IBPOFCP 12

[Chapter 12]

As I floated unconsciously in a relaxed backstroke position, my eyelids slowly lifted. When I focused on the darkness-stained view, something dropped onto my cheek with a soft plop. It felt like human sweat.

When I came to my senses, I found Deon straddling me, his face contorted in pain as he broke out in a cold sweat. As I met his slightly frenzied crimson eyes, a red flash surged through my mind.

Beads of sweat trickled down his temple and the nape of his neck as if he were sick.

“…You.”

Seeing me frozen in a daze, he let out a bitter chuckle, as if he couldn’t believe it. I was the one who had collapsed, yet it was Deon who was gasping for air like he was the one suffering.

I tried to move, but my wrists wouldn’t budge. His powerful grip was holding them down, as if he was going to crush them. I felt no pain—only the strength of his grasp. It was strange.

In my dazed state, the memories finally came rushing back.

I had ordered Deon to kill me.
I had made up my mind to die.
But I didn’t die.

I had used command magic. He shouldn’t have been able to disobey.

That’s when it happened—his crimson eyes sharpened abnormally and lunged at my neck. A breathy gasp escaped from my mouth, one I had only kept bottled up inside.

Haa.

Deon must’ve decided to give me something else in place of pain, knowing I couldn’t feel it.

When his hot, slippery tongue swept across my neck, the unfamiliar sensation made my half-lidded eyes snap open, and my toes curled instinctively, searching for a place to hide.

Haa. Haa.

Our erratic breaths echoed in the silence. Perhaps he found my neck unexpectedly appealing, because he obsessively lingered there, unable to tear himself away.

His moist lips wrapped around my pale, slender neck, sucking as if drinking me in, and then his tongue swirled against my skin. It was strange. I clamped my lower lip shut in an attempt to stop it, but strange noises kept leaking out between my teeth.

“Shit…”

That only seemed to excite him more.

“…Deon, what the hell…?”

In the end, he bit down on my neck with his molars and gripped my wrist tighter than ever. I still didn’t feel pain—just the cold, sharp sensation of something piercing my skin.

Underneath him, I panted like a deer caught in the jaws of a predator. The command didn’t work. Worse, I didn’t understand why he had suddenly changed so drastically.

He had always watched me with contempt, silently biding his time. Something was definitely off. This change had to be due to that liquid he drank earlier.

“Deon!”

I called out his name, my fist clenched until my knuckles turned white. His broad back flinched slightly. As if regaining a sliver of self-control, he gasped for breath and squeezed my wrist like he might crush it.

“…Warden.”

His voice, thick with heat, melted against my ear. The sultry tremble of it sent a shiver up my spine. His deep baritone split into two layers, carrying with it a chilling rage.

“You’ll never die by your own will, Lemoni.”

Finally, he pulled away from my neck. As his crimson eyes came into full view, I was paralyzed by the chilling obsession reflected in them.

The command magic hadn’t worked on Deon.

After that, Deon twisted his face in agony, then shot to his feet and bolted out of the room. The shackles had already been broken. He must’ve done that while I was unconscious. Still, even after he left, I couldn’t get up right away.

The corpses surrounding me formed an ominous grave.

Only after some time had passed did I fully realize I hadn’t died.

And I hadn’t felt any pain, either. I also realized that in the moment he tried to kill me, my body had struggled to live.

“You’ll never die by your own will, Lemoni.”

His curse-like words made me laugh bitterly. What he wanted wasn’t Lemoni’s death—he wanted to see her squirm.

And… I wanted to see that too.

I gulped down my pooled saliva and turned my head. My hand was trembling like a leaf. This wasn’t just some novel anymore. The original plot had changed, and now I could no longer predict what would happen.

Because I had possessed Lemoni.
Because my soul had entered her body.

Then… where was the real Lemoni?

That sudden thought hit me like a tidal wave. I slowly sat up, my mouth parting.

Why had I never questioned it before?

In most transmigration novels, the original soul swaps with the new one, or at least moves somewhere else. That meant Lemoni’s soul might still be alive.

Where could the real Lemoni’s soul be?
Did she even know I was suffering in her place?

As the world of the novel began to feel more like reality, anger surged within me at the thought of Lemoni. I nearly cursed out loud.

Once I finally sat up, I felt something hot and sticky around my neck. Blood. He must’ve really bitten me after all that sucking and licking.

Like it was routine, I opened a drawer in the reception room and pulled out some bandages, roughly wrapping them around my neck and shoulders. Would this stop the bleeding?

I had no pain, so it was hard to tell the condition of my body.

That’s when I noticed a notebook among the grotesque corpses.

Should I read it or not? In the end, it wouldn’t hurt to check. Clenching my teeth, I picked up the notebook while muttering a silent apology to the dead.

Opening the bloodstained pages was hard. But I had to.

Imperial Year 102, August 7th.
351 days left until I leave this hellhole. That’s 14 days short of a full year. With the money I’ve saved as a prison guard, I’ll move to the southern region with my family and live a quiet life in a small home. I hope the remaining days pass peacefully.

It was probably the journal of a now-deceased guard.

Maybe it had something useful.

It felt almost disrespectful reading such private thoughts. Just as I decided I shouldn’t read further, a familiar name caught my eye.

Imperial Year 102, August 12th.
The infamous noble-born Warden Lemoni from Block C seems unable to go a day without causing trouble. As expected, Block B is the real problem. Lemoni infiltrated Block C using noble inmates and was caught trying to search the control tower for a berserk potion. When asked why she needed it, she gave no answer. Oddly enough, she looked pale—totally unlike her usual “crazy bitch” persona. What the hell’s going on?

I frowned. This entry detailed suspicious behavior from a background character the novel had ignored.

Imperial Year 102, August 31st.
Lemoni from Block B has been acting even weirder lately. She’s always been strange, but maybe it’s because of her pain insensitivity. For days, she demanded the berserk potion. When the prison refused, she attempted to escape.

What?

She was found in a remote cave. At the time, she was sitting in a magic circle drawn with white chalk. When our eyes met—through her tangled hair—I saw violet eyes glowing madly. She reminded me of the witches people say disappeared long ago. As she was dragged from the circle, she kept mumbling the same thing until we reached the prison: “I have to escape.”

Thud.
I slammed the notebook shut. For a long while, I stared at it, then silently returned it to the deceased guard’s pocket.

Something was very wrong.

In the original story, Lemoni was nothing more than a sadistic psycho extra in Dreys Prison. But the Lemoni in this journal—she sounded less like a deviant and more like a beast being dragged to slaughter.

Why was she different from the original?
What had changed?

A hypothesis struck me: maybe this wasn’t the original timeline from the novel. Maybe the real Lemoni had regressed and started to realize something.

That would explain the change in her behavior.

The berserk potion.
She tried to get it from the control tower, right?

I hurried toward the drawers. My foot bumped against a corpse’s arm, but I wasn’t scared anymore.

When people find a purpose, they fixate on it. My blurred vision, once only focused on running away from Deon, now had clarity.

I opened the drawers one by one. Quill pens, notebooks, half-eaten chocolate bars—nothing. I searched the entire room until something rolled against my heel.

An empty glass bottle. Just a few sips would’ve emptied it. A sticky green residue clung to the inside.

At the time, I’d been too out of it to think clearly, but now I remembered—Deon must’ve drunk from this.

I turned the bottle. A familiar warning label came into view: a beast with a gaping wolf’s mouth was crossed out with a bold red “X.”

Exactly like how the berserk potion was described in the novel.

Deon had probably found this potion to bypass the command magic. But when I ordered him to kill me, the potion caused him to lose control and flee.

Whatever his intention, there were only two options left for me now:

Try to die again.

Or survive.

Tick. Tick. Tick.
The anxious ticking of the clock filled the room.

It was 12:01.

I didn’t know if 24 hours had passed, but maybe… maybe the command magic would work now.

Once someone sets a goal, they become blind to all else.