Obsession... What's That? I Just Wish Someone Would Help Me Escape - Chapter 5
“Prisoner number 1, 2, 49. Come out.”
Another guard, not Damian, approached us and fastened handcuffs on our wrists.
It seemed we were being mobilized for construction work on the island facility.
As we left the prison, I could see a line of military trucks waiting.
The trucks started to move, carrying about twenty prisoners like cargo, heading somewhere.
“Looks like it’s a day for exercise.”
Johann, riding in the same truck as me, stretched his handcuffed hands upwards as he spoke.
Enrique, sitting beside me, quietly nodded.
To both of them, my existence seemed utterly inconsequential.
Perhaps they considered me as someone who would soon die and disappear.
I stared at the collars around their necks.
Though the security seemed somewhat lax for ability users, the collars around their necks were probably enough to control them, hence moving them like regular prisoners.
Besides, this prison was on a remote island.
The uneven road made the truck jolt continuously, making me feel nauseous again.
After a while, the truck finally stopped, and a guard’s gruff voice was heard.
“Don’t dawdle, get off quickly!”
We had arrived at the construction site.
The dust and dirt in the air made me cough.
The near-death faces of the prisoners already working and their bodies hardened by brutal labor revealed the severity of the toil.
The whips in the hands of the bulked-up muscle guards made me realize that I had entered the pits of hell.
Then, as I hesitated, my feet lifted off the ground, and my body was hoisted up.
“Get down quickly.”
Johann, who grabbed the back of my neck, growled in irritation.
Ah, as if I wasn’t in a hurry. Of course, I didn’t voice that.
“Johann, there’s no need to be so harsh.”
Enrique looked at me hanging limply from Johann’s hand with a sympathetic expression.
“You should have just pushed him away.”
These assholes?
Indeed, the original work’s crazy assholes, intent on destruction if they can’t possess it…
And sure enough, this place was indeed hell.
The intense labor and the brutal environment without rest nearly suffocated me.
Having never done a day’s work in my life and with my subpar physical condition, I had no confidence in performing heavy manual labor.
In contrast to my frailty, Johann and Enrique, both war veterans, seemed to handle it as if it were a light morning exercise routine.
“I should have exercised regularly…”
But that wasn’t easy due to my health issues.
As I looked on enviously and returned to moving heavy materials, dizziness overcame me, and I had to stop for a moment.
“Number 49! Stop slacking!”
The cruel guard, Sergei, whipped the air and bellowed at me.
I looked at the guard with a pitiful, wretched expression.
“…My body won’t cooperate, I really feel like I’m going to faint at any moment?”
“Don’t talk back! Lousy physical strength stems from a lousy spirit!”
With a slicing sound through the air, the whip struck the ground next to my feet.
Seeing a straight line etched into the ground, I was jolted back to reality.
Even a graze from that would be lethal.
“Mr. Jailer? Can one even live a normal life after getting hit by that?”
“Most are left with severed spines. If you want to lead a normal life, move quickly!”
Yikes. That’s terrifying.
Afterward, whether it was when I dropped the bricks I was carrying, held the rebar awkwardly, or fell backwards while pulling a cart loaded with scrap material up a slope…
Each time, like summoning a trainer, guard Sergei appeared and sternly reprimanded me.
“What kind of lifting posture is that! Isn’t your center of gravity collapsing? Do you want your knees shattered?”
“You have no muscles at all! How little have you exercised?”
“Put the strength in your butt, not your back!”
I had unwittingly become a focus of intense supervision, receiving what felt like personal training.
While trudging under the strict guidance with a 60kg sack, my vision started swirling, then turned stark white.
“Mist…?”
I saw a hallucination of Uncle Claude smiling and beckoning to me.
I collapsed with the sack still on me, a rush of red blood spilling from my mouth.
“Uncle… Can I rest now?”
But the arm that lifted me up belonged to a guard with highly developed forearm muscles.
“Not even close! Just carry the 60kg back and forth three more times, and you’re done!”
I looked up at the guard with resentful eyes.
“Didn’t you see me vomiting blood?”
“It’s just a part of building muscles, overcome it with strong willpower! Get up!”
Sergei, this merciless guard…
