Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 94: Two Women

"Don’t make eye contact."

The new guard, Kit, turned his head just enough to catch his senior’s profile in the gloom of the dungeon corridor. The man’s face was etched in the flickering torchlight, grim and serious.

Kit’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. He’d been hired for this post specifically, plucked from regular duty because of his "brilliant excellence in following orders." He was experienced. He’d guarded nobles, escorted prisoners, held a line against drunken rioters.

He’d never received rules like this before a shift.

"That’s the first rule," the senior guard, Stevan, continued. "The second rule is, don’t talk to her. Never. And while you’re at it," he added, his eyes finally sliding to Kit’s, the warning in them absolute, "also don’t look at her. At all. Just don’t."

Kit gave a slow, careful nod. The orders were clear, if bizarre. But the prohibition lit a dangerous, professional curiosity in his gut. What manner of prisoner warranted this?

Her identity was a blank space in the prison logs. Her crimes, unknown. Her face, unseen. She was a figure in a cell at the secret, wet heart of the Iondoran Empire’s deepest dungeon, a place so buried that sunlight was a rumor and the only company was the steady drip of water and the silence between screams.

They reached the final junction. Stevan stopped before the last, formidable iron-bound door. He turned fully to Kit.

"From this point on," Stevan said, each word deliberate, "you are a blind, mute, and deaf person. You see nothing in that cell. You hear nothing from it. You speak nothing to it. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Kit replied.

Stevan gave a final, assessing look, then produced a heavy ring of keys. As he selected the largest, blackened one, Kit’s gaze drifted to the single, incongruous item tucked under the senior’s other arm. A book. Its cover was brightly colored, depicting a swooning maiden and a brooding lord in a passionate embrace.

A romance novel. The latest edition, by the look of it.

Just before Stevan pushed the door open, Kit’s discipline cracked, ever so slightly. "Sir... the book...?"

Stevan didn’t look at him, his attention on the lock. "This?" He hefted the novel, a dry, humorless scoff escaping him. "It’s the only thing she ever requests from the outside world. A new edition gets published. As per the... agreement... I deliver it."

The agreement.

Kit blinked. She’s so dangerous they treat her like a mythic plague... but she reads... romance novels?

"Don’t question monsters, newbie," Stevan muttered, as if reading his thoughts. The last tumbler fell with a clunk that echoed down the empty corridor. "You’ll sleep better."

"...Yes, sir."

The door groaned inward on protesting hinges, revealing a surprisingly dry, neat cell beyond metal bars. And in the center of that cell, a figure was seated, her back to the door, her form shrouded in a simple grey shift.

She gave no sign she knew they were there. But the air in the doorway seemed to grow stiller, sharper.

Stevan placed the book just inside the threshold, on the clean stone floor. Then he stepped back, his movements precise, retreating from the space as if it were electrified. With a curt gesture, he directed Kit to a small stool placed against the far wall of the antechamber, as far from the iron bars as physically possible.

Sit. Be still. Be nothing.

They sat in silence.

Then, the woman in the cell stood.

The movement was graceful, unnervingly silent. She rose from her simple wooden chair and turned.

And Kit, despite the warnings, despite his training, despite every instinct screaming danger, felt his breath catch. He swore he’d never seen a woman so... enchanting.

It was like a magnetic pull, a promise in the curve of her smile, a haunting depth in eyes that seemed to hold their own source of light in the dungeon’s gloom. It was bewitchment made flesh.

Thwack!

A boot connected with his shin. Hard.

"Ugh—!"

The pain was a lightning bolt of clarity. He wasn’t supposed to look!

A soft, lilting chuckle floated from the cell. The sound was like honey and poison mixed. "Come now, Stevan... he’s new. You must be more understanding. The poor boy doesn’t know what he’s been assigned to guard."

Stevan didn’t react. He didn’t twitch. He might as well have been carved from the dungeon stone itself. His ability to hear nothing was, in that moment, the most impressive feat of discipline Kit had ever witnessed.

The woman knelt, the grey shift pooling around her, and picked up her book with slender fingers. "I appreciate the silence," she said, her voice now conversational, almost sweet. "I plan to spend today binge-reading the new edition. Just leave my dinner there as usual. No need to disturb me."

And then... nothing happened.

No grand display of power. No sinister monologue. The terrifying, enchanting prisoner simply sat back down, opened her cheap romance novel, and began to read. Their job for the next hours was to guard a woman quietly absorbed in a story about heaving bosoms and stolen kisses.

Yet, the tension in the small antechamber didn’t ease. It coiled tighter. Strangely though, it wasn’t emanating from the cell. It was radiating from Stevan.

Kit watched, sidelong, as his senior guard began to deteriorate. A fine sweat beaded on Stevan’s temple. His hands, resting on his knees, developed a subtle tremor. His breathing, once measured and silent, became shallow, ragged.

It was more like... the desperate, controlled panting of a man hanging onto a cliff’s edge by his fingernails. He looked like a man in the grip of a violent withdrawal.

From what?

Suddenly, a gasp shattered the quiet.

It came from the cell. The woman had jerked back, her hand flying to her mouth. Then, soundless tears began to stream down her face, cutting tracks through the faint dust of the dungeon. She was crying. Over the book? Over this tawdry, mass-produced romance?

"No..." she whimpered, broken. "This can’t be..." Her hand shook violently. The book tumbled from her grasp, hitting the stone floor with a soft thump. "No...!"

Stevan was on his feet in an instant. His entire body went rigid. Raw, unconcealed worry etched itself onto his hardened features. For a heartbeat, Kit thought the man would lunge forward, would rush to her side.

But he didn’t. He wrestled the impulse down, a visible, brutal internal war ending in a victory that looked like defeat. He gestured sharply for Kit to follow him out.

They retreated into the corridor. Stevan slammed the heavy door shut, locking it tight.

"Wha—what’s wrong, Stevan...?" Kit stammered.

Stevan slumped against the damp wall, head bowed, dragging in ragged lungfuls of air. "You don’t understand... I can’t... I’m quitting."

"Quitting? What is...?"

Before Kit could finish, her voice filtered through the iron door, soft, sorrowful, devastating.

"Stevan? Baby, please come in... I need help..."

Stevan began to hyperventilate. His eyes glazed over, staring at nothing. A single curse slipped out. "Fuck..."

Kit stared, mind reeling. This was Stevan. The legendary warden of the Iondora Empire. The iron fist who had broken notorious crime lords and silent assassins. A man whose name was whispered with respect and fear in guardhouses across the continent.

Yet reduced to a trembling, hyperventilating wreck by a weeping woman in a cell.

"Baby..." the voice came again, soaked in a grief so profound it felt tangible. "Please... just hold me..."

"I’M NOT FALLING FOR YOUR TRICKS ANYMORE!" Stevan roared at the door.

"Do I sound like I’m tricking you this time...?" The reply was a heartbroken sob. "Baby, please..."

Stevan turned to Kit, his expression shifting from panic to a cold, commandant’s mask. "Kid, leave. You’re dismissed. Effective now."

Kit blinked. "W-what? B-but my shift hasn’t ended ye—"

"Do as I said." The authority in Stevan’s voice brooked no argument. "Tell the next shift not to come. Tell them it’s a maximum containment stage. Code Black. I am handling her alone until further notice."

The urgency was contagious. Kit nodded, a frantic bob of his head, and turned to sprint down the corridor.

BUMP—

He rounded the first corner at full speed and collided with a solid, immovable wall of muscle. Staggering back, he looked up.

And up.

The man blocking his path was tall, his stature regal and imposing. A majestic pair of curved black horns swept back from his temples, and a fall of hair the color of mountain mist framed an expression of ancient, patient power.

And he was not alone.

To one side stood a man with hair as black as a starless night and a pair of proud, alert black wolf ears twitching atop his head. To the other, a man with a mane of golden blonde hair and the distinct, tufted ears of a lion, his gaze sharp and assessing.

And beside them stood a woman, smaller in stature. She was the second woman he’d seen today whose beauty held a dangerous gravity, and her hand was clasped firmly in the horned man’s.

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