Ch.796Side Story) Number 742 (2)

The moment prisoner 742 executed his escape was around midnight on a day when the number of guards, including the supervisor, had been reduced to less than half the usual number.

From what he’d overheard, there was a major celebration in the major cities of Alvheim because they had achieved a great victory against some “resistance organization” or whatever it was.

While the news of a resistance group being crushed by the fairies wasn’t particularly welcome, the mere fact that such an organization existed, and that because of it the number of guards had been greatly reduced, made eavesdropping worthwhile for prisoner 742.

‘Good, today should be possible.’

Glancing at the fairies who were leaving the holding area early in the morning, prisoner 742 clenched his fists tightly and waited for the deep night to arrive.

And then, midnight.

In the silence of the night when children who hadn’t reached adulthood slept on the floor in rags, dozens of naked men and women who had finished their production duties were tangled together in deep sleep, and even pregnant women holding their swollen bellies and toddlers who couldn’t yet walk were sleeping peacefully.

“Fire-! Fire at the training grounds-! Everyone wake up!”

The shout of a guard who had been drowning his disappointment at missing the festival with wine shattered the silence.

“What, fire?!”

“Damn, of all days…”

“Wake the inferior species! We need to put out the fire!”

The guards, startled by the sight of the blazing training grounds, ran in panic. They urgently needed to extinguish the fire. If the training grounds burned down completely, their despicable superior—that disgusting inter-species pedophile—would go berserk.

“Water! Bring water! Where are those with water spirit affinity?”

“They went to the festival!”

“You should have left at least one behind! Damn it, then bring water from the main bath! Mobilize all the inferior species too!”

A commotion in the dead of night. The once-quiet holding area instantly became as noisy as a marketplace.

Guards kicked open the doors to the human pens, shouting at the humans who had been startled awake to help put out the fire. Children in rags and naked adults who appeared older rushed out urgently toward the main bath.

‘Fools.’

Far from the training grounds, crouched in the shadows beneath the wooden fence, prisoner 742 sneered at the scene.

As he had predicted, despite the large number of people gathered there, not a single one—truly not one—had considered the possibility that the fire might have been deliberately set.

That was the fairies’ flaw. They were so accustomed to the daily routine that had repeated for decades or centuries that the very idea that a human from the holding area might attempt escape never occurred to them.

‘Indeed, setting a fire was the right answer.’

Certain that no one in the holding area was looking in his direction, prisoner 742 quickly rose and looked up at the wooden fence that made no sound.

A log wall several meters high. An unyielding barrier that no ordinary human could ever jump over, though perhaps a fairy with their naturally light body could.

If he were an ordinary human.

“Hmmph…”

Prisoner 742 bent his knees as if crouching, took a deep breath, and leaped, unleashing the strength he had concealed for over a decade.

– Whoosh!

A leap like a frog escaping a predator. The young boy’s body shot into the air, and his outstretched hand grasped the edge of the fence.

‘Got it!’

Having grabbed the edge of the fence, prisoner 742 pulled himself up with arm strength alone, a joyful smile on his face as he stood atop the fence.

The guards and his fellow humans were too busy putting out the fire. No one noticed him, and no one was there to stop his escape. Now, all that remained was to cross over the fence and flee eastward.

To a place beyond the reach of Alvheim’s territory, beyond the roots of the great forest.

Freedom awaited him.

Freedom to live as a person who could determine his own life by his own will, instead of living as livestock whose very life and death belonged to the fairies.

As he was about to jump down from the fence, the smile of the girl—prisoner 2067—who had thought she could be happy living as livestock as long as they could be together, flashed through his mind, making him look back once…

‘…Yes, this is right.’

Prisoner 742 already understood. The fact that only pain awaited if he remained here.

He had already come to understand the concept of lovers through the fairies’ casual conversations and their lifestyle that he had secretly observed.

How could he endure it?

Seeing the girl he liked willingly embrace the hideous supervisor, being moved to the breeding hall, and then living without any resistance, entangled with dozens of her own kind, bearing their children.

That was a perfectly natural life for prisoner 2067, but it was an unbearable hell for prisoner 742.

He had once considered escaping together, but… that was impossible from the start.

It takes two hands to clap.

How could he take prisoner 2067 with him when she had no intention of escaping and couldn’t jump over the fence anyway?

Even if they somehow managed to cross the fence, with prisoner 2067’s running speed, it was clear they wouldn’t last even two days before being captured and both horribly killed.

That’s why prisoner 742 had to suppress his desire to escape with prisoner 2067.

He couldn’t drive prisoner 2067, who was satisfied with life here, to her death because of his one-sided desire.

‘I cannot live here… and you cannot live anywhere else.’

Prisoner 742 steeled his resolve, cut off his hesitation, and jumped down from the fence.

—-

Five days later.

“There he is! I found him!”

‘Have I been spotted?’

Hearing the hateful voice from a distance, prisoner 742, who had been running through the forest, quickly turned and swung his sword toward the direction of the voice.

– Clang!

A vibration transmitted through his grip. The deflected arrow plunged into the ground with a thud.

On the third day after escaping the holding area, he had killed a fairy he encountered by chance and taken its longsword, which now lightly trembled as it shook off the remaining force of the arrow.

‘A good sword. Too good for that fairy.’

The steel longsword that had already saved his life several times without even a nick.

It was a sword wasted on the fairy who had only worn fancy clothes but didn’t know how to properly wield a blade.

Perhaps the sword itself was pleased. To have found a new master who could use it properly, instead of its pathetically incompetent previous owner.

Smirking at his own random thoughts, prisoner 742 charged toward the direction the arrow had come from like a hungry leopard.

– Twang! Twang!

– Crack!

Three or four arrows shot like lightning, and tree roots that should have been quietly buried under the soil rose like thorns to block his path.

However, instead of turning to flee, prisoner 742 increased his speed and raised the longsword above his shoulder.

“Haaaaa!”

A chain of slashing attacks unfolded. The blade swung diagonally cut through two arrows simultaneously, and the following slash sent the deflected arrows into the tree roots that had been cut like firewood.

Strength and speed unbelievable for an “inferior species” from the holding area.

Revealing the power he had been hiding, prisoner 742 had slaughtered more than ten fairies during the past two days of pursuit, and with each fairy he killed, he realized that his body was growing slightly stronger.

Though he couldn’t understand why, it was a most welcome phenomenon.

“A blond inferior species in rags…! It’s definitely the escapee from Farm #4!”

‘Now they openly call it a farm. And they claimed being recognized as a producer was an honor and privilege.’

With a cold sneer, prisoner 742 increased his speed further.

Thirty steps of sprinting, two leaps. Kicking off a tree trunk, he soared upward until the fairy who had been shooting arrows at him from the tree came within sword range.

“The inferior species who killed Lord Hephaestus!”

The fairy dropped his bow and hurriedly drew his sword for a thrust. He seemed to have some training in swordsmanship, as his thrust aimed at prisoner 742’s neck was quite sharp.

“Who’s that supposed to be?”

However, prisoner 742 slightly twisted his wrist, extending his blade to parry the fairy’s thrust downward, then tripped the fairy’s leg and pushed his body with his shoulder.

“Ugh…!”

The fairy, overwhelmed by the significant weight difference, lost balance and fell from the tree.

The fairy desperately flailed his limbs trying to regain his posture, but before he could do anything—

– Squelch!

Prisoner 742’s longsword, following him down, pierced through the fairy’s heart.

A sequence of movements executed by prisoner 742 who had never learned swordsmanship, relying solely on his instincts. Yet it was a flawlessly fluid combination attack.

—-

Two weeks passed like that.

Twenty days since the night he set fire to the holding area and escaped. Running through the forest without proper rest, killing weak fairies and fleeing from strong ones…

‘This is… the world beyond the great forest…!’

Prisoner 742 finally emerged from the great forest to face an endlessly stretching plain.

‘A land of freedom… without fairies.’

An infinitely wide, dazzlingly bright, vast prairie where no disgusting giant trees could be seen anywhere.

The scarred boy in blood-soaked rags, moved to tears by its beauty, bowed and kissed the ground.

His heart swelled with emotion and hope that surpassed any lingering attachment or lamentation for what he had left behind and lost.

Here, he would find the freedom he had been seeking.

Without a doubt.