The Gates of Hell Swing Open
The sound of wet slurping filled the cramped space. Slurp… slurp… Mm… delicious.
A thick, crimson liquid sloshed across the bottom of the barrel. Wow, this stuff is insanely sweet. Looks like this world has fruits similar to Earth’s grapes.
Slurp. Gulp.
I scooped up the pooled wine with both hands and brought it to my lips. The sweet, sharp alcohol slid down my parched throat, which had gone bone-dry from extreme fear and tension.
I kept licking up the poor, innocent wine like a desperate animal.
I needed something, anything, to calm my racing heart.
But that brief moment of sugary escape shattered instantly at the sound of a chilling voice.
“Damn it. Where the hell did that thing crawl off to?”
“Hey, that creepy thing from earlier was tiny, right? Maybe it slipped into one of these narrow spots around here?”
“Then let’s flip over everything in the area.”
“Wait. If we smash open the barrels and Revi throws a fit, what then?”
“If we catch that Asirian bastard that snuck in during the night and take care of it, even that cheapskate will understand. We can’t just leave something this nasty running around.”
Clank. Thud!
The moment that terrifying conversation ended, the sound of rough rummaging echoed through the alley. Soon after, the heavy wooden lids of the tightly sealed barrels began to creak open one by one, slamming against the ground.
Bang! Crash!
Each time they flung open another barrel, it felt like a countdown—each step bringing them one barrel closer to where I was hiding.
I thought my heart would stop.
My vision went black. The warmth that had risen from the alcohol instantly turned ice-cold.
Inside a dark wooden barrel, completely sealed on all sides. No escape route. No place to run. A perfect sealed room.
“A rat in a trap.” That phrase described my current situation perfectly.
What do I do? Fuck, what the hell do I do? What can I even do right now?
If I just stayed curled up here, holding my breath like a coward? The outcome was obvious. The second that lid opened, I’d be grabbed by the scruff, killed, and dumped in the sewer.
That left only one choice.
Go completely insane, kick the lid open, and bolt like hell.
There was no way those guys would expect me to pop out like a jack-in-the-box from inside a wine barrel.
The instant the lid opened, if I screamed and leaped out, they’d flinch and freeze for at least a second.
I can do this. Don’t freeze up. Once I get out of this alley, the darkness will give me plenty of places to lose them.
I pressed down hard on my trembling thighs with both hands and began frantically drawing a map in my head.
The layout of the alleys in this area was roughly crammed into my memory.
From the spot where I was currently trapped, all the way to the only exit—the attic door that would lead me back to the slum.
Which corner to turn, which buildings to slip between to reach it the fastest. I broke out in a cold sweat as I ran the shortest escape route through my mind over and over.
But before I could finish perfecting my escape plan—
Crash!!
The lid of the barrel right next to mine, barely a hand’s width away, was violently thrown open and slammed to the ground.
“Whew… nothing over here!”
“Stop wasting time and open the next one!”
Shit. There was no time left. If the barrel right beside me had been opened, then the next one was obviously—
Me. No, it was one hundred percent my turn.
Thud.
The heavy footsteps of one of the men approached right in front of the barrel I was hiding in. Then I heard the sickening sound of a thick, powerful hand landing heavily on the wooden lid right above my head.
Damn it. Had I overthought it for too long? There wasn’t even a single second to spare now. I could feel the man’s grip tightening on the lid with a low, creaking sound.
I sucked in a sharp breath and bent my knees like a frog ready to leap. The moment the lid opened and a sliver of light leaked in, I planned to spring out like a coiled spring and slam my forehead straight into the bastard’s jaw.
Creeeeak.
Finally, the gap in the lid began to widen. I held my breath.
“Hey!! What the hell are you bastards doing in the middle of the night?!”
A gravelly, metallic roar thick with phlegm thundered through the alley.
“You dare smash someone else’s precious goods?! Do you have any idea how much this wine is worth?! Are you worthless thugs all going crazy and trying to rob me together?!”
An unexpected intruder. At the same time, I felt the hand that had been about to fling my lid open hesitate and lose strength. I kept my trembling knees bent tight, straining every nerve to listen to what was happening outside.
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down, Revi. It’s us, man. Put down that scary club you’re holding.”
“Didn’t you hear the noise? Some Asirian rat snuck into the area. Don’t worry. Once we hunt down that disgusting bitch and hand her over, the knights will give us a fat reward. We’ll pay for the wine with that money right away.”
“Y-yeah! That’s right! So just put that thing down, Revi. Okay? You’re not gonna swing that at your best customers who keep your sales up, are you?”
What? The knights? A reward? This… this world is actually insane…!
“An Asirian? You trash think you can catch one? You pathetic worms who drink cheap booze on credit every day because you’re broke—you really think you’ll get a reward? You pieces of garbage!”
“Hey! That’s going too far! Just listen to me first! I’m telling you, she looked really young! She was a tiny little kid! Just calm down and think about it, yeah? No matter how low we are, there’s no way we couldn’t catch a little shit like that. If we catch her and get the money, we’ll pay off our tab first!”
The noisy shouting and bickering echoed chaotically, making my heart pound like crazy.
Now. This was the perfect timing. I had to get out of here before they opened the lid.
I carefully pushed the wooden lid up with both hands, creating a tiny gap to peek at the situation outside.
I saw the backs of three burly men surrounding the innkeeper who was holding an iron mace, desperately running their mouths.
Crazy. That really is a weapon. Still, their attention was completely diverted.
I quickly cast my magic. Shadows rose up and gripped the hinges and gaps of the wooden lid tightly.
Moving as carefully as possible to avoid any creaking, I secured the lid and slowly slid my wine-soaked body out.
Like a boneless mollusk, I slipped out of the barrel and flattened myself against the ground.
While the men argued, spit flying everywhere, I didn’t make a single sound as I slowly, desperately backpedaled into the deep shadows of the alley.
I focused every ounce of attention on my toes to avoid stepping on even a single twig or rolling pebble. It was a nerve-wracking tightrope walk where one second felt like an hour.
The moment I rounded the corner of the alley and completely escaped their line of sight—
I ran like hell without looking back.
Following the path I had burned into my memory, I ran until my heart felt like it would burst.
The hidden attic door. The damp, disgusting mud tunnel.
I don’t even remember how I made it back.
Thump.
When I came to my senses, I was on my knees, gasping for air on the filthy dirt floor of the massive walled slum. The stinging stench of the sewer and piles of rotting garbage welcomed me home.
It was bitterly ironic. After fleeing from a beautiful, brilliant civilized society and returning to this disgusting, miserable slum, only then could I finally breathe a sigh of relief and truly feel that I was alive.
The next morning, I once again cradled the blackened iron pot in my arms and stepped out into the slum streets.
Going begging again, Vita?
Yes, I’m going begging. So don’t judge me. I haven’t given up.
Even though I barely escaped with my life last night, I had seen something with my own two eyes. Not the pathetic sight of groveling on the ground begging, but the brilliant scene of someone proudly showing something off and raking in coins as fair payment.
Yeah. Why the hell couldn’t I do it too?
I could do it. That damn performance. I was going to pull it off perfectly and rake in the coins.
With much lighter steps, I arrived at the market street that reeked with its familiar, musty stench.
As always, our beggar friends had shown up diligently at the prime spot, already preparing to put on their full-method acting performances from early in the morning.
I slung the pot over my shoulder, walked forward with relaxed confidence, and put on a bright smile.
“Hey guys, good morning! Starting today, my business style is—!”
Rumble rumble rumble—!!!
Before I could even finish my greeting.
An enormous roar that threatened to burst my eardrums exploded, and the dirt beneath my feet began to shake violently.
An earthquake? No, it wasn’t just an earthquake. It was a horrifying, skin-crawling grinding sound—like some overwhelmingly massive and heavy lump of iron being forcibly meshed together and turning.
“W-what the hell?! Is it an earthquake?”
“Kyaaaaaah!! The gate! The gate is opening!!”
“Everyone run!! If you don’t want to die, run!!”
A desperate scream tore through the square.
At that moment, a black cloud of dust surged up like a tsunami from far away.
And bursting through that dust cloud, hundreds—no, thousands—of slum residents with deathly pale faces came screaming and pouring toward us.
The direction they were fleeing from in blind panic.
It was the desolate empty lot where I had wandered the night before looking for a rat hole, the place where the massive wall that blocked out the sky stood.
The reality before my eyes was so unbelievable that my breath caught in my throat.
I had been certain that the real entrance was only the attic door in the ground, and that the majestic steel gate was a complete fake that would never open.
Yet that absurdly enormous wall gate was now splitting apart down the middle and opening wide.