Transmigrated into a Redemption Novel as a Disciplinary Bug - Chapter 8

The repair agent worked quickly, but its side effects were numerous. Carlos strongly suspected that this devilish fluorescent green was one of them.

The liquid in his hand was sticky, and it took him quite a while to pour out the required dose.

But faced with these overwhelming five pairs of insect wings, Carlos found himself at a loss for where to begin. The previous pesticide had been swift, precise, and ruthless—simply aiming at the wing sacs would do the trick. The repair agent, however, needed to be smeared into every corner of the wings.

Looking at this massive task, Carlos, fearing the eerie fluorescent green might get on him, immediately used his teeth to grab his sleeve and pull it up.

This was no challenge for him. It was just like marinating chicken wings. All he needed to do was give the wings a good massage.

In his youth, struggling to make a living, Carlos had done almost every job imaginable to pay off debts. He had worked as a masseur in a massage parlor and as a kitchen assistant.

His fingers were well-defined, flexible, and strong. While he wouldn’t claim to have mastered the craft, his skills were more than sufficient for the task at hand.

Squelch.

Carlos slapped another glob of repair agent onto the wings, then began patting, kneading, and rubbing from the tips of the feathers. He moved with the seasoned expertise of a master chicken-wing marinator.

The originally snow-white wings, aside from their pristine color, were only stained with crimson bloodstains, like plum blossoms in the snow—elegant, pure, and giving off an untouchable aura.

Now, under Carlos’s “exquisite” technique, he slowly and evenly spread the agent into every corner, ensuring no spot was left untouched, as if bestowing rain and dew upon all.

The mental connection to Zelan’s insect wings was currently very weak. He could only faintly sense their presence. Continuing to feign unconsciousness while attempting to reconnect with his wings was the best choice he had at the moment.

But the sensations now coming from his wings were impossible to ignore.

There was no expected whipping, nor were any new instruments being used on him. Instead, some sticky liquid was being smeared onto his insect wings.

The disciplinarian’s hands were moving between his feathers, and wherever the agent was applied, a needle-like stinging pain followed.

No surprise, it seemed to be some new type of drug, and he was being used as a test subject. Zelan thought calmly.

He fell asleep every night accompanied by pain, so the agony brought by the drug meant little to him. What truly concerned him were the disciplinarian’s hands.

When hardened, insect wings were lethal weapons for hunting prey. But when softened, they were the most sensitive part of a female insect.

Carlos’s fingers gradually moved closer to the base of the female insect’s wings, meticulously kneading every area under his touch, striving to “marinate” each spot thoroughly and ensure the medicine reached its target.

Wherever his fingertips passed, waves of tingling numbness shot straight to Zelan’s brain. His heart felt as if being gnawed by a hundred ants, his mind hazy and numb, unable to distinguish whether the pain or the strange, tingling sensation was more overwhelming.

Finally, when Carlos’s hand reached the wing sac—the most fragile part of the insect wings—Zelan could no longer hold back and opened his eyes.

“St…stop.” Zelan grabbed the disciplinarian’s wrist, preventing him from continuing.

By now, after the intense battle, Carlos’s hands were covered in the fluorescent green liquid. From working too vigorously, even his face had been splattered with a few drops.

The room was dimly lit, and in the rush, there had been no time to turn on the lights.

As soon as Zelan opened his eyes, he was met with Carlos’s hands glowing fluorescent green in the darkness and a face as green as a ghost’s.

“You…”

Zelan and Carlos stared wide-eyed at each other, the scene so shocking that Zelan swallowed the words he was about to say.

This strange, odd-looking restorative agent was a low-grade product only circulated on the black market. Military females and nobles used high-quality versions without side effects, so Zelan had never heard of such a thing. This was the first time he had witnessed such a sight.

The green-handed, green-faced disciplinary officer inexplicably reminded Zelan of the firefly race, but those insects only glowed on their backs and rear ends. He had never seen anything like this before. He stood frozen in place, unable to utter a single word.

So, it really got on his face, huh? As soon as Carlos saw the female’s reaction, he realized what had happened.

He glanced at the female’s snow-white hair, then looked down at the fluorescent green stains on his own body—what a mess. Seized by a childish impulse, he reached out his medicine-covered hand toward the female’s face.

Faced with the approaching “claw of doom,” Zelan closed his eyes as if resigned to his fate, but instead of the countless slaps he had endured or the pain of having his hair and scalp torn out, what he felt was a gentle rubbing?

The disciplinary officer’s hand ran through his hair, the movements incredibly soft, as if handling something fragile.

Zelan’s hair was stained with blood, and the clumps of dried blood and tangled strands were smoothed out by the motion, his hair falling strand by strand over his shoulders.

Why was he doing this? Zelan didn’t understand. Instinctively, he wanted to pull away, but his body was too weak to escape.

As Carlos rubbed the female’s hair, he wiped the remaining medicine onto it, turning the snow-white locks into a messy, multicolored mess.

“Pfft.”

Seeing the result of his handiwork, Carlos couldn’t help but laugh.

[Host, what are you doing right now?! What kind of disciplinary officer does something like this? Do you think this is something a disciplinary officer should be doing?]

The system was shocked. It instinctively felt that the host’s actions were wrong, but with its limited experience, it couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was off.

“How is it not?” Carlos replied in a teasing, playful tone.

[This is definitely OOC! How could you…]

“Whoa! You guys are playing so weird!” Before the system could finish, a voice from the doorway interrupted. It was Ethan, the medical officer from earlier.

As the only permanent doctor at the exchange, Ethan was as busy as a spinning top, constantly shuttling between the staff medical room and the slave medical ward. It was now the evening routine inspection time, and as soon as he entered the room, he stumbled upon this scene.

“Not to be rude, Mr. Astley, but you were sickly just yesterday, and today you’re playing so weirdly?”

Ethan tried to choose his words carefully, wanting to use a different term, but he was also stunned by the bizarre sight. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a better description.

“You think this is weird too?” Carlos seized the opportunity and pressed further.

“Of course! What female doesn’t treat their wings like treasures? What you’re doing… uh.”

Ethan hesitated, glancing at the female on the ground. The wings looked limp and abnormal—likely useless now—but covered in a thick layer of fluorescent green, it was downright eerie.

The repair agent was originally a normal green color, but when mixed with the poEthan that had rendered the insect wings useless, it underwent a chemical reaction, unusually turning into a fluorescent green. Ethan was also seeing this for the first time.

After thinking it over, Ethan felt that Carlos’s actions were not particularly damaging but extremely humiliating—almost like smearing feces on an insect’s head or insulting a female insect’s entire family as “white-cut chickens.” It was truly ruthless insect behavior.

Once confirmed, Carlos immediately rebutted the system in his mind: “Just say whether it counts or not. This isn’t something I said.”

[…Then it counts.] The system was about to lower the index but had to silently hold back.

“So, what are you doing?”

Ethan looked again at Carlos and Zelan sitting on the ground. It didn’t seem like discipline, and it certainly didn’t look like treatment.

“Fine, I don’t want to know what you’re doing either.” Ethan sighed, indifferent.

“This insect slave you’re managing must be new too, right? I’ve never seen him before. But… why does he look strangely familiar?”

“He somewhat resembles that traitorous general.”

As soon as Ethan finished speaking, Carlos and Zelan simultaneously looked up.

“Traitorous general?” Carlos pressed.

“What was his name? I really can’t remember. The initial news said that the general became a traitor and died in the mouth of a star beast while being pursued. Later, due to factional disputes among the higher-ups, the information was sealed.”

A traitor? In the original book, it only mentioned that the general accidentally fell into the black market. Even later in the novel, it was just the protagonist’s partner changing the protagonist’s identity, allowing him to enter the military academy and become a general. There was never any mention of treason, let alone clearing his name—the entire story was filled with sugary romance that made one want to add censorship.

But according to the original book’s description, the protagonist was clearly upright and noble—how could he betray his country? Carlos thought it over and felt increasingly uneasy, slowly furrowing his brow.

“But there are only a few generals in the empire, each one brave and heroic, risking everything for the empire. How could they do such a thing? If I were to guess, maybe some higher-up wanted him and found a way to imprEthan the female insect for… well, that’s not uncommon either.” Ethan sighed regretfully.

“Ah, the truth is something we lowly insects can’t know. Of course, I’m just saying this casually. After all, I haven’t seen that general either. I only heard he was from the moth tribe. There was even a journalist who snapped a photo before, but it only captured a blur of white hair, nothing clear.”

“The insect is dead now, so discussing this is pointless. However, thanks to the general’s influence, the moth tribe is quite popular. Normally, the female insect you have shouldn’t fare too poorly, but this face… it’s unfortunate.”

Ethan looked at Zelan’s unrecognizable face and sighed with pity.

“Can reports about that general still be found now?” Carlos had already opened the smart device on his wrist and began searching for related information, but found nothing.

Whether he entered “traitor” or the protagonist’s name from the original book, there were no results—always popping up with a 404 error.

“Now? Too late, don’t search anymore. It’s not something to discuss openly. Besides, a traitor—what’s there to investigate?”

Ethan’s every sentence included “traitor,” and this grating term sharply pierced Zelan’s heart.

He was handcuffed to the wall, forced to crouch half-prostrate on the ground. Awakened memories stabbed into Zelan’s mind again and again.

Female insects struggling and wailing, roaring star-beasts opening their bloody maws, pursuing starships closing in step by step, and corrosive liquid splashing right in his face.

Mountains of corpses and seas of blood, every word soaked in tears.

The familiar pain washed over him once more, and darkness flickered before Zelan’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Seeing Zelan’s condition deteriorate, Carlos thought the wounds on the female insect’s face had reopened. He was about to check when—

A sharp gust of wind sliced through Carlos’s hair as a foot shot past him, aiming a powerful kick at Zelan.

Carlos reacted instantly, raising his forearm to block the blow just in time.

Black leather shoes and a standard-issue shirt—the exact same uniform worn by disciplinary officers.

Before him stood a disciplinary officer with dark skin and golden eyes.

“So, this is how you manage your insect slave?”

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