Chapter 2: A Place You Can’t Leave Alive

Chapter 2. A Place You Can’t Leave Alive

“A murder contract?”

“Yes.”

Lee Dong-shik nodded in response to Yang Joong-geun’s question.

“These days, it’s not a big deal to bribe a guard and a prisoner in the detention center to ask for a hit job.”

“Hmm…”

Indeed, after the world had changed drastically, the once ‘secure South Korea’ became a thing of the past.

The government established the Hunter Division in an attempt to continuously eliminate monsters and rectify law and order, but it was no longer an easy task.

Not only was the surge in the number of criminals a problem, but the social atmosphere, wherein life was belittled due to monsters, also posed an issue.

Ultimately, what the government chose was a stringent response to ‘hunter’ crimes.

It was in such an atmosphere that the juvenile detention centers were established.

“And from what we’ve found, Kim Jinsung is a very small boy who has never exercised. The job shouldn’t be too difficult.”

—————————————-

“Aaagh!”

Kim Jinsung screamed again.

This time, it was his thigh.

The cut was slightly deeper this time, and thick blood immediately started flowing down.

However, with no time to feel the pain, Kim Jinsung instinctively backed away to survive.

The tattooed boy, who tried to quickly close the distance with an awkward stance, started to approach again.

“Damn it!”

He almost slipped on the soapy floor and corrected his stance.

“sh*t! It’s so damn slippery.”

If this hadn’t been a shower room, if the floor hadn’t been covered in soap, Kim Jinsung would probably have been a cold corpse by now.

As the tattooed boy staggered, Kim Jinsung quickly shouted.

“Someone, please help!!”

Kim Jinsung’s voice echoed loudly in the shower room.

However, the tightly closed shower door showed no signs of opening.

“Ha, keep screaming. See if anyone comes!”

The tattooed boy ridiculed him and once again rushed in, swinging the jackknife.

Kim Jinsung tried to back away and avoid it once more.

But this time, he slipped.

Thud!

“Aah!”

Kim Jinsung fell hard onto the stone floor, and the tattooed boy rushed in as if he had been waiting for this moment.

He then pounced on Kim Jinsung, who hadn’t managed to stand up.

“Die!”

The boy straddled Kim Jinsung and with all his strength thrust the knife towards Kim Jinsung’s neck.

But the desired result did not happen.

Fortunately, Kim Jinsung’s hands caught the knife-wielding hands, preventing the attack.

From that moment, they were locked in a life-or-death struggle.

“Eek…!”

“Ugh… Huh?”

The first to show a change in expression was the tattooed boy.

Despite pushing down with his weight and all his strength, his hands, which were trying to thrust downwards, started to rise slightly.

He couldn’t believe it.

‘How does this small kid have such strength…?’

He was completely unaware that Kim Jinsung, who had absorbed Yang Dong-ju’s ‘Robust Bone’ trait, now possessed strength far surpassing that of an average adult man.

“Aaaaaah!”

Continuing to push the knife away, Kim Jinsung eventually twisted his body with a shout, using all his strength.

As a result, their positions were reversed in a slippery motion.

Kim Jinsung, now straddling the tattooed boy, was pressing the knife towards the boy’s neck.

“Uh, uh-oh! Wait, wait!”

The panicked tattooed boy began to desperately plead, but Kim Jinsung’s eyes filled with murderous intent did not listen.

Why did you try to kill me?

I don’t want to die yet!

You die instead!

Die!

Just die!!

“Pl, please sa-ck!”

The increasingly desperate shouts of the tattooed boy were cut short as the knife eventually pierced his neck.

Blood instantly started pouring out, and the tattooed boy, whose eyes gradually lost their vitality, stopped moving altogether.

He was dead.

You have eliminated a villain.

▶ You have gained 5 Beast Karma points.

You have acquired the opponent’s ‘Agility’ trait.

▷ Agility: Permanently increase agility by 3

Your agility has been increased by 3 due to the ‘Agility’ trait.

It was only after the notification window appeared that the murderous look in Kim Jinsung’s eyes began to fade slowly.

“Heuk… Heuk… Heuk…”

Looking at his blood-covered hands and then starting to shiver with labored breaths,

‘I… killed someone again…’

While he was in shock, the tightly shut door flung open!

The person who entered was the guard who had last pushed Kim Jinsung into the shower room.

He stood rooted to the spot as he took in the scene in the shower room.

“You, how did you..!”

He muttered incredulously,

—————————————-

“What if the plan fails?”

Yang Joong-geun asked again.

Lee Dong-shik promptly replied with the preconceived plan.

“That’s okay too. We can just use the guard we’ve already bribed to falsely accuse Kim Jinsung in reverse.”

“A false charge?”

“Yes. Kim Jinsung will be falsely accused of at least attempted murder. Then he will inevitably be demoted to ‘forced laborer.'”

“Oh…”

An exclamation involuntarily escaped Yang Joong-geun’s lips.

———————————-

This is the director’s office of the detention center.

“Kim Jinsung.”

The detention center director, sitting at the desk and looking at Kim Jinsung, who was bandaged all over, glared at him.

“You have not only violated the detention center’s discipline, but you’ve also committed the grave crime of murder once again. This isn’t an incident that can be excused as self-defense.”

“There’s no need to even take this to court. I will use my discretion to make a ruling on this case right now.”

The director declared coldly to Kim Jinsung, who had his head bowed low.

“From this moment, Kim Jinsung’s status will be demoted to that of a forced laborer. Take him away.”

Forced laborer.

Typically the judgment for those who have committed serious crimes that cannot be washed away.

They are usually forcibly moved to the most labor-deficient areas with the worst conditions operated by the state to perform hard labor.

——————————————

“Do you know where the forced laborers usually work?”

“What, mining in areas contaminated by magic? Or being deployed as meat shields in zones with frequent monster appearances?”

“All those places have something in common: they are secluded and remote.”

“What’s your point? Obviously, if they are likely to die, people won’t live nearby!”

“Once taken to such remote places, there’s no way to know when or how Kim Jinsung might die, right?”

“Right?”

Yang Joong-geun nodded. It seemed to him that only seeing Kim Jinsung’s death with his own eyes would settle his mind.

“If you want to keep real-time track of Kim Jinsung’s life and death status, why don’t you follow my method? It’s a method that requires some bribes to be diverted illegally, but…”

“Ah, when have I ever worried about that? Get to the point already!”

“There’s a place on the internet where you can watch the deaths of forced laborers in real time.”

“Where is it?”

Lee Dong-shik answered,

“It’s called the Fight Club.”

——————————————-

“Get out!”

Two rifle-bearing staff members opened the door of the stopped van and roughly dragged out the boys inside.

Kim Jinsung, the last to disembark, looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Where is this?”

In a dim alley with not a single ray of sunlight.

At the front entrance of the building where Kim Jinsung and the others were standing, there was a sign that read:

[Fight Club]

‘Fight Club?’

“Ah, f***… it’s Fight Club?”

Kim Jinsung’s question was answered by a boy standing nearby with scars all over his face who kept muttering to himself.

“I heard if you come here, you’re a goner. Dammit.”

“Shut up! Move forward!”

A burly figure with a gun pushed him roughly towards the entrance.

As they descended into the basement, Kim Jinsung involuntarily frowned and flinched.

Loud cheers assaulted his ears.

“Woahhh!”

“Kill him!”

Many spectators were cheering while looking at the central arena,

And inside the caged arena, two men were fighting fiercely.

“Wait, don’t they look around my age?”

Upon a closer look, both of their faces appeared very young, barely older than Jinsung by a year or two.

However, the bloody fight they were showing to the spectators was even more brutal than anything suitable for adult viewers.

Thump!

“Ugh…!”

A bloodied boy took another punch and fell.

The opponent mounted him, and

Thump! Thump! Thump!

began to punch the boy’s face with full force.

He had lost consciousness after a few hits, but the punches didn’t seem to stop.

‘Stop it! He’s going to die!’

Kim Jinsung shouted inside. But it seemed like he was the only one concerned about the boy.

The audience cheered louder, and there wasn’t even a referee present in the arena.

The one-sided beating only stopped after more than a minute of relentless pummelling.

Eventually, the hitter got up with a tired face and triumphantly raised his hands.

“The winner of this match is Ko Jun-kyung!”

Only then did the arena announcer loudly proclaim through the microphone. Nearly all the spectators cheered, while a minority were despondent or angry, as if they had bet money on the boy who had fallen.

“Hey, you bastard! How much money did I bet on you?!”

“Damn, what a waste. Bloody hell!”

“I’m ruined. I swore never to bet on the underdog again.”

Kim Jinsung, watching the spectators, felt his head swirling.

People were cheering and getting angry as they watched young boys fight each other to the death. He had never seen such a scene before.

And he didn’t even know why he had been brought here.

“Take a good look.”

At that moment, one of the burly men who had brought them opened his mouth.

“That’s where you’ll be fighting for your lives from now on.”

Kim Jinsung’s face turned pale.

————————————–

“Huh!”

Yang Joong-geun let out a hollow laugh upon hearing the explanation.

“A separate category for minors?”

“Yes. Like a Colosseum for minors. It has become quite popular in the underworld recently and attracts a lot of spectators.”

“Heh heh heh…”

Yang Joong-geun laughed in disbelief.

There already exists a world-renowned‘Colosseum’ program for adult survival deathmatches.

But he had never imagined that there would be an illegal deathmatch gathering just minors.

No matter how shady it was… Such a world was indeed going mad to the point of laughter.

“So, you want to send Kim Jinsung there?”

“Yes. Then you can watch Kim Jinsung’s matches in real-time through live webcasts. It’s broadcasted on the dark web.”

“Hmm… But what if he doesn’t die and keeps winning there?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lee Dong-shik answered decisively.

“No boy who has ever entered the Fight Club has come out alive.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Even if they last a while, their end is always the same. There’s no way out from that place anyway.”

————————————–

Descended to the second underground floor, Kim Jinsung entered a room marked ‘Athletes Waiting Room.’

As soon as he stepped in,

“Ugh!”

The boys began to retch in unison as the vast space reeked with the smell of something rotten.

Kim Jinsung also barely suppressed the urge to vomit as he identified the source of the stench.

‘Is it over there?’

A vast space with countless locked iron doors. At the far end, a dark space with a sign marked ‘Crematorium’ was visible.

And inside the space, a figure lay collapsed…

‘Isn’t that the person who was defeated earlier?’

The face was bloody and the body stained with signs of indiscriminate beating recently witnessed in the arena.

A foreboding feeling gripped Kim Jinsung as he pieced the situation together.

‘Don’t tell me, they burn the bodies… right?’

“Kim Jinsung.”

At that moment, the burly figure who had escorted them looked at a list in his hand and called out.

Kim Jinsung tentatively raised his hand.

“Room 99.”

He stated curtly.

Kim Jinsung quickly checked for a door marked with 99.

Upon locating Room 99 and seeing its position, he was appalled.

‘Next to the crematorium…’

He had been assigned to the last place he wanted to be.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

“Kim Jinsung will be in charge of handling the disposal of bodies in the crematorium.”

Kim Jinsung’s eyes were filled with horror.