Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
This… In the eerie silence, the first thought Derrick Berg had when he came back to his senses was to rescue that person.
However, the two guards that held him in the middle didn’t show any reaction to it, as if everything that had just happened was just his imagination.
“Someone is calling out for help,” the young Derrick informed the two Dawn Paladins.
On his left, a tall knight clad in silver armor calmly replied, “Don’t be fooled.
“That’s just the normal behavior of those Beyonders who are on the verge of losing control.”
Is that so? Maybe he cried out for help because he just isn’t willing to give up and lose control and become a monster… Derrick thought sorrowfully.
Following the change in his mood, the illusory, buzzing sound in his ears became more distinct.
After silently taking a few steps forward, the Dawn Paladin from before pointed to a door on the left and said, “You will be staying here for the time being. We will bring you your food and medicine on time.”
As he spoke, he took out an iron-black bottle.
This bottle was constructed from the remnants of the straw-like objects left over from the City of Silver’s staple food, Black Faced Grass. Upon encountering a liquid, it would produce a thin film, thereby achieving a waterproof and sealing effect.
Derrick took the bottle and gulped it down, feeling a cool sensation slide down his esophagus and into his stomach.
His entire being rapidly became quiet. The swaying scenes before his eyes stabilized, and the auditory hallucinations in his ears gradually weakened.
Creak!
At the sound of the iron door closing and locking, Derrick entered his own room.
The first thing he saw was a candle flickering with a faint yellow light, and then he made out a low bed, a chair, and a square table.
Other than that, there was nothing else. However, the walls, including the door, were all engraved with complicated and mysterious symbols and labels. They seemed to form a complete seal.
Derrick’s emotions were also suppressed by the medicine. He sat down on the bed without the slightest hint of curiosity before lying down.
After an unknown period of time, he suddenly heard the sound of someone banging on his door. However, this didn’t come from outside his room, but from his neighboring cell.
Derrick sat up and listened. He heard a sharp, high-pitched wail from the knocking.
His hair stood on end as he abruptly stood up, taking an extremely defensive stance.
At this moment, thumping sounds spread to the metal walls that were separated by two rooms, slowly smashing a protrusion.
Derrick was about to pray for holy light when the scene before his eyes suddenly lit up. It seemed as if the entire space around him had been moved to the outside world, just in time for the lightning to streak past.
The sound of the wall being smashed beside him had vanished, and the bottom of the spire regained its silence.
It wasn’t an absolute silence. Rather, the sound of light footsteps echoed for a long distance. It only turned silent after the echoes continued on for a long time.
Derrick was wondering what had happened to the Beyonder in the neighboring cell when someone knocked on the metal wall on the other side.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
It was as if someone had bent their finger and was tapping lightly.
“Who is it?” Derrick asked, raising his voice in slight alarm.
The knocking immediately stopped, and after a few seconds, a deep yet rather old voice was faintly transmitted.
“So it turns out to be a young fellow.”
“You are?” Seeing that the other person could communicate rationally, Derrick leaned against the wall and pressed his ear against the cold metal.
The elderly voice chuckled and said, “The person next to you almost lost control several times. He ultimately couldn’t be saved today.”
He completely lost control? Derrick asked through the metal wall, “So he’s become a monster now?”
“No, not a monster, but a corpse. He was finished off by the item sealed in here.” The elderly voice sighed. “I’ve been here for forty-two years. Yes, those guards told me that they’ve seen too many similar incidents.”
Derrick was surprised and returned with a question, “You’ve been here for forty-two years?”
Normally speaking, losing control could be divided into three stages. The first stage was warning signs, such as auditory and visual hallucinations. In the second stage, the person’s body and mind were already out of control, and from time to time, they would display either terrifying or strange states. As for the third stage, it was a complete breakdown, transforming the Rampager into a terrifying monster.
The time it took from the second stage to the third stage was rather quick. Perhaps just after discovering the symptoms, one would witness a seemingly ordinary Beyonder turn into a monster which could be found deep in the darkness.
In other words, after a second-stage Beyonder was sent to the bottom of the spire, they would either be treated with medicine, rituals, and other methods, slowly stabilizing themselves and allowing them to leave within eighteen months. Otherwise, they would quickly lose control and be purged. It was impossible for anyone to be locked up for forty-two years.
As a first-stage Beyonder, they would only take between a few days to less than twenty days to eliminate all the symptoms and leave, fully treated.
The elderly voice immediately chuckled and said, “That’s right, I also didn’t expect that I would stay here for forty-two years.
“I don’t have any signs of losing control, but they believe I’m rather dangerous and can turn into a monster at any time.”
Derrick frowned slightly and asked curiously, “What happened forty-two years ago?”
At that time, neither of his parents had been born yet.
The elderly voice was silent for a moment before saying, “I was once the captain of an exploration team.
“We found a destroyed city about half a month away from the City of Silver. Heh, this was calculated based on our speed.
“That city was similar to our City of Silver. It clearly has traces of it being ruled by giants, and it also believed in the Lord that created everything, the omnipotent and omniscient God.
“Unfortunately, they were destroyed; destroyed countless years ago.”
Derrick wasn’t a stranger to such matters. He immediately guessed, “Because you encountered some strange incidents there, you were determined to be at risk of losing control?”
“More or less.” The elderly voice chuckled. “After we explored the core area, we discovered that the city was attempting to change faiths. They created deities that they imagined would save them. However, it was useless; even the statues of those deities were destroyed and spilled all across the land.”
At this point, his tone suddenly became heavy.
“However, we met a person there.
“This is the first time in the past 2000 years that our City of Silver had met someone who didn’t belong to our city!
“Outside City of Silver, in the depths of the endless darkness, there really was someone still alive!”
Derrick subconsciously asked, “You brought him back to the City of Silver?”
The elderly voice said after two seconds, “Don’t you feel shocked?
“The reason why our City of Silver works so hard to explore the surroundings is to find humans like us. We finally found them 42 years ago!”
This is indeed rather shocking news, but I often see Miss Justice, Mr. Hanged Man, and the others. I often hear of the Loen Kingdom and the seven orthodox gods. Isn’t it very obvious that there are people outside the City of Silver, with cities and countries? Derrick scratched his head, and without much experience, he pretended to be shocked.
“I-I didn’t notice this point.
“This is truly unbelievable. Other than the residents of the City of Silver, there are actually other people!”
“…” The elderly voice remained silent for a while before saying, “Has the City of Silver’s education become so terrible?”
Without waiting for Derrick to speak, he sighed and said to himself, “We very warily invited that person to the City of Silver as a guest. After some consideration, he agreed.
“We monitored and escorted him along the way back, but when we had almost arrived at the City of Silver, he suddenly disappeared…
“We searched everywhere, but we couldn’t find him. After we returned to the City of Silver, my team members went crazy, one by one. They lost control. All of them! Not a single one was spared!
“The six-member council suspected that we were contaminated by something and that the person was not a human at all, but an evil spirit, a monster. So, they locked me up here, and every so often, they would come over to confirm my condition, but they would never tell me what the problem is, nor would they let me out.”
Derrick exhaled heavily and asked, “Do you remember what that man looked like?”
“… He looked very ordinary, and nothing about him stood out. He was dressed just like us, and except for me remembering that he was a man, I can’t remember what he looked like… However, the elders should be able to use Beyonder means to directly see him from my vague, forgotten memories,” the elderly voice recalled for a nearly a minute and said with a bit of pain.
Derrick pressed him, casually, “Did he say what his name was? Did he tell you about his origins?”
The elderly voice acknowledged tersely.
“He told us that his name was…”
He paused for a moment before saying, “Amon.”
…
Sunday morning, in the factory district.
In the past two days, Klein and Mike “visited” many places in East Borough under old Kohler’s guidance.
As a result, Mike witnessed five or six people huddled together in a single room, and that wasn’t the worst case he saw.
In the poorest areas of East Borough, an ordinary bedroom could accommodate ten people. The precise division of the right to use the floor and the time of use—day or night—shocked the reporter.
Moreover, poverty didn’t discriminate between men and women. In those places, people of different genders squeezed in tight spaces without being able to abide by societal norms. Certain incidents which deserved time in court happened all the time. Whether it was men or women, all of them were always facing the threat of violence.
“… Squalid, crowded, smelly—that’s the most objective impression. I suspect that every one of them has a serious problem of having parasites… Because the houses were built a long time ago in the most rundown districts, they aren’t connected to the sewers. Feces, urine, vomit and other things can be found everywhere. Every house here only has one public bathroom, or worse, every street only has one public toilet…
“They’re extremely busy every day, but they can only barely fill their stomachs without any savings. As long as they’re unemployed for a few days, they’ll fall into an irredeemable abyss… I don’t think they would even be afraid of death if they were given even a little hope… ” Mike wrote in his investigation manuscript.
In addition, the reporter was impressed by the tramps who wandered the streets in the middle of the night, the girls who stood numbly by the street or in the bars, as well as the drinkers who completely let loose with their drinking. They didn’t hold back on using violence and didn’t consider the future. All of this left a deep impression on this reporter.
He grew more and more silent.
