There Are No Humans in the Monster Company

Crack!

There was no unexpected twist.

My left shoulder bent at an impossible angle and shattered.

The mass of chains from the Prison Director brushed past me, and the flesh it touched corroded until it turned black and limp.

“Ghk… uugh…!”

I couldn’t even scream properly.

A mouthful of metallic-tasting blood burst from my mouth.

I dragged my broken body across the floor.

All the lessons and training drilled into me during my military service were ridiculous now.

At that moment, I was nothing more than livestock waiting to be slaughtered.

My legs were already as fragile as glass sculptures due to the side effects of Mercy of the Holy Mother.

Every time I applied even the slightest force, the sound of my bones being pulverized pierced my brain.

The patched-up wound in my side was slowly reopening, releasing a pain akin to pouring molten lead into my body every time my heart beat.

Clank, Crunch!

The Prison Director was in no hurry.

He kept the guillotine blade upright as he walked toward me indifferently, like a janitor about to dispose of a pile of trash.

BAM!

The Director’s enormous boot crushed my shattered right leg.

“Aaaaaaaah!!”

The control room monitors exploded in unison with my scream.

The sensation of my bones being reduced to dust and scattering through my flesh.

Even as my entire body convulsed and my vision flashed white, the Prison Director’s sharp, merciless face remained clearly fixed on me.

Slowly, he raised the arm made of chains.

The dozens of rusted keys hanging from it shot toward me like snakes, pinning my limbs to the floor.

Stab! Stab! Stab!

The rusted metal pierced both my palms and my left thigh before embedding itself into the floor.

Like a specimen on display, I was pinned atop a pool of blood.

“…Haa… haa…”

Death was right in front of me.

The extractor on my chest had reached 100%, pulsing frantically while spewing black smoke.

But I had neither the knowledge to use it nor the strength to move a finger.

The Director slowly tilted the guillotine blade toward my neck.

The cold metal brushed against my throat.

‘…What the hell did I do with my life?’

I could no longer feel my fingers.

Neither Director Mok nor Supervisor Shik had appeared.

In the end, in this strange hell, I was going to end my days as a disposable tool surviving by feeding on the suffering of others.

Why had I done all of this?

Just as the guillotine blade accelerated to sever my neck.

Creeeeak.

The heavy steel door of the Central Control Room opened gently, as though someone had knocked playfully.

The Prison Director’s blade stopped barely a centimeter from my throat.

The overwhelming killing intent that dominated the space was instantly displaced by something cold and damp.

“Oh, Employee Jeong Haeil.”

The moment I heard that voice, I involuntarily let out a sigh of relief while trying to push my eyes, which had nearly popped out of their sockets, back into place.

The damp breath of leaves brushing against one another.

And that intense forest scent that instantly purified the prison’s foul air.

“Are you alright?”

I slowly raised my head.

Director Mok was standing there like a shadow.

Lush green leaves wrapped around his immaculate suit.

Between the knots of wood, dozens of green eyes bloomed and, after passing over me, fixed themselves upon the Prison Director, that gigantic monster of chains.

“Grrr… grrk… grooo…”

Supervisor Shik appeared behind him, shaking his black fur while letting out a roar that sounded almost cheerful.

The chains wrapped around his body clashed together with a harsh rattling sound.

The Prison Director reacted.

Thousands of chains wrapped around his body and surged forward like a storm toward those intruders who had invaded his territory.

But Director Mok did not move a single inch.

“It appears you are not in any condition to respond.”

He lightly moved one branch-like hand.

Craaaash!

In an instant, enormous roots burst through the floor of the control room.

The Director’s chains became trapped within them and twisted uselessly in the air.

“…The extractor… is at 100%, Director. But… how…?”

I spat out saliva mixed with blood as I managed to answer.

Two of the bark plates on Director Mok’s face curved at strange angles.

One was a smile.

The other silently told me to keep my mouth shut.

“Excellent work.”

Director Mok stepped forward.

Every place his feet touched became covered in green moss, replacing the bloodstained floor.

“We will handle the remaining work. Supervisor Shik?”

“GROOOO!”

Supervisor Shik snapped his chains and launched himself at the Prison Director in a tremendous leap.

The Prison Director, who only moments ago had immersed me in the terror of death, had just encountered the true monsters of the law of the jungle.

“KRAAAAAAH!”

Supervisor Shik charged forward with a ferocious roar.

“¡GAAAAAAAK-KWEEEHHH!”

The Prison Director swung the guillotine blade in an attempt to resist, but Supervisor Shik did not even seem to have any intention of dodging it.

Supervisor Shik’s thick fur and tough hide took the Director’s mass of chains head-on.

CLANG!

With a sharp metallic explosion, the Director’s chains bounced back helplessly.

“GROOOOH!”

Supervisor Shik seized the Director’s chest with one gigantic hand.

The Director’s torso, composed of chains and padlocks, was crushed while emitting a metallic screech resembling a scream.

An existence that had reigned as the king of Gangsol Prison was being crumpled like a heap of scrap metal with a single squeeze from Supervisor Shik.

Something that had been a matter of life and death for me was collapsing from a mere movement of his claws.

As I stared at the scene in a daze, Supervisor Shik approached me.

“It appears to be equivalent to a Rank B Dimensional Entity. However, it seems to be bound to this specific region. Capturing it would be pointless, so we will simply subdue it.”

From inside Supervisor Shik’s sleeve, a thin, smooth vine slid out like a snake.

Then it forcefully shoved its way into my mouth.

“…Mmph, mmphhh…”

A warm, viscous liquid flowed from the tip of the vine and flooded my mouth.

A sap carrying the scent of damp grass mixed with a floral fragrance so sweet it was unsettling.

The instant it slid down my throat, my entire body was enveloped in scorching heat.

“Ugh… Ughhhhhh…!”

The pain was brief, but intense.

The bones in my right leg, which had been ground to dust, reassembled themselves with grotesque cracking sounds.

The hole piercing my palm like a butterfly pinned to a display board instantly closed with new flesh.

Even the repaired scar on my side gradually smoothed itself out.

The sensation nearly made me lose consciousness.

“Huff… Haaah…!”

When the vine withdrew from my mouth, I rose to my feet, gasping.

My body, which had practically been a corpse just moments ago, felt unbelievably light.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Huh? Ah, yes. I’m fine… fine.”

“That is good to hear.”

Director Mok replied indifferently and turned his head.

A completely one-sided massacre was unfolding there.

Supervisor Shik caught the guillotine blade the Director swung with his bare hands and snapped it.

CRACK!

The steel blade broke without resistance and rolled across the floor.

Supervisor Shik grabbed the Director’s chain-formed head and slammed it into the ground.

The floor of the Control Room collapsed into a massive crater while padlocks flew in every direction.

“Grrrk! Grrrr!”

Supervisor Shik tore chains from the Director’s body and intertwined them with the chains already wrapped around himself.

He looked like an expert hunter preparing the prey he had just captured.

“Employee Jeong Haeil. We have already obtained all the extracts. It is time to return.”

Director Mok casually nudged one of the Director’s fragments scattered across the floor with the tip of his shoe.

To him, the battle against an overwhelming monster seemed little more than an annoying extra task.

I tightened my grip on the extractor I was holding in my arms.

The price of Lee Seong-hoon’s life.

And the 100% result that contained my screams.

“Yes… Deputy Director. Let’s go home.”

I cast one glance at an old sneaker lying on the floor.

Then I turned my back on the now-cold Control Room and followed Director Mok.

Behind me, the Director’s final screams gradually faded, drowned out by Supervisor Shik’s rough breathing.

***

The smell of blood from Gangsol Prison was replaced by the warm air of the office.

And then by the damp scent of my old apartment.

The return procedure was absurdly bureaucratic.

Director Mok checked the extractor’s indicator.

And when I tried to ask more questions, he merely bid me farewell with a brief,

“Good work.”

Then he took the result.

Supervisor Shik collected the chains torn from the Director’s body as if they were trophies and returned to his place.

No one explained anything else.

Not why I had fallen into that place.

Nor how they had come to find me.

I thought I had already gotten used to it.

But things I knew absolutely nothing about continued to happen in this company.

That was why I left it to Deputy Director Mok to explain what had happened to Manager Myeon, Manager Batori, and Assistant Manager Son.

I was too exhausted to speak with them or try to ask questions.

I quickly changed out of the suit soaked with blood and sap and returned home.

Thud.

I tossed the drenched suit into a corner and collapsed onto the bed.

The pale stains on the ceiling looked like the distorted shapes of Gangsol Prison.

‘…Did those two survive?’

Lee Seong-hoon.

The old sneaker left abandoned on the floor.

And the piece of cheap chocolate bar he had given me before he died.

Those images remained etched into my retinas.

Had Bae Hyeon-yu and Min Do-hyeon managed to escape the prison alive?

Or had they encountered another guard and ended up dying?

A cold, sticky feeling of helplessness tightened around my chest.

I pulled Mercy of the Holy Mother from my pocket.

Its smooth white surface.

The thought that the ink of that pen had filled in the life Lee Seong-hoon had lost using my marrow and nutrients made my fingers tremble slightly.

I covered my eyes.

In the darkness, I thought I could hear the metallic voice from the loudspeaker shouting once again.

“Stand up!”

Tomorrow I would have to return to that abnormal office.

Return to risking my life in the Extraction Room before Dimensional Entities.

And perhaps throw myself into another Distorted Region.

I had survived.

That was my only comfort.

And also the cruelest punishment.

I closed my eyes.

I needed a sleep so deep that I could not even dream.

***

“…Haa… Haa…”

Bae Hyeon-yu exhaled breaths heavy with the taste of blood while helping Min Do-hyeon walk.

She did not even have the strength to look back.

The strange metallic sounds that had echoed from behind the steel door Jeong Haeil had closed to trap himself inside still rang in her ears like a hallucination.

“Hyeon-yu… over there… that’s the main entrance.”

Min Do-hyeon’s trembling finger pointed toward a light.

It was not the blood-red sky of the Distorted Region.

It was the ordinary, cold darkness of the night.

The two staggered forward and crossed the boundaries of the prison.

The moment they left the contaminated zone, they both collapsed onto the cold asphalt as though they had agreed upon it beforehand.

“I survived… Once again, only me…”

Min Do-hyeon muttered while staring into the void with empty eyes.

Bae Hyeon-yu responded by clenching her fists tightly.

Her nails dug into her palms until they bled.

But she did not even feel pain.

“What do you think happened to Agent Jeong?”

At Min Do-hyeon’s question, Bae Hyeon-yu bit her lip.

There was no way he could have survived.

He had been left alone in the Control Room.

Severely wounded.

Facing that monstrous Prison Director.

“…He saved us.”

Bae Hyeon-yu’s voice was soaked with emotion.

She pulled from her clothes the wrapper from the chocolate bar Lee Seong-hoon had shared with them before his death.

The bitter truth that she had been unable to protect him hurt more than the scorching air of Gangsol Prison.

She silently looked at the silhouette of the prison standing in the darkness.

Then she murmured,

“Let’s head back first. We need to report to the chief.”

What shone in her eyes was the same burden survivors are forced to carry.

Compared to the nauseating concentration that permeated the inside of the prison, even the cold night air felt like a blessing.