novel
| ← Ch.024 | Ch.026 → |
Drip drip.
Carlyle struggled to open his eyes at the sound of water dripping. As he was hanging upside down, his vision was upside down as well.
His brain started moving and trying to figure out what was happening like putting pieces of a puzzle together.
'Ah.... . '
They had been following the cannibal when an electric net fell on them and he had been hit over the head a few times. He was surprised they were still alive.
He was caught up in his thoughts. Though he was only the second, he was of a noble aristocratic family. He was not someone who should be captured by mutants.
'I don't want to go on this mission. '
'You have to go. Look at your brother and sister. Until when are you going to fall behind them?'
He recalled the conversation he had with his father, Duke Venter. He had been forced to come here when he did not want to.
He had been nervous. There were countless dangerous obstacles even in a 1500-point mission, but 3000? It was beyond his capabilities.
'But my brother and sister are geniuses. '
'You brat!'
His father had always been disappointed in him. Because his oldest son and daughter had the poise of nobility, but he did not?
However, Carlyle only thought this because he did not know. There is no child that a parent does not love. No matter what, he was a son.
Duke Venter pushed Carlyle so that he might find his own calling. And he put Special Forces on him for his safety.
Duke Venter's true feelings were delivered incorrectly to Carlyle.
Carlyle lifted his head. As he was hanging, he did not see the ceiling but the floor.
There was a small puddle of blood. He had thought that water was dripping from somewhere, but it had been blood falling from a wound.
"Euk!"
"Keuk!"
After Carlyle, the party members slowly came to their senses one by one. Thankfully, no one had been beaten to death.
"Huh?"
"Ack!"
Hicks and Smith, who came to their senses, began to go mad. All of the party members reacted similarly. They were looking at hell.
Unidentifiable bundles of blood were hanging like they were.
There was a mix of those with hardened blood because they had been dead for a long time, those where the blood was still draining, and some that were still breathing weakly.
The mutants were using them for food. This was their meat locker.
Carlyle did not know this even though he was the first to wake up. There was no way he could know unless he had eyes on the back of his head.
"Pe, people... !"
"Lifers. They're Lifers!"
They killed mutants every day. Slaughtered meat did not scare them.
The party members were scared because of the human corpses hanging along with the mutants. To be precise, they were surprised that they were looking at Lifers like themselves.
The PDA on their wrists was the proof. The body Hicks was looking at did not have organs.
Their stomachs had been split opened. Looking closely, they did not have eyeballs and the parts with a lot of meat like the arms, butt, and thighs had been cut out.
Their eyes followed the blood that fell from the corpses. At the end, there were tools that could be found in a butcher shop and a cutting board as large as a table.
Shining blood, pieces of flesh and organs floating around.
It was grotesque just to look at, but they could not imagine going through it. Basically, humans were becoming meals for cannibals.
They each counted the number of corpses they could see from their positions. From what they could see, they counted 15 bodies.
"15.... ."
"How many parties have died? Hee hee! Is it 23 including us?"
Hicks mumbled madly. He wished he could go mad instead.
How could they maintain their sanity? All of their equipment had been taken while they were sleeping and all they had left were their PDAs and a set of tights.
It seemed they were just thinking of it as a skin to take off later. If the impact tights were easy to take off, they would have been naked already.
[You have confirmed the situation in Field of Meat. Please escape to the summons area. ]
"Escape? Don't be funny! I already gave up on this mission!"
"Me too!"
[You are in a state without freedom. You cannot exit the mission. ]
"Shut up!"
"Send us back immediately!"
This was not a children's playground. Reckless abandonment was not an option.
"How noisy. Be quiet unless you all want to be cooked."
"Who?"
"Could it be a survivor?"
They heard an unfamiliar voice but could not find the direction because they were upside down. They did not have their translators, but they could understand. He was speaking in English.
"Your lives are at high risk as it is. Your lifespan will be shortened if you keep jabbering like that."
"Hey! Where are you?"
"Are you on the side of the cannibals? Get us loose first!"
They had hope for their lives. They ignored the warning and grew louder.
If they could just be untied and reunited with their equipment, they could kill all of the mutants or escape this damned mission.
"We'll do anything!"
"There's no answer. I'm locked in here just like you guys are. How can I get you loose?"
"This asshole!"
Hicks shouted in anger. The meat warehouse rang to the point where everyone else's voices were covered. That called in their misery.
Keurung!
A beast's growling that could not have come from a human - and the sound grew closer. A cold sweat dripped down the party members' spines.
"The chef is here. I mourn for whoever it will be."
His voice darkened. It was full of blame for their stupidity.
Bang!
As the crude steel doors opened, the chef that the survivor mentioned came in. An evil cannibal. It was fittingly fat for something that maintained the meat locker.
The party members froze like plaster. They just trembled as if they had malaria. The words that he mourned for one person kept turning in their heads.
There was no way not to understand what this meant unless they were stupid. 1 of the 8 people would be going into the chef's stomach.
The chef poked each person with its finger. Then he took the ropes tying their legs and pulled them up and down as if weighing them.
He looked at Hicks. The selection criteria was uncertain, but he had been chosen.
"It can't be!"
Bang!
The chef cut the rope holding Hicks and dragged him to the cutting board.
"I don't want to die!"
Hicks fervently moved his body, but it was no use. The party did not speak as if their mouths had been locked shut because they did not want to call the attention to themselves.
The chef placed Hicks on the cutting board. It pressed down on his chest so he could not move and brought the cleavers that had been lying in the corner down on his shoulder.
Kyak!
A fountain of blood spewed. The white of Hicks' eyes showed. It felt like thousands of ants were eating his skin. An indescribable pain.
The chef chewed on the arm whole. It ate ravenously. One arm must have been too little because it cut the other and ate it as well. Next was the legs.
Hicks died of a heart attack once his arms and legs were cut off. If he had survived that pain, he would have died from bleeding out or something worse.
The chef burped and put the corpse with just a head and torso in a large container. It was going to save it for later since it was full now.
Seuk.
Clang!
The chef went towards the party members, loosened the rope tying them up, paired them off, and locked them in pens fit for animals.
It had learned from experience that they would die if left hanging for too long.
Kwang!
The door closed and the chef left the meat locker. The party looked at the dead Hicks and realized that their turn would not be long.
"He won't come for another half day."
"Half day.... ."
"Keep in mind that 1 person always dies each time he comes. If we're unlucky, it's 2 people."
The meat locker was the chef's area, but the meat was shared by all of the cannibals. It could not keep all of the meat to itself when it thought of the other evil cannibals.
Seuk.
Lloyd turned his head in the direction of the voice.
The meat locker was dim. The shape was hazy, but the owner of the voice was sitting up not far away. He was also locked up.
"My name is Lloyd. Can we ask you to explain the situation?"
"Gladly."
He was just waiting for the day he died. Explaining was nothing difficult.
| ← Ch. 024 | Ch. 026 → |