A Side Character's Guide to Surviving an Otome Game

Ambrose the Impaler

a/n: Hello everyone!

This chapter was written in between taking my abuela to hospital and doctors visits, dealing with nosy neighbors, and renovating my abuela's house to sell (her idea btw, she thought it would be a fun bonding project and it is! the only thing is i have inhaled so much paint fumes it can't be healthy lololol)

Anyway.

This chapter has technically been beta read by my abuela. There was originally a whole lot more torture and a lot lot lot more darker stuff than this but she said, and I quote, "i will not be having my grandchild post a ten page manifesto about the murder of a fictional character."

So, uh, she kinda made me cut down on the violence and I have to say, it's much less horrific and much more readable now lol.

Anyway.

Here's the chapter you all have been waiting MONTHS for!

Ambrose was immediately assaulted with the stench of copper and ammonia and the pungent odor of human shit and vomit the instant Beacrox led him and the black dragon into the villa's dining room that Cale, Beacrox, and Ron had repurposed into Venion's personal torture chamber.

He choked back his gag, his eyes watering from the sheer scent of the tortured former noble. He blinked hard, trying to focus his eyes on the horrific sight in front of him.

His stomach churned.

Venion's wrists were chained to the ceiling, the chains just short enough to force the petite blonde to stand on his toes. His wrists were red and raw, bleeding slightly from the harsh edges of the cuffs digging into his flesh. His clothes had been removed, leaving the noble in only his undergarments, and his flesh was marred with a colorful bouquet of purple, blue, and black bruises. Blood dripped from his broken nose. His eyes were bruised and swollen, and he stared unseeingly at Ambrose and the dragon.

"I hope you don't mind that we had... a little fun," Ron said smoothly, adjusting his white gloves in the corner of the room. The retired assassin looked even more intimidating in the thin line of light that came through the covered windows, and Ambrose was positive that he could see a rusty brown stain on the butler's overwise impeccable suit.

Ambrose swallowed. "You and Beacrox went hard."

"Oh, no," Ron said with a benign smile. "My son and I barely touched that filthy thing. It was all Young Master Cale."

Cale?

Cale had done this?

Ambrose had to resist the urge to vomit.

He had spent his entire time in bedrest fantasizing about torturing his sadistic kidnapper, the violent visions being the only thing preventing him from going insane while wrapped in those heavy blankets.

But Ambrose wasn't a torturer.

He had been a simple office worker in his past life, working a stressful but relatively peaceful job, and here he had spent most of his time sleeping and lazing around. It wasn't like he was used to the idea of blood and guts and gore and torture.

As much time as Ambrose had spent imagining his kidnapper's torture, he hadn't been prepared for just how disturbing it was to be just a meer four feet away from the half-alive body of a man covered in bruises and blood.

And, he hadn't been prepared for the knowledge that his best friend, the man who Ambrose cared about more than anyone in this weird video-game world, had been capable of reducing a man to that state.