Chapter 51
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Recourdak (3)
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Meanwhile, Elise and four or five others from "good families" were conducting their interviews in a relatively calm visiting room.
Rawr——————!
A lion's roar echoed from somewhere, but they ignored it. Elise tapped her ballpoint pen against her notebook and asked,
"...You don't know where the treasure is hidden, do you?"
The prisoner shook his head.
"I know. I know what that is. The treasure's hiding spot. Of course I know. Don't worry, I'll tell you. So, that thing... uh, got any cigarettes by chance?"
"... ."
Elise pressed her temple. The quick-witted guard promptly escorted the prisoner out.
This was already the third time. He pretended to know the treasure's location, asked for a cigarette, and even if given one, he wouldn't spill— he'd just ask for snacks instead.
...Boom————!
Elise glanced at the guard.
"It's getting noisy outside. Has been for a while now."
"Yeah, you're right. Please wait just a moment."
The guard hurried out of the visiting room and returned shortly after.
"Yes, there's some trouble between a senior and a prisoner. No need to worry about it."
"...Jeez, all kinds of nonsense. Anyway, these prisoners don't seem keen on talking."
"It won't be easy. Prisoners don't give up internal prison info lightly. They don't want to get marked as snitches later."
"Tch."
Elise rubbed her eyes.
She was pretty exhausted. She'd only fallen asleep around 6 a.m. yesterday, and hadn't even properly showered.
She brushed her dry, frizzy hair back over her shoulder and stood up. She stopped the guard who tried to follow.
"Hold on. I'm going for a walk. In the exercise yard. That okay?"
"Ah, yes. Of course."
She stepped out into the first-floor hallway outside the visiting room.
————Fucking hell!
The outside was total chaos, a complete shitshow.
A random guy being dragged away by several guards. Prisoners inside the bars, one beaten to a bloody pulp, others laughing uproariously at the sight. Gerkken and the seniors seizing the moment to rush in for interviews.
Elise ignored them all.
Using the commotion as cover, she slipped quietly into the exercise yard and stuck to the farthest edge.
Of course, to get to that place, she needed a key— but she already had it. Thanks to her father giving the warden a heads-up in advance.
With a sense of breaking the rules, feeling her pounding heart, she finally reached the entrance to the [Isolation Zone].
Like this, Elise had planned to come to this prison from the start. Her sleepless night was for this very reason.
"Haaa..."
After deep breaths to calm her mind and body, Elise inserted the key into the firmly shut iron door.
Click—
The door opened.
She took one step beyond it.
"... ."
Faint fluorescent lights dimly illuminated the interior, with wide solitary cells lining the hallway.
She wasn't alone.
Though unseen, there were people here.
She wasn't alone.
Repeating this to herself, Elise walked down the hallway, clutching the rabbit doll 'Cookie' from her messenger bag tightly.
Step—.
Her footsteps echoed hollowly through Recourdak's Isolation Zone.
A place whose very existence most ordinary people didn't even know about.
Step—.
She stopped in front of one solitary cell.
A cell labeled [115] like a nameplate, surrounded on all sides by reinforced glass.
She peered inside.
A man sat on the bed. Not in prison garb, but a pure white patient gown.
Elise called his name, biting her tongue.
"Yael."
—...?
He turned toward her in that instant. Then flashed a bright smile.
—Oh. You came. You actually came.
He sprang up and strode over, staring into her eyes. Pressing his forehead to the glass, he murmured softly.
—My little sister...
Elise gritted her teeth. She hated that voice calling her sister.
"...I told you not to call me that."
She despised this man. He was repulsive, loathsome. She wanted to deny the very fact that this monster shared her blood.
—... .
He gaped as if shocked. Made a pathetic, pitiful face.
—Oh dear. Is it a sin to call my sister 'sister'? Is that why I'm locked up here? Was I the one who didn't know?
"Haa..."
—Ah. Life here's fine. They even let me walk around sometimes. In another 4 or 5 years, they'll let me meet other inmates, they say. This is plenty good enough.
Yael licked the glass with his tongue. Elise squeezed her eyes shut.
"I'm not here to ask about that—"
—I know, Elise. It's not your fault. Father sent you, right? Just stay quiet till the election's over.
It was too spot-on; Elise lost her words for a moment.
Yael exaggerated his expression, like he was acting in a play.
—Father. Ah, my father. I get it, though. Elections have always been important, then and now. So very important. That fucking bastard—!
Bam!
He slammed his head into the reinforced glass. His face twisted in an instant. Savage murderous intent flashed in his eyes.
Drip- Drip-
Blood drops from his forehead mixed into the demonic wrinkles of his contorted face.
—Tell that son of a bitch. Tell our parents. That I'm... I'm getting by.
Shivering or breathing—he slowly bowed his head.
—Just... getting by...
"...Crazy bastard."
Elise's pale purple lips trembled.
Bang! Yael slapped the reinforced glass with his palm.
—Answer me————!
"Stop yelling!"
Elise shouted reflexively.
—...Huh?
Yael blinked for a moment, then smirked faintly. He reverted to normal, scratching the back of his neck.
—Ah, sorry. You hate it when I yell at my little sister...
Step—.
Then, a sound that shouldn't be here.
The clear echo of someone stepping forward.
Step—
She whipped around. Yael rolled his eyes to look too.
"...You."
Elise's eyes filled with shock. An ambiguous smile crept across Yael's lips.
"?"
In this place where even entering as a civilian was a crime, a madman casually tilting his head.
Sion Askal.
There, under the pale fluorescent lights in the hallway's darkness, stood his buzzed head.
...It was a connection from quite a long time ago.
A not-so-ordinary bond that started in a hospital and stretched to a prison.
Long ago, the first time I met him, he said he'd killed someone. That he'd personally slit a man's throat.
Back then, I was a critical patient in the hematology ward, and he was a patient in the psych ward.
I naturally assumed he was insane, but at that time, it didn't matter to me if he was crazy or a ghost.
A fourteen-year-old bullied cancer patient needed a friend. At least someone to talk to.
So I didn't avoid him. I clung to the guy who spouted bizarre things. We talked a lot.
He was the only one who accepted me, and I was the only one who listened to him.
Maybe... he was the first real friend I ever made in my life.
Then, on some day now faded from memory, he told me something strange. That Petra University Hospital was administering me not the standard magvel for acute mana leukemia, but an experimental drug called 'Gelt.'
He said the father of another patient in hematology was a reporter well-versed in leukemia, so go see him.
I did as he said.
I went to the reporter and asked.
Why Petra was giving us this new drug 'Gelt' instead of 'Maglvel.'
The reporter's face changed in that instant; he and his son checked out, and the next week, the Petra University Hospital kickback scandal broke.
And me?
Of course, the hospital kicked me out.
It was probably a day with drizzling rain.
I left the hospital bald from chemo, and I remember a beautiful child glaring at me from the hospital balcony.
That kid back then... might still blame me even now.
...Whatever.
If the story ended there, it'd be a shitty ending for me alone, but fortunately or unfortunately, there was more.
About three months after I was admitted to another hospital?
The reporter showed up again. Dressed in a flashy suit, sporting a fancy watch on his wrist. His once sallow complexion was now healthy.
He said his son was fully cured and asked if there were any other secrets at Petra. Promised 20,000 ren if I spilled.
Tempted by the eye-watering sum, I thought of the psych ward guy.
Back then, I figured he'd tricked me. Believed I'd been kicked out because of his prodding.
Out of revenge, I told the reporter he said he'd killed someone.
The reporter made an odd face and left.
Never came back.
No promised money.
I thought I'd been duped again.
What happened after that...
Well, that's it.
There was more, but it vanished.
Because I regressed.
Still, if I touch on that 'vanished story' just a bit—in my twenties, I committed some crime and ended up incarcerated in Recourdak.
He was in that Recourdak.
To be precise, he'd been transferred from the mental hospital to Recourdak because of me.
Even so, he didn't blame me. Instead, he greatly helped the still-weak me.
—It's old news. I didn't know you'd get kicked out of the hospital either. Salty about it?
I came to respect him.
Became friends again.
But even when I left the prison, he never told me his name. Wouldn't say a word about his background.
—Don't dig too deep. You'll end up dead if you do. Like that reporter.
He hid himself meticulously, not leaking even the tiniest fragment, and I didn't pry.
Only today did I learn his name.
"Yael."
The voice slipping from Elise's lips.
That was my friend's name.