Silence filled the room. Asher kept glancing at the girl, who didn’t say a word, waiting for her to speak, but no matter how much time passed, she remained seated, silent.

    “Hey, why are you in my house?”

    “…”

    Unable to bear it any longer, he spoke first, but she only stared at him with those vacant eyes, still saying nothing. Her doll-like appearance made Asher frown; he almost doubted she was human. He’d sometimes thought of Belka as doll-like, but this girl was different. Asher had found Belka doll-like because the girl was overwhelmingly beautiful—from her bright gold eyes to her flower-like hair. It wasn’t because of the girl’s lifeless appearance. Asher disliked that this entirely different girl evoked a similar feeling to Belka.

    The girl, known as the village idiot, was famous among the children. In such a small, rural village, it would be stranger if she weren’t known, but everyone knew her. At first, many children approached her out of curiosity because of her pretty appearance, but soon they began to ignore or scorn her. She never responded to anything, never thought or moved on her own. She often got stones thrown at her or was teased, but that requires a reaction to continue. Since the girl reacted to nothing, only staring with vacant eyes, the children who used to tease her grew bored and ignored her.

    “Hah, fine, it’s weird that you even know things.”

    Asher gave up first. Why else would someone be called an idiot? Constantly being on guard was exhausting. Her presence in his room had kept him from changing out of his wet clothes, but now he decided to do so. Though he wasn’t entirely unconcerned, Asher was just about to take his clothes off when the girl looked at him. The girl, who hadn’t reacted at all until now, moved on her own. Startled by the unexpected movement, he paused undressing.

    “What?”

    She was before him, as if she had lied about remaining still like a piece of furniture. That wasn’t all.

    “Don’t you want to?”

    “What, what do you mean?”

    She opened her mouth, which had been firmly closed until now, and spoke. He couldn’t understand what she meant by “don’t you want to,” but as she looked at him, she reached for him. She grasped at his pants, attempting to pull them down, and Asher instinctively stopped her. Confused by her sudden behavior, he stared at her.

    “Why?”

    “Why? Why are you suddenly doing this?”

    Even for an idiot, it was too sudden and nonsensical. Though he doubted she knew, he asked for a reason, but the response was far beyond his expectations.

    “Daddy told me to teach you.”

    “Daddy…?”

    Asher’s face twisted in disbelief. Naturally, in this village, she was ostracized for being an idiot, a simpleton, because she had no parents. Asher had once been interested in her because, like him, she was parentless. If there was someone who might be considered her father.

    “Do you mean Mr. Mac?”

    “Yes.”

    She nodded. He knew generally that someone was looking after her, but it was apparently Mr. Mac. However, he couldn’t understand why Mr. Mac had brought her to his house. Just as Asher was contemplating this, the girl began to pull down his pants. His underwear was pulled down as well, exposing him to her. Feeling his face flush, he was about to say something when…

    “You, you!?”

    She licked his penis. Regardless of his shame, his penis was already swelling from the wet, soft touch. It wasn’t a one-time thing. As if knowing his penis was still swelling, she repeatedly licked it with her soft tongue. Amidst this unexpected and humiliating situation, Asher wanted to pull away, but he didn’t dislike the feeling entirely, so he watched as she continued.

    “Mmm.”

    When Asher’s penis was fully erect, she took it into her mouth and began to suck. *Tsup, chuuuk-chuuuk*, the sound of her sucking echoed in the quiet room. She sucked only with her lips, careful not to use her teeth, and used her tongue to lick his penis thoroughly. Whether she knew what it was for or not, she sucked it, as if she found it truly delicious. Asher felt his mind growing hazy from the sensation; it had only been a short time since he last had sex with Belka, and it felt like ages. He had stopped resisting.

    “Aaaaah.”

    The warm feeling of her mouth and tongue, which wasn’t like Belka’s, gave him a new kind of pleasure, causing him to moan shamelessly. How long had she been sucking? Soon, he spurted his semen. What surprised him even more was that, even as he was ejaculating, she continued to suck and lick him. When he’d finally finished, the girl released his penis. She sucked it clean until the very last drop. She looked up at him.

    She seemed to be holding something in her mouth, then opened it to show him. The off-white, cloudy liquid was, surely enough, his semen. Then she closed her mouth. The sound of her swallowing could be heard. He was skeptical, but she showed him explicitly. Her mouth was empty. She had swallowed his cum.

    “You pervert?! Why are you doing this to me!?”

    *Swoosh-swoosh*, the sound of rain outside could be heard. This wasn’t simply a shower. He was grateful she’d given him the chance to return home, but the sound of the rain lashing against the house didn’t register. The strange pleasure he felt, the fact that he hadn’t resisted her despite the fact that it wasn’t Belka—he felt disgusted with himself for having yielded to the pleasant sensation. He was shocked by the way she expertly licked, sucked, and repeatedly moved him, she was the village idiot. She was, he’d thought, a simpleton who couldn’t speak and wouldn’t act without being told.

    He thought that. But how could she, after his accidental exposure, have appeared so ready to act like this? Asher easily understood that someone had taught her. He couldn’t understand her actions; forcing herself on him, licking, and sucking without instruction would be impossible otherwise.

    “Who taught you this…?!”

    At that moment, Asher realized it; only Mac could have taught the idiot such things. Before he left, he’d boasted of his enjoyment and demanded recompense. There was only one who would fit that description. Realization struck him like a blow to the head. He’d suspected something from the start, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Mac was one of the few adults in the village who had been kind to him. He’d acted as a father for this idiot but treated her as an object.

    “Did Mr. Mac make you do it with Robert and Connor, too?”

    Even though he was certain, Asher still asked.

    “Yes, Daddy said he wanted to teach me how good it felt.”

    It was as he’d thought. However, her expression didn’t match the pleasure she seemed to be describing. Her face was empty, lifeless. Asher remembered that the girl hadn’t always been an idiot or simpleton. With a flicker of hope, he asked.

    “How many times have you done this with the boys in this village… no, including adults?”

    As if she had never considered it before, she answered casually. Asher felt nausea rising in his throat, making him retch. Luckily, he hadn’t eaten the bread Kate had given him earlier – he’d been too engrossed with Belka. Otherwise, he’d surely have vomited it all up. He decided it was time to seriously plan his escape from this wretched village, together with Belka. Asher hadn’t always wanted to leave the village and become an adventurer. He’d lived in this rural village since he couldn’t remember, and he was attached to it.

    Even so, he’d come to want to leave because of something that happened around this time seven years ago. He didn’t remember precisely who brought the news or the actual content of it. He was, to put it kindly, not in his right mind. The family which helped him who had no parents were his only hope. The news was that his older sister, who had looked after him and treated him like a younger brother, had gone outside the village and been found dead, gruesomely murdered, by a woodcutter.

    Asher remembers. He’d tried to approach his sister, but the adults kept stopping him, blocking his view. He couldn’t see everything, but he saw the familiar golden hair through the gap between the adults, and smelled a fishy scent, incomparable to the smell of a slaughterhouse, of blood and something else entirely alien and disgusting The adults all said she’d gone outside the village out of curiosity and had been killed by monsters in the forest. Asher didn’t believe it. It wasn’t simply a refusal to accept her death. His sister was, as everyone in the village would know, extraordinarily obedient and kind.

    Yet, the adults who had seemed to adore her, as if to contradict this, said that she had disobeyed them and no one questioned her death. Only Asher, who knew his sister best, harbored suspicion. That’s when it started. When he began to feel alienated and suffocated in this rural village.

    “You said you’d never be a woodcutter, right? So you’re finally going to be one?”

    “It’s not like that, so just shut up.”

    Asher snapped irritably at Robert, who teasingly asked him this as he prepared to gather wood.

    “What’s up? It’s that day. Why are you so sensitive?”

    “Hey.”

    “Oh, fine, I won’t. I can just not do it, can’t I? You’re getting serious.”

    When Connor, noticing the meaning behind his joke, saw Asher glaring, he and Robert backed down quietly. After hearing what the idiot had said yesterday, even his friends felt uncomfortable and burdensome. Even the jokes that he himself and his friends had thrown around without fully comprehending their significance had begun to bother him. After chasing off his friends, Asher silently helped the adults. The adults were surprised and pleased to see him helping them, since he’d always refused to do anything but errands because of his stubbornness. Asher found even their appreciative glances disgusting.

    He was outside early today where the woodcutters were preparing to go into the forest. Asher usually just ran errands, but he knew he needed money to leave the village and become an adventurer. This village is so small that they survive through bartering, but larger cities and countries have their own currencies. Since the only thing this village sells externally for money is the wood they harvest, when Mac approached him,…

    “Did you sleep well last night?”

    “…Yes.”

    He wanted to ask why he was asking such a question, suppressing an urge to snap back at Mac, he replied.

    “Heehee, Really? Are your dreams affecting your work? I should lend you more often after all.”

    “Thank you.”

    No matter how idiotic she was, he hated how brazenly he treated people like an object. Still, he answered because he had no choice. If he didn’t, he’d be the one at a disadvantage. Because of what he learned from the idiot, Asher realized that orphans like him, who had no parents in this village, were nothing but outsiders who could be easily discarded and ignored. It was perhaps a realization that came too late. The woodcutters were soon ready, and Asher was going outside the village for the first time officially.

    “Why do the adults go cutting wood by themselves?”

    “I don’t know, it’s dangerous, I hear.”

    Robert and Connor were picking up dry branches and chatting. As they said, the adults told them that it was still too dangerous for them to cut down trees, asking them to gather branches instead, before venturing deeper into the forest. The ground was slippery from yesterday’s rain, making it difficult to find dry branches. The forest was dense, with large trees blocking the sunlight. He was using a scythe to cut appropriately sized branches to stack on his carrying pole. While losing himself in attempting not to remember yesterday’s events, he was gathering as many branches as he could, when he noticed him being watched by his friends who spoke up.

    “Hey, Asher!”

    He couldn’t ignore their direct call, and seeing their gestures looked back.

    “Come here!”

    Their hushed speech while observing their surroundings made him suspicious. Unsure why they were acting so strange, he proceeded.

    “Do you see that over there?”

    “A house?”

    Robert pointed to a small hut nestled in a small clearing.Although it was on the path, it confused him to see a house that was used only by woodcutters or so. It looked very old. The wooden planks forming the walls were peeling, revealing the wood grain underneath; the moss-covered roof, stained with grime of unknown origin, seemed like it could collapse at any moment. There were no windows or doors; the house was utterly out of place. While it struck him simply as an abandoned dwelling, that did not seem to be the case for the children.

    “Isn’t that the house from the village rules?”

    “The house where the monster lives?”

    “What are you talking about?”

    Asher, forgetting his efforts to not become involved, asked. It was because of the word ‘monster’ from Connor’s lips. The village adults had certainly stated that his sister went outside the village and was killed by monsters. Although he didn’t believe it, he was still concerned. When he showed interest, they excitedly, somewhat fearfully, spoke.

    “You know the village rules say not to enter any house found in the forest, right?”

    “Yeah.”

    He didn’t recall them all precisely, but it seemed he had heard rules like those, so he answered vaguely.

    “I was curious about why that rule existed, so I nagged my mom into telling me about it.”

    “So?”

    His heart ached as his friends casually spoke of parents he never had. However he hid his feelings and listened

    “It’s because a monster lives in that house!”

    He’d imagined an amazing story, but instead only obtained a nonsense tale. When he looked unimpressed, they looked at him, as if urging him to understand, but he wasn’t interested in what they had to say. Village rules were only village rules. Regardless of what was inside, it wasn’t something Asher should worry about. He needed to prepare to leave the village before anything else. But then Robert gave him a knowing look.

    “Ah~, of course, you’re scared, aren’t you?”

    “What?”

    What was it to him? He started to look at them, something about that statement upset him.

    “Right? We’re going to go inside that house, and you’re backing out, aren’t you?”

    How did he know that they were going to do something without asking him? Asher felt irritated, yet his pride pushed him to find himself standing with them before the house. The house that they’d thought had no door, upon closer inspection, had a hidden door. The boys swallowed their saliva, Connor’s hand noticeably trembling as he reached for the doorknob.

    “I’m…opening it?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I’m really opening it!”

    “Just open it quickly!”

    He knew that Conner was usually timid, but this was annoying. Irritated, he grasped Conner’s hand and forcefully pulled the door open. The door, surprisingly, opened easily for a house that old.

    “What, what’s in there?”

    Robert, who had his eyes closed, asked cautiously, but Asher and Connor could see that there was nothing there.

    “Look for yourself.”

    “What, there’s nothing here.”

    Robert muttered incredulously after opening his eyes, and Asher sighed. Those guys were all talk despite claiming to be fearless. The house was dark due to the lack of windows, but the sunlight filtering through the door showed that the interior was completely empty. Only the musty odor of old rusted metal permeated the air. He thought that the village rules were useless. Still, he shut the door.

    “Let’s just keep picking up branches. If the adults return and discover there’s not enough kindling for the festival, what will we do?”

    Asher diligently collected branches to impress the adults. He thought he wouldn’t be involved with that small house anymore. He did not know that he would soon learn its terrible secret.

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