IBP C1 Part 1

The biochip was part of the population control policy that emerged with the birth of the city-states.

After the Fourth World War, which broke out due to food shortages and resource depletion, the people who experienced the threat of extinction survived by building closed and dispersed city-states, and thoroughly controlled the population to avoid repeating the mistakes of previous generations.

In such a city-state, a ‘child’ was a product of meticulous planning, born through artificial insemination.

From small things like gender to big things like personality and talent. Children born with large chunks of their lives designed (although it’s a black comedy that the design often doesn’t see the light of day due to surrounding environment and acquired factors) had a grain-of-rice-sized chip inserted somewhere in their bodies as soon as the umbilical cord was cut.

In Koranest, the city-state where I was born, the insertion location of the chip changed periodically according to government guidelines, so it was possible to estimate a person’s age group by the location of the chip.

For the parent’s generation, it was the back of the hand, for the previous generation, the back of the neck, and for my generation, the collarbone.

Getting a tattoo at the chip insertion site has been a trend since the previous generation.

A remark from an expert became a social issue: When rescue workers arrive at an accident scene, they scan the chip first with a device, but since the insertion location varies by generation, considerable time is wasted looking for the chip.

The trend spread widely, and in the neck and collarbone generations, there were far more people with tattoos than without.

Even so, what are the odds of more than thirty people having the exact same tattoo? Considering the total population of Koranest and the proportion of people in their 20s, it made even less sense.

There were two possibilities. Either the island’s owner ordered the kidnapping of twenty-something men with this tattoo, or the damn tattoo artist had some connection to the island’s owner.

I leaned towards the latter. If that’s the case, the personalized invitation I received, even though he’d never met me, made sense.

‘Was it only sent to me? Are there others here who received the invitation? …Or maybe everyone has had a similar experience, they just haven’t said anything.’

The thought didn’t last long. I was lined up with the others and led away from the pier as instructed by the armed personnel. The kidnapped people were all similar in height and build, and their appearances were uniformly handsome. It was as if they had gathered these people from somewhere specific.

As I suspected, that tattoo artist bastard must have been the island owner’s accomplice.

Whether he actively recommends the designated tattoo to those he thinks the island owner would like, putting his mark on them, or whether the island owner has separate specific conditions, I don’t know.

‘He strongly recommended the designated tattoo, and during the tattooing process, he tampered with the chip. Currently, this is the most plausible scenario.’

A non-expert customer wouldn’t suspect anything even if the tattoo artist fiddled around their collarbone.

‘Are you fucking stupid?! How could you not know that?

…That’s what idiot number one thought.’ I was furious, but there was nothing I could do at the moment. I was frustrated and angry.

The armed personnel led us away from the beach. After walking for a while, filled with anxiety at gunpoint, we reached a well-paved road. They herded us into a container truck parked under a palm tree and started the vehicle.

Perhaps relieved that the tension had broken, people slumped to the floor where they stood. Those with a little more room crawled towards the walls and huddled. Muffled sobs faintly mixed with the engine noise. No one spoke.

I’m under so much stress, but my head doesn’t hurt. They really did something to me. I bit my lip, trying to regain my composure. The inside was dim, but there was enough light to make out objects. It was thanks to the small air hole at the top of the container. I narrowed my eyes and counted the number of people. Thirty in all. Five had died in the earlier commotion, meaning that the damned tattoo artist had sold off a whopping thirty-five people.

I wracked my inactive brain, recalling the tattoo artist. It was true that I chose the tattoo because it looked pretty. However, the lettering itself was recommended by the tattoo artist. I punched the wall. The people nearby flinched and looked at me, then quickly lowered their heads like lifeless fish.

As I was fuming, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned my head and saw a familiar face in the dim light. My jaw dropped open.

“Kibbus!”

“I-I thought I saw wrong!”

As if unsure even after touching me, he grabbed my hand in excitement. It had only been one night. Even though he was just someone I had small talk with at a bar looking for a one-night stand, seeing a familiar face in a place like this was incredibly reassuring. The men, who had each been despairing in their own ways, also reacted. After all, what were the odds of meeting someone you knew in a place like this?

I composed my trembling voice and asked the most important question first.

“What happened?”

“That’s what I want to ask you. You’re clearly an invest…”

I raised my hand and covered Kibbus’ mouth. I had a bad feeling from the moment he started to speak, and I was glad I had been cautious. Kibbus, too, seemed to realize his mistake belatedly, his eyes darting around.

Right. Revealing that I’m an investigator in a place like this wouldn’t do any good. If word spreads here, it will somehow reach the armed men outside. Would those who shoot people dead for a little resistance, while armed with guns, spare a dangerous element like a government investigator?

Kibbus, receiving my warning glare, wilted. When I removed my hand, he looked dejected and spoke cautiously, watching my expression.

“I don’t know. I was hit in the back of the head, passed out, and woke up on the boat earlier. But strangely, the spot where I was hit doesn’t hurt. No bleeding either. So I thought I just had a nightmare.”

In the end, he didn’t know anything either. Where on earth are we? Where is this vehicle going? Kibbus’ questions made my heart pound. As if my brain was sounding an alarm, it dumped all the information I had picked up in the last few days.

A place where all kinds of cruel sexual acts, starting with illegal body modification, take place.

A place where inserting hands and forearms into orifices is commonplace, an island that pushes the human mind and body to the limit, turning them into sex-crazed pieces of meat.

No, no. Don’t be too scared.

Rumors tend to be exaggerated, right? It’s just… even at worst, I’ll just be gang-raped. Is it okay to express gang rape with ‘just’? I don’t know. Damn it. Damn it! I clasped Kibbus’ trembling hand with my slightly less trembling one. Anxiety was gnawing at my heart.

***

What happens when a person experiences pleasure and pain simultaneously beyond a certain threshold? The answer was right in front of me.

“Ugh.”

“Hng.”

“Haa. Uaa. Aaah!”

Statues of male gods, sculpted with hard, sensual lines, each held a living piece of flesh in their embrace. While the statues themselves didn’t move, the gigantic, monstrous genitals attached to their lower bodies moved incessantly, thrusting into the insides of the restrained individuals.

Rib cages bounced and chests expanded. Crimson nipples, tips taut, swayed back and forth along with the piercings that penetrated the flesh. The soft, pink flesh, which should have been nothing more than a vestigial organ on a man, was abnormally thick, swaying with each movement.

Every writhe and squirm triggered the restraints on their wrists and ankles, which were connected somewhere to the statues, to clang incessantly.

The positions of the hanging people changed according to the poses of the statues. Some were impaled simultaneously in the mouth and other orifices between two statues. Every time their throats bulged, their dwindling breath was visible.

Then, their eyes rolled back, and their robust bodies convulsed, spilling white fluid. Three genitals penetrating them, yet only one ejaculating.

The statues violating humans lined both sides of the path leading to the mansion, seemingly endlessly. The new slaves, having witnessed their own fate, stumbled forward, propelled by the guns at their backs, their steps mechanical.

As for me, I felt like I was going to vomit. Perhaps because my spirit had already sunk to its lowest depths in the container on the way here, disgust preceded fear, and anger sat atop disgust.