Pain shot through me, as if my entire body had been bludgeoned. I grimaced and pushed myself up.
There wasn't a single spot that didn't ache. My arms and legs were sore, as if beaten with clubs, and my parched mouth tasted of sand. I rubbed my stiff eyes a few times and looked around, but it was still pitch-black. It seemed the problem wasn't with my eyes.
A faint light glimmered in the distance, but it was nowhere near enough to illuminate the world.
I groaned and scratched my head for a moment, then noticed something was off.
Strange. Who took off my straitjacket? I was definitely thrown into the Abyss tied up.
I had been bound so tightly I couldn't move a limb, a blindfold over my eyes and a gag in my mouth. Stripped of all physical freedom, I was hurled into the depths of the Abyss with no safety measures whatsoever.
Even as I fell, I struggled for a long time to survive, but the Military State's special straitjacket was not something an ordinary person like me could escape. It would have been strange if I had managed to undo a restraint the Military State had poured its heart and soul into creating. I had continued my futile resistance inside the straitjacket until, eventually, I collapsed from exhaustion.
I had been content, at least, with the fact that Mother Earth would grant me a swift, painless end.
But I'm alive, even after falling to the bottom? After falling for hours without any safety gear?
No, before that.
This is the Abyss, a place cursed by Mother Earth. A bottomless pit. So why is there a bottom?
It was a contradiction. The bottom of the Abyss—the very combination of words suggested it shouldn't exist.
Pondering how this could be, I had a realization and muttered to myself. This had to be it. There was no other explanation.
"Ah, I must have died and gone to hell."
[No. This is not hell.]
"Aargh!"
The voice came from right behind me. Startled, I tumbled to the ground. I pulled my trembling body together and shouted at the 'something' before me.
"Who's there?!"
Two eyes glinted in the darkness. A being with a faint, ghost-like presence was staring at me.
It definitely wasn't human. If it were, I would have been able to read its thoughts. Then what was it? A ghost? A beast? An apostle of hell?
As I waited for an answer, trembling in fear, the eyes slowly approached. My own eyes, now accustomed to the dark, began to make out its silhouette.
Recognizing its form, I called out in a shaky voice.
"A golem?"
It was neither a ghost nor a beast. I suppose 'apostle of hell' was the closest description.
After all, the thing in front of me was a military-grade magic golem, created in that hellish country known as the Military State.
It looked like what you'd get if you tried to mimic a human using only cylinders and blocks. The golem watched me, its crystal-orb eyes glowing. A mechanical voice flowed from the speaker near its mouth.
[I am Captain Abbey, a Signaller of the Military State. As of today, you have been remanded to this education facility. You are to carry out your assigned duties under my command.]
A magic golem, a remote-controlled model that syncs with its user. It was a common piece of equipment in the Military State, favored for its ease of control.
I looked at the golem, nodded, and lamented.
"Did a golem fall into hell, too? Tsk, tsk. Just how many people did you slice up?… You should curse the fate that made you a golem of the Military State."
[This is not hell. If you remain unconvinced, I recommend you look around.]
Following the golem's advice, I surveyed my surroundings.
The ground was concrete, a common sight in the Military State. I didn't know what lay beneath, but the hard concrete surface supported the world. Naturally, there was no grass or trees. Only colorless, man-made structures stood in place of vegetation.
I casually glanced up. I couldn't see a sky, not even a single twinkling star. It wasn't night, or anything else—just pure darkness. The light-swallowing blackness that only the void could produce stretched out beyond.
Then, as I slowly lowered my gaze, a rather familiar building came into view.
Searchlights swung from side to side, cutting through the darkness of the Abyss. Circular patches of light swept across the concrete ground. The moment one of them touched my feet—thwip—every searchlight, like a pack of enraged beasts, swarmed up from the ground and fixed on me.
The dazzling artificial light focused on me as if to burn me alive. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I took in the massive structure I hadn't noticed before.
It was a square, five-story building, constructed for purely practical purposes. Searchlights, meant to spot escapees, were mounted on its thick concrete walls, which were haphazardly reinforced with steel plates. A large lamp hung high above, illuminating the area around the prison, but it was a poor substitute for the sun. Just a few dozen meters away, where the searchlights couldn't reach, nothing was visible.
An isolated island on the ground, built to completely separate the inside from the out.
The prison I had only ever seen from a distance was now right before my eyes. This symbol of the Military State stood watching me with dozens of searchlights, as if declaring that this was where I would be staying from now on.
Bathing impassively in all that light, the golem spoke to me.
[Do you understand the situation now?]
I slowly nodded.
It seemed the great prison, Tantalus, was indeed a place worthy of becoming a legend in the Military State.
"Fucking crazy country. To build a prison in a miraculous place like the bottom of the Abyss."
I guess you could say it was just like the Military State. Only a nation as insane as them would have the deranged tech tree to build a prison first thing at the bottom of the Abyss.
The golem commented on my muttering.
[I must caution you against your seditious remarks.]
"You've got to be kidding me. You lock up an innocent man in a place like this and expect me to show loyalty?"
[Time is short, so I will first brief you on your assigned duties. I recommend you listen closely… if you don't want to die, that is.]
The golem warned grimly. I had been about to retort with a sarcastic remark, but I felt the razor-sharp edge in its tone and shut my mouth.
Once I fell silent, a dry, monotonous voice came from the golem's microphone.
[This is the Military State's Level 5 critical facility, the Mental Education Facility, Tantalus.]
"Mental Education Facility" was the Military State's term for a prison. Apparently, some study concluded that words like 'prison' and 'prisoner' had negative connotations and were detrimental to social stability. So they called prisons 'education facilities' and prisoners 'trainees.'
To put it nicely, it was the Military State's wordplay. To put it bluntly, it was linguistic control.
Not that the Military State would admit to either.
[Tantalus was a facility designed for trainees with high-level threat assessments. They possessed extremely dangerous abilities and violent dispositions. Lacking social skills, they were scheduled to receive socialization training here in Tantalus, completely isolated from the world.]
"'Were scheduled'?"
[However, due to an unfortunate incident one week ago, a situation arose in which most of the trainees escaped from Tantalus.]
"What?"
Escaped? They escaped the Abyss?
I put my rebellious attitude aside for a moment and focused all my attention on the golem's words. I couldn't read the golem's thoughts, so I strained my senses to glean any information I could from its tone and phrasing.
The fact that the numerous heinous criminals held in Tantalus had escaped and scattered into society wasn't important to me. Why should I care if that godforsaken country fell into chaos or ruin?
What mattered was the fact that they had 'escaped.' That single piece of information suggested the possibility of getting out from the bottom of the Abyss.
"How did they escape?"
The golem stared at me blankly before replying.
[That is information you are not cleared to access.]
"Tch."
As I thought. A Military State signaller wouldn't be that careless.
It was a shame I couldn't read its mind. My ability was limited to reading human thoughts; I couldn't read a voice transmitted by a signal and reproduced through a microphone.
I had no choice but to obtain information in a more ordinary, less interesting way.
When I gestured for it to continue, the golem resumed its explanation.
[Most of the trainees rioted, destroying the facility and murdering the administrative staff. They seized control of Tantalus by force and then escaped en masse through some unknown method. The military authorities are pursuing them and plan to arrest and punish them all shortly. However, amidst the chaos, three model trainees did not participate in that violent and barbaric act and chose to remain here of their own volition.]
In the Military State, the word 'model' was a descriptor attached to foolish pushovers. In other words, only cowards were left in this prison.
The irony of the world's most famous prison becoming a shelter for cowards.
[However, the facility was half-destroyed by the escapees, and the entire administrative staff was murdered. We could not simply leave the cooperative trainees unattended in an unmanaged facility. Additional personnel were needed to manage Tantalus, and you have been assigned here.]
"Aha. So."
Now I understood. It had seemed strange. No matter what crime I was framed for, there was no reason to lock up a common petty criminal like me in Tantalus.
No wonder military police were suddenly roaming the city. From the moment I was caught to the trial that ended in less than three days, the whole process of how I ended up here was now painfully clear.
So, in short, they ran out of manpower, rounded up petty criminals like me on a massive scale, and threw us into the Abyss as laborers?
Using prisoners to wait on other prisoners. A classic Military State tactic.
Setting a thief to catch a thief? No, this was more like a stopgap measure. They were just plugging the holes with criminals who were expendable anyway.
In any case, one thing was clear: although I was confined, I was free here. There was no one to stop me, whatever I chose to do.
If there were no wardens and I was the only laborer, how could they possibly stop me from slacking off or even building a bomb?
Realizing this, I lifted my head and stepped forward confidently.
"What are you going to do if I refuse to work? Are you going to come down here and beat me up yourself?"
[That will not be necessary. You will have to do something if you wish to survive.]
With those words, the golem turned its head toward the prison. Amidst the dim light cast by a few searchlights, a dark shape flickered in the depths, behind a closed door.
The golem muttered.
[…They are coming.]
"'They'?"
Ignoring my question, the golem spoke more quickly.
[Those who remained in Tantalus… There is not much time. I will now tell you your duties.]
Listen carefully? To what? It would be cleaning and laundry at most.
I leisurely clasped my hands behind my head. Let's see. Only three prisoners left? I could handle waiting on that number. If they were pushovers, I could even sweet-talk them.
No matter how heinous the criminals locked in Tantalus were, if they were scared enough of the Military State's orders to pass up a chance to escape, they had to be incredibly passive and weak-willed.
I might be a petty criminal, but I held my head high in the back alleys. On top of that, thanks to my mind-reading ability, even the most violent people tended to lose their nerve in front of me.
I may not have strength, but I've got pride. If it comes to it, I'll take over this whole place.
Just as I steeled my resolve, the golem spoke.
[Survive.]