BSAR Chapter 22

“Finally realizing the predicament you’re in?”

Misinterpreting Seojin’s shocked and frozen reaction, the gangster boasted with an arrogant expression. Regardless, Seojin couldn’t hide his bewilderment at the pleasure he felt from the stinging sensation on his cheek.

[Effect: Pain and external stimuli below a certain threshold are converted to pleasure, rendering minor pain sensationless.]

Reading the effects of his talent [Sensory Conversion] once again, he made a strange face. It was as if the content was encouraging a masochistic tendency by force.

‘I was content thinking it merely alleviated problematic symptoms…’

Initially, he thought of it as a talent that, like [Penalty Delay], allowed him to freely use various talents in emergencies. He hadn’t anticipated it making him feel like a pervert in this manner.

Moreover, since the ability was passive, he couldn’t choose when to experience its effects. Sighing deeply, Seojin decided to ponder over this issue after escaping from here.

“Anyway, it always takes a beating for young ones to come to their senses.”

Right now, the priority was to deceive the ignorant thug in front of him and get him to open the door himself.

“Thinking of begging for help out of fear now?”

“…And what would change if I did?”

“You’d have to cry a little and beg earnestly. If that crazy guy really comes to save you, your treatment will completely change.”

Instead of responding to his own question, Seojin watched the gangster ramble on, gaining confidence in his vague suspicion about the reason for his kidnapping.

‘They’ve decided to use me as bait to lure out the Do-beom.’

It seems the gangster also noticed the Do-beom’s conspicuous interest in Seojin. He had volunteered to act as Seojin’s manager and even personally confronted members of a rival gang for him.

Who would have thought they’d resort to kidnapping so directly? Typically, one would investigate the relationship between two people before taking action, so it wasn’t strange that they caught Seojin off guard.

‘Recalling the reaction when we encountered each other in front of the building, this guy surely isn’t the boss of the rival faction.’

Regardless, their plan must be to force Seojin to call the Do-beom and desperately plead for help, then observe his reaction. Only then would they decide their next move or how to deal with Seojin.

The approach was undoubtedly simplistic, but it was precisely because of this that Seojin, caught off guard, couldn’t even laugh at them. He could only hope that the gangster would respond just as naively to the performance Seojin was about to put on.

“Hey, not answering? Losing your spirit already…”

Seeing the gangster raise his arm as if to strike his face again, Seojin quickly decided to proceed with his next plan.

[Talent ‘Penalty Delay’ is cast on ‘Vitality Control.’]

In the next moment, a wheezing noise began to mix into his previously steady breathing, accompanied by a metallic sound that appeared painfully strained. It was the groundwork for a performance known as ‘playing dead.’

As the gangster hesitated, Seojin’s already pale complexion turned even whiter. His face became so ashen that anyone would be alarmed, thinking ‘His condition seems really serious.’ He gasped for air with great difficulty.

“Gasp, need… medicine… now…”

With his eyelids fluttering, Seojin exhibited signs of respiratory distress throughout his body. Had his arms not been tied, he might have clutched at his chest in a desperate and urgent display.

“What the—what’s this?”

The gangster, seeing Seojin’s pupils dilating and contracting uncontrollably, panicked, convinced that ‘this can’t possibly be an act.’ A thug who had lived his life through sheer brute force had no experience in dealing with critical medical emergencies.

“Damn it, what! What am I supposed to do! What kind of medicine do you need!”

As the gangster was frantically cursing and showing signs of irritation, Seojin’s body, along with the chair he was tied to, suddenly fell to the side with a thud. Almost simultaneously, his gasping breaths stopped abruptly.

“Hey! Damn it, hey!”

The gangster, with a terrified expression, roughly shook the fallen body, but Seojin, limp and unresponsive, showed no signs of movement. The color drained from the face of the gangster as he checked Seojin’s breathing by putting a finger under his nose.

The fear that he might have inadvertently caused a death while trying to shake up the boss of a rival gang loomed over him. Instead of rising in rank within his organization, he was now facing the grim prospect of being labeled a fool who had to serve time for a blunder.

Seojin’s halted breathing, his pallid, bloodless complexion, and his body, limp like a corpse, all seemed to confirm his death.

“Damn. Damn it!”

He couldn’t stop the curses that involuntarily burst out. There was no way to secretly dispose of the body since the Do-beom was already informed about the kidnapping.

The best course of action was to find a way to revive Seojin. He needed to call a doctor or, at the very least, quickly eliminate any evidence that could suggest manslaughter due to reckless disregard.

The gangster hurried to give instructions for damage control to his subordinates, rushing toward the office door that was locked. However, just as he was about to fling open the door, Seojin’s eyes, which had been closed, snapped open.

‘I have at most 15 seconds.’

Calculating the distance between him and his adversary, along with the expected reaction time once the situation was grasped, Seojin set a mental timer and slammed the heel of his sneaker, which was tied to the chair leg, down onto the concrete floor.

With a thud, a blade the size of a thumb sprang from the heel of the sneaker upon hard collision with the floor. Quickly twisting his body from its fallen position, Seojin grabbed the blade with his hands tied behind his back.

’10 seconds.’

With movements surprisingly agile and familiar, he sliced through the cable ties binding his wrists behind his back. Once his arms were free, everything proceeded swiftly.

‘5 seconds.’

After freeing his ankles from the chair legs, he snatched the gangster’s suit jacket draped over the opposite chair and started running towards the half-open door.

‘3 seconds.’

Only then did the gangster, sensing something amiss, turn around, his startled face coming into closer view. Seojin managed to wrap the stretched-out jacket around the gangster’s neck before he could fully turn around.

“You bastard… Ack!”

Gripping the jacket tightly with both hands and hanging off it with his feet in the air, Seojin put his entire body weight into the chokehold, gritting his teeth as he watched the gangster’s face turn pale with suffocation.

To prevent himself from being easily shaken off by the desperate struggles of the gangster, Seojin had to exert all his strength. Blood dripped from the wounds in his palms, pooling on the floor until it formed a puddle.

The hidden blade in the sneaker had no handle. Holding it barehanded, especially without being able to see it, caused the tender skin of his palms to suffer even more cuts, widening with each moment.

“Argh… Ack!”

As Seojin’s wounds tore further open, the violent resistance from his opponent gradually weakened. The dizzying whirl of his surroundings began to stabilize slowly. Yet, complacency was not an option.

‘I must endure more.’

The fear of potentially taking a life, if he loosened his grip too soon, threatened to turn his hard-won chance at escape into vain. He had to steel his heart as much as possible.

With this resolve, Seojin did not let go of the jacket even as the gangster’s strength ebbed away, his knees buckled, and he frothed at the mouth, rolling his eyes back, until he collapsed completely from lack of oxygen.

Only after the gangster lay motionless on the floor did Seojin finally allow his blood-soaked hands to relax. But he couldn’t afford to feel relieved; there were still many hurdles ahead.

“What’s that? Hey!”

Stepping through the now open door, Seojin surveyed the lower-ranking gangsters who seemed to have just noticed the commotion, rushing towards him from the opposite corridor. They were all sizable men.

Abandoning his initial plan to head for the stairs, Seojin flung open a window in the corridor. The building, presumably an abandoned commercial structure, was around five stories high—a fall could result in serious injuries.

“Crazy! He’s escaping! Catch him!”

Despite realizing this, he didn’t hesitate to leap through the window. He judged that suffering a broken leg from a bad fall was preferable to being recaptured by the gangsters.

“Ugh.”

Narrowly evading the hands of the gangsters who reached out almost instantly, Seojin bit his lip as he precariously clung to a drainpipe on the building’s exterior.

Was it the pain from the torn palms that caused him to bite his lip? On the contrary, it was the peculiar pleasure that had been wrapping around his body since earlier, making him gnaw at his lip like someone trying to forget their pain.

Then, the familiar sound of sirens began to approach from not too far away. It seemed like a police car was entering through the main gate. In the direction of the back gate, below him, he could see the Do-beom and his subordinates standing.

[Do-beom’s (Compatibility: Optimal) affection increased by 1.]

Seojin felt as if he momentarily made eye contact with the Do-beom. Clutching the gangster’s suit jacket once again, this time he wrapped it securely around the drainpipe instead of a person’s neck and leapt down.

Even with the minimal safety measure he created for himself, it was an act that anyone would deem insane. The Do-beom seemed to think so too, watching Seojin slide down the drainpipe with a shocked expression.

“…Boss.”

But to Seojin, seeing the Do-beom who came to rescue him was nothing but a relief. Now, he could momentarily escape from the ‘strange pleasure.’

Before the Do-beom could say anything, Seojin, with his bloodied hands, grabbed onto his clothes. Resting his head on the shoulder of the Do-beom, who looked down at him with a strange expression, Seojin accepted the penalties he had been postponing.

[Due to the penalty of ‘Vitality Control’, you will fall into a comatose state for 6 hours.]

[Due to the penalty of ‘Penalty Delay’, you will suffer from high fever for 24 hours.]

[‘Seeking Warmth Vampire’ is cast.]

Feeling the strong arms gently picking up his collapsing body.