Chapter 5

A vast underground cavern unfolded before their eyes.

Had torches not been hung in various places throughout the cavern, its sheer size would have been impossible to guess.

“Keuk!”

“Aargh!”

Screams erupted from the children everywhere.

After months in a place without light, the sudden sight of torches was so painful it felt as if their eyeballs would burst.

Pyo Wol was in agony as well.

His eyes hurt as if they were being stabbed by a thousand needles at once, and tears streamed down his face.

Pyo Wol tried to adjust to the light with his eyes half-closed.

Because he had adapted so perfectly to the darkness, getting used to the light took a rather long time.

After a good while, Pyo Wol was finally able to adjust to the light.

The majority of the children still couldn’t open their eyes. But Pyo Wol didn’t even glance at them, instead surveying the interior of the cavern.

The cavern seemed to have been formed naturally.

The huge stalactites hanging from the ceiling were proof of that.

The cavern had a structure that narrowed as it went up, like an overturned bowl.

The inside of the cavern was filled with wooden structures.

Crudely made buildings existed, as if modeled after some manor.

“What is this?”

“What in the world?”

The children who recovered their sight later discovered the buildings and were startled.

It was surprising enough that such a huge underground cavern existed, but it was only natural to be wary of the wooden structures, clearly made by human hands, standing in the middle of it.

Pyo Wol walked towards the buildings.

So Yeowol and Song Cheonwoo followed behind him, and then Lee Min and Go Shin-ok followed them.

Pyo Wol, who had looked inside the building at the entrance, said,

“There’s no one here.”

“You’re right. What is this?”

A look of suspicion appeared on So Yeowol’s face.

They searched all the other buildings, but it was the same; there was no one.

The children looked bewildered.

They had been on guard in case someone was there, but they hadn’t expected there to be not a single person.

While the children were baffled, Pyo Wol examined the buildings themselves.

They were not very old. Judging by the state of the wood, they had clearly been built recently.

From the grain of the wood and the dust piled on top, it was clear they had been hastily built while Pyo Wol and the other children were trapped in their respective sections.

Because of that, the buildings themselves were flimsy.

They looked fine from the outside, but they were a mess on the inside. Only the exterior was plausible; the inside was so crude that it was impossible for people to live in.

It was as if they had been deliberately made to look plausible only on the outside.

Pyo Wol thought there must be a reason.

One of the truths he had learned while wandering All Under Heaven alone was that everything that happens has a corresponding reason.

If a beggar begging beside him was beaten to death, it meant he lacked the eye to gauge the person he was begging from.

If someone threw him food, that too always had a reason.

It was because they were reminded of their own child in Pyo Wol’s appearance, or they were reminded of someone close to them.

Sometimes, he was beaten to within an inch of his life.

The reason was simple.

The person he had begged from was in a very bad mood.

Having had numerous experiences at a young age, Pyo Wol was exceptionally perceptive. That was why he never overlooked even the slightest oddity.

Pyo Wol went outside and examined the layout of the buildings.

The buildings themselves were extremely crude, but their arrangement was excellent.

Even to Pyo Wol, who was a layman in architecture, it looked as if the buildings had been arranged with some intention. But Pyo Wol couldn’t figure out anything more than that.

Just then, someone approached Pyo Wol.

“So it’s you, Pyo Wol!”

The girl who spoke to him in a soft voice was Lee Min, whom he had met in the third section.

This was the first time Lee Min had seen Pyo Wol’s face directly.

Unlike Pyo Wol, she did not have eyes that could see through the darkness.

Lee Min narrowed her eyes and looked at Pyo Wol.

Eyes set beneath thick eyebrows, a high-bridged nose, and firmly closed lips. Although his cheeks were deeply sunken from severe thinness, he had a very handsome face.

But what Lee Min focused on was not Pyo Wol’s appearance.

It was his eyes.

Pyo Wol’s eyes, set in his sunken sockets, glowed with a faint red light in the torchlight. She didn’t know if it was because of the torches or if that was their original color, but it felt incredibly mysterious.

“Were they always like that?”

“What was?”

“Your red eyes. They’re pretty.”

“My eyes are red?”

“Yeah!”

“……”

“You didn’t know, I guess. Then it must have happened after you came here.”

Lee Min reached out and caressed Pyo Wol’s face.

Pyo Wol stood still, accepting Lee Min’s touch. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice her hand.

‘My eyes are red? Could it be related to the snake bite?’

Being different from others was never a good thing.

Especially when there were so many children together like this.

Children were instinctively adept at sensing and ostracizing those who were different from them. Most of the children Pyo Wol had seen while wandering All Under Heaven had been like that.

Fortunately, his eyes had not turned completely red.

According to Lee Min’s test, they only took on a faint red glow when a torch was brought close, and normally they looked black like the other children’s.

Pyo Wol thought that was a relief, at least.

Lee Min asked.

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

“Just this and that.”

“You’re different from the other kids.”

“How so?”

“You just are. We’re all panicking, but you’re the only one who’s actually thinking.”

Lee Min stared intently at Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol met her gaze.

“What are you two doing here?”

Just then, So Yeowol and Song Cheonwoo approached them.

“Talking.”

“Talking?”

“Just about this and that.”

Lee Min shrugged.

So Yeowol looked at Lee Min with a suspicious gaze. But it was only for a moment; she soon turned to Pyo Wol with an unconcerned expression and said,

“A few of the kids have decided to stick together. What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

“You’ll join us, right?”

So Yeowol spoke with a very matter-of-fact expression, and Song Cheonwoo, who was behind her, nodded in agreement.

Pyo Wol looked at them for a moment before opening his mouth.

“We’ll see…”

“We’ll see? Does that mean you won’t join us?”

“It means I’ll watch for the time being.”

“……”

As if Pyo Wol’s answer was unexpected, So Yeowol was at a loss for words for a moment. Song Cheonwoo looked like he was about to flare up at any moment. But since So Yeowol remained silent, he managed to suppress his anger.

Pyo Wol had also experienced it, but if you were isolated in the dark for a long time, your mind would collapse.

Some succeeded in holding onto their egos with strong mental fortitude, but such people were not many. Moreover, those trapped in this underground space were just children in their early to mid-teens.

Because they were imprisoned before their minds had properly matured, the collapse of their egos was particularly severe. It might not be obvious on the surface right now, but no one knew what kind of problems it would cause later.

Pyo Wol had no desire to mix with them yet.

Pyo Wol didn’t trust the other children. He didn’t even trust himself.

He seemed normal, but he had no way of knowing what problems he himself might harbor.

At Pyo Wol’s impassive face, So Yeowol wore a briefly troubled expression. But she soon smiled and said gently,

“Come find us whenever you change your mind. Our door will always be open.”

Pyo Wol just nodded silently.

So Yeowol looked at Lee Min.

“What about you?”

“Hmm!”

Instead of answering, Lee Min looked back and forth between Pyo Wol and So Yeowol.

Her deliberation was not long.

“Alright! Let’s stick together. Sticking together is much more advantageous for survival than being alone.”

Lee Min moved to So Yeowol’s side.

The three of them walked shoulder to shoulder back to where the other children were, and Pyo Wol, left alone, stared blankly at their retreating backs.

＊＊＊

Only a few shichen had passed since they had learned each other’s faces, but the children soon found others of their kind and formed groups.

They split into a group led by So Yeowol and Song Cheonwoo, a group led by a boy named Kang Il, children who gathered around a boy named Yeom Il-jung, and a group with a boy named Go Yeong-san as their leader.

The children who became the leaders of each group all boasted a prominent presence. The other children instinctively gathered around the leader whose disposition was similar to their own, and factions naturally formed in the underground cavern.

Pyo Wol watched the children without belonging to any faction.

The children either cursed Pyo Wol for being a jerk or were wary of him.

“Didn’t they say there were no other survivors in the section that bastard was in?”

“How did he survive alone when everyone else died?”

“Maybe that bastard killed them all?”

Baseless rumors spread.

They all knew that Pyo Wol couldn’t have killed the others since everyone was locked in a Solitary Cell. Nevertheless, the rumors spread covertly.

Although there were only about a hundred of them, the world of the children in the underground cavern was no different from the world outside.

The way they pushed away, were wary of, and were jealous of those who were not like them was no different from adults.

Although he was implicitly ostracized by many, Pyo Wol himself didn’t seem to care.

He had experienced this kind of situation many times while wandering All Under Heaven alone.

Above all, Pyo Wol had no time to worry about the children.

He didn’t have enough time just to figure out how to survive.

Pyo Wol wandered around the underground cavern all day.

The first reason was to see if there was any place to escape, and the second reason was to figure out the origin of the underground cavern.

The buildings in the underground cavern were recently and hastily built, but the underground space itself, where he and the children had been trapped, was clearly built a very long time ago.

For moss to form on the walls like that, it would take at least several years to several decades.

There was a time gap of at least several years to several decades between the room he was trapped in and the buildings here.

Pyo Wol came to a conclusion.

‘This place was built a long time ago. It was abandoned for some reason, and someone has clearly started reusing it recently.’

The problem was who these people reusing it were.

They could be the original owners of this underground cavern, or they could be people who discovered it by chance.

Whoever they were, they clearly possessed enormous financial power. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to build such structures in this underground space in such a short time.

It was when Pyo Wol was lost in such thoughts.

Grrrrng!

Suddenly, a heavy sound echoed from the ceiling of the underground cavern.

Pyo Wol and the children’s gazes turned to the ceiling.

A sliver of light seemed to leak in, and then a rope with a large basket attached came down.

The basket, large enough for one person to ride in, was filled with all sorts of food.

“It’s food.”

“Something to eat.”

The children cheered.

They hadn’t eaten anything since leaving the prison, so their hunger had reached its peak.

The children rushed towards the basket like Hungry Ghosts.

Having starved for quite a long time, the children’s eyes had gone wild at the sight of food.

“Wait!”

Just then, So Yeowol and Song Cheonwoo blocked the children and shouted.

“What is it?”

“Move!”

The children were naturally angry.

They growled as if they would attack the two at any moment. But So Yeowol was not scared and said calmly,

“Instead of doing this, why don’t we all share it fairly?”

Her gaze was directed at the leaders of each group.

Kang Il, Yeom Il-jung, and Go Yeong-san, the leaders of their respective groups, nodded in agreement with her words.

They stepped forward on behalf of their groups. And they amicably divided the food in the basket.

Just then, Pyo Wol stepped forward.

“Wait!”

“Who are you?”

Yeom Il-jung glared at Pyo Wol with fierce eyes.

The other leaders were the same.

Their gazes were so full of Poison Qi that even most adults would have been intimidated. The long confinement had turned the children into beasts.

The ones who had locked the children here had created a hundred ferocious beasts.

Anyone who met the children’s gazes would have no choice but to be intimidated. But Pyo Wol was no different from the children.

A beast that had grown up in the darkness, feeding on Poison Qi and despair.

A gaze and pressure of this level had no effect on him.

Pyo Wol calmly picked up some food and answered.

“I have to get my share too.”

“Put that down.”

Yeom Il-jung grabbed Pyo Wol’s wrist.

When Pyo Wol stared at him silently, Yeom Il-jung’s expression became even fiercer.

“No one can take the food in the basket without our permission. We control everything in here.”

He looked at So Yeowol and the other leaders.

So Yeowol and the others nodded, signifying their agreement with his words.

The easy way to control the groups they led was to seize their lifeline, that is, their food supply.

Although they were young, they knew that to have firm control over the other children, they had to have the food in their hands.

In other words, food was power.

They had no intention of sharing that power with anyone but themselves.

Especially not with a loner like Pyo Wol, who couldn’t even form a group and wandered around outside by himself.

It was then.

Puk!

“Kuaaargh!”

Something no one had expected happened.

Suddenly, Yeom Il-jung let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Pyo Wol’s finger was embedded in his eye. He had pierced Yeom Il-jung’s left eye with his index finger.

“What was that? Say it again.”

Pyo Wol asked indifferently, his finger still stuck in Yeom Il-jung’s eye.

His eyes, catching the torchlight, were now glowing red.