Snake Venom Ch 2

Chapter 2

When he opened his eyes, all he saw were the flickering lights overhead, ready to go out at any moment, and mold stains spreading around them. Lee Yeonwoo rubbed at his dry eyes and lifted himself upright. The penetrating chill from the floor forced him out of the uneasy half-sleep.

He touched his neck and swallowed a sigh. The two collars—used for tracking and subduing—basically confirmed reality. The connected chains were barely long enough to relieve himself, and the ends were firmly anchored into the wall.

How long had he slept? He couldn’t tell, as the room’s walls were thickly coated with cement and had no windows. A square hole beneath the heavy metal door served as the only ventilation shaft. In this suffocating, airless space—where escape was impossible—Lee Yeonwoo wiped the cold sweat from his brow with resigned fingers.

President Park, who he expected to try to persuade or reconsider his decision, no longer bothered. Instead, he had big, burly men guard the door and toss Yeonwoo into this cell. After two days without a proper drop of water and suffering nonstop beatings, Yeonwoo had collapsed into unconsciousness and now awoke again.

“Ugh…”

Sobbing, which he had half been hearing before sleep, had grown louder. Someone in the adjacent room was crying.

“Ugh… mom…”

Lee Yeonwoo frowned awkwardly. He knew why they were crying—and that it wasn’t heartfelt—but hearing it continue only deepened the gloom.

Leaning his back against the wall, he swallowed another heavy sigh.

His thoughts drifted back to the day before he was dragged here: the day he first met his father.

“No need to ask any more. You take after her too much.”

It had been a month since his grandmother passed, and that man had barged into his home and uttered those first words at him.

Lee Yeonwoo couldn’t argue—his resemblance was uncanny. Yet compared to his grandmother’s old photographs, the man looked drab and ragged, exuding the sour stench of drugs. He lowered his gaze.

He had half expected that he might meet someone before he died—but never like this. He felt a rush of contradictory emotions: longing, resentment, and something foolishly hopeful.

His grandmother was gone, truly alone—yet here was kin returning. That could only mean…

“Do you drink or smoke or anything like that?”

At that abrupt, dismissively harsh question, Lee Yeonwoo trembled. It wasn’t the greeting he expected.

Feeling a hollow grow inside him, he nodded. The man gave a crooked grin—uncaring of how it made Yeonwoo feel.

He began rifling through the grandmother’s house as if it were his own: drawers, wardrobes—if it could open, he opened it. It felt like watching a shameless burglar. Lee Yeonwoo still couldn’t decide how to define the man; he simply followed him with his eyes.

Then, in his grandmother’s bedroom, the man collapsed to the floor—right in front of her memorial portrait.

After a heavy silence, he began to laugh and cry in turns before the photo. He laughed aloud as if at a comedy show, then sobbed, his emaciated back shaking with grief.

That’s when Yeonwoo’s guard dropped.

Still… he’s my father. He’s my blood. It must be better than being utterly alone. Though still awkward and uneasy… I’ll make him a meal. Acting felt easier than speaking. When the man, exhausted by his tears, finally fell asleep, Yeonwoo prepared a simple meal.

With only a few side dishes and thin soup before him, the man stared blankly. Yeonwoo placed a glass of water on the tray. The man looked up and their eyes met for the first time—caught without warning, Yeonwoo glanced away anxiously. A flicker of hopeful foolishness spurred his lips to speak.

“Grandma’s ashes were scattered at a nearby sea. Would you… like to go see it together?”

“Ugh!”

The man suddenly looked nauseated and retched, abandoning the steaming tray and crawling over to the backpack he’d been clutching. Panting heavily, he pulled out something and swallowed it. Gulping for air, he muttered to himself:

“Life’s shit anyway. Might as well be okay.”

His voice wavered between laughter and tears—like what he’d said in front of the memorial portrait.

That night, masked men broke into Yeonwoo’s home. President Park’s henchmen. In Yeonwoo’s blurred vision, he saw his father kicked in the stomach and collapsing. His father’s nervous fingernails tore at his thumb in terror—that was the last image he saw.

“Mr. Lee Yeonwoo, you’ve got quite a bit of debt in your name. Struggling to cover grandma’s hospital bills, right? I took over your father’s own debts as well.”

The man lived as a half-breed—mosaic hybrid—and his grandmother had warned him constantly to be careful. Yet he never imagined it would extend to his father. Abandoned—and sold.

“We treat debtors whose debts exceed a certain amount like this. Otherwise, how do we expect them to pay it all off? You’ll learn to adapt.”

When Lee Yeonwoo saw that the contract President Park handed over included clauses giving up all sorts of rights and even his body, he finally understood. He had hit rock bottom—and found himself trapped in an abyss.

“Do you drink or smoke or anything like that?”

Realizing what the question meant, Yeonwoo couldn’t even force a bitter laugh. He simply stared at the contract stamped with his father’s seal.

“Ugh…”

The continuing cries seemed to crush even the will he’d tried to hold together. He curled up again and pressed his hands to his ears.

“Shut the fuck up, you bastard.”

A harsh voice erupted from the adjacent room.

“You’re already in a shitty mood, and now you gotta whine too?”

The crying halted, and Yeonwoo frowned. Through the hole in the door, he caught a scent—pheromones seeping in. It was faint from the distance, but his keen sense of smell detected plenty.

The scent’s owner smelled like a carnivore in heat. For the pheromones to be so strong, they hadn’t taken their suppressant pill in who knows how long.

“Fuck, fuck. Fuck!”

“Ugh….”

“Shut up, I said!”

Bang! Bang! Harsh curses and the sound of pounding on the metal door echoed loudly. The aggression was palpable—and the thought that he might have to face someone like that made Yeonwoo’s head spin.

As he rubbed his chilled arms, another scent hit his nose—and then multiple scents, as though stirred up by the commotion.

He clenched his teeth and contained his own pheromones. Giving off nothing would reduce his chance of being targeted. Meanwhile, he tried to identify the others’ pheromones—at least five distinct ones. That meant there were at least five half-breeds locked up here.

“Fucking bastard… you human, huh? When I see you, I’ll tear your ass open with my fists.”

That savage threat made Yeonwoo swallow dryly. It wasn’t a joke—and that made it all the more terrifying. He busied himself with twisting his calloused fingertips in thought.

One of the men thrown into this place was set to start today.

The rules of the game were simple. Do whatever you want inside this locked building, but if you survive for one hour, one day’s debt is forgiven. There are ten participants. Entry floors and entrances are randomly assigned.

Your bounty—the debt reduction—is based on how many people you kill or rape. Audience members donate money, and after fees, you get the rest. The more brutal and shocking the act, the faster your debt gets paid off—but Yeonwoo couldn’t bring himself to choose that path.

Conversely, if you don’t raise your bounty, you’ll just have to survive every night—and you could never escape. And the suppressant pills were outrageously expensive. Not something you could skip just because you’re short on cash.

Unlike purebreds, hybrids struggle to control their heat cycles and pheromones, so the suppressants are essential. Particularly for those who enter transformation stages, where parts of their bodies shift into animal forms. If you reach the “complete” transformation—trapped in the beast’s skin—the suppressant is useless. Only impulsivity, aggression, and hunger remain, and you truly become a wild creature.

Though there are both humans and half-breeds here, human-centric societies don’t accept half-breeds who can’t control transformation. Especially those who reach full transformation are no longer viewed as intelligent beings. There are even laws saying they can be killed for causing trouble.

Lee Yeonwoo was a mosaic hybrid carrying blood from an unidentified wild species. While suppressants kept him mostly stable, his transformation patterns were unpredictable, so he had to be managed carefully. Even he only knew that his transformation and heat cycles behaved completely differently from more predictable hybrids. That’s why, despite the outrageous cost per pill, he couldn’t stop taking them.

Either way, Yeonwoo didn’t want to act like a beast, be killed by a beast, or die in a beastly form. To avoid that, he had to hold himself together, keep living… and repay his debt.