I’m the Only One With a Different Genre

30 – Late Regret

Odooki, who mimicked the voice of a young child in a scary manner when Jisoo left, pointed at me and Iris with a heavy voice.

Knowing that there was only violence waiting for me if I resisted, I stood up and approached Odooki. Despite my quick approach, Odooki’s expression was not pleased.

“Idiot! This is why slaves need a beating to come to their senses!”

Odooki’s face turned red, and he pointed at Iris with his finger. Curious, I turned around and saw Iris, sitting there with a blank face, as if she hadn’t heard anything.

“Damn slave girl!”

Odooki took out a whip from his waist and swung it roughly.

Snap!

When the whip struck the floor of the cell, a harsh sound echoed.

‘Gasp..?! If that hits, I’ll die, right?’

Panicked, I approached Iris, who sat still with a blank expression, seeing a stone rolling and breaking upon being hit by the whip.

“Iris, get up! Let’s go quickly!”

“…?”

Iris just looked at me with her mouth slightly open. She seemed like a person in a trance. I forced her body to stand up.

“Get up… Ugh!”

As I forcibly lifted her body, fortunately, she obediently got up. It seemed like she couldn’t respond because she had completely lost her mind, rather than intentionally ignoring me.

“How dare you! How dare you all ignore me?!”

Odooki raised his whip as if he didn’t like me taking care of Iris and swung it violently.

Crack!

The whip tore through my back, leaving behind a searing pain and the smell of blood.

“Ow!”

The freezing cold made my shoulders shudder, as if someone had put ice in my clothes as a prank.

“Get up!”

With a rough bellow, Odooki grabbed Iris’s wrist and pulled her along. Iris followed like a puppet with severed strings.

“If you dare to defy me here, you won’t like the consequences!”

After swinging the whip on the ground a few times, Odooki turned and started walking purposefully. Odooki’s height was just slightly taller than mine, much shorter than an average adult man.

Thanks to that, I could easily catch up even when walking swiftly. As we passed by the prison cells on both sides of the wide hallway, the path split.

There were a total of four paths, including where Iris and I were standing. The front and back paths were the same as where we had walked before. It was a design with cells on both sides, with a central path in between.

From where I stood, the path to the right continued far into the distance. At the end of that path was a large door that seemed to be 10 meters tall.

To the left, there was a short path. At the end of the path, there were about ten steps. Odooki walked towards the left path.

“Oh, could this be an elevator?”

As we climbed the stairs, there was a wooden elevator that seemed like it could have been used in a mine in the past. Odooki, Iris, and I got on the elevator, and Odooki pulled the lever on the left.

Creak, thunk.

The elevator shook slightly and started descending slowly, as if descending into a vertical cave. The surroundings grew dark.

Although there were two lanterns hanging in the elevator, they were not very bright when they went out.

Click.

The elevator was filled with light again as it arrived at a lower floor. Odooki shook the lever once more without saying a word.

Then the elevator started descending even further.

The lever was pulled three times in total. At least it meant we were on the fourth basement level.

“I’ll give you a straw spoon later, okay?”

The straw spoon would turn into a fearsome digging machine exclusive to the prison. Even if this were the tenth basement level, it would allow us to escape the prison in an instant.

“Now, this will be your place from now on.”

Odooki pointed to a sturdy door and spoke. When he opened the door, the narrow interior of the prison cell was revealed. The room was so small that three adult men lying down would fill it, and it was pitch dark without even a window or lantern.

“Hurry inside!”

As if wanting to grab the whip right away, I pulled Iris into the cramped prison cell.

Creak, clang! Thud!

Iris and I were trapped in the darkness where we couldn’t see an inch ahead.

Crack, snap!

“…!”

Noah’s eyes widened as he looked at the practice wooden sword that had suddenly shattered. Pieces of wood scattered around as if it had been twisted and broken with both hands.

“It broke like this. Perhaps it wasn’t properly maintained, so it broke more easily than I thought.”

Juliana grumbled and told him to quickly fetch a new practice sword. Noah, silent, stared at the broken section before nodding belatedly.

‘Why am I so uneasy?’

Noah clenched and released his hands repeatedly, trying to dispel the uneasy feeling creeping up around the back of his neck. Her gaze was directed towards the spot where Lian had been sitting.

‘It’s probably because he had other things to do. Lian is busy.’

Suppressing the unease, Noah headed towards the warehouse where the practice swords were kept.

“Ugh, this feels bad.”

The first thing that came into view upon entering the warehouse was a bug, no bigger than the palm of a hand, lying dead near the entrance. Julianna, who seemed to dislike bugs, shrank back behind Noah.

Thump, thump, thump!

Broken practice sword, dead bug carcass.

Things that would have been dismissed as trivial on a normal day felt inexplicably frightening and eerie. Noah looked down at the bug carcass, probing his memories.

‘Why am I feeling so anxious? Was there something significant enough to make me feel this way?’

Despite nothing coming to mind, the anxiety continued to grow. Eventually, Noah left the warehouse without taking a practice sword.

“Huh? Where are you going? The restroom?”

From Noble mtl dot com

Noah couldn’t answer Julianna’s question. His heart was pounding as if it would leap out of his throat, and his footsteps, once brisk, had turned into a staggering pace.

“Gasping, coughing…!”

Noah realized it. When he had felt this anxiety and fear before.

“Lian! Lian!”

The horrifying scene he had glimpsed through the crack in the door flashed before his eyes.

“Lian!”

His first destination was the kitchen. However, all he found there were children handling vegetables.

“Looking for Lian hyung?”

“I saw him. He went to the room carrying something like this earlier.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

Noah left behind the children’s conversation and rushed to the accommodation. As he approached the lodging, his anxiety grew exponentially.

“Lian!”

Noah opened the accommodation door, desperately searching for Lian. The only things that greeted him were cute dolls neatly arranged on the bed.

With eyes half-turned, Noah immediately opened another door. Lian was not in the second or third room either.

“Lian, please… is she here?”

Noah opened the last door with a trembling, pitiful voice and a weak smile.

Creak.

The door opened cautiously. The first thing he saw was Pia, sitting on the floor, clutching her hair.

“Why? Why no words? Is it over now? Huh? Please answer. Please, please, please.”

Pia begged her brother several times to confirm that she was not wrong, but the magic of the spellbound silence prevented any response.

“Pia…?”

Noah couldn’t recognize Pia immediately due to her completely soaked black hair and eyes stained with deep purple, but as soon as he saw her face, he recognized her.

“Pia…”

Pia raised her head to look at him, her voice hiccupping.

“Ah… Noah.”

Pia stood up, giggling and swaying. Noah thought Pia’s expression was chilling.

“Listen. I finally saved you all.”

“What?”

“You, me, and everyone—we finally expelled the hypocrite who tormented us! But my sister… she won’t answer. Ah, has the lingering attachment finally disappeared, leaving me?”

Pia, muttering incomprehensible words, seemed insane. Noah suppressed the urge to run away and asked,

“Pia, have you seen Lian by any chance?”

“…Lian?”

Pia erased her smile in an instant and, rolling her eyes, looked down at the floor. Following Pia’s gaze, Noah found a doll rolling on the floor.

In another room, the doll that had been lying on the bed was now tumbling only in this room.

“Why is this on the floor…? Pia, what on earth happened here?”

Unable to conceal his trembling voice, Noah asked. Pia blinked her large eyes slowly, forcing a smile as if she were lifting the corners of her mouth.

“I told you earlier. I expelled that damn hypocrite Lian.”

“What…?”

“Do you think the same? Lian is trash. Pretending to be a hypocrite, using us and just smiling.”

A small confusion lingered in Pia’s eyes that had seemed crazy just a while ago. Pia’s voice trembled slightly. She spoke compulsively, as if seeking confirmation.

“Right? That jerk Lian is trash. Trash that should be killed right away! What good is he to us even if he’s by our side? Instead, he only makes us suffer!”

Pia’s gaze wandered to the floor. At the end of her gaze was a doll made to look exactly like Pia, with the same hairstyle.

“…Wh-What? Is that, is that it?”

Pia’s voice was trembling uncontrollably.