Chapter 17

For the first three days, Charles hardly left the dormitory except to attend class, not giving Ajax a chance to attack him. On the fourth night, Charles was invited out by a group of friends and came back drunk at around one o'clock in the morning.

After making sure that there was no one else around, Ajax put on a broken peaked cap he had picked up, grabbed a brick, and made his way towards Charles who didn't notice him approaching. He swept his hand across his face before opening the door of the dorm building and staggering up the stairs.

Ajax managed to hold the door before it closed and made his way in after waiting a few seconds.

He then waited for Charles to reach the third floor, before making sure that the only sounds were coming from the building and its "hum" of electricity, his breathing, and Charles's heavy footsteps.

Ajax then made his way up the stairs not evading the surveillance cameras, and even looking up at them, not caring about whether or not he was caught. After all, tonight was the night Charles would die, nothing mattered afterward. Anyway, it's not like anyone had their eyes on the surveillance cameras, as Ajax had observed that the guards would usually fall asleep on their posts around now.

Charles had no roommates and his dorm was on the fourth floor, isolated from the rest of the rooms on the fourth floor, making things convenient for Ajax.

After Charles opened the door, he heard hurried footsteps coming from behind him and turned his head slowly to see who it was, only to be met with a brick slamming into his head making a "twack" sound.

Charles's head buzzed and his vision got blurry, the pain made him want to cry out, but he was suddenly met with a punch to the stomach followed by a quick kick to the jaw as he bent forward from the punch. He managed to see an unrecognizable figure dressed in all black before blacking out.

Ajax glanced around and dragged Charles into the room by the hair, locking the door behind him.

All the lights turned on as the motion sensors picked up on movement. Although it was a student dormitory, Charles's room held a level of luxury beyond Ajax's imagination, including some things he had never even seen or heard of before.

Glancing at the unconscious Charles on the ground, Ajax put the brick down and went straight to the refrigerator. He grabbed something that looked edible and stuffed it into his mouth while making his way to the windows. After fidgeting with it for a good 30 seconds, he activated the privacy mode which acted like a one-way mirror, not letting anyone see anything from the outside.

He then dragged a chair and sat down in front of Charles, enjoying his meal. Three minutes later, Charles awoke with a pain in his jaw. He looked around, a bit disoriented with his surroundings, before spotting the seated Ajax who was still wearing many bandages in front of him, Charles's eyes trembled with disbelief and then with fear and panic.

He naturally knew what it meant for Ajax to be here. He tried to stand up and remove the gag Ajax had placed in his mouth to call for help but as soon she did so, Ajax smashed the brick on the right side of his face again, another audible "twack" rang out from the collision between his cheekbones and the brick.

Ajax didn't give Charles any breathing room and suddenly grabbed Charles's hair and threw him into the side of his bed, knocking him out once again. He then kneeled on Charles before using the brick and smashing Charles's left hand over and over again.

After several blows, the fingers of Charles's left hand were fucked and his hand had split starting from in-between his middle and ring finger to about halfway down his hand, the bone being clearly visible.

Charles managed to regain consciousness as his left arm twitched in pain, wanting to resist but unable to fight back.

Ajax then kicked him relentlessly until an audible "crack" was heard from one of Charles's ribs snapping. This caused a muffled howl to ring out from Charles. Ajax, now tired, decided to take a breather and said flatly, "Hurts like a bitch, doesn't it? I'm gonna grab a bite and then we'll talk."

Ajax made his way to the refrigerator and continued to scavenge for any food, leaving Charles writhing in pain. After a few more minutes, Charles looked at Ajax in fear while holding up his crippled left hand.

'This lunatic,' Charles thought, 'the way I've tortured people before is child's play in comparison to this bastard.'

"Mhm, this is good... So, wanna have a chat?" Ajax looked at Charles while slurping on the spicy ramen noodles he had made.

Charles nodded willing to do anything as long as Ajax didn't kill him.

"I swear to God if you yell, I'll give your jaw the same treatment I gave your hand. Then I'll slit your throat and eat these noodles as I watch you drown in your own blood." Ajax said nonchalantly as he stuffed his mouth with some more ramen noodles. He then took out the dirty sock that he had been using to gag Charles out of his mouth.

"Don't kill me!...please don't kill me...I don't want to die...I'll give you whatever you want..." Charles begged for mercy, his jaw sore from Ajax's first kick. 

'Would you look at that, so high and mighty until someone overpowers him,' thought Ajax. 'Well, he's probably never faced something like this, never having any monetary worries and all. He enjoyed a worry-free life due to his family's wealth.'

Seeing Charles frightened, Ajax rolled his eyes and seemed to think of something: "I want eddies, how many are you willing to offer for your life?"

"Eddies? I have a lot of eddies. I have some in my pocket and in the nightstand drawers by the bed!" Charles nodded in surprise.

If Ajax only wanted eddies, things would be easy, as that was something he was never short of.

After some searching, Ajax only found around 5,000 eddies.

"That's it? Did you really think a few thousand eddies would be enough to save your life?" Ajax smacked Charles's face with the money and raised the brick with his right hand ready to rearrange Charles's facial structure.

"Nonono, there's 50,000 eddies in this card..." Charles pulled out a blue card and quickly handed it to Ajax.

"How the fuck am I supposed to use this this? I don't see it says '50,000 eddies' on it?" Ajax looked at the card in a puzzled daze

"You can use it at any self-service point; the password is 1234... If it's not enough, I can ask my dad to send me some more. Just tell me how many eddies you want..." Charles seemed to grasp this straw of salvation that Ajax was dangling in front of him.

"Interesting." Ajax put away the blue card and looked at Charles again, "Are you sure about that? You're making me feel like I'm robbing you."

"No, everything is my fault. You can consider these to be medical expenses. I won't tell anyone what happened here tonight, and I'll never trouble you ever again. Just please let me live..." Charles knelt on the ground.

"You really won't trouble me again?" Ajax narrowed his eyes and took two steps closer to Charles brick in hand.

"Really... Please, believe me, I swear... Let's let bygones be bygones..." Charles nodded continuously.

He believed that Ajax had been moved by him. As long as Ajax was tricked into letting him go, he would find Ajax and skin him alive!

However, Ajax, maintaining a smile threw the brick and hit Charles's on the nose and eye, breaking his nose and blinding him from his left eye. Repeating his earlier actions, Ajax punched him in the stomach cutting Charles's attempt to scream short. He then kicked Charles's left knee inwards, dislocating it and causing Charles to fall to the ground. He then proceeded to kick him in the ribs until he broke 4 more. 

Ajax then dragged Charles to the balcony by the hair and looked at the open ground. After finding a good spot, he started punching him repeatedly in the nose and jaw. Stopping suddenly he spoke to Charles and said, "I appreciate the eddies. Hopefully, you won't be such a fucking prick in your next life."

Ajax then lifted Charles just enough to push him off the balcony. There was silence for about 3 seconds and then a "bang" was heard and everything went silent once again.

*TN: This chapter has been by far the most frustrating and exciting one to edit. It usually takes me about 40 minutes to an hour to pretty much rewrite these chapters with altered interactions, better dialogue, and whatnot.

This one took me almost 2 and a half hours to edit, come up with a different dialogue that was more fitting, and add actions and descriptions of things (like the fight in the original, it was nowhere near as brutal, but that just doesn't make sense considering this is revenge and Charles had tried to kill him, he did throw him off the balcony though, so props to that I guess).

And when I was almost done, literally editing the last words Ajax said to Charles before pushing him off the balcony, the fucking piece of shit signed me out :'). So that means that this chapter took me almost 4 hours to edit. I've come to realize a few chapters back that editing isn't as easy as I believed it to be.

That being said, this second draft of this chapter is nowhere near as good as the first one I did. The fight was much longer, there was torture involved, much gorier but I just didn't have the energy or the excitement to do that all over again. Now this is like a 1400-word chapter while the first version was about 2,600 words. It's currently 1:04 am for me, I'll probably translate one more chapter before getting some shut-eye.*