“Hah, hah, hah!”
Gasping for breath, Han Jae-hee sprinted down the corridor of the cruise ship.
The guards! I have to get to the guards!
This was a full-blown crisis—prisoners trying to kill each other. A guard would have to intervene… not that he trusted them. But right now, they were his only hope.
They were stationed in the elevator area!
But Razor’s goons had already swarmed the elevator bank on the forward side of the ship, cutting off his route.
Jae-hee was forced to change course, sprinting toward the ship’s midsection.
Whoosh—!
The moment he turned, the blue arrow zipped ahead, instantly charting a new escape route. Grateful, Jae-hee followed its path without a second thought.
“Hah, hah… hah… Dammit, this ship is damn huge!”
Endless rows of prison cells lined both sides of the corridor. Once passenger cabins, their doors had been ripped out and replaced with iron bars, leaving the interiors completely exposed.
And they were packed with inmates.
The prisoners roared as they saw Jae-hee bolt down the hall.
“Fresh meat!”
“It’s been so long!”
“He’s actually kinda cute, yo!”
Gripping and rattling the bars, the prisoners writhed with excitement.
“Why’s he running? Escapin’ somewhere?”
“He pissed off Razor!”
“Damn, kid’s got balls! Picking a fight with that psycho on his first day?”
News of Jae-hee’s seriously fucked-up situation had already spread throughout Deck 1, and the inmates who’d heard the story were even more ecstatic.
“Look at that ass! Show me that ass, boy!”
“Welcome to the shittiest hellhole in the world, Cherry!”
“You better say it, you little shit! Say, ‘I’m fucked’!”
Jae-hee ran through a gauntlet of prisoners sizing him up like fresh catch on a cutting board. He took a deep, steadying breath.
Then, waving his hands to both sides of the corridor, he shouted, “Hello, old-timers!”
“Jae-hee Han, eighteen years old! My specialty is running! Did a little petty thieving and got framed for something big!”
The prisoners’ expressions shifted as they took in the bold self-introduction, delivered in a voice still fresh from puberty.
Jae-hee gave them an awkward smile. “We’re all family now, so… uh… I hope you’ll all take good care of me!”
“Ooooh…”
A low murmur of admiration rippled through the cell block before erupting into an earth-shattering roar.
“WRAAAAAAAH—!”
The arrival of the audacious rookie sent the prisoners into a frenzy, their cheers echoing through the entire deck.
“An introduction while running from Razor?! This punk’s something else!”
“Thought he looks normal, but nah! We got a total psycho!”
“Allllrighty, I’m claiming this one! You’ll be my boy starting today!”
“The hell you are, bitch! He’s mine! I called dibs!”
While some were delighted by the appearance of a fearless new face, others were less impressed.
“Cocky. Won’t last long.”
“Anyone want to bet on how many hours this fucking newb has left?”
“I’ll put down a thousand Credits he won’t even make it through the night.”
“The night? He’ll be strung up and gutted for show within the hour. Two thousand Credits!”
There were those already placing bets on when he would die.
Leaving them all behind, Jae-hee gave one last big wave and took off down the corridor again at full speed. A shower of heated cheers rained down on his retreating back.
***
Even without his ability, Jae-hee was a fast runner, but he was a complete stranger to the geography of the cruise ship. The prison vessel was enormous, a labyrinth of identical corridors.
Razor’s crew, on the other hand, were the rulers of Deck 1. They knew its layout intimately, every shortcut and dead end. They were systematically closing in.
Before he could even reach the central elevator bank, he could feel the net tightening around him.
At this rate…!
Just then, the blue arrow guiding him suddenly swerved at a corner and plunged toward the floor.
“?!”
Jae-hee scrambled to follow its lead, diving and rolling across the ground. At that exact moment—
SCHLACK—!
Something shot out from around the corner, slashing violently through the air where he had just been. Jae-hee recoiled in horror.
What the… are those scissors?!
They were a massive pair of shears, crafted from bone. The man with slicked-back hair holding them—Callsign “Barber”—clicked his tongue as he stepped out.
“Not bad, dodging my ambush.”
“Ah, you’re the guy who was standing behind Razor bro, right?” Jae-hee said, scrambling unsteadily to his feet. He pointed at the white bone shears in the man’s hands. “Did he make those for you, too?”
“He did. A custom job from the boss himself.” The Barber adjusted his grip on the shears. “I am Callsign ‘Barber.’ The boss’s left hand.”
“Huh? Barbara?”
“…Barber. Like the guy who cuts hair.”
“Oh, so sorry. I’m not great with names,” Jae-hee said with an innocent grin.
The Barber’s eyebrow twitched. “You’ve got some overgrown nerve for a beardless brat.”
Snap! Snap!
He clicked his shears open and shut with menace. “I’ll trim that right off,” he uttered coldly.
“…”
Jae-hee thought for a moment, touched his chin, then asked carefully, “Excuse me, but…”
“?”
“Didn’t you just say I have no beard? What exactly are you trimming th—?”
SCHLACK—!
The enraged Barber lunged before he could even finish, swinging the bone shears.
“Waahhh! If you’re gonna cut anything, at least make it look good!”
Jae-hee yelped and easily dodged the attack, but there was another problem.
The Barber wasn’t alone.
“HRAAAAGH—!”
With a guttural roar, a muscular, bald man covered head-to-toe in an Irezumi tattoo—Callsign “Tat Rat”—charged down the corridor from behind.
Jae-hee’s eyes went wide. “Aack?! And who are you?!”
“I’m Tat Rat, Boss Razor’s right-hand man!”
Tat Rat’s two fists cut menacingly through the air. His knuckles were wrapped in sharp, bone-forged knuckle dusters.
POW! POW!
The two punches shot out like cannonballs, narrowly grazing Jae-hee’s side. They missed him, but they shredded the hem of his shirt.
Jae-hee’s eye twitched as he looked at his torn prison uniform. “Are those knuckles also handmade by Razor bro?! Is that the hottest brand in this prison or something?!”
“You bet! Made by Razor! The finest luxury brand on the first deck! Just close your eyes and take a hit. You’ll see how good they are!”
“Is this how you welcome people? Trying to kill me? That’s just cold…!”
“When in prison, do as prisoners do! Now eat your knuckle sandwich!”
The situation devolved into chaos.
The Barber spun, his massive bone shears a continuous whirl. Every time the blades swept past, the carpet split and sparks flew from the gouges left in the walls.
Each of Tat Rat’s knuckle-duster-clad punches was a cannonball. One whistled past Jae-hee’s chin and slammed into the wall, leaving a deep crater. If that had connected, his jaw would have been gone.
The Barber in front, Tat Rat behind.
Jae-hee twisted, bent, and rolled without a moment’s rest, narrowly dodging a scissor blade that nearly grazed his neck and a fist aimed at his gut.
“Hah, hah, hah!” His breathing grew ragged.
The two were veteran hunters. They attacked relentlessly, gradually backing their prey into a corner. Jae-hee knew that if he did nothing but dodge, it would all be over soon.
Dammit, isn’t there a way out… anything?
And then it happened.
Fwoosh!
The blue arrow broke its silence and shot out from his chest, painting a clear trajectory.
Straight up, toward the ceiling.
“?!”
At the same instant, the Barber and Tat Rat timed their attacks for a combined assault.
The Barber’s bone shears flew in from the left, Tat Rat’s bone knuckles from the right. It was a perfectly timed, practiced pincer attack, designed to end the hunt.
Screw it!
In the end, Jae-hee did as the arrow commanded.
He kicked off the wall and sprang into the air. His body, flexible in mid-flight, bent like a supple branch, seeming to hang suspended for a moment.
“…?!”
“Wha—?”
The Barber and Tat Rat, who never imagined he would evade by going up, grunted in surprise.
At that exact moment—
CRACK—!
The bone shears and bone knuckles collided with a sickening crunch. With Jae-hee gone, the two inmates’ attacks had found each other in the empty space where he should have been.
“Gak!”
“Urrgh?!”
Blood spurted from their hands as the Barber and Tat Rat staggered back, their custom weapons shattered.
Jae-hee didn’t miss the opening. The moment his feet touched the ground, he gathered what little strength he had left and bolted into the adjacent corridor.
All right! If I can just escape…
Back in the hallway, he intended to run for the central elevator bank again.
But he froze, astonished. More gang members were running toward him from that direction.
Drawn by the clamor of the fight, Razor’s goons were swarming the area. They spotted Jae-hee and started yelling.
“Found him!”
“It’s the newbie!”
“Stay right there, you dick-sized punk!”
Jae-hee gritted his teeth and grumbled under his breath. “Dick-sized? Man, if your junk’s my size, you need surgery. I’m still growing, too…”
At any rate, this was it. He didn’t have the strength for any more intense maneuvers or the stamina to sprint.
Wiping his sweat-drenched face, Jae-hee scanned his surroundings. Was there any way out?
“Uh?”
There was.
Not far away, he saw a stairwell.
[Deck 2 ↑]
[Deck 0 ↓]
The stairs leading up to Deck 2 were sealed tight with a steel gate.
But the stairs leading down to Deck 0 were blocked only by a flimsy, haphazard web of tape.
Suddenly, Razor’s warning from orientation flashed through his mind.
“Deck 0… don’t even go near it.”
“Even in a hellhole like this, there’s a place they call Rock Bottom. That’s Deck 0. No one who’s gone in there has ever come out in one piece.”
A dry lump slid down Jae-hee’s throat.
A death trap ahead, the enemy behind.
“Well, shit…” The hesitation was brief, the decision swift. “I don’t give a damn anymore!”
Jae-hee bolted for the stairs.
The path down to Deck 0 was blocked by yellow tape emblazoned with the word DANGER, but this was no time to worry about that.
“Get that cuuuunt!”
Tat Rat, the Barber, and their cronies were right on his heels. A swarm of hands reached out to grab him.
Thump—!
And then, Jae-hee flew.
Shaking off the hands that sought to ensnare him, he leaped from the top of the stairs and threw himself at the tangled, web-like barrier of warning tape.
And then—he fell.
“Waaaaaaah—?!”
Clatter, crash, thud…
Jae-hee tumbled down the stairs, disappearing into the darkness of Deck 0.
“That… that crazy son of a bitch…”
His pursuers skidded to a halt at the top of the stairwell. None of them dared to cross the tape. They just milled about, peering down into the abyss.
Tat Rat, standing at the very front, scratched the back of his head and looked behind him. “Oi, Barber. What now?”
“…”
“The newbie went down to Deck 0. Shouldn’t we go after him?”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
The Barber walked over and shot Tat Rat a cold glare. “That’s Rock Bottom. You go in, you die. You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you?”
“…”
“No choice about it. We back off.”
“Agh, the boss is gonna kill us.”
“We couldn’t bring back the newbie’s corpse, but the boss will understand when he hears he fell into Deck 0.”
Fwoooosh—
An eerie gust billowed up from the stairwell. The prisoners scrambled back, their faces pale.
The Barber gritted his teeth, muttering as he finished, “Because that’s where the worst monsters in this prison dwell…”