Rebirth of the 8th-Circle Mage

Chapter 228 - Discovery (1)

After countless sleepless nights, Hector had finally made it to Salgaera.

However, there was a magic boundary that hadn’t been there before, which prevented him from going any further.

Hector was extremely frustrated, but it was too early for him to give up. He still had one option left. He could still go to Shahatra.

Although he couldn’t cross the mountains because of the magic barrier, he could still reach the capital, Khan, by going through the gorges and crossing the entire desert.

‘There’s no way this strange barrier stretches all the way to Shahatra.’

With that, Hector ran day and night toward Shahatra, his last hope. And just like that, a couple of days passed. However, despite all the running, he came across an unexpected scenery, so he stopped and looked around.

“Where the hell am I...?”

Hector felt he had gone in the wrong direction. He had thought he was going toward Shahatra, but he couldn’t see an end to the unique barren land of the north that stretched in front of his eyes.

Night fell as Hector kept trying to figure out where he was, but even with the sun down, this northern part of the continent wasn’t completely dark thanks to all the stars in the sky.

Unfortunately, Hector wasn't skilled enough as an adventurer to be able to find his way using the Big Dipper. This was quite understandable as there were too many stars in the sky to the point that it was almost impossible for one to tell where the Big Dipper was, even if they knew what it was.

'Shit...’

Despite his predicament, Hector felt like he had to do something. He couldn’t even imagine just sitting around and waiting for the sun. So, even though he wouldn’t run like before, he forced himself to move little by little, hoping he would at least come across a village with people.

After walking for a while, Hector heard a strange noise coming from beyond the darkness.

“GHRAAA!”

'Is that something crying?’

It didn’t sound like the cry of an animal or some kind of monster. Hector didn’t know about any demonic beasts that could be in this area, so he had no idea what the source of the crying was.

Wanting to investigate, Hector resumed walking toward the mysterious, eerie crying sound. After a while, he finally came across a huge building.

‘What the hell is this place?’

It didn’t have the outer walls of a city or a territory, but at the same time, it didn't look like a palace or a castle either.

'Is this a prison?’

If he had to guess what this building was, the only thing that came to his mind was a prison.

But then, at that moment...

“KHAAAAA!”

Hector heard the crying again, and now he was certain that it was coming from inside the mysterious building.

Hector couldn’t help being curious, so he carefully extended his hand forward to place it on the outer wall of this building in order to check if there was a magic barrier. Fortunately for him, there was no spark and no pain when he touched the wall. He could touch it just like he could with any other wall.

‘Things seem clear here!’

No other person would be able to empathize with Hector’s sense of elation at not having his hand zapped in this situation. Overjoyed, Hector leaned his head through the outer wall.

However, once Hector saw what lay inside, he found himself speechless.

‘What... in the world...?’

The inside of the building was bright. However, even though bright light magic had been cast here and there, the inside was bathed in a reddish glow, thus giving off the impression of a red-light district.

In spite of the red glow, the inside lacked the hedonistic scenery red-light districts gave off. Instead, there were chunks of meat hanging on thorns, dripping blood, reminiscent of a slaughterhouse.

This was the prison of Killive.

* * *

‘Is this all a dream...?’

Even though Hector wanted to dismiss all of this as a nightmare, it was too vivid to be a dream. He blinked in disbelief and slowly scanned his surroundings, and soon, he picked up on one horrifying detail.

'Is that a per...?’

The chunks of meat on the thorns weren’t from some animals or demonic monsters. They were clearly human flesh, and some of the thorns still had people who were alive, groaning in pain.

“Ughh... Aahhh...”

The cries that Hector had initially thought were animal cries turned out to be people desperately wailing out in pain. Their cries were unbearable; it seemed like they were desperate to just die and escape this torment.

After just staring in shock for a while, Hector came back to his senses and took a closer look. As he did so, he found out something unusual about the people on the thorns.

‘What on earth...?’’

There was a person with two extra arms on their back.

Another person had a dog’s snout sewn to where their mouth and nose should’ve been.

There was also a person with four heads.

Besides the people on thorns, there were also quite a few people on cross-shaped beds or wooden beds.

Hector couldn’t help but frown and cover his mouth with his hand at the grotesque, hellish scene. He felt like he was about to vomit, but he knew that even that would be a privilege for these poor, tormented souls, so he suppressed the nausea.

Besides feeling repulsed by the gore around him, Hector was furious, but at the same time, he was also curious as to what was going on here. Thus, he passed through the wall with his entire spirit body, fully entering the prison of Killive.

‘...’

Once Hector was completely inside, he tried to be as silent as possible. He tiptoed around like a thief and stayed vigilant.

Hector kept on exploring the interior of the prison, and as he looked around, he came up with a couple of possibilities as to what was going on here.

‘Is this really something a human being can do?’

If there really was a person behind all of this, Hector certainly wanted to see their face.

“Gaaa...”

Hector came across a man who seemed to have had all of his hair ripped off, groaning weakly. He was firmly pinned down by thorns that punctured every part of his body, and his hands and feet were nailed down, making it impossible for him to move. His eyelids and lips were pierced by fishing hooks, forcefully keeping them open.

Hector met eyes with the groaning man.

“Argh...”

The man started trembling and shedding tears as he saw Hector.

Hector couldn’t tell if the poor man was scared by the fact that he was in his spirit form. But instead, as the man shed tears mixed with blood, Hector heard him say something completely unexpected.

“Ki... Kill Me...”

The man could barely murmur his words with a croaked, raspy voice. He was also drooling because of the hooks pulling his lips apart.

It was truly appalling, but there was nothing Hector could do for the poor man in his spirit form. All he could do was to avert his eyes and quickly move on.

Hector continued moving around for a while. The more he looked around, the more he realized how enormous this prison really was. His assessment was right, given that each building in Killive was almost like a special city, but of course, Hector didn’t know that about Killive.

‘I need to find someone who’s okay...’

During this whole time, Hector was trying to find someone with whom he could actually have a conversation with, not someone half-dead, tied up to a torture device. He thought that finding someone who could still talk was the only way to figure out what exactly this place was.

Of course, Hector had a rough idea of ??what this place was. There were people who seemed to have been kidnapped, sewn alive, and displayed all over the place as human experiments. Seeing all of that, Hector thought that this place was probably the secret laboratory of a black magician.

If that wasn’t the case, Hector had no other guesses as to what was going on here.

Of course, there was a possibility that this horrifying scenery was not the result of human experimentation. Although, whatever this was, Hector would absolutely not forgive whoever or whatever was behind this. After all, there were no words to describe the absurdity and horror of what had transpired here.

As Hector kept inspecting the area, he discovered that the prison had an underground level. Thus, he walked down the spiral staircase into the basement.

'Is that a prison cell...?’

The basement was bright. As Hector went deeper, it became even more apparent to him how large this prison facility really was. In this basement, there were more than a hundred cells lined up.

Hector went through each cell in order as he tried to find a survivor. However, no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find anyone still alive. All he found were blood stains on the ground and on the walls, signifying that someone had once lived here, but not anymore...

Hector kept descending deeper into the prison, eventually making it to the seventh floor of the basement. He was exhausted after searching for a survivor for so long and not finding anyone. He had hoped he would see at least one person.

‘It feels creepy in here...’

The vacant prison was dead silent. This void-like silence reminded Hector of the time when he was trapped in the Underworld for a long time. He felt uncomfortable at this sensation of déjà vu.

‘Hmm... I wonder if there’s more I can do now...’

Hector considered giving up as he hadn’t found anyone on any of the seven floors he had inspected. However, the shocking scenes he had witnessed on the first floor were still so vivid in his mind that they left him with a void, an uncomfortable feeling. He couldn’t give up just yet.

Hector decided to look around just a bit more, but then, at that moment...

“Hup!”

The faint sound of a short breath broke the silence. Hector heard someone hold onto their breath. However, it was so quiet that only someone as sensitive as Hector could’ve heard it.

With that, Hector turned around to where the sound had come from. He laid his eyes on a cracked wall. The crack on the wall was so tiny and narrow that it looked like only small insects, like cockroaches, could crawl through.

“...”

The prison was once again silent as the grave. Even though Hector listened very carefully for any sounds, he couldn’t hear anything. Even so, he knew he hadn’t imagined that sound earlier. He was sure he had heard someone’s breathing.

Hector started at the wall in silence for a while. He then suddenly jumped through the wall with an astonishing speed.

Whoosh!

“AH, AAAAHHH!”

A random man screamed and fainted.

“What in the...?”

The man was about the size of a boy. He was all bones, had a beard growing all over his face with long hair and wore several layers of tattered clothes.

“Tsk, oh well.”

Hector clicked his tongue as he looked at the unconscious man. Regardless of how he looked, he was the first person Hector found here that he could at least talk to. Thus, he decided to patiently wait for the man to wake up.

* * *

About half a day later, the man finally opened his eyes. His entire body was shaking. It was only natural, considering he had slept with his face on the cold floors of the Killive prison.

The man barely managed to get up, his eyes groggy. He then muttered to himself, “What the hell did I see...”

The man casually muttered to himself, as if he was used to talking to himself, to try and make sense of what he had seen before he fainted. But at that moment, a ghost appeared in front of his eyes.

“You’re finally awake.”

“AHH!”

“Oh, no, no. No more fainting.”

The man was extremely sensitive, like someone who was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Hector could tell that if he hadn’t calmed the man down, he would’ve fainted again.

As Hector comforted him, the man clutched his chest and took a deep breath with tearful eyes. He trembled his jaw as he barely made eye contact with Hector.

“Y-y-you... you’re a ghost!”

“Well, you’re technically not wrong... But it still feels kind of insulting.”

Hector knew that man wasn’t necessarily wrong and that he was just describing what he saw, but for some reason, Hector still felt a bit offended by the man’s reaction.

Even so, Hector deliberately tried not to react too much to what the man had said. If he got angry and caused the man to faint again, it would be truly troublesome to wait again for him to wake up.

Instead, Hector crossed his arms and stood still until the man calmed himself down, which seemed to work.

After the man saw Hector all gentle and relaxed, he, too, calmed down and seemed to let his guard down a little bit. He then asked Hector, “Who... Who are you?”

The conversation started out on a calm note. With that, Hector finally smiled.