Side Story: Solitude (1)
Side Story — Solitude (1)
The only thing I remembered of that day was how bitterly cold it was.
"Really... you'll give us food if we hand over the child? Just like that?"
"Of course. Give me the child, and I'll throw in a full month's worth of rations."
"Honey... but he's our son..."
"What does son or family matter?! Staying alive is what matters!!"
"..."
"Well then, I'll be taking the child."
Those voices were the last I would ever hear from my parents.
When I opened my eyes, there was no bright sun waiting to greet me anymore.
Only a night-luminous pearl, embedded in the ceiling above.
"Oh, you're awake?"
"Who are you?"
"Just another kid who got sold here, same as you."
The girl laughed with childlike innocence, as if it were nothing at all, and held out a rice ball to me.
A rice ball...
In other words—food.
The moment I laid eyes on it, I snatched it right out of her hands. She'd probably meant to give it to me all along, but to me, the hunger mattered more. So I ate, and for the first time in forever, that feeling called fullness came back to me.
"All done?"
"Yeah... sorry... for grabbing it like that..."
"Don't be. It was made for you to eat in the first place."
Fullness, for the first time in ages. And maybe because of it, the world...
...was starting to spin?
"Urk...."
"Don't throw up."
"Everything's dizzy... something's wrong with me..."
"Well, yeah. It was poisoned, obviously?"
The girl spoke as though the poison were the most natural thing in the world.
"Everyone here gathered to adapt to poison."
"Hold on a second... everyone here?"
- Ding ding ding.
A bell rang out.
"Wh... what's that bell?"
I asked, turning to the girl beside me. But her eyes had already become a hunter's eyes.
I backed away from her, slowly. Into the room we'd been sitting in burst a boy, his fingers stained a deep purple.
The boy lunged straight for the girl. But she was faster—a strike to the solar plexus, another climbing up his body, and a final blow to the jaw that dropped him cold.
I froze at the sight. But the instant I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, the girl bolted out of the room.
I followed her out, slowly. And what I saw was this: an enormous space underground. That the place I now stood in was a massive cavern beneath the earth—and that children my own age were tearing into each other in ferocious, desperate combat.
- Tatatak!
Something came tearing toward me at blinding speed, and a blow cracked against my jaw.
Everything went dark.
Consciousness returned before long.
"...Urgh."
My jaw throbbed. When I opened my eyes, the cold stone floor was the first thing to meet them. I took a few slow breaths to gather my wits, then lifted my head.
The area around me was quiet.
No. To be precise, it was so loud that it somehow felt quiet. Someone was screaming at the top of their lungs. Something was shattering. And all of it was echoing through the vast underground chamber.
"You're up."
A familiar voice. I turned my head to find that girl from before leaning against the wall.
"...Why did you save me?"
"I didn't."
"Then..."
"We fight like we're trying to kill each other. But we don't kill."
She said it like it was nothing. Like she'd just picked up a pebble off the roadside.
"What was that, earlier?"
"What was what?"
"The kids fighting."
The girl thought for a moment. Then she raised a single finger and pointed upward.
"Proof."
"...What?"
"That's how you earn recognition from the Head."
I didn't understand.
No—I didn't want to understand.
"What are you talking about?"
The girl let out a sigh. Then she picked up a pebble from the floor.
"The kids with weak poison resistance die."
- Thud.
The pebble dropped to the floor.
"The slightly stronger ones die too."
- Thud.
Another pebble.
"Even the lucky ones die."
- Thud.
A third pebble. Three stones now lay on the floor. Clutching the last one in her hand, she said:
"Only the ones who prove themselves to the very end are left standing."
A chill ran down my spine.
"...Why?"
The girl was silent for a moment. Then she smiled—that same childlike smile from when we'd first met. But this time, it terrified me.
"Because that's what we call Solitude."
"...Solitude?"
"Yep."
The girl tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The blue glow of the night-luminous pearl washed over her face.
"You know the story about tossing poison insects into a single jar and letting them kill each other off?"
I shook my head.
"No."
"Then you're just like us."
Cold sweat broke out across my skin. But the girl only flashed that innocent smile and introduced herself.
"I'm Soran!! Let's be friendly until the bell rings, okay?!"
The bell rang again.
- Ding.
- Ding.
- Ding.
Unlike before, the chime came in short, separated bursts—a dull, muffled toll. At the sound, the children who'd been chattering nearby began to move, one by one. Soran popped up from her seat as well.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"Assembly."
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, she started walking. I hesitated for a moment, but I had no choice but to follow.
There were dozens of children around us. Some had faces mottled with bruises; some clutched their arms, moaning softly.
And yet something was off. No one was crying. No one was complaining. They simply walked forward in silence, as though they had long since grown used to all of it.
Before long, a vast open clearing opened up before us—a space so expansive it was hard to believe it lay underground. Hundreds of children had gathered there.
And above the cavern, out of a black void where nothing at all could be seen, a basket began to descend.
Standing in that enormous basket was an old man. A grotesque old man, with an extra eye set into his forehead...
He did not move. He did not speak.
He simply rested his chin in his hand and gazed down at the children. And yet, somehow, every gaze in the cavern was fixed on him. It felt like stepping into a cage with a savage beast.
"...That man is...?"
My voice trembled faintly. Soran answered with a smile.
"Yep."
And then, with unbearable lightness:
"Our Head."
At once, everything around us went still. The man quietly studied us, and with that single motion, hundreds of children held their breath.
The Head swept his gaze across us. Not the way one looks at people—the way one inspects livestock.
"Twenty-Three."
A low, cold voice. One boy froze in terror at once, and the Head fixed his eyes on him.
"You've reached the limit of your ability to adapt to poison. One who cannot adapt to the poison dies not to the poison, but to himself. Twenty-Three."
With that, the old man flicked his wrist, and a concealed blade buried itself in the boy's throat. Then he spoke again.
"This blade is coated with a lethal poison. Survive, and I'll call it a pass."
But the boy thrashed and writhed in agony until, at last, his movements stopped altogether.
"Tsk."
The old man clicked his tongue and turned to one of the boys—a boy perhaps three or four years older than me.
"Sa."
"Yes, Head."
"Devour Twenty-Three. And strengthen your poison."
"Understood."
At the old man's command, Sa set upon the corpse and began to eat it.
Watching that scene, only one thought filled my head: This place is insane. This is not right.
I looked around, praying I wasn't the only one who felt that way. But everyone kept their eyes forward, showing no reaction whatsoever.
And then—sometime, somehow—the old man was standing in front of me.
"Welcome, Baek. This being your first time, you may find it disorienting—but I trust you will adapt."
Then the old man placed his hand on my shoulder.
- Sssssss—
My clothes melted away, and my skin began to sear. The pain made me try to wrench his hand off, but his grip was monstrous, and the look in his eyes held me frozen in place.
Only when the old man finally lifted his hand from my shoulder could I open my mouth at all.
"AAAAAAGH!!"
At last, I could scream. And no one reacted to the scream.
No laughter. No pity in their eyes. No fear, either.
As though this were simply the way of things.
But the old man was different. The corners of his mouth curled upward, as if he had witnessed something miraculous.
"Ohh... now this is a first."
Light began to seep from my melted shoulder. A yellow glow. Even the expressionless onlookers let surprise cross their faces.
"Sa!!! Raise this child. See what he becomes."
".....Understood."
Sa hesitated a moment, but seemed to accept that the Head's will was not his to question. Then the old man left the food from the basket with us there in the cavern and rode the basket back up.
"Hey. Baek."
"......."
"I called you. So answer me, Baek."
"My name isn't Ba—"
- Thunk.
Fingertips stabbed into my throat.
"Hurk!"
A stab to the throat, and I doubled over retching.
"You are Baek. Here, you throw away your old name."
"Hah... hah... Yes. I understand."
"This place is called Solitude. The Master buys children and puts them down here, in Solitude."
"Then... everyone here was sold off? Like me?"
Sa shook his head.
"One, Two, and Three are not. They are the Master's own flesh and blood."
"He puts his own children in a place like this?"
"He does. And One and Three were killed by Two."
"..."
"Two is the most dangerous one down here. Not the strongest—but the most dangerous."
And so the explanations went on, one after another. No food could ever be found in this cavern, so we survived only on what the Master brought down—and all of it carried poison, apparently marked so you always knew roughly how potent it was. Eat weak poison to survive; eat strong poison to grow stronger. And when the bell rang, we fought one another. When I asked why, even Sa didn't know the details. Only that it was because we had to grow stronger.
The purpose of Solitude, he said, was to forge the perfect poison-human.
Then, apparently satisfied that his lecture was over, Sa rose to his feet.
And—
- WHAM!!!
"Hrk!"
A kick drove into my solar plexus. As I lay crumpled on the ground, he spoke.
"Get up. Lie there any longer and the poison will simply work its way into you, slow and steady."
"Hah... hah......"
I scrambled into a fighting stance, clumsy and half-formed. Perhaps he liked what he saw, because Sa's fingertips shot straight for my centerline. I raised my arm to block.
But his arm coiled like a serpent, slipping past my guard entirely, and struck my cheek.
- Shriiik.
My cheek split open.
- Drip. Drip.
Blood ran down my face.
"Attempting to defend was good. But never close your eyes when you block. Now—take your stance again."
My hands and feet were shaking. And it hurt. I was supposed to keep doing this? My eyes would not stop trembling.
Just then, Soran appeared and peered at me.
"Oh my. You okay, Baek?"
"Soran—help me."
I begged her. And at the sight, Sa looked genuinely taken aback.
"Soran?"
"Sa!!! This one's mine! I'm taking him with me!"
But as if Sa's reaction were nothing to her, Soran grabbed my arm and marched me out of the room.
"So? Even in Solitude, it's not so lonely, right?"
"...."
"PUHAHAHA! So? Pretty good, right? My joke?"
"Uh... sure. Hilarious."
I'd been wandering the halls of this place called Solitude with Soran. And then—
- Ding ding ding.
The bell. I snapped into a defensive stance and swept my eyes around. And there he was—a boy charging straight at me.
The boy flung a kick my way. Soran batted it aside without effort, then brought the blade of her hand down in a light slash across his throat.
"I cut just deep enough not to kill you."
"Fuck!!! I have to prove myself!!! That's why I have to kill the newbie!!! T—Two!!!"
"Sorry, but this one's mine."
Hold on—Two?
Had he just called Soran "Two"? If Soran was Two, then...
"Two is the most dangerous one down here. Not the strongest—but the most dangerous."
And before I could even finish the thought, the boy began vomiting blood, his face draining to a deathly white.
"Soran... did you do this?"
"No, Baek... I didn't use any poison on him. So it's not my fault. Saying that hurts my feelings, you know."
"Then what is—"
"Twenty-Nine probably dosed himself with strong poison to get stronger. Then he moved this hard, his heart started pounding, and the poison burned through him that much faster. And voilà. So? Pretty good explanation, right?"
"Then is there an antidote?"
At that, Soran gave a sulky little nod and produced a small vial from her chest.
"When a poison meets another poison, they cancel out. This one cancels out what Twenty-Nine drank."
"Then feed it to him. Now!"
"Nope."
"What?"
And with that, Soran tilted the vial back and drank the antidote herself.
"Because this looks like it's going to be fun."
Twenty-Nine, crumpled on the floor, could no longer even draw a proper breath.
And when Soran drank down the very poison that could have saved him, he thrashed in a fury, fighting to move.
"Hrk!"
Dark red blood spilled from his mouth. He stretched a hand out toward Soran, and she looked down at that trembling palm.
"Asking me for help? Why?"
"Tw... Two... please. You have one more dose, don't you? I'm begging you."
"Oh, I do. But you, Twenty-Nine—you drank that strong poison because you wanted to prove yourself, didn't you?"
She crouched down deliberately, bringing her face level with his.
"Then prove it to the very end. That you're strong."
"Tw... you bitch..."
With those last words, Twenty-Nine's eyes fluttered shut, and he died.
Could a human life really be snuffed out this lightly? My whole body shook.
And then, from the darkness beyond, I felt it—a murderous aura. Heavy footsteps were drawing closer, slow and deliberate.
Whether she knew it or not, Soran went on smiling down at the corpse.
What emerged from the dark was a hulking man who looked a full two meters tall. And Soran greeted him first.
"Long time no see, Sixty-Six!!"
"You kill this one?"
"Nope. As you can see, he died all on his own. So it's not breaking any rules."
"..."
Soran gave my ribs a quiet jab. As if to say: Back me up here.
"Yeah... he took strong poison all by himself and died."
The instant the words left my mouth, the man threw himself onto the corpse and began to devour it.
"Ugh......"
I couldn't keep the revulsion off my face. But whether he noticed or not, Sixty-Six kept eating dead Twenty-Nine. Then, all of a sudden, he looked our way.
"Hey, Baek."
"Yeah?"
"Want to eat some too?"
"Wh-what?!"
"A corpse that ate strong poison carries strong poison. Consider it my good deed. Eat."
Sixty-Six held out Twenty-Nine's liver to me.
"Sorry, but the kid hasn't built up any immunity to poison yet. Feed him a toxin that strong and it'll do one thing—kill him."
Soran knocked away the piece of Twenty-Nine that Sixty-Six had handed me.
Thank god.
If I'd actually swallowed that, I knew I would have thrown it right back up.
And while I was still thinking it, I felt something come flying at me. A sensation I knew. I had felt it once before.
I dodged on pure instinct. What had come at me was Sa's fingertips.
But Sa didn't so much as blink at having his thrust evaded so easily. He kept pushing forward, coiled his outstretched arm around my neck like a snake, and locked in a rear naked choke.
I couldn't breathe.
There was nothing I could do.
And my consciousness slipped away.
"Hah?!"
"You awake?"
When I came to, I was in a room, and Sa was in it. The moment I saw him, I readied myself to fight.
"Relax. Fighting hours are over. No ambushes coming, so you can stand down."
"..."
"Still—credit where credit is due. For your first day, you were at least ready to fight."
With that, Sa rose from where he'd been sitting.
"So. Will you survive as a poisonless cockroach, wriggling through the muck?"
"..."
"Or..."
Sa drew a small vial from his chest.
"Will you endure this world of survival-of-the-fittest as a venomous serpent?"
"..."
"Choose."
For an instant, I thought of Twenty-Nine. A man who had eaten poison to grow stronger. And who, for all of it, was subdued by Soran in seconds and killed by the poison in his own veins.
Because of that, I hesitated—briefly. Then I opened my mouth.
"I'll be the serpent."
"Good."
Sa tossed me the vial. I drank the poison inside. And...
"Ugh. That's disgusting."
Aside from the taste, nothing happened at all. Just as I was standing there dumbfounded—
That sensation brushed past me again. Too late.
Sa's hand plunged into my torn cheek. He gripped the inside of the wound to pin my head in place, then drove an uppercut up into me.
The blow under my jaw blurred my vision. But I couldn't just hang there and take it.
I hammered my fist down on the hand burrowed into my cheek. Sa yanked it free and stumbled backward.
Backing away...... In that instant, one thought cut through the pain: If not now, I will never get another chance. So I threw my fist—
"Hrk!!"
Dark red blood burst from my mouth, and the pain brought me to my knees.
"The poison caught up with you, I see."
"You knew?"
"Of course. Poison doesn't announce itself instantly. So I forced your heart to pound—to make you feel it all the sooner."
"Hah... hah... urgh..."
"Rest now, and sleep. I've left food in the corner of the room. All of it poisoned, of course."
Sa walked out. I was the only one left inside.
And this time too, I went down.
Months passed.
I trained under Sa. And whenever the bell rang, Soran would appear and stick to my side.
Then, one day—
"Two!!! What do you think you're doing? Does the bell sound like it's rung to you?"
"So what? Our Baek can't spend his whole life fighting. You've got to enjoy yourself when you can. Fighting when the bell rings is plenty."
"Baek is still lacking. If he wants to survive, he has to get stronger."
Sa and Soran were at each other's throats, right over my head. And in the middle of the shouting, Soran opened her mouth.
"Don't tell me... is it because looking at Baek reminds you of Five? Your little brother? Is that why you push him this hard—because you can't stop seeing the brat who died to me?"
"You goddamn bitch!!!"
It was the first time I had ever seen Sa enraged. And he unleashed a thrust so ferocious that it taught me a lesson in retrospect: every strike he had ever shown me had been a gentle tap by comparison.
But Soran slipped it effortlessly, as if it were a child's game.
It could have ended there, as a mere squabble between the three of us. But Sa's thrust tore through the air like a cracking whip, and it dragged every eye in Solitude toward us.
"What, a fight?"
"The bell hasn't rung, has it?"
The others looked bewildered at first. But before long, their confusion curdled into grins.
"I'm betting ten vials of low-grade poison on Sa!!"
"Bullshit. Anyone can see Two's taking it. One vial of deadly poison on her!!"
Just like that, Solitude had become a cheap gambling den.
"Kill him!!! Kill!!!"
Mad voices, shrieking with laughter. And under that roar, Sa and Soran lowered into their fighting stances.
Sa fought by thrusting his hands and feet like spears, blindingly fast—and the moment his strikes closed the distance, he would coil in and choke his opponent into submission.
Soran, meanwhile, was a blade from head to toe. And she was poison from head to toe. Take so much as a scratch from her, and you were poisoned—drifting into lethal territory.
I knew all of that. I tried to step in and stop them—
"Kill!!!!!! Rip them apart and eat them!!!!"
Under the crowd's howling, I couldn't move. The first to move was Sa.
His thrust came with a crack of splitting air, and Soran's neck was laid open in a long gash. She clutched her throat—and laughed.
"Fun. But I'm more fun."
The arm he had struck out with now bore a long, deep cut.
"He's cut!!!!"
One of the spectators howled it, and the crowd went wild. Those who'd bet on Sa, of course, weren't laughing—they spat curses at him instead.
"How did you get hit by THAT?!"
"Do you have any idea how dangerous Two's poison is?!!"
"MY POISON!!!!!!!"
Ignoring the abuse and the wound alike, Sa used his outstretched arm to lock Soran into a rear naked choke.
"Hkk... hard to breathe here. Any chance you'd let go? Sa?"
"Shut it, Two."
Sa squeezed until the tendons in his own arm looked ready to burst. But Two only smiled, perfectly at ease, and raised both arms. It was anything but a signal of surrender.
She drove both arms up into the arm that was choking her—and then ground them back and forth like a saw.
"Ngh!"
One mistake and the arm would come off. No—already steeped in Soran's poison, it might simply rot where it hung. So Sa released the choke and sprang back.
Certain that anything more would end in catastrophe, I screamed:
"Stop fighting!!"
And at my cry, everyone went quiet. Even the roaring stands fell silent.
Soran just wore a forced smile, utterly dumbfounded. Sa looked bewildered, as if he had no idea what reaction was called for.
And once the stunned pause had stretched long enough, the crowd's silence turned to fury.
"You dare stop the fight, you little shi—"
The moment one spectator started on the curse, Sa read the situation in a heartbeat—sprinted at me—and drove a fist into my solar plexus.
"You snot-nosed little brat. Ruining our fight?"
Sa's voice was murder. But a month of training at his side had taught me to hear the performance underneath it. After all, cutting the fight short meant the enraged crowd needed somewhere to point their rage—and the only target available was me.
I took the hit, retched, and crumpled. And just like that, the fight fizzled out. I thought that was the end of it.
From above, a basket began to descend. Down it came—no bell, no warning.
Everyone panicked. In that basket stood only two people: a man whose face could not be made out, and a woman whose hair was half white and half violet. No Head. Only strangers. The whole cavern stood frozen in confusion.
"So these are the reserve poison-humans, Boss?"
"Yeah. That's right."
While the man and woman murmured to each other, Sixty-Six stepped forward.
"Who are you people?"
"Us? Hm... you're all as good as dead anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter. We're the Boss and a unit commander of an organization called Salvatio."
"I see..."
Hearing that, Sixty-Six—moving with impossible speed for a man his size—charged and threw a punch.
But faster still, the woman—the presumed unit commander of Salvatio—drove her fist into his chest.
"Hrk!"
Sixty-Six was hurled backward into the wall, coughing up blood.
"Eri—did you use your ability?"
"Boss, why on earth would I waste my ability on trash like him?"
"Then it's of no consequence. Ah—and one final gift, for the rest of you."
The Boss of Salvatio flung something toward us.
It was the Head's head.
"Now—the true Solitude begins."
With those words, the basket rose back up into the dark. We were the only ones left. And with the Head—the only person who ever handed out our food—dead and gone, the true Solitude had begun.