The man roughly kicked open the door to the black market.
He wore a cruel smile as he thought of purifying the place with blood and screams, just like last time.
The two large men following him were also ready to tear their opponents apart at any moment.
However, the moment they stepped inside, the three men stopped simultaneously.
“…What is this?”
Instead of the tension and wariness they expected, they were greeted by a silent calm.
The lights were on, but not a single person was in sight.
Not even a single guard to stop them.
“Mr. Yoon Taejun, it seems the restoration isn’t complete. It’s empty?”
One of the men behind spoke to the man in front.
The man, Yoon Taejun, looked around.
Had the black market truly not been fully restored?
Even so, it was strange that it was this quiet.
A moment later, a strange melody began to play.
Like an old music box winding up and playing, a somewhat off-key melody echoed throughout the black market hall.
And to that melody, a single doll appeared.
Just then, light streamed from the ceiling, shining a spotlight on the doll.
“…A doll?”
It wasn’t just one doll.
Dozens of person-sized mannequins from all over the hall walked onto the stage with creaking joint sounds.
They were all wearing different clothes and striking different poses, each starting to dance.
Some dolls waved their limbs comically like clowns, while others reached out towards the empty air mournfully like tragic heroines.
“Those dolls, they’re not just decorations, are they? Are they something like summoners?”
Yoon Taejun muttered.
He instinctively became wary.
His keen senses were sending danger signals.
In fact, even those behind him felt as if the dolls were alive.
It was then.
“……!”
The head of the closest ballerina doll turned towards them with a ‘creak’ sound.
Its lively eyes met theirs directly.
At that moment, all the dolls’ dances stopped simultaneously.
Dozens of dolls, dozens of pairs of living eyes, all turned towards the three men.
The interior of the black market was instantly enveloped in suffocating silence.
“Oh my, we have uninvited guests.”
A hunched old woman, sitting in a fancy chair inside, spoke, her sewn mouth opening.
At the sight, Yoon Taejun’s eyes narrowed.
That old woman was not human.
A foreign magical power flowed from her entire body.
He suddenly remembered the words Kang Do-yoon had shouted in his last moments.
“- Azmo is an Incubus!”
At that time, Kang Do-yoon had identified Azmo as his backer. And when asked about Azmo’s identity, he had said Incubus.
At the time, he dismissed it as an absurd lie.
An Incubus coming out of a dungeon and mingling with humans.
He judged Kang Do-yoon to be telling a baseless lie and killed him.
But looking at the old woman before him, Kang Do-yoon’s story didn’t seem entirely false.
No, rather, it was clear that the backers of this black market were beings that far surpassed human common sense.
“It’s a shame. We should have used him more instead of killing him.”
Yoon Taejun muttered with a smile.
If he had known this would happen, he shouldn’t have killed Kang Do-yoon.
But his regret was short-lived. He had discovered a larger prey.
“Everyone, prepare to attack. Let’s just quickly take care of that old woman.”
“Hohoho.”
The old woman, Vestera, laughed at his words.
“Oh my, such good material has come to me on its own, how can I let you go? Your fresh bodies… can be reborn as my beautiful dolls.”
“You crazy b****…!”
One of the men behind Yoon Taejun couldn’t hold back and charged out first. His fist condensed with magical power, glowing blue.
His target was the head of the nearest doll.
*CRUNCH-*
The doll’s head shattered, sending wooden fragments flying. But the doll didn’t fall.
Instead, it moved without its head and lunged at its opponent.
“Aargh! What is this!”
The dolls began to cling to the man. As the wooden dolls attached themselves, his flesh was scratched and ripped, causing wounds.
“Cheol Park!”
Another person called his name and rushed forward, but other dolls blocked him. He was thrown against the wall by the arm of a doll in noble attire.
It wasn’t just a wooden arm. It was a hard and heavy blow like steel.
“How are my children?”
The old woman laughed and waved her fingers.
It was then that Yoon Taejun realized.
That the moving force behind those dolls was the old woman. Yoon Taejun, guessing that she possessed a summoning trait, though he didn’t know how she moved dozens of dolls.
He waved his hand in the air, creating a blade of dark crimson magical power.
“It looks like I’ll have to work overtime today.”
As Yoon Taejun swung his hand, the blade cut through the dolls. But instead of blood, only sawdust scattered from the cut surface.
The problem was that they didn’t die. If an arm was cut off, it moved with it cut off, and if a leg was cut off, it crawled towards the opponent.
Perfect soldiers who felt no pain or fear.
The battle quickly turned into a melee.
Although Yoon Taejun maintained an advantage while dealing with multiple dolls, the other two were reaching their limit.
“There’s no end! We need to aim for the main body first!”
Cheol Park broke through the dolls and charged towards Vestera. But blocking his way was a being of a different caliber than the other dolls. Lillian, a doll with a face that seemed to embody the fear from her past life.
Lillian looked at the human before her with emotionless eyes, and with the thread emanating from her fingertips, she caught his ankle.
“Aargh!”
Cheol Park, losing his balance and falling, was silently fallen upon by Lillian. Her fingers slowly approached Cheol Park’s eyes.
“What beautiful eyes. They would be perfect for my collection.”
With Vestera’s words, Lillian pulled out Cheol Park’s eyes.
“Aaaargh!”
Yoon Taejun frowned at Cheol Park’s writhing in pain.
Was she not just a simple summoner? The dolls were too strong. Rather than strong, ‘tenacious’ was a more fitting description. The dolls kept moving no matter how much they were cut or attacked, making it impossible to fight them.
“Mr. Yoon Taejun! First, run-”
The remaining man shouted with difficulty, but his words did not finish. Another doll struck his head.
*THUD-*
With a dull thud, his body went limp. As if waiting, the dolls dragged the man who had collapsed on the floor to Vestera.
Now, only Yoon Taejun remained in the hall.
Dozens of dolls slowly circled him, forming a circle. The creaking of joints and the off-key music box melody gnawed at his nerves.
“I will… I will definitely kill you!”
Power, driven by rage, swirled around Yoon Taejun like a storm. He gathered all his magical power to form a giant magical spear. His target was one and only: the old woman orchestrating all of this from her chair.
The spear tore through the dolls’ encirclement like paper, flying towards Vestera. But Vestera did not dodge. Instead, she opened her sewn mouth wide and laughed.
“Ah, what a brilliant light of life! Truly, the best material!”
As she moved her fingers, Lillian moved quickly and blocked the spear. Thanks to Lillian taking the blow, the magical spear could not pierce the old woman.
“I-Impossible…”
Yoon Taejun’s face, which had maintained his composure until now, was filled with shock. His final attack had been blocked. As he despaired, the dolls began to approach him slowly.
* * *
Without even glancing at Yoon Taejun, Vestera looked at Lillian.
“Oh my, my child. Don’t worry. This grandmother will replace him with that man’s body.”
Whispering thus, Vestera stood up from her chair and slowly approached Yoon Taejun. Behind her, Lillian, whose body was damaged by the spear, followed with a limp.
“Now… what will happen to me?”
Yoon Taejun said, having resigned himself to everything. There was no way to escape from here. No, he could escape. He just needed to run at full power, past those dolls. But if he did, he would be turning his back on the old woman. In the end, even if he ran, there was no guarantee he would escape unscathed. Moreover, hadn’t Yoon Taejun just exhausted all his strength? All he could do was buy time.
But.
“……!”
Vestera had no intention of giving him time. In the blink of an eye, she reached Yoon Taejun. Then she grabbed his hand and pulled out a fingernail.
“Aaaargh!”
With terrible pain, Yoon Taejun’s fingernail was ripped out entirely. Despite his painful, desperate screams, Vestera merely grinned.
“Beautiful fingernail, it would be good as decoration for Lillian.”
Her actions did not stop there. This time, she emitted thread from her hand and wrapped it around Yoon Taejun’s ear. Like a sharp blade, the thread smoothly severed his ear.
“Kuk!”
Pain echoed through his head.
“These ears also seem useful.”
Yoon Taejun had tortured and killed others, but he had never imagined he would be tortured in such a manner. Could this be called torture? Even now, the old woman before him was pulling out his fingernails and toenails one by one, and even cutting off his ears. This was not torture. It was disassembly.
“Ple-ase… spare…”
Fear consumed his soul. All he could utter was a plea for his life. But Vestera smiled.
“Not yet? Your handsome face skin is also needed, and your strong bones are needed for the dolls’ skeletons. Oh! Your hair can be made into a wig.”
Vestera murmured the uses of his body as she looked at him. Finally, her threads wrapped around Yoon Taejun’s entire body. The sensation of his skin being peeled off, his flesh being carved, and his bones being separated. Yoon Taejun’s screams no longer took the form of sound. The last thing he saw was the old woman’s button eyes, holding his flayed skin with an ecstatic expression.
“……”
He regretted it. Entering this black market. Dismissing Kang Do-yoon’s words as mere lies. But regretting it was too late. Moreover, this time, he wasn’t even given time to regret. Yoon Taejun’s regret would probably continue eternally even in death.
Meanwhile, Vestera muttered with satisfaction, disassembling the materials without waste.
“Truly, nothing is wasted. It is perfect art!”
Anyone who saw her might mistake her for a madwoman, so deeply ingrained was her madness.
Vestera approached another corpse. One had died facing death with his entire body scratched, and the other had had his head burst open.
“Tsk, this one is too damaged. The face is unusable.”
Still, her arms and legs seemed sturdy, so she was satisfied with that.
“All right, let’s start the performance again! We need to be busy to reopen the black market.”
As Vestera elegantly waved her hand, the black market’s music box melody resounded again. At the same time, the dolls, the customers who had visited the black market, began to dance elegantly. They too, regretting their visit to this black market.
