Chapter 3
As his long legs strode leisurely forward, they suddenly halted, and because of the abrupt stop, my dangling foot tapped against his firm abdomen. It was just a brush with my big toe, yet I felt something.
It was terrifyingly hard and flat—a wall of abs. Even through his tunic, I could feel the man’s muscles, and that made my imagination wander. I bit my lower lip.
“Shackles in My Hands” was rated 19+. Deon had an overpowering obsession with the female lead, Resna. His obsession often led to him stripping off his top whenever he saw her.
Did it say sweat glistened between his tight abs? Just that light touch of my toe to his stomach brought back a flood of steamy descriptions I had read in the early hours of the morning.
The man was over 190 centimeters tall and built like a boulder. His entire body resembled a massive fortress.
“Ah, the command spell.”
That’s when it happened.
I was awkwardly wriggling my toes, trying not to touch his abs again, when a low, gravelly voice echoed down the corridor, cutting through the silence.
“…Right. My noble prison guard has a nasty habit of commanding me.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, almost as if he was about to laugh, and I could feel his gaze lower, locking onto my swinging leg.
“I wonder how long you’ll be able to maintain that damned command tone.”
Basically, he was saying that once the command spell wore off, he’d kill me.
…Right. I’m Lemoni.
Snapping out of my reader’s perspective, I realized I had just narrowly avoided death at the hands of a muscular monster of a man.
Lemoni Christina.
Even her name sounded like a cheap mix of vitamins and gems. This extra character was created solely to trigger Deon’s fury.
The Christina marquisate, where Lemoni was born, was infamous for its harsh education. Her siblings were molded into well-mannered dolls through brutal discipline and training that didn’t shy away from beatings.
But Lemoni was different.
She had congenital analgesia—she couldn’t feel pain.
“Lady Lemoni, lift your dress hem.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a rebellious girl who refuses to listen to her tutor.”
“Alright. Hit me.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Go ahead. Hit me.”
Lemoni’s brief backstory, mentioned in the early chapters, painted her as utterly unhinged.
“I’m curious how hard I have to be hit before I feel anything.”
I remember reading that line and shuddering. Even for a novel, it seemed far too much for a twelve-year-old. As she grew older, her curiosity toward pain evolved into something increasingly twisted.
“A first-class criminal named Deon? I wonder if someone like that also can’t feel pain, like me.”
Honestly, even though I had possessed Lemoni’s body, I could understand why Deon killed her first after escaping prison. Dunking her head in toilets, tying up her limbs and forcing bread down her throat—on days when he even bothered to feed her.
And after Lemoni became his supervising officer, things only got worse, thanks to a command spell contract that only first-class prison guards could make.
Dreys Prison was where the worst criminals from both the Southern and Western Empires were dumped. First-class criminals, especially, were extremely dangerous and uncontrollable without magical compulsion.
Each first-class criminal was assigned a single whistle.
With that whistle, their supervising guard could issue a command spell to stop or correct the prisoner’s behavior.
But in the original story, a mysterious first-class criminal breaks out, causing the command spell system to crash. The prison’s defense barrier was destroyed by that breakout.
And yet, now…
“…Prison guard. I behaved like a well-trained dog. Shouldn’t I get some praise?”
The command spell was still intact.
That explained why he could only sneer instead of snapping my neck right then and there.
“…Good job.”
I answered without thinking, too focused on clenching my trembling fists. I heard a quiet scoff from across the hallway, like he couldn’t believe it.
“Don’t just say it—show it.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Release the command spell.”
His gaze darkened as it lingered on my leg.
“…Or maybe just show me that tearful little face of yours.”
No. This can’t go on.
“Put me down.”
With those final words, my wildly beating heart froze like ice.
This man wasn’t just a fictional male lead from a novel anymore. I didn’t know why I had possessed Lemoni, but the chill of his voice crawling into my ear sparked a deep survival instinct.
Letting him control me any longer was just a waste of time.
Though the blood still rushed to my head and I was short of breath, the original plot had changed. That meant I now had a weapon against him.
There was hope.
“Deon, I said put me down.”
When I blew the whistle with a trembling breath, his neck snapped straight, as if hypnotized.
Deon gripped my waist tightly, as if in defiance—but that was all.
Soon, my shoes touched the floor. Swallowing hard, I pulled the restraint rope from my belt.
From reading the novel, I knew Dreys guards were equipped with self-defense weapons and restraining ropes.
In the dark corridor, his blood-red eyes glowed with a chilling light as he watched my every move. A cold, twisted smile played at the corner of his mouth.
“What is it? Are you into bondage or something?”
“…Do you always think like that?”
“You’re the one who taught me, prison guard.”
I’m not Lemoni, I swear.
“Tying me up.”
The amusement faded from his face and turned to disgust.
“Locking me in.”
Ignoring his biting gaze, I stepped behind him.
“That’s your thing, isn’t it?”
“Put your hands behind your back.”
“Oh, so now the noble prison guard wants it from behind—”
“I said put your hands behind your back, Deon.”
The moment I blew the whistle, his hulking back went stiff and his thick wrists crossed behind him.
Good. I just needed to lock Deon up in his solitary cell on the seventh floor and escape the prison.
“Now follow me.”
…Could I really keep giving commands like this?
If the spell broke later, would he rip me apart even more viciously than in the original?
He was like a wild beast. My neck stiffened with dread at the thought, but there was no other choice.
“…I said follow me. Deon.”
There was only one way.
Blowing the whistle again, I took a heavy step. Soon, I heard heavier, quieter footsteps following me.
“Alright.”
But that wasn’t the problem. Even if I could issue commands, his murderous glare didn’t go away.
“After all, I’m your dog, aren’t I?”
Dreys Prison was made up of five buildings arranged like a massive fortress, each spaced at a fair distance. I was in Building B.
The original story began when a first-class criminal escaped from Building A.
“…So I shouldn’t go to A Block.”
A shadow suddenly loomed over my hand as I studied the map. My instincts flared, and I turned quickly—only to let out a sigh of relief.
It was just a torch’s shadow.
Maybe the wind had blown by, stretching the flame oddly. That’s all. But a chill climbed my spine, and the air felt cold. I bit my lip and unfolded the map again, pretending nothing was wrong.
The seventh floor of Dreys Prison, without Deon, was eerily quiet.
There were no windows. The hallways, lit only by torches, felt like the inside of a beast’s mouth—dark, damp, and unsettling. It wasn’t just cold. It was haunting.
I was on the seventh floor.
More precisely, I had locked Deon in a cell and was now sitting at the staircase leading down to the sixth floor.
“If you plan on going down there looking like a dumbass and getting killed by the other inmates, better to stay here. You need to die by my hands, after all.”
His cold warning echoed in my mind. And I had to admit—he wasn’t entirely wrong.
I didn’t feel it when he was with me, but now that I was alone, Dreys Prison felt terrifying to walk through.
Broken cells. Flickering torches. The occasional squeak of iron bars. The granite floor felt so damp, it chilled me to the bone. And the staircase down to the sixth floor was swallowed in total darkness.
I didn’t know what might be down there.
More prisoners? Guards?
If I had to guess, it’d be prisoners. This world was written entirely from a criminal’s point of view.
I was terrified. Just staring into the dark made it hard to breathe. But I couldn’t just sit around forever.
“…Okay. Let’s organize the situation.”
Sitting on the stairs, I anxiously bit my lower lip.
Dreys Prison consisted of five buildings, each seven stories tall and arranged in a circle. On the seventh floor of each building, a single first-class criminal was kept in solitary. The lower floors held dozens—hundreds—of second through sixth-class prisoners.
That meant in Block B, no prisoner was stronger than Deon.
But Dreys Prison was essentially the trash bin for what the Southern and Western Empires couldn’t handle. Most of the prisoners weren’t even human. They were monsters.
Why didn’t they just kill them? The novel said that intelligent, humanoid monsters had rights too. “Monster rights,” apparently.
“…Monster rights. Are you kidding me?”
All I could do was laugh dryly.
Before I knew it, my fingers were tangled in my hair from anxiety.
So then, was escape impossible?
…No. I would escape.
“For whose sake would I die here?”
My words echoed pitifully in the empty stairwell.
I didn’t want to die. Not when, before possessing Lemoni, my distant relatives had stolen my dead parents’ insurance money. Not when they beat me in the name of discipline.
Even now, their insults still rang clear in my mind.
“You weed of a girl. If only you had died with your parents, things would’ve been so much easier.”
Exactly.
I had always been a weed.
And this tenacious little weed wasn’t going to die here.
