Chapter 69 – Svetlana Learns Fear, Theresa Loses the Will to Live
William shook his head.
All of that was still too far off—better to focus on what was right in front of him.
With that thought, he purchased one M9 from the system.
He wanted to compare the items sold in the Arms Procurement Marketplace with the weapons previously granted by the system.
The listed price for a single M9 was $200, including three magazines, but no ammunition.
Even so, the price alone made William seriously suspect this was a Peshawar special-production Beretta M9.
But once he actually examined the weapon, his doubts disappeared.
It was identical to the earlier system-issued M9—clearly U.S. military-grade at a glance.
Add a box of ammunition, and selling it for $500 would be effortless.
Without hesitation, William used the $7,000 Svetlana had just handed him, added $3,050 of his own, and purchased 50 complete M9 + ammunition sets.
That many pistols wouldn't fit into a single bag.
Fortunately, William still had several bags left over from a previous Walmart run stored in his inventory.
He took out two of them, packed the pistols, and carried the bags back into the motel room.
"This is the next batch."
The two black duffel bags landed in front of Svetlana.
She unzipped one—and saw rows of M9s identical to the previous batch.
Her pupils contracted.
One shipment wasn't alarming.
But another fifty—and all of them unmistakably U.S. military-grade?
That meant only one thing.
There was a stable supplier behind William.
Svetlana wasn't stupid.
Back in Russia, she'd seen plenty of people in the underworld, and there were two kinds you never crossed:
The first were drug dealers—because in most countries, getting caught meant life or death.
The second were arms dealers.
And in many ways, arms dealers were even more dangerous.
Weapons threatened governments themselves.
These people sat at the very top of the criminal food chain.
At that moment, Svetlana's fear of William skyrocketed.
She genuinely could not understand how someone like him—an arms dealer—had ever noticed a massage parlor technician like her.
But she didn't dare ask.
Knowing too much was how people died without understanding why.
"Yes, boss," she said quickly. "I'll move this batch as soon as possible."
Fifty M9s were nothing in the South Side.
She estimated they'd be gone within two weeks, at most.
Meanwhile, Theresa—still bound to the chair—felt utterly hollow inside.
She hadn't just been kidnapped by a psychopath.
She was now witnessing an arms deal firsthand.
At that moment, she felt completely dead inside.
I'm not surviving today, she thought.
Aside from Theresa, there were only three people in the room—and none of them noticed her despair.
Time passed slowly.
After resting briefly, Svetlana picked up the two bags of weapons and left the motel with Mandy.
Part of it was her hunger to change her fate.
The other part was pure fear of William.
Under that double pressure, she worked with ruthless efficiency.
Soon, only William and Theresa remained in the room.
William looked at Theresa—her makeup ruined by tears, eyes empty and unfocused.
An idea occurred to him.
He walked behind her and drew out the Palm-Oil–Soaked Leather Whip from his inventory.
(For brevity later, the "Palm-Oil–Soaked Leather Whip" will hereafter be referred to as the Obedience Whip.)
When Theresa saw William standing in front of her, holding a long whip in his hand—
Her blood ran cold.
Theresa, who moments ago had looked utterly lifeless, was seized by terror once again.
After all, no normal person wanted to be whipped.
Unfortunately for her, the situation was clear:
she was the fish on the cutting board.
Before William, she was like a defenseless lamb, incapable of resisting.
Crack!
The whip lashed down hard across Theresa's body.
It was as if an invisible [Obedience +1] flashed above her head.
That single strike erased Theresa's fear of William.
Rip.
William tore the tape from her mouth.
"Theresa," he asked with a gentle smile,
"you wouldn't betray me, would you?"
Under the influence of Obedience +1, Theresa nodded without hesitation.
"Really?"
"Really."
Crack!
A searing pain coursed through her, and Theresa shuddered violently.
Yet for reasons she couldn't explain, she felt no hatred toward the man who had struck her.
Instead, a strange sense of reliance took root.
That realization shook her to the core.
She didn't have any special tendencies—
so why did she feel an urge to submit to the person in front of her?
"Theresa," William said calmly,
"do you know something? I honestly never planned to do anything to you today."
Rationally, Theresa knew that if that were true, he wouldn't have used the whip.
Yet emotionally, she found herself believing him.
"So I really am being good to you," William continued softly.
"Can you feel that, Theresa?"
His voice was like a whisper in her ear.
Even as her reason screamed that his words made no sense,
she still felt—deep down—that maybe he had his reasons.
"I feel it," Theresa said slowly.
"I understand… it's okay, William.
You can do whatever you want."
The look in her eyes softened unnaturally.
William recognized this as the effect of the Obedience Whip.
Still, the strength of the effect surprised him.
He hadn't tested it thoroughly on the two men before—
they'd resisted fiercely, unlike Theresa.
This made it difficult to draw conclusions.
More testing was clearly needed.
After some time passed, the obedience effect faded.
When Theresa looked at William again, a trace of fear returned—
but it was nowhere near as overwhelming as before.
That alone told William everything he needed to know.
There was residual influence.
Altering someone's perception couldn't possibly leave no aftereffects.
The only question was degree.
And once the "zero to one" barrier was broken,
scaling it up was simply a matter of repetition.
Until nightfall, William continued using the same method,
gradually raising Theresa's obedience.
By then, the way she looked at him had become strange—
not fearful, not hateful,
but not love or devotion either.
To test the result, William crouched in front of her.
"Theresa," he asked quietly,
"if I removed your restraints right now… would you run?"