Chapter 7

Mak Nosam was a boy who had survived the final sector and joined the group led by So Yeowol.

He had the smallest build among So Yeowol’s followers, but with his own gritty personality, he had more than pulled his own weight.

Such a boy, Mak Nosam, now lay on the floor, breathless.

His appearance was truly gruesome, as if he had been mercilessly beaten right before his death.

His face was mangled beyond recognition, and his entire body was covered in dark bruises.

The sight of Mak Nosam was enough to draw out the fury of So Yeowol and her group.

“Who the hell?”

“I won’t let them get away with this. Those bastards!”

The children erupted in anger.

Killing intent flickered in their eyes.

There was only one reason for Mak Nosam’s death.

That he was the weakest in So Yeowol’s group. And that he had a habit of saving the food he was rationed.

Traces of food remained on Mak Nosam’s hands. It meant he had been attacked before he could eat.

Song Cheonwoo, his brow deeply furrowed, asked the children.

“Did anyone see who did this?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Dammit! We need to know who did this to get revenge.”

Song Cheonwoo finally burst out in frustration.

The fact that he couldn’t get revenge because he didn’t know the culprit was what enraged him.

Just then, So Yeowol spoke.

“It doesn’t matter who.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not important who did this to Nosam. What’s important is that one of our followers is dead.”

“Well, that’s…”

“If we do nothing even after Nosam’s death, everyone will look down on us.”

“I know that too, but to get revenge, we need to know who we’re up against…”

“That’ll be too late. It will take at least a day or two to find who killed Nosam. Or we might not find them at all. If we waste time and hesitate, the other groups will definitely look down on us.”

“You…”

“We have to get revenge right now. In the exact same way…”

So Yeowol didn’t say who the target was. But Song Cheonwoo realized who it was.

A child from another group, as helpless and weak as Mak Nosam.

That was So Yeowol’s target.

That night, the group led by So Yeowol moved in secret. And the weakest child in the group led by Go Yeongsan was killed.

It was the beginning of a war.

＊＊＊

Pyo Wol scraped the wall with his fingernails.

He had only moved his hand a few times, but a considerable amount of moss had gathered.

Pyo Wol tossed the moss into his mouth in one go.

The hellish taste was still there, but it was better than starving.

The children’s war had an effect on Pyo Wol as well.

The war was so brutal it was hard to believe it was the work of children who were barely in their early to mid-teens.

The first time was hard, but once they saw blood and committed murder, the children’s actions became unrestrained.

If you don’t kill, you will be killed.

Food was scarce, and it was impossible for everyone to share it equally.

In such a situation, the children chose to reduce the number of mouths to feed, even by one.

From the very beginning, harmony or coexistence was impossible.

When the night passed, someone was invariably dead.

One day, a member of So Yeowol’s group died, and on another day, a child under Yeom Iljung died.

As the situation devolved, distrust became rampant.

Children began to defect from their respective groups one after another. They had decided that their leaders could not protect them completely and chose to survive on their own.

The four large groups split into eight smaller ones.

The children did not trust each other.

The food dwindled with each passing day, and the children’s secret struggles grew fiercer.

The underground cavern, which was already like hell, became hell itself.

No one could feel safe, and no one dared to guarantee their own survival.

The starving children became as ferocious as Hungry Ghosts.

Fortunately, the children had not yet entered the space where Pyo Wol was staying.

The children instinctively felt fear towards the space where they had been confined.

In particular, the thick darkness where one couldn’t see an inch ahead deeply stimulated their fear. No matter if they held a torch, entering such a dense darkness was no ordinary, pleasant task.

Thanks to this, Pyo Wol had been able to live more comfortably than the other children until now. The price was having to eat moss, but even that peace seemed to end today.

Srrk!

A faint sound reached Pyo Wol’s ears.

It was the sound of clothes scraping against the floor.

It was a sound so faint that no one could have detected it unless their hearing was as heightened as Pyo Wol’s.

‘They’re here.’

In the darkness, Pyo Wol’s eyes glinted sharply.

It wasn’t just one or two.

At least four or more were moving together.

Pyo Wol’s dwelling was in the deepest sector, not a place one could stumble upon by chance.

It was a place that could never be reached unless someone came looking for it with a purpose. So, whoever had appeared here had surely come for Pyo Wol with a purpose.

A very malicious purpose at that.

“Is this the place?”

“I’m sure of it!”

“Why is it so dark? I can’t see a thing.”

The visitors’ voices echoed in the darkness.

They thought they were whispering secretly, but because there was no furniture or objects to absorb the sound indoors, it echoed quite loudly.

Just then, one of the children lit a piece of wood he was holding. He wanted to move as stealthily as possible, but with his vision restricted by the thick darkness, he had no choice but to light a torch.

As the torch was lit, their faces were revealed.

They were none other than Yeom Iljung and the children who followed him.

After losing an eye to Pyo Wol, Yeom Iljung had been looking for a chance for revenge. But the memory of the day he lost his eye to Pyo Wol was so intense that he couldn’t help but hesitate.

Even though he was the leader of a group, he too was only in his early to mid-teens. It was by no means an easy task to shake off a fear that had been imprinted in his mind.

If this situation of children fighting amongst themselves due to a lack of food hadn’t occurred, Yeom Iljung’s revenge would have been postponed a little longer. But the sudden decrease in food had brought about a bloodbath among the children.

As the situation of killing and being killed occurred daily, his fear of Pyo Wol had faded.

Yeom Iljung himself had killed two children.

He had become a beast that had tasted the blood of others.

He thought that now was the moment to kill Pyo Wol and overcome his fear.

After killing Pyo Wol, he would fight So Yeowol, Kang Il, and the others to become the leader of the underground cavern.

That was Yeom Iljung’s goal.

Yeom Iljung held the torch and scanned every corner of the room. But Pyo Wol was nowhere to be seen.

“What? He’s not here?”

“No, I definitely heard he was here.”

“Dammit! Then where is he?”

A look of bewilderment was evident on the children’s faces.

It was then.

“Keuk!”

Suddenly, one of the children let out a scream.

Startled, Yeom Iljung looked at the child.

“What’s wrong?”

“So-something bit my foot…”

Thud!

The screaming child fell backward mid-sentence. When Yeom Iljung shone the torch on him, the child’s face had turned black, and he was foaming at the mouth.

“What the?”

Srrrk!

Just then, the sound of something crawling in the darkness was heard.

Yeom Iljung shone the torch where the sound came from, but there was nothing to be seen.

“Ack!”

Then, another child screamed.

When Yeom Iljung quickly turned his head, a boy who could be called his right-hand man was collapsed on the floor. And he caught sight of a black object moving rapidly.

The black shadow moved in an instant, positioning itself behind the last boy.

“This bastard…”

The boy targeted by the black shadow swung his fist.

It was a fist that, like the other children, had been stained with the blood of others. If there was one thing he was confident in, it was his punches.

His fist aimed sharply and precisely at the black shadow’s head. But at that moment, the black shadow’s head seemed to flicker like a candle in the wind and then vanished from sight.

“Wha-what… Keck!”

In that instant, the boy felt his breath catch in his throat.

The black shadow had somehow appeared behind him, clinging to his back like a cicada.

The black shadow was Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol’s strong arms were wrapped around the boy’s neck like a snake, choking him.

The boy’s face turned pale in an instant.

The Blood Meridian in his neck was blocked, cutting off the blood flow to his brain.

“You bastard! Let go of Jongha right now!”

Yeom Iljung aimed the torch at Pyo Wol and roared.

The strong light cast a deep shadow on Pyo Wol’s face. The deep shadow made Pyo Wol’s impression even more intense.

A glint of terror appeared in Yeom Iljung’s eyes as he looked at Pyo Wol.

The fear he had painstakingly suppressed had revived upon seeing Pyo Wol.

This kind of fear was like mold; no matter how much you scrubbed and wiped it away, it would grow back and contaminate your heart.

Yeom Iljung’s single eye was a mixture of bewilderment, confusion, and terror.

In the blink of an eye, all the children who had come with him had been taken down by Pyo Wol. The fact that he hadn’t even seen what tricks Pyo Wol had used to subdue them amplified his fear.

“Geuk! Geu-euk!”

The boy being subdued by Pyo Wol was gasping for his last breath.

If just a little more time passed, the boy would surely die. Both Pyo Wol and Yeom Iljung knew this.

Pyo Wol knew he was at a crossroads.

If he killed the boy here, Pyo Wol would become a murderer.

He would become the kind of being that the creators of this place wanted.

He had thought a moment like this would come someday, but it had arrived sooner than he expected.

Pyo Wol could decide.

He could choose not to become a murderer, not to stain his hands with blood.

Everything depended on his decision.

A Crimson Light flickered in Pyo Wol’s eyes, reflected in Yeom Iljung’s torch.

Seeing his gaze, Yeom Iljung shouted with a sense of foreboding.

“N-no!”

But Pyo Wol paid no heed and put more strength into his arms.

He could feel the struggles of the boy being choked by him. But that too was brief; soon, the boy’s tongue lolled out, and he went limp.

There were no vital signs whatsoever.

His breathing stopped, and his body temperature slowly cooled.

That was the boy’s end.

Pyo Wol neither postponed the decision nor hesitated to become a murderer.

The creators of this place had forced a decision upon the children, and those who failed to reach the line they had set would be eliminated.

Here, elimination was death.

Srrk!

As Pyo Wol released his arms, the boy’s body collapsed.

“You, you?”

Yeom Iljung stumbled backward.

The bravado he had when he arrived was long gone.

“Y-you demonic bastard! To kill Jongha…”

Despite having killed several people himself, Yeom Iljung cursed Pyo Wol for killing the boy.

Pyo Wol didn’t bother to make an excuse.

Excuses were for the weak.

Here, he was not weak.

Adapted to the darkness, he was more vicious and stronger than Yeom Iljung.

Yeom Iljung also realized this instinctively.

The mold Pyo Wol had planted in him was eating away at his heart.

Even if he were spared here, Yeom Iljung would never dare to challenge Pyo Wol again.

The fear Pyo Wol had planted in his heart was that potent.

Yeom Iljung’s legs, trembling like an aspen tree, and the sweat constantly streaming down his face proved it.

Pyo Wol approached him.

“S-save me! If you save me, I’ll become your subordinate. You, you’ll need a subordinate like me.”

“At first, maybe. But as time passes and your fear of me fades, you’ll pull the same stunt as today again.”

“No. That’s not true. Never…”

Yeom Iljung, who had been shaking his head frantically, saw his eyes widen.

Pyo Wol, who had been right in front of him, had suddenly disappeared.

“Don’t tell me?”

He was just about to turn around.

Jjeo-eong!

Suddenly, a pain as if his head was splitting assaulted him.

Pyo Wol’s fist had struck him squarely on the chin.

His brain was momentarily shaken, and his vision blurred.

Not missing that moment, Pyo Wol wrapped an arm around his neck.

With his right arm, he pulled Yeom Iljung’s neck, and with his left, he pushed his head forward.

Yeom Iljung struggled against the suffocating pain.

“Grrk! Sa-save…”

Yeom Iljung pleaded, but Pyo Wol’s arm wrapped around his neck did not loosen.

Pyo Wol put strength into his arm and muttered.

“The reason I’m killing you is because I am still weak.”