“This is my workshop.”
Din seated Jay in a chair. The chair covered in black leather material looked plain and was quite large, so when he sat down, his feet didn’t even touch the floor. Din left Jay alone and spun around the room in circles. He looked like a dog unable to contain his excitement.
How many times did he spin around endlessly like that? It seemed he was trying to calm his excitement a bit, but he still appeared completely unable to settle down.
“There’s something I really want to do for you.”
“What… is it?”
Din finally stopped spinning in circles and stood blankly in front of a drawer lined with tools for procedures. Since he stood with his back to Jay, his expression couldn’t be seen.
Even though the light above was bright enough to hurt the eyes, the place where he stood was strangely gloomy. It was as if a dark shadow hung like a curtain. A tension that pulled at the back of one’s head lingered in the room.
“I’ve had a bit of a peculiar side since long ago.”
It was true. That level of obsession with skin wasn’t normal. But if you thought of it as a fetish, there was nothing strange about it either.
That carefree thought was brief. With what happened next, I could realize that the situation Jay was in wasn’t ordinary. With a sharp clicking sound, iron shackles that sprouted from the chair bound his limbs! Ironically, the shackles suited Jay’s sickly arms and legs frighteningly well.
“Wh-what is this? Telliano-ssi?!”
Despite Jay’s flustered state, Din only turned his head back, grinned, and pressed somewhere on the wall firmly. Then the chair slowly reclined and transformed into a bed-like form. It was similar in shape to a hospital bed. A bed made of leather material that could easily handle liquids or filth.
Fear crept up slowly. Belatedly wriggling his limbs to escape from the chains, the cruelly cold steel bound his limbs tight.
“I love white skin so much.”
In Din’s hand was a tattoo machine with a device that could inject mana. It was what I’d seen when I secretly broke in for preliminary investigation. The needle glinted in the cold light of the lamp. At its tip, Din’s mana, red like blood, formed droplets. It stood out even more in contrast to his pale skin.
“Even if someone’s appearance is ugly—”
He strode toward Jay. Jay, helplessly tied to the bed, could only turn his head to look at him. Looking down at Jay with his back to the light, he bared his teeth white and smiled like a predator.
Jay was overwhelmed by his intensity and couldn’t say anything. All he could do was tremble with chattering teeth in fear.
“Even if they’re fat like a pig, if their skin is white like white jade…”
His sweaty, damp hand slid stickily up Jay’s pale arm. Goosebumps rose at the creepy feeling, like being licked by a beast’s tongue. A dark gaze resembling a beast stuck to his entire body, clinging stickily.
“Among them all, Jay… you’re the best…”
With eyes drenched in ecstasy, he frantically rubbed his cheek against Jay’s arm. Thick desire he couldn’t control dripped down. With Jay’s limbs bound, he poured out his warped desires.
“St-stop. Telli, Telliano-ssi. Don’t do this. Why suddenly…”
When I spoke as if about to cry while making the most pitiful expression possible, Din’s eyes suddenly flashed. He burst into anger out of nowhere.
“Suddenly? Suddenly?!”
As if in reaction to what he’d been holding back, Din’s emotions exploded easily. It was like running around in a place littered with landmines of unknown location.
Din, his eyes shining with madness, didn’t seem sane. The peacock-like appearance of adorning his tail feathers to the fullest to seduce his ideal type was nowhere to be found.
“I’ve always wanted to do this to you!”
Din unhesitatingly plunged the needle into Jay’s exposed white skin. He hadn’t even applied anesthetic cream, and moreover, because the entire body of the needle was embedded in his arm, the pain was indescribably intense.
“Aaaahhh!!”
At the painful scream that burst from Jay’s mouth, Din smiled a twisted smile. There was no sympathy or guilt in his eyes. Rather, only pleasure filled them, showing just how seriously twisted a character he was.
But this won’t be the end, will it?
“Really, to have skin like this… How could there be…”
Din stroked the skin where he’d embedded the needle several times while rambling on. He was shut away in his own world, endlessly praising Jay’s white skin. I spoke to him with a pale expression as if about to collapse at any moment.
“Why…? What, what… what do you want?”
“Stay still… Stay still.”
“Save me, please save me…”
Though I begged desperately, Din rather hummed as if listening to pleasant music while examining various parts of Jay’s body. At his sticky gaze, goosebumps rose on Jay’s body.
Jay didn’t stop talking and kept asking Din. I was curious about the reason for the violence he was committing. I needed to find that out.
“Why, why are you doing this…?”
“Well, because you’re pretty.”
Din gave a simple answer. His obsession with white skin was already well known. It was exactly as I’d read in Glutton. The narrative of a character I’d only encountered in print stung sharply.
Fear that seemed to numb the back of one’s knees. A villain revealing violence while drooling before one’s eyes. Raw desire approaching.
“Normally, I’d carve it in and let them go, then chase after them when they’re about to forget…”
He cut Jay’s upper clothing into pieces with scissors. The torn clothes fell to the floor like rags. The white skin, blotched from the force of his grip, was revealed. It was obvious that bruises would form later in the shape of those handprints, dark and black.
Din smiled with raised corners of his mouth, satisfied with the marks he’d left.
“Kuh… huh… huhuh… kuk…”
Din laughed bizarrely with trembling corners of his mouth, thinking who knows what. Intoxicated by his own pleasure, he seemed unaware of what kind of appearance he was making. Or perhaps he didn’t care how he appeared to others.
After laughing bizarrely like that for a while, he shaved off Jay’s body hair with a razor and began to carve a tattoo on his lower abdomen.
Even without drawing a preliminary sketch, the way he drew with lightning speed as if possessed by a god was enough to make one’s tongue hang out. I didn’t know what kind of device was on the machine, but the speed at which he carved tattoos was abnormally fast.
Red mana liquid and black ink mixed together, and a dark red tattoo was carved into Jay’s body. Looking down, a giant spider seemed to hang upside down, positioned from the lower abdomen down to the thighs. Given the area, the pain was tremendous.
“Jay Doe… You’re different from other people.”
Din muttered as the tattoo was being finished. Throughout the tattooing, I had been gritting my teeth in pain and watching for an opportunity, so I asked through Jay’s mouth.
“Other people? Oth-other people, you say?”
“Huh? Other people? Are you curious?”
Din smiled so widely his mouth seemed to tear as he finished the tattoo. After carefully applying what appeared to be diluted potion to the tattooed area, Din sprang up from his seat.
Finally… I couldn’t hide the joy seeping out and smirked, but Din, intoxicated with himself, didn’t see me like that.
Like a theater actor, he pressed somewhere on the wall with exaggerated hand gestures. Then the wall of the basement, which had been just ordinary, smoothly opened and a hidden space was revealed. Only then could I know the source of the strange water smell that had brushed my nose.
“How is it?”
A blue aquarium filling the space where the wall had been. Looking at that aquarium resembling the sea, I couldn’t help but be shocked.
In that water, numerous people floated limply. On the many white bodies, beautiful tattoos were densely carved without exception. The white bodies with all body hair removed resembled fish rather than people.
“How is it? Pretty, right? Beautiful?”
Din looked at Jay with an appearance full of pride. The blue aquarium was an exhibition hall he’d created, and the corpses inside were trophies obtained at the end of hunts. A display stand for the dazzling achievements he’d accomplished. It was the bizarre secret space of a vile serial killer.
“Why…? How come… you haven’t been… caught…”
The victims filled the aquarium densely. Even though so many had died at Din’s hands, the world didn’t even know of this cruel serial killer’s existence. It was outrageous.
At the voice clearly showing confusion, Din spoke with a proud face.
“Haha. I may not look it, but I hold a pretty important position in the organization.”
Din held up the machine in his hand ostentatiously. Red mana glinted again at the tip of the needle.
“All members of the organization I belong to must have tattoos carved on their bodies upon joining.”
It would have been proof of belonging to the organization and also a display of loyalty. Moreover, since Din’s skill was even refined, any reluctant atmosphere would have been diluted.
But the reason for getting tattoos injected with others’ mana wouldn’t be all that was mentioned before. Even without mana, all the previously mentioned reasons could be satisfied. The act of injecting mana wasn’t something commonly done.
Intoxicated by his sense of intoxication, Din began to pour out the reason even though he wasn’t asked. There would be no reason to spare words to Jay, an already caught fish. For me, it was a welcome thing.
“I can know the location of people I’ve tattooed with my tattoos.”
“…Location?”
“Yes. Maybe that’s why the boss cherishes me so much. He doesn’t forget to help me enjoy large sums of money and my hobby.”
