Obsession... What's That? I Just Wish Someone Would Help Me Escape - Chapter 60
Leah, always timid around Enrique, mumbled softly.
I couldn’t be bothered to answer, so I pretended not to hear her.
Before long, we arrived, and I saw Deneb grilling deer meat over the campfire.
“Guys, hurry up. Johann caught some wild animals. Oh, Enrique, you’re here too. Come on, sit down.”
Enrique shook his head with a deep sigh.
“This what you’ve been up to after disappearing and slacking off.”
Looks like they’re having a feast to celebrate the last day.
Now, it finally feels more like camping than a fight for survival.
“Eat up while you can. We won’t get any meat once we go back.”
Deneb kindly offered, piling up the cooked meat.
As we ate the meat, the sound of fireworks bursting echoed in the sky.
Enrique, cutting his meat on a flat stone like a refined gentleman, remarked,
“That’s the signal to gather. Looks like the guards have arrived.”
“They’re early.”
Johann, who had a piece of prisoner’s cloth draped over his lap like a napkin, added. No one knew where he got the uniform from.
Are you two in a restaurant or something?
Deneb and Leah started hurriedly stuffing their mouths with meat.
“Kido, what are you doing? Hurry up and eat before it goes to waste! If you don’t eat, I will!”
“You eat more. I’m full.”
I gave her a grandmotherly smile, like one offering her hungry grandchildren some food.
“Oh, you won’t regret it? I’ll eat it all!”
I sighed, watching them devour their food as if it were their last meal.
How did these noble ladies, who once delicately sliced steak, turn into something resembling the leaders of a gang of beggars?
Afterward, we were loaded onto the iron ship and taken back to Gavakse Prison.
Deneb, suffering from seasickness, ended up offering all the food she’d eaten to the fish in the sea.
“Out of 49 prisoners, 12 are dead. Numbers 40 through 49 are all wiped out…”
As soon as we arrived at the prison, we gathered in the yard, and the guard read off the dead and survivor list like a report.
“A new batch of prisoners will be arriving soon. The Winner’s Tournament begins next week, so if you don’t want to die, prepare yourselves properly.”
The deathmatches between prisoners are held in a colosseum-like arena inside the island.
Which means… there’ll be an audience too.
The prison and the sect will make money from ticket sales and the bets people place on the convicts.
They’re squeezing every drop out of us. Truly an economy of exploitation.
For now, my priority is to find the other executioners.
Number 25 seems suspicious, but it could be a trap, so I’d better be cautious and not act hastily.
And before the tournament begins, I need to meet the conditions to awaken my abilities. Otherwise, it’ll all be for nothing if I die.
It was already well past bedtime.
I returned to my room, collapsed into bed, and closed my eyes. I’m exhausted.
“Did you really wash up? You still smell like meat.”
Johann, the cleanliness inspector, grabbed a lock of my hair and held it to his nose.
“It’s coming from you.”
I squinted my eyes and replied irritably.
“Hah, I washed twice. I should check if Enrique smells too.”
He started sniffing Enrique’s hair and neck, who was lying face down, and almost got hit by Enrique’s icy retaliation.
I reminded myself that this place was full of lunatics.
* * *
“Ugh… I’m tired…”
My entire body was screaming for help.
After returning to the prison, the grueling routine of hard labor resumed as usual.
I’d forgotten that I wouldn’t have any time to devise elaborate plans or monitor the other prisoners.
I was assigned to help repair the arena in preparation for the Winner’s Tournament next week.
Pulling a cart full of bricks, I felt like Patrasche* dragging a milk cart.
(T/N: a character in the novel A Dog of Flanders. An orphan named Nello becomes friends with Patrasche, an abandoned cart dog).
“Hey, come down from there.”
The cruel owner of Patrasche, Damian, the guard, was lounging seductively on top of my cart, legs crossed.
“Number 49, you survived somehow. Did Number 1 and Number 2 protect you?”
Panting for breath, I glared at him resentfully.
“Captain Meister, sir. Can’t you let me rest for a day in honor of my survival? You have the authority for that, don’t you?”
Damian shook his expressionless face side to side.
“There are no special favors for the weak. I am a fair guard.”
If you’re fair, shouldn’t you show some consideration for the weak?
“And you are not weak. You simply have the body of a dying person.”
If that’s not weak, then what is?
I groaned as I pulled the cart with him sitting on it.
“At least you’re doing better than before,maybe because you’re being strengthened by hard labor.”
“Ever consider that I’m using up my lifespan to get through this?”
I shot him a fierce look.
Damian adjusted his windswept brown hair and said,
“I admire your effort. You have to be strong to do hard labor for the rest of your life.”
Then, in a serious tone, he added,
“There’s something I’ve been keeping from you. I was going to confess after you survived the island.”
A confession? It’s obviously not a sudden love confession.
I looked at him, annoyed.
