you want, right?! It's what you summoned me into Hell for! I'm your personal slut for the rest of eternity!"

She screamed at the incubus with all her lungs.

"Whip me and break me and brainwash me into a doll! Treat me the fucking way you're supposed to!"

Her chest was heaving large volumes of air and her hoarse voice was cracked.

She slowly grew quieter. Her breathing was ragged, exhausted, and shaken.

"Don't make it so hard for me to hate you..."

There was a painful look in Xuelan's eyes.

"I will never forgive you."

∎

minacia

Starting this new arc is difficult because there's a billion ways to do this chapter. I really debated for a long time how to begin, and I'm not sure if this was satisfactory.

Which direction should the story go? Should there be more rape? Dub-con? Or is it okay to slowly pivot to a more quasi-consensual relationship between the two protagonists?

I sort of worry that a lot of the readers are mainly here for graphic (non-consensual) sex scenes featured in the opening chapters, and I'm afraid that everyone will find the story boring if there's less hardcore sex. Is this true, or am I just imagining it?

For people who have read this far, what are your thoughts? I've put up a poll in order to satisfy my curiosity!