Courtyard Houses: Longevity Since the War of Resistance

Oh dear, we've already used water and fire, so how about we follow the five elements to make it a round number?

You Japanese devils are about to enjoy yourselves!!!

I stood in the hall, looking at the bodies on the ground that had just been pulled back by the god of time. Their eyes were unfocused, and the nerve twitches from the previous round of electric shocks still lingered in their bodies. Even though their wounds had healed, their muscles were still twitching out of memory.

I pushed open the door to the adjacent storage room. Inside, there was a lot of miscellaneous items: wooden racks for experiments, hemp ropes for binding specimens, and some logs cut from who-knows-where. In the corner, there were even a few half-dead plants with withered and yellow leaves, probably used for control experiments.

wood.

This thing is hard, textured, can be sharpened, squeezed, and can slowly embed itself into flesh.

I dragged out several wooden stakes, each about the thickness of a wrist and half a person's height. The wood was pine, not very hard, but precisely because it wasn't hard enough, it would have splinters when broken, making it more troublesome to break them.

First, I won't look for those familiar faces. My gaze swept across the crowd and landed on a younger military doctor at the back. This guy's name is Nakamura Saburo. The file mentioned that he was responsible for recording Maruta's physiological data changes. His handwriting was neat, and his records were objective. It was said that he was highly regarded by Ishii.

He was keeping his head down and trying to minimize his presence.

I walked over, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and dragged him to the center of the hall. He screamed in terror and kicked and thrashed about.

"Don't rush," I pressed him to the ground, face down, "Don't you like recording data? Today I'll record something new for you."

I picked up a wooden stake. The top of the stake had been roughly cut; it wasn't sharp, but it had a bevel. I tore open his left trouser leg, exposing his calf.

Then I lifted the wooden stake, aimed it at the thickest part of his calf muscle, stepped on his leg with my foot, gripped the stake with both hands, and thrust it down hard!

puff! !

The sloping surface of the stake pierced the skin and penetrated the muscle. Not deep enough, only about an inch in.

"Ah!!!" Nakamura Saburo's scream exploded. His body sprang up like a fish out of water, only to be firmly stomped down by me.

I didn't stop. I increased the pressure with both hands, slowly rotating the wooden stake and pressing it down. The wood ground against my muscle fibers, making a dull creaking sound. Blood seeped out from the edge of the stake, first a few drops, then a small stream.

The stake stopped when it hit the leg bone. I adjusted the angle, letting the stake head continue to twist deeper along the edge of the tibia. The wood and bone rubbed together, making a creaking, teeth-grinding sound.

Nakamura Saburo could no longer make a complete sound. He opened his mouth wide, gasped for breath, tears and snot smeared all over his face, and kicked his other leg frantically on the ground.

I drove the stake all the way through his lower leg, the tip emerging from the skin on the other side, bringing with it a small piece of flesh and bone. Then I shoved the stake into the ground, pinning his leg there.

He lay there on his side, his left leg impaled by a protruding wooden stake, unable to move, only able to utter intermittent, painful whimpers.

The second person I approached was a short man dressed as a technician. His name was Shigeru Kobayashi, and he was responsible for maintaining the temperature control equipment in the bacterial culture room, thus indirectly participating in all live experiments that required constant temperature conditions.

He saw me coming and turned to run away. I kicked him in the back of the knee, and he fell to his knees with a thud.

I picked up another stake. This one was thicker, and one end was sharpened to a relatively point. I turned him over so he was lying on his back.

This time, the target is his palm.

I stepped on his right elbow, forcing his palm to open. Then I gripped the stake with both hands, aimed it at the center of his palm, and hammered it down!

puff!

The wooden stake pierced his palm and embedded itself in the concrete floor below. His five fingers instantly curled, opened, and curled again in excruciating pain, like dying insects. The metacarpal bones were pierced, and wood fragments were stuck in the gaps between the bones.

Kobayashi Shigeru's screams became shrill and distorted. He tried to pull his hand back, but his palm was nailed to the ground, and any movement brought excruciating pain. He could only futilely scratch the ground with his left hand, his body contorted in agony.

The third one I chose was an older officer named Fujita Hiroshi. He was the guard captain here, and all the captured Marudas had to pass through his hands to be sent to various laboratories. He had a scar on his face, which was said to be from suppressing resistance in the past.

Fujita Hiroshi was more resolute; although he was trembling, he didn't cry out, but just stared intently at me.

I nodded. That's good.

I stopped using the wooden stakes and rummaged through the pile of junk to find a bundle of thin bamboo strips. These bamboo strips were very flexible, each about the thickness of a little finger, with edges that weren't sharp but were sturdy enough.

I dragged him to the wall and made him stand with his back against it. Then I started inserting bamboo strips, one by one, into the gaps in his military uniform.

The first bamboo stick was inserted into his collar below his collarbone, close to his skin, angled downwards, and emerged from a gap in his uniform near his armpit. The rough surface of the bamboo stick scraped against his skin, leaving long red marks.

Fujita Hiroshi grunted and gritted his teeth.

The second needle goes in from the side of the waist, close to the ribs, and comes out from behind.

The third, the fourth… I used these tough bamboo strips, like weaving, to sew him and the wall together. The bamboo strips pierced through his uniform, cut into his flesh, and in some places pierced his skin, drawing blood.

He wasn't nailed down, but rather fixed to the wall by dozens of crisscrossing bamboo strips. The toughness of the bamboo strips prevented him from struggling free; the more he struggled, the tighter they tightened and the deeper they pierced. He could only stand in an awkward position, his entire body confined and rubbed by the rough bamboo strips.

His stubbornness didn't last long. As more and more bamboo strips were added, tightening the constriction, some sharp ends dug deep into his flesh. He began to let out suppressed, painful groans, veins bulging on his forehead, and sweat soaking through his clothes, both inside and out.

Now it's the masterminds' turn; they need to come up with something new.

I walked up to Shiro Ishii. He had just been tortured by electric shocks and was somewhat dazed. I dragged him to a corner of the hall. Something had been prepared there beforehand by a master craftsman—not a wooden stake, but a complex wooden frame resembling an ancient torture instrument. In the middle of the frame was a thick wooden plank with two holes in it.

They pressed Shiro Ishii face down onto the wooden board, his hands going through holes in the board with his wrists sticking out on the other side. Then, using a prepared barbed wooden wedge, they aimed it at the gap between his wrists and the board and slowly hammered it in.

The rough wooden wedges, with their barbs, scraped against the skin and ligaments of his wrists. With each strike, Shiro Ishii cried out in pain. The wedges were driven deeper and deeper, his wrists becoming firmly wedged between the wooden plank and the wedges, restricting blood flow and causing his palms to quickly turn purplish-blue and swollen. The barbs dug into his flesh, and even the slightest movement was excruciatingly painful.

That wasn't all. I did the same to his ankles, securing them with wooden wedges. Now he was spread-eagled, fixed to the heavy wooden board, his wrists and ankles jammed by rough wooden wedges, unable to move, blood pooling, and the pain continuous and sharp.

Next was Masaji Kitano. Then I thought of something else.

They dragged him to a pile of logs, each as thick as a thigh, with rough surfaces and bark still attached. They laid him on the ground, then picked up a log and placed it on one of his calves.

"what!"

The weight of the log made him cry out in pain, so I brought over a second log and placed it above the knee of the same leg.

The third one was placed on my thigh.

Then, using the same method, they weighed down his other leg, arms, and even chest piece by piece with heavy logs. They didn't smash him down suddenly, but added the logs slowly, piece by piece, allowing the weight to accumulate gradually.

Kitano Masaji was able to struggle at first, but as more and more logs were piled on his body, and they became heavier and heavier, his struggles turned into powerless writhing.

The heavy wood pressed against his muscles, blood vessels, and bones. He felt short of breath as wood also pressed against his chest. The limbs that were being pressed down began to go numb, followed by a faint creaking sound as his bones could no longer bear the weight, and a deep, dull pain.

He was like Sun Wukong trapped under the Five Elements Mountain, except that the material pressing down on him was the most primitive and roughest wood, and the pain was also the most primitive and suffocating sense of oppression.

I plan to deal with Tsuneshige Ikari, Tomosada Masuda, and Hisato Yoshimura all at once.

I found some living wood, and several potted plants that were half-dead. One pot was a common vine, another was a thorny shrub, and the last was a small, unidentified tree with a well-developed root system.

I used the magic to slightly stimulate their vitality, making them temporarily active.

I tied Tsuneshiro Ikari to a pillar, then placed the potted vines at his feet. As if sensing something, the vines immediately began to wriggle, wrapping around his ankles and then climbing up his calves.

The fine hairs and suckers on the branches cling tightly to the skin, wrapping around it more and more tightly, while secreting a weak, irritating sap that makes the wrapped skin itchy and painful, and quickly turns red and swollen.

The vines continued to grow and twine, gradually wrapping his lower body into a green cocoon.

I placed the thorny bush in front of him and forced him to open his mouth. The bush's branches slowly reached out, their tips relatively soft but covered with tiny thorns.

The twig probed into his mouth, slowly moving down his throat. Masuda Tomosada's eyes bulged, and he let out a muffled groan, his body twisting violently, but he was held firmly down. The thorny twig scraped against the inside of his mouth and esophagus; the pain of the foreign object intruding and the countless tiny thorns scraping against him almost made him faint.

I buried Yoshimura Hisato in a large wooden box filled with damp sawdust and rotten soil, leaving only his head exposed. Then I planted the small, rooted shrub above his head in the soil. I encouraged the plant to grow again. The shrub's roots quickly extended downwards, like countless tiny needles, piercing Yoshimura Hisato's scalp, burrowing into his hair, searching for gaps.

Some roots even tried to burrow into his ears, nostrils, and the corners of his eyes! The slight pain of his scalp being pierced, coupled with the terrifying sensation of something alive wriggling under his scalp and on his face, caused Yoshimura Hisato to let out an inhuman scream. His body writhed wildly in the wood chips, but he could not break free.

The noise in the hall gradually subsided. It wasn't that the pain had subsided; many people simply didn't have the strength left to shout.

I stood in the middle, looking around. Everyone had been dealt with by the wood in different ways.

The familiar feeling of the God of Time has returned. Of the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—only metal and earth remain.

I turned around and looked into the depths of the storage room. There was something reflecting light in the corner of the wall; it was metal.

Next round, it'll be time to use iron tools.