There Are No Humans in the Monster Company

Beside me, Supervisor Shik growled while regulating his breathing.

His bristling black fur stirred in the wind, and the chains wrapped around his entire body creaked as they rattled.

“Grrr… huff… grrrk…”

Freely translated, it could mean, “It’s a nice day.”

Or perhaps, “Prepare to die today.”

I responded by appropriately combining both possibilities.

“Yes. I’m counting on you today as well.”

As if there were anything else I could do besides answer enthusiastically.

Supervisor Shik stepped forward and spread both arms.

His enormous, beast-like body cast a shadow as he stopped in front of the main entrance.

The prison’s main gate was not merely rusted.

It was a door covered in layer upon layer of blood and flesh from something.

When it opened with a chilling metallic screech, I felt as though the prison was watching us from within.

I pressed my lips together.

Held my breath.

Held my heart.

Everything tightened like a noose around my neck.

And then I took exactly one step forward.

Director Mok spoke in a low voice.

“Remember this, Employee Jeong Haeil.”

“……”

“This place was designed so that no one can deny their sins.”

I pulled the face mask tighter over my face.

The main gate finished opening.

The heavy mass of metal, flesh, and rust silently parted.

We entered the prison.

In silence.

Like new prisoners the prison had just accepted.

Before our eyes were only ruined concrete structures and twisted bars beneath a red sky.

But the true horror lay beyond the entrance.

I took my first cautious step.

“……”

A place where time had died.

A place where light had broken.

A place where something had boiled long ago and then solidified forever.

Beyond the main gate stretched a vast central courtyard.

It had probably once been a place where prisoners gathered.

But now it was different.

The dead were the ones gathered there.

“Ha…”

I held my breath for a moment.

Then forced myself to breathe again.

The smell of rotten blood, dust, and corpses entered my mouth.

Corpses.

Or more accurately, things that had once been human corpses.

Bodies bent backward.

Intestines dragged out of abdomens.

Melted noses.

Eyes blooming in clusters of ten.

Three additional arms growing from shoulders.

Deaths shaped in impossible forms.

And I walked among them as the only living person.

Director Mok continued forward without showing any reaction.

His leaves and vines brushed along the ground as though they were taking root.

“Trying to memorize the building’s structure is pointless. Once someone enters, the layout continues changing constantly.”

“……”

Supervisor Shik spent the entire walk sniffing the air.

Dry, groaning breaths escaped from his mouth.

The horn-like bristling fur on his body vibrated strangely.

As I followed him, I looked once more at the structures surrounding the courtyard.

On the far left stood a building bearing the sign:

Work Building.

Its door was twisted, and the interior overflowed with blood.

To the right was the Detention Block.

Not a single window or door was visible, and the gray walls were covered with blood and rotting flesh.

And directly ahead.

A building that seemed sealed behind black concrete walls.

Its metal door was deformed.

The sign was shattered.

But the name could still be read clearly.

Punishment Block.

Three stories.

No windows.

And hanging from the top was the dried corpse of someone who appeared to have tried climbing up there.

‘……’

I swallowed.

My stomach churned.

Corpse remains.

Rusty iron.

Rotting skin.

Dust.

Stagnant water.

Bloodstains.

Entrails.

Eyeballs.

And the sensation that something, somewhere in this place, was watching me even now.

‘It’s fine. Director Mok and Supervisor Shik are here…’

As I forced my expression back into place, the bone pen responded by pulsing in the same rhythm.

I raised my eyebrows slightly.

Relaxed the corners of my mouth.

And adjusted my expression to suit the job.

Only then did I continue walking behind them.

Director Mok had already reached the front of the Detention Block.

Supervisor Shik stood by the door adjusting his chains.

I slowly positioned myself between them.

A brief silence.

‘What the hell did I do so wrong in life to end up coming to a place like this for work?’

Of course, I knew questions like that were useless here.

The three of us silently entered the building.

The first thing that greeted us was a corridor covered in blood and flesh.

A long, narrow hallway bathed in grayish light.

Countless cells stretched along both sides without any apparent order, all sealed by rusted iron doors.

Every door was closed.

And ragged breathing leaked through the cracks.

The smell of flesh.

The smell of stale blood.

And the breathing sounds of beings I could not even be sure were human.

I took one step.

Then another.

Every time I stepped on something sticky beneath my feet, I shuddered.

But when I tried to lift my foot, the floor seemed to hold it in place.

A viscous, heavy sensation.

What I was crushing beneath my feet were the remains of someone who had dragged their decapitated body across this very floor.

“……”

Even breathing felt like a sin.

Then I heard a faint voice.

“……Kill me…… please…… kill me…… kill me……”

One of the countless cells on the left side.

The voice passed through the iron door like the breath of a dead person.

I stopped involuntarily.

A chill ran simultaneously through my spine and across my skin.

My entire body broke out in goosebumps.

“……Ha… damn it……”

When I exhaled, the cell on the right reacted to the sound.

“Save me, save me! There’s nobody here! There’s nobody here…!”

“Open it, open it! I don’t remember what I said! I don’t remember who I was! Open it…!”

“It hurts get me out please it hurts I want to go home I miss mom and dad I miss everyone no that’s not true I was the one who killed them I was the one who ate them they were delicious”

Like an infection spreading across waves, grotesque voices began leaking from every cell.

Those voices struck the walls.

Licked the gaps between the bars.

Scratched at eardrums.

They did not seem to enter through the ears.

It was as though they mixed with the air itself and passed directly through the skin.

‘Disgusting.’

I muttered a curse under my breath and turned my head.

At that moment, I locked eyes with something between the bars of a door on the right.

It had three eyes.

One on its forehead.

Two beside its nose.

Each looked in a different direction.

And yet all of them were staring at me simultaneously.

The eyeballs twitched slightly.

“You too… you too… you too…”

I looked away without saying a word.

But my vision remained stained red.

Blood.

Rotting flesh.

And a corridor full of voices.

It felt as though I were walking across a game board built in hell.

“Ignore them.”

Director Mok’s voice rang out softly.

Like a current of air flowing behind my back.

Natural.

Orderly.

Calm.

“…”

I looked at him.

Without stopping, he continued forward and added one more sentence.

“Most of them have already become beings consumed by Gangsol Prison.”

He continued speaking without emotion, without judgment, and without the slightest trace of compassion.

“And the few who have not also belong to the Anomalous Disaster Management Department, not to us.”

I stopped.

Those words had been spoken so naturally that, by reflex, my breath caught in my throat.

‘…No matter who is imprisoned in there, it’s not our concern.’

The suffering echoing inside the prison was not considered suffering.

Those who could not leave the prison did not need salvation.

Because they were not merchandise.

Nor resources.

Nor personnel.

Nor customers.

“……”

For a moment, my vision wavered.

What if there was even one normal person among all those cells?

What if someone had been dragged by accident into this monstrous place and was waiting for help?

But I immediately understood the cold truth.

‘…What could I do here alone, without those two?’

The answer was obvious.

Nothing.

If I became separated from Director Mok or Supervisor Shik, I would become a target for punishment by the “prison guards” before I even had time to scream.

Just as the rules of this prison dictated.

I closed my lips and nodded.

“Understood.”

I said it while trying to sound calm, but inside I still felt uneasy and bitter.

The iron doors continued lining the corridor ahead of me.

Even without opening, I felt that the things trapped inside them were more desperate to live than I was.

“Kill me… kill me… kill me…”

“I want to live… a person… a person…”

“No, I didn’t kill them, I’m not guilty, the blood of the innocent lamb was blue, I crossed the crosswalk, it was terribly cold.”

“……”

I said nothing.

I simply closed my eyes and opened them again.

Even after passing through my eyelids, those voices continued rotting inside my ears.

Blood.

Rotting flesh.

Broken teeth.

The traces of misplaced footsteps.

And the corridor continued stretching forward.

I took each step in silence, as though serving a sentence.

Following behind Director Mok and Supervisor Shik.

The remnants of those who had survived inside the cells continued refusing to die.

And I passed by them like a dead man, showing no emotion at all.

‘This place was designed so that no one can deny their sins.’

Repeating that thought over and over, I followed my two superiors.

And then, at the same moment, the prisoners’ voices abruptly stopped.

“……?”

At that instant, a strange pulse exploded inside my shirt.

The area around my collarbone where the pendant rested burned as though someone had pressed a red-hot iron against it, and the far end of the corridor, which had been gray until now, was dyed a blazing, intense red.

A blood-colored killing intent so vivid that it seemed capable of piercing the eyes.

The necklace was screaming.

“Something is coming.”

“Grrrk.”

Thunk.

Thunk.

Footsteps.

Heavy footsteps.

The vibrations climbed up from the soles of my feet as though someone were deliberately pounding on my heart inside my chest.

Director Mok, who was leading the way, slowly raised a hand.

The movement was calm.

But for some reason, I felt all the air around us come to a halt.

Supervisor Shik also exhaled briefly and let out a low growl.

That alone was enough to change the atmosphere.

Something appeared at the end of the corridor.

It had a human shape.

But it was not human.

Its body seemed to be wearing a prison guard’s uniform, yet it was wrapped in veins, metal, and unknown fluids.

The flesh was swollen.

Its shoulders had hardened like iron.

And its head was not a face.

Where the eyes and mouth should have been, there was only stitched skin.

Instead, a small iron cell was embedded into the top of its head.

Inside it, a dark red light flickered.

Its arms were long and deformed.

And in one hand, it held a punishment device shaped like a trident.

“……It’s a prison guard.”

That was not a person.

It was part of this place.

The living discipline of Gangsol Prison itself.

The space, having detected the presence of prisoners, had sent a piece of itself to act.

The monster stopped and looked at the three of us.

If beings that were supposed to remain behind bars appeared walking through the corridor, the rules considered it an escape.

And the rules reacted.

The prison guard roared.

And charged.

──RAAAAAAAAHHHH!!

My entire body trembled.

It was not a sound produced by an abnormal throat.

It was the prison itself screaming.

Instinctively, I stepped backward.

My breath caught in my throat.

My vision turned red.

Then Director Mok spoke calmly.

“Supervisor Shik, I leave it to you.”

The sentence had not even finished before he disappeared.

Because Supervisor Shik had already launched himself forward.

“GROOOOOOAAAAAAAR────!!”

His black fur billowed amid blasts of torn-apart wind.

Supervisor Shik’s silhouette shot through the corridor and vanished.

Despite his enormous size, he moved at an impossible speed.

And the prison guard was sent flying before it could even react.

Crunch!

Blood.

No.

Something resembling blood.

A substance like rotten juices splattered in every direction.

Supervisor Shik’s claws tore through the guard’s abdomen and continued until they ripped its side completely open.

Immediately afterward, his fangs sank into its neck.

Riiip!

The flesh tore apart like paper.

There were no screams.

Before it could utter a single cry, both of the guard’s arms were torn off, and its legs were severed above the knees.

Supervisor Shik showed not the slightest hesitation.

He grabbed the arm the monster tried to use to seize him and snapped it.

Then he slammed that bar-pierced head into the ground.

BOOM—!!

The wall cracked.

And blood began dripping from the fractures.

In just a few seconds, the prison guard had become a mass of mangled flesh.

It twitched for a few moments, completely shredded.

And then it stopped moving.

I said nothing.

Only one emotion remained clear inside me.

‘This… I can’t do this.’

The smell of blood was too intense.

The mixture of blood and entrails felt as though it was clogging my airways.

Pretending nothing had happened, I looked away.

Supervisor Shik slowly returned, covered in blood.

He shrugged slightly.

His expression seemed to say,

‘Alright, the warm-up is over.’

Trying to appear as calm as possible, I nodded and smiled.

“…Thank you, Supervisor Shik.”

And to a certain extent, I genuinely meant it.

Even though inside I kept repeating something else over and over again.

‘…No matter what happens, I have to stay behind those two.’

Never get separated.

Never.

Never.

The corners of my lips trembled.

It was the ultimate truth my survival instincts had managed to discover.

***

And exactly twenty minutes later.

I found myself completely alone in a dark corridor, staring blankly into the void.

“Fuck…”