Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 271 - Underground Forbidden Prison (2)

Chapter 271 – Underground Forbidden Prison (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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-Rrrk!

Mok Gyeong-un unfolded the rolled Forbidden Prison Battle Map and then rolled it back into the bamboo tube.

There was someone watching Mok Gyeong-un, or more precisely, the man wearing Bae Ji-seok’s face, with great attention.

That person was none other than Ju Un-hyang, who had been assigned to the Avici Prison.

They had not yet reached the underground third level, so he had already found it strange that he was unfolding the Forbidden Prison Battle Map.

But Mok Gyeong-un’s expression bothered him.

‘What is it?’

After looking at the Forbidden Prison Battle Map, the expression on his face had felt somehow not quite smooth.

At that, Ju Un-hyang looked with suspicious eyes at the Forbidden Prison Battle Map tube hanging from his own waist.

Was there something wrong with the map?

He was suspicious, but there was no way to check anything immediately.

The cadets were deployed one by one into the sectors they had been assigned, and the only ones left at the end were Ju Un-hyang and Yeom Gyeong, who were being sent into the Avici Prison.

By the time they reached the lowest level, the only people remaining were the two of them and two Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen.

Yet contrary to what they had expected, that being apprentices they would be assigned to the sector nearest the exit even after coming all the way down to the lowest level, that place was taken by the two guardsmen who had come along as escorts.

Yeom Gyeong, who had been enduring it because he feared receiving more demerits, finally protested.

“We are being assigned to the inner sector?”

“That is right.”

“But even if we look at the Forbidden Prison Battle Map, it is difficult for us to understand these winding cave paths.”

“So because it is frightening and we are in a situation where the meals must be delivered as quickly as possible, are you asking me to change the assignment?”

“That is not what I mean…”

“You, one more demerit point and I hear you will be dropped from the Embroidered Uniform Guard selection process, yes?”

At those words from the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsman, Yeom Gyeong had no choice but to shut his mouth.

He glared as if telling Ju Un-hyang to say something as well, but Ju Un-hyang did not express any dissatisfaction.

In the end, after parting from the last remaining Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsman serving as escort, the two had no choice but to head deeper into the Avici Prison.

Yeom Gyeong, who had been pushing the meal cart along the corridor lined with torches, came to a halt.

The sector marked `丁` was the place where he was to be assigned.

‘At least that is fortunate. It is not the very end.’

This was something he had to take comfort in.

As he was about to enter the cave whose wall had the character `丁` engraved on it, Ju Un-hyang suddenly called out to him.

“Hey.”

As he turned his head to ask why he was calling him, Ju Un-hyang had already come up in front of him.

“W, what is it? You?”

Yeom Gyeong disliked Ju Un-hyang, but after seeing what had happened during the internal energy measurement, he had judged that he could not rush at him carelessly.

Perhaps because of that, he could not help but shrink back unconsciously.

To him, Ju Un-hyang held out a hand and said,

“Let me see your Forbidden Prison Battle Map.”

“What?”

“I said let me see yours.”

He did not understand what this was about, but Ju Un-hyang’s gaze was fixed on the map tube hanging from Yeom Gyeong’s waist.

Thus, already feeling intimidated because he was alone here with Ju Un-hyang all the way down in the Avici Prison, Yeom Gyeong reluctantly handed over the map.

After receiving Yeom Gyeong’s Forbidden Prison Battle Map, Ju Un-hyang opened both his own and Yeom Gyeong’s rolled maps at the same time.

However,

‘……They are the same.’

There was not the slightest difference between the maps.

* * *

Mok Gyeong-un pushed the meal cart and moved along the corridor.

The entire time he moved, his mind was calculating the route to the Avici Prison.

Because he had been assigned to the opposite side from the corridor that went downward, he also had to take into account the various mechanism traps and the prison keepers stationed at intervals along the route.

As he was continuing onward while considering all that, the first prison cell containing the prisoner he was in charge of suddenly came into view.

There was a thick iron bar gate blocking off a place dug out like a cave.

‘The smell is severe.’

He had already thought the stench of urine grew worse the lower one descended, but the prisoners in the third-level prison were receiving hardly any treatment as human beings at all.

Inside that narrow prison cell, they relieved themselves and were simply left that way.

‘Ahhhh.’

Mok Gyeong-un covered his nose with his sleeve.

Because his sense of smell was even more developed, it truly was revolting.

It seemed they changed things out at intervals, but judging by the amount that had accumulated and by the stench so vile it could make one’s head spin, that interval seemed quite long.

‘Inefficient.’

This way of keeping them imprisoned did seem suitable, in its own way, for giving suffering over the long term, but it was not particularly to his taste.

Rather than simply leaving them neglected until they became accustomed to it, would it not be more efficient to brand the pain into them clearly, even if briefly, and then kill them cleanly?

That would be better than wasting pointless labor and space.

Mok Gyeong-un opened the meal compartment.

-Clang!

The moment he did, a prisoner with hair hanging wildly rushed up to the bars, reached out his hand, and cried out.

“Food! Food!”

The eyes visible through the matted hair were far from those of a human.

They were the eyes of one who had become faithful only to the most basic desires.

Well, if one were locked up alone in such a dark and damp prison for a long time, perhaps it would be stranger not to go mad.

‘Oh.’

The prisoner clung to the iron bars with his emaciated arm and thrust out his hand.

Mok Gyeong-un stared at him, then handed over one of the rice balls from the distribution box.

The prisoner snatched up the rice ball as if seizing prey, then retreated inside, crouched in a corner, and stuffed it into his mouth with desperate haste.

It was as though he feared someone might steal it.

Seeing that, the corner of Mok Gyeong-un’s mouth twitched.

‘He has become closer to a beast.’

This was rather interesting.

Once one stripped away the outer layer, humans too ultimately seemed to grow closer to their most primitive instincts.

Soon, Mok Gyeong-un scooped up water with the square gourd ladle and poured it into the trumpet-shaped hole next to the iron bars of the prison.

-Dribble, dribble!

The water that flowed in that way was caught in a small cavity carved inside the prison cell.

Once a day, exactly once, they were given food and water through meal distribution.

Only enough was distributed for them to barely keep their lives going.

‘I can understand why the Embroidered Uniform Guards of the Office of Penal Service are desperate to transfer to other departments.’

It was indeed a fascinating scene, one that brought humans closer to their essence in its own way, but to the thinking of ordinary people, working in such a place itself could be quite a torment.

Mok Gyeong-un moved on to the next prison cell.

After finishing the second and third distributions, he pushed the cart toward the fourth distribution farther inside.

The corridors truly were maddeningly complicated.

‘It is a maze in itself.’

If the shape had been orderly, that would be one thing, but twisted like this, it was difficult to remember.

Even the distance from one prison cell to the next was fairly long, and whether to prevent escapes or for some other reason, the corridors had been laid out like a maze.

On top of that, the intersections had all been made almost identically, leaving no choice but to grow confused.

‘It does not matter, since I have memorized the map.’

In Mok Gyeong-un’s mind, these paths did not appear as a flat surface, but as a three-dimensional structure.

Therefore, there was no possibility of him losing his way.

As he pushed the cart and naturally headed toward the next prison cell near the corridor leading downward, it happened.

-Tak!

-Click, boom!

-Aaaagh!

Nearby, not very far off, there came a scream along with strange mechanical sounds.

Mok Gyeong-un turned his head and looked in the direction from which the sound had come.

‘……That place?’

The direction of the sound was the place where one of the mechanism formation traps would activate.

Why would a scream come from there?

-Aaaahhhh.

But whatever the cause of the suffering, the screams continued.

If they kept going, the prison keepers, that is, the standing jailers, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen might come.

At that,

‘It cannot be helped.’

-Slide! Hummmm!

Mok Gyeong-un blocked the sound from spreading with true qi and moved toward that place.

Not long after, he found the spot where the mechanism formation trap had been activated, with countless arrows stuck in the ground.

In front of it lay someone whose entire body was pierced with arrows.

That person was none other than the cadet named An Jong-hu, who had been assigned with him to the third level of the prison.

“Aaaaah.”

He thought he now understood why the man had been screaming.

Mok Gyeong-un approached him.

Then the suffering cadet An Jong-hu, upon seeing Mok Gyeong-un, struggled to plead for help.

“Nnghhhh……s, save me.”

His eyes were desperate because he did not want to die.

To him, Mok Gyeong-un bent down and said,

“It seems it is already too late for that.”

“Cough……nngh……p, please……”

Mok Gyeong-un looked at his condition with indifferent eyes.

The arrows already stuck in him were lodged in places all across his abdomen and chest, and the bleeding was so severe that there was no hope.

The only parts left intact were his face above the collarbone and his left arm.

“I……I……”

“I do not know why you ran into a place with a mechanism formation trap.”

“Wha……what……do you……mean? I just……followed the map……”

“Followed the map? You did not simply read the map incorrectly?”

“No way……cough, cough……ack! Hah! Hah!”

Cadet An Jong-hu coughed up blood, then his airway seemed blocked and he could no longer breathe properly.

Mok Gyeong-un stared at the suffering man, then,

-Tap tap tap!

He struck his acupoints.

Once he pressed them, An Jong-hu shut his eyes and let his head droop to the side.

It was merely a sleep-inducing acupoint, but it would at least allow him to go without any more pain.

Of course, he had not done it out of pity or mercy.

After gazing wordlessly for a while at the dead man’s face, Mok Gyeong-un then looked at the bamboo tube in his right hand.

Though an arrow had pierced his wrist as well, the bamboo tube containing the Forbidden Prison Battle Map was more or less intact.

Mok Gyeong-un opened the tube and took out the Forbidden Prison Battle Map.

And when he unfolded it,

‘!?’

One of Mok Gyeong-un’s eyebrows rose.

That was because the map Cadet An Jong-hu had been carrying was exactly the same as the false map Mok Gyeong-un himself had been given.

‘They put their heads to some use.’

* * *

Barely half a siju earlier,

Deputy Thousand-Household Commander Im Gyu-wol had asked Garrison Pacification Commissioner Mok Seom in puzzlement,

“What? You mean for me to replace all the Forbidden Prison Battle Maps going to the third level of the prison and to the Avici Prison with false ones?”

“That is right.”

At this instruction from Mok Seom, Im Gyu-wol frowned.

If he did that, then not only that bastard Bae Ji-seok and Ju Un-hyang, but yet more accidents would occur.

If one bastard needed to be dealt with, was there any need to sacrifice unrelated fellows?

To the puzzled man, Mok Seom picked up the two rolled maps tied with red thread, which Im Gyu-wol had been about to destroy, and said,

“Anyone with even a little sharpness would not fail to notice a trap made so blatantly like this, would they?”

“T, that was not intentional. I merely marked them so I would not confuse them later when handing them to him. I was going to switch them again.”

“It does not matter either way. Since you said he already knows that much, it is better to make use of it.”

“And by make use of it, you mean?”

“Give the very same maps to all the apprentice cadets who must stay attached to him.”

-Tap tap!

Garrison Pacification Commissioner Mok Seom tapped his finger lightly against his own head as he said,

“Think harder. When dealing with clever bastards, one must not be simple. One must think in layers, twice and thrice over.”

“Ah……”

* * *

-Click!

‘!?’

Ju Un-hyang’s expression hardened.

Just now, when he stepped on something, it had sunk inward slightly.

As he swallowed and, with a sinking feeling, tried to lower his gaze,

-Shhhk, shhhk, shhhk!

At that moment, something like arrows poured down from the ceiling.

‘Tch!’

Ju Un-hyang, having no time even to think, hastily gripped the torch and threw his body forward into a roll.

The rain of arrows covered the meal cart where he had been standing.

Had he been even a little slower, he would have become an arrow-stuck porcupine.

‘What is this?’

He had moved according to the map, so why had the mechanism formation trap here activated?

Something was strange.

Yeom Gyeong’s map and his own had been identical.

If so, there was no reason for anyone to play tricks with the map, so why…

‘Ah!’

In that instant, Ju Un-hyang knit his brows.

Because the maps were the same, he had naturally thought no one would play tricks through them.

But if the intention had been to target him even at the cost of sacrificing the other cadets as well…

-Kik! Pahk!

“Huh?”

At that instant, Ju Un-hyang bent his waist backward to avoid a huge blade flying at him from beside the wall.

-Rumble!

And at that exact moment, the floor supporting him collapsed.

A span of nearly four zhang opened up, leaving him no way to do anything.

‘Damn!’

Ju Un-hyang plunged straight down through the collapsed floor.

-Creeeeak!

After Ju Un-hyang fell, the mechanism formation activated in reverse, and the floor that had opened rose back up as if nothing had happened.

-Step, step.

Before long, two people walked to that place.

They were none other than the two Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen who had come with Ju Un-hyang and Yeom Gyeong to the Avici Prison.

One of the guardsmen looked at the place where only the meal cart remained and crooked the corner of his mouth in a sinister smile as he said,

“One has been taken care of.”

* * *

At around the same time.

The underground third level of the prison.

The two Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen assigned there arrived at the place where the mechanism formation trap had activated.

There lay a cadet collapsed with arrows embedded all over his body.

Judging from the lack of breath and the complete absence of movement, he was certainly dead.

One of the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen approached, turned the face of the corpse to the side, and checked his identity.

-Slide!

After confirming it, the guardsman smiled and said,

“Things have worked out better than expected.”

“Surely not?”

“That is right. It is Bae Ji-seok.”

“That is good. I was worried it would be a pity if the fellow assigned alongside him died first… What luck. I will go up and report to that person, so you look for that fellow An Jong-hu before he runs into the mechanism formation trap.”

“Understood.”

Once one of the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsmen left, the remaining one moved to lay the corpse flat before searching for Cadet An Jong-hu.

Then he suddenly stopped and stared fixedly at the dead Cadet Bae Ji-seok.

He held the face and turned it without any caution, since the man was dead anyway, but it felt somehow as though the skin were slipping.

Yet it was not just a feeling.

-Sluuurk!

The skin slipped.

No, it was not only the place he had touched that slipped. The entire layer of facial skin shifted to the side, twisting the face into a bizarre shape.

‘What in the world is this…?’

-Slide!

At that moment, someone laid a hand on his shoulder.

Startled, the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsman tried to shake it off and leap forward to gain distance.

But the force pressing down on his shoulder was so strong that,

-Bang!

He slammed face-first onto the ground.

As he lay there bewildered, a voice spoke near his ear.

“I did not expect you would come to check before the adhesion had even properly taken hold.”

‘Adhesion?’

As he wondered what that meant, the facial skin of Cadet Bae Ji-seok, already shifted aside, drooped down, and the hideous and chilling appearance beneath the skin was revealed.

‘N, no?’

At that sight, the Embroidered Uniform Guard guardsman’s face went deathly pale.

To him, the voice whispered,

“It would have been fine if you had simply passed by. You are truly unlucky.”

“Y, you, who in the world are…”

-Grip!

Before he could finish the sentence, the unknown speaker grabbed him by the nape of the neck and then,

-Pahk!

Hurled him straight toward the trap where the mechanism formation was waiting.

‘!!!!!!!’

Before he could do anything, the last thing his eyes saw was Cadet An Jong-hu waving at him with a smile as if bidding him farewell.