Chapter 201
I think I’m fucked.
It was a fact I felt to my bones from my very first day in Glitch Hall.
“A newbie bastard slacking off… What? Your name? Don’t even think about saying it. Likewise, don’t ask for my name or anyone else’s. You are Number 1700, and I am Number 345. There are no names here. That prisoner number is your designation, so you’d better get used to it. Understood? Cheonchilbaek?”
Number 345 growled, looking like he had just woken up.
Cheonchilbaek felt wronged. It wasn’t as if he had tried to state his name just to cheerfully introduce himself to Glitch Hall’s 'seniors'.
He had his own reasons. The problem was: Should he say it? Or should he not?
“What are you hesitating for? Do you have something to say?”
The grumpy Number 345 yelled at him again. From Cheonchilbaek’s perspective, this was an absolute disaster.
How did he end up sharing a room with such a hot-tempered person? Coming to Glitch Hall in the first place made no sense.
Of course, he was a criminal with no room for excuses, but he was cut from a different cloth than these felons.
In the life of Dusk’s lower class, breaking the law was an inseparable part of daily life.
It was a livelihood crime. He had merely taken one step further from that for the sake of success.
Of course, the thing he had recently done was a rather big deal… but even so, it wasn’t on the level of Glitch Hall.
There was definitely some kind of mistake.
He had tried to explain that as soon as he realized the true nature of this place, but who could he explain it to? He was left all alone among the felons of Glitch Hall the moment he opened his eyes.
Complaining to them would obviously only return an answer like, 'Is that so? The only way out of here is to die. Should I kill you right now?'
Furthermore, he might be marked as an easy target or a beggar, making his future life even harder than it is now.
'Of course, I don’t know if there could be a worse crisis than this right now…'
“Oh, so you’re not going to answer? You’re trying to use that head of yours, is that it?”
Cold sweat poured down. Number 345 cornered Cheonchilbaek, who couldn’t easily open his mouth, as if he were going to kill him.
For Cheonchilbaek, it was an awkward situation where he couldn’t do this or that.
If he gave a half-hearted answer to gloss over the situation, he would definitely face an interrogation about whether he was lying. But to tell the truth, that was also…
He shouldn’t have shown even the slightest hint of feeling wronged in the first place!
As he was cursing his own stupidity, someone intervened in the bloody atmosphere.
“That’s enough, Samsao. I was the one who asked for his name. I suddenly got curious, you see.”
At that single light remark, Number 345, no, Samsao’s anger cooled down to a lukewarm state, as if it had been dipped in ice water and pulled out.
“elder? If so, then I stepped out of line. I apologize.”
He said this while scratching his head and bowing. It seemed he genuinely hadn’t known.
This was because Samsao had woken up right at the moment Cheonchilbaek was about to say his name.
He had gotten furiously angry just because the other was trying to say his name, without even knowing the reason.
'What kind of person is this?'
It was understandable how he had ended up in Glitch Hall.
Of course, the important thing wasn’t Samsao’s filthy temper.
The truly important thing was that even that Samsao completely folded away his filthy temper and bowed flat to apologize at a single word from the 'elder'.
The elder waved his hand dismissively.
“No. You are right, Samsao. Not calling each other by name is Glitch Hall’s unwritten rule, and I shouldn’t be the one to break it.”
It was strange. He was clearly saying that it shouldn’t be broken, but at the same time, it sounded like, 'If it were me, I could break it.'
In fact, he had been unusual from the start.
Even Samsao, who had stated with his own mouth that he was a 6-year veteran, wore the exact same tight-fitting prisoner uniform as everyone else.
But the elder was wearing different clothes all by himself. They weren’t special clothes.
They were old-fashioned, shabby plastic material plaid shirt and brown pants that an old man would typically enjoy wearing.
He looked as ordinary as an old man out for a stroll, but that was exactly why he stood out. Who on earth would dress like that in a correctional facility like Glitch Hall?
“So I won’t ask for your name. I will only let you know mine.”
Wasn’t that ultimately breaking the unwritten rule too?
Faced with this incomprehensible logic, he looked toward Samsao, but Samsao merely glared at him with blazing eyes, as if asking why he was looking away during a conversation with the elder.
He really seemed to be an incredible power figure.
“What would be good. You… right. Call me Paradox.”
Paradox said so with a benevolent smile on his wrinkled face.
A fact he learned belatedly: His number was 17.
He was told that his tenure has reached exactly 15 years this year.
* * *
A month passed. He felt like he was slowly adapting to life in Glitch Hall.
He was told he was quick to adapt in the outside world as well. In Cheonchilbaek’s thoughts, ultimately this place was a world where people lived too.
That didn’t necessarily mean it was good. Just as the outside world was fucked up, Glitch Hall was equally fucked up.
It was even more so in a situation like this.
Stab.
The Hispanic man, whose face was covered in flashy black scars that looked like artificial tattoos, coughed up blood with a contorted demonic expression.
From his split chest, a heat-flushed blade tip protruded with a sizzle - .
What had clearly looked like an ordinary metal wall just moments ago moved bizarrely, transforming into a corporate cyborg ninja with its entire body wrapped in a disguise pattern.
[Osai’s vital signs have been cut off. Cheonchilbaek, can you continue to attend/escort the mission?]
The operator’s voice transmitted through the neural interface. Cheonchilbaek quickly looked around.
The storage box containing the target, the small modular reactor prototype, was placed on the table in the center. The security device had already been disabled. He just needed to take it.
The problem was that his colleague, who had tried to take the storage box first, was hit by a surprise attack from the cyborg ninja and stabbed in the back.
The cyborg ninja naturally pushed the dead body aside and stood guard in front of the storage box.
If he took even one step closer, it was obvious that a blade would immediately come at his neck.
Unlike his other colleagues, he had no equipment and lacked skill in many ways. This was impossible.
[No. I think it will be difficult.]
The next instruction came down immediately.
[Then make preserve life your goal. If another casualty occurs here, the GP loss will be huge. Can you escape?]
[I will try.]
Would the cyborg ninja try to stop him from his escape? It was still too early for judgment.
Cheonchilbaek stepped back with the intention of at least trying. The ninja remained as still and unresponsive as an inanimate object.
His body slowly descended outside the crack of the crashed maglev train. Seeing that it didn’t chase him even after he went outside, he made the judgment that it seemed safe.
It was when he turned his body and tried to run toward the tuned bike he had parked in advance that the unusually dark shadow above his head tilted.
As he raised his head with an ominous premonition, a tank-type chimera mounted weapon engraved with a corporate emblem was looking down from above, emitting a blazing red light.
There was a reason why the ninja hadn’t chased him.
THUD - !
The tank’s leg lightly trampled Cheonchilbaek’s body, turning it into flattened meat, and then the mission ended.
'Damn it.'
Cheonchilbaek swallowed his abusive language amidst the blacked-out vision and body-crushing pain.
Soon, the connection terminal peeled off, revealing the sight of reality: one of the numerous white rooms in Glitch Hall, a VR room for prisoners.
In Glitch Hall, prisoners are not given any particular work to do. However, people are bound to break down if they have nothing to concentrate on.
Because of that, the welfare provided to the prisoners was the VR room’s simulation game.
Most of them were the type where one carried out an assigned mission in a modern setting with infinite freedom under limited conditions. And his team had just failed the mission.
The failure of the mission itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was dealing with the aftermath.
“Cheonchilbaek! I clearly told you to watch our backs! Do you want to die?”
With a huffing sound, someone grabbed Cheonchilbaek by the collar, who had just come out of virtual reality.
He was Number 542, called Osai. He was that Hispanic man who had died at the hands of the cyborg ninja before Cheonchilbaek.
For Cheonchilbaek, he was a distant prison senior; he couldn’t even dream of rebelling.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You shouldn’t have done something to be sorry for! You couldn’t even do one thing, rear guard, and you ruined the mission? I knew this would happen. I felt uneasy from the start! An incompetent guy like you - “
Spit splattered all over his face from Osai’s scolding. It was unpleasant, but all he could do was quietly bow his head and beg for forgiveness.
He only complained inwardly.
'If you knew this would happen, you shouldn’t have brought me along.'
He didn’t want to be with a psychopath who got furiously angry over failing a game mission either.
Had he thought Samsao’s temper was filthy?
Compared to Osai in front of him, Samsao was practically an angel. Osai was that terrible, a devil-like being.
He usually disapproved of him for being a new recruit, so the fact that he was forcibly put into an important mission clearly showed his ulterior motive to use this as an excuse to torment him.
He didn’t know what on earth he had done wrong to deserve this, but this wasn’t a one- or two-day thing, so he just had to endure it for now.
“Stop it already. You’re going to kill the new recruit at this rate.”
Someone grabbed the abnormally large prosthetic arm that had been raised as if to slap him at any moment.