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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Backers and Comrades
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With my eyes still closed, I let out a soft laugh.
“From the 20th floor on, prisoners can enter the Tower whenever they want.”
“…”
“It means you don’t just go in once a week like before.”
The 20th floor is for inmates who’ve climbed from the lowest rank to ‘Low-Grade 3’.
“We’re going into the Tower tomorrow, so get some rest.”
I expected Helios to say something like, ‘What kind of nonsense is this?’
After all, the guy had a rough day getting beaten up.
“…You know a lot about the Tower.”
“Of course I do. I’m a guard.”
One hundred points for not complaining.
And another hundred bonus points for being pretty.
“Since you’re being so good, shall I tell you something?”
“What’s so good about me?”
“The fact that you’re glaring at me like that but not voicing a single complaint?”
“…”
“Do you know what a prisoner who’s just arrived here needs most?”
Helios fell silent for a moment.
As I asked the question, a memory flashed before my eyes.
A very old memory.
‘I really thought I was going to die the first time I entered the 1st floor.’
Even for an adult like Helios, the 1st floor is hard to endure.
And I was twelve at the time.
When I somehow managed to survive and get out.
I remembered someone I saw for the first time in my cell when I returned. A woman with a benevolent smile.
“Mama…”
I lifted my head.
“The answer is ‘a backer’.”
“Huh?”
“Since you’re weak, you quickly latch onto someone strong.”
“…”
“It’s not about being pathetic. It’s necessary for survival.”
I turned over to face Helios, propping my head up with a hand on my temple.
“In that sense, you were pretty lucky to find a teacher like me, huh?”
“…So it was all just to brag about yourself.”
Helios clicked his tongue as if drained of energy and lay down on the other bed.
‘He didn’t turn off the light.’
I stared at the ceiling for a moment before turning my gaze.
“Helios! This is an emergency.”
“…What is it?”
“It’s really serious. Hurry, come over here.”
Helios frowned but got up and approached me. No matter what, he sure was obedient.
Just by his looks, you’d think he’d charm people into doing anything for him, but surprisingly, he never asked for anything.
He’s an upright young man on the inside. To think a person like this would turn to the dark side later.
I smiled brightly.
“Turn off the light.”
“…What?”
“Turn it off.”
“…”
“Would you please turn it off, my dear disciple?”
Helios swore at me. It wasn’t even surprising anymore.
And just as Helios, still muttering curses, finally went to turn off the light.
I used Kia to turn it off myself.
“How’s that for your teacher’s ability?”
The night, filled with curses, came to an end.
* * *
“Mmm, I feel refreshed.”
The next morning. Helios rose from his bed with a haggard face.
He could hear Mint’s beautiful voice from the next bed, but he was in no mood to listen.
‘I didn’t get a wink of sleep.’
It was because he hadn’t slept at all. It couldn’t be helped.
An unwelcome event from his past had appeared in his dreams.
It was a nightmare.
His father, who had framed him and thrown him in prison, had also appeared.
Helios’s fists clenched tightly.
Helios could have died here. No, he *would* have died.
If it weren’t for that self-proclaimed teacher over there, stretching with a refreshed look on her face.
He would have died on the 1st floor.
The more he replayed it in his mind, the more he couldn’t forgive his father.
‘…I will survive, no matter what.’
And he resolved to escape this damn prison and, without fail, return.
To return to the ducal estate and get his revenge on his father for everything.
Helios clenched his fists.
“Good morning.”
Mint was suddenly standing in front of him. Helios glared at his teacher with displeasure.
The resentment from last night hadn’t faded.
“…Not really.”
Mint tilted her head.
My, that handsome face looks so haggard.
“Did I snore or something?”
“You know you did.”
“No, I don’t. I sleep like the dead.”
“…”
“Someone once said they were so startled they thought I was a rotting corpse. They almost put me in a coffin.”
“…”
“Just kidding.”
“…Who in the world would say something like that?”
“A colleague.”
Do guards just trade insults with each other? Helios furrowed his brow yet again.
In fact, Mint wasn’t wrong.
Last night, as he tossed and turned, unable to sleep, he’d been startled by the lack of any breathing sounds from the bed next to him.
He’d even gotten up without realizing it to check if there was still a person in the other bed.
She was the type of person whose presence vanished completely when she slept.
“It’s a beautiful morning. Snap out of it.”
“How do you know it’s a beautiful day in a room with no windows?”
“A gut feeling, just a gut feeling.”
A moment later, the morning alarm echoed throughout the prison.
“Daybreak is here, daybreak~”
She was a strange person.
‘She definitely wasn’t like this when she was on duty as a guard.’
As a guard, she wore a neat uniform and, despite being a bit odd, tried to imitate a by-the-book guard.
Though, of course, she seemed to think of herself as an excellent guard.
But now, she was a complete mess in the same wrinkled clothes she’d slept in.
Even if she had just woken up, she clearly didn’t care about her appearance at all.
Besides, hadn’t her way of speaking changed completely?
The more he looked at her…
The more she seemed like she had a screw loose.
“Time to eat, time to eat. If we miss it, there’s no meat. None.”
“…I’ve been wondering for a while now. Why are you so obsessed with meals?”
“Tsk, tsk. You wouldn’t know, since you’ve never starved before.”
Mint just smiled.
She kept to herself the part about how starving for ten days in a solitary cell crawling with bugs creates an obsession with perfectly good food you never had before.
“Ah, yesterday I told you what a newly arrived prisoner needs, right?”
“More bragging about yourself?”
“Ahem. Don’t talk back when your teacher is speaking.”
“…”
Helios didn’t answer. No, he couldn’t.
Because as Mint spoke, Kia flowed from her hand, grabbed Helios’s ankle, and tripped him.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Teacher.”
“…What is the meaning of this, you damn teacher.”
“Ahem, just adding ‘teacher’ isn’t enough, is it?”
The Kia, which had formed a golden rope in Mint’s hand, dissolved into an elegant light and spread out.
“A surprise attack.”
Mint was smiling playfully amidst the light.
“From now on, I’ll be attacking you at any time, at any moment.”
There are no rules to fighting in this place.
Rules? As if such things exist here.
Poison and violence. Assassination, sowing discord, isolation. Any dirty trick was used as a tool of egoism, where winning was all that mattered.
“Let’s see you try and defend yourself.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Do you think attacks in the Tower are going to be polite and announce, ‘Here I come!’?”
“…”
“And what about outside the Tower?”
Speechless, Helios grumbled as he got to his feet.
“Would it kill you to give me a heads-up?”
“I don’t know what kind of pampered world you come from, but if I told you beforehand, would it be a surprise attack?”
“Hah…”
“More importantly, there’s one more thing a prisoner here needs. What do you think it is?”
Helios was on high alert. It was obvious he was bracing for another attack that could come at any moment.
It seemed I had to live up to his expectations.
*Thud!*
“…”
“The answer is ‘comrades.’ Oh, and by the way, when you make it so obvious you’re preparing for an attack, your openings are easier to see.”
“…I’m going to kill you.”
“Yes, I love that fighting spirit.”
Mint casually brushed off Helios’s anger and used Kia to help him up.
This tactic of knocking him down only to help him up left Helios utterly speechless.
“You need comrades with similar abilities, or with outstanding talents. You can’t survive in this place alone.”
“Never?”
Mint gave a light nod.
Everyone needed solidarity here. Even Mint herself had survived and become a leader that way.
“It’s like a school of herring. They form a group to drive away predators. You know?”
“Not get eaten as a group?”
Mint shrugged.
“Anyway, I’ve told you, haven’t I?”
Her mysterious attitude only deepened Helios’s suspicion.
It was because she’d had the same attitude when she gave him a hint before entering the 1st floor.
“Come on, let’s go eat.”
In the distance, a *bang, bang!* could be heard. It was the sound of a guard knocking on the prisoners’ doors.
After roll call, they would head to the dining hall.
“But…”
Helios flinched.
He felt a cool, slightly cold sensation on his forehead.
The source of the sensation was Mint’s hand.
Before he knew it, Mint had leaned down and was touching his forehead.
