Chapter 5. Lick It (1)

Translator: Lili

When Kang Eunchan opened his eyes, he was still trapped in darkness.

Initially thinking he was having a nightmare, Eunchan lay stunned for a moment before slapping himself across the cheek to regain his composure. His surroundings were pitch black, yet his senses were sharp and vivid. This was certainly no nightmare.

He had no idea where he was, only that it was cold and the floor rough beneath him. An ominous humming echoed from somewhere. The scent of blood nauseated him—he must have been breathing it in for hours—yet there was nothing left in his stomach to vomit out. Shivering violently, he groped around the solid, icy walls and floor.

He struggled desperately to piece together his situation. What had happened exactly? Up until the moment he’d hesitated in front of that woman’s door, intent on killing her, he was certain everything had been real. After that, it all felt surreal, almost like some bizarre fantasy. Confused, Eunchan wondered if he had unknowingly ingested a hallucinogen, when his hand brushed against a small rectangular object on the rough floor.

A lighter. Hastily, Eunchan ignited it.

The moment the faint flame flickered to life, visions of piled corpses flashed vividly before his eyes. Among them was the unknown person he’d accidentally killed earlier, as well as the faces and names of those he’d personally murdered before. Killing was not new to him.

Instinctively stifling a scream, Eunchan hurled the lighter away from himself. It disappeared into the darkness, clattering lightly as it landed somewhere far away, the echo making it impossible to determine where it had ended up.

Only then did he realize, far too late, the severity of his mistake.

‘I lost it.’

A stupid mistake. Now he was trapped in complete darkness. Eunchan panicked, cold sweat drenching his body as he crawled along the floor, desperately trying to find the lighter again.

He was afraid of the dark.

Bubbles seemed to rise in his throat. In fact, Kang Eunchan was not just a simple robber; he himself was a genuine serial killer. Unlike Nabi’s unusual kind, Eunchan was more of a traditional serial killer—more specifically, an assassin. He was highly skilled, too. But he had one critical weakness: in pitch-darkness, Eunchan constantly saw hallucinations of people he’d killed.

Had he finally landed himself in hell after murdering so many people?

At that moment, there came a loud thud from ahead.

Eunchan froze, staring toward the source of the sound. Of course, nothing was visible, yet he stared nonetheless, every nerve in his body on high alert.

Aside from the loud thud, other noises followed: the sound of something being overturned, an impact against a surface, even someone stumbling. Eunchan trembled uncontrollably as he waited. Soon, a woman’s thin voice, sounding a little sheepish, spoke out of the darkness.

“Did you see that?”

It was that woman.

Eunchan instinctively shuffled backward slightly. The overwhelming terror he’d felt earlier had subsided, but hostility and fear still lingered.

In truth, the noises Eunchan had just heard were caused by Nabi tripping over the rough flooring she’d poorly finished when building the bunker long ago. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat awkwardly.

“Ahem. Ah, right, you can’t see anything. Hang on.”

Nabi fumbled around, connecting a portable outdoor lamp to an old generator she’d dragged in. Both items were quite aged. Surprisingly, after some struggle, they worked perfectly fine.

The room brightened suddenly.

For Eunchan, who’d been stuck in darkness for hours, this sudden burst of light blinded him momentarily, making him squint. After a brief adjustment, his eyes widened anxiously, carefully examining the woman standing in front of him.

A serial killer who hunted another serial killer.

This woman captured anyone who attempted to break in openly, thieves creeping silently into her home, even sexual predators lurking outside her window. She trapped them all in an underground bunker.

“…”

“… What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?”

Nabi, patting her own face absentmindedly, appeared unnaturally calm, to the extent she didn’t even seem real.

With short hair tied loosely into a small ponytail, and wearing pajamas, she crouched casually under the dim glow of the outdoor lamp she’d set up. This casual image felt surreal in its own way. Eunchan’s relationships with other people had always been extremely limited. He especially wasn’t used to women treating him casually upon their first meeting.

Therefore, to Eunchan, Nabi didn’t feel like a serial killer at all. Rather, after being left alone in total darkness for so long, plagued by horrifying hallucinations, Eunchan almost felt comforted by the sudden friendly demeanor of this strange woman.

Unable to process the bizarre situation unfolding before him, Eunchan could only stare blankly, frozen.

Meanwhile, Nabi looked at him with innocent admiration.

“You look even more handsome now that your eyes are open. Your genes are a waste here. Wanna go out and donate sperm or something first?”

“W-who exactly are you…?”

“Me?”

Eunchan nodded stiffly, almost mechanically. Nabi smiled faintly.

“The one who holds you captive.”