I grabbed Revan's wrist.
“Brother Revan, what are you doing now?”
“I believe in you, brother!”
“Brother Revan, what are you doing now?”
“I believe in you, brother!”
“Hahaha! What a great friendship!”
“No, wait! Over there!”
The host shook me off and left without a word.
I held my head in shock.
“What the hell are you doing?! Whose dog's name is 100 Gold?!”
Back in the days of Princess Wassenberg, it might have been the name of our dog, but not anymore. Now, I'm the daughter of a poor, unmarried father, and every penny counts!
"Barney, calm down. Believe me! My brother will win no matter what!"
“No, brother...”
I was confused. I couldn't believe Revan or not.
There's no way a smart Revan would do something so stupid...
At that time, the champion 'Pantera' appeared.
Tall, slender physique. Relaxed gaze.
It looks like he will have a clear technical advantage over Ryan, even though he is not that far behind in weight class.
“Should I withdraw the money now?”
“Bunny.”
A giggling Revan came up behind me, grabbed my shoulder, and then, bending his head, whispered very quietly in my ear.
“When you meet him, does your father seem stupid and naive? Like he’s just relying on his supernatural powers to get away with it?”
"... Yes?"
“The bread we used to live in... That place isn’t an ordinary prison. ‘Abyss’ is, you know, a place where people of that kind, in their right mind, would never survive.”
The whispering voice of Revan was somehow creepy and scary.
“To have survived among those beasts means that it was not an ordinary human mentality.”
He just raised his finger and pointed at Ryan.
“That human. Ryan was called 'King' in that cage of mad beasts.”
“...”
I looked at Ryan quietly.
He was stretching his body by shaking his shoulders, and shouted at the host.
"Wolf! You didn't forget our promise, did you? I said I'd save the miner if I won!"
"Of course, Ryan! Wouldn't I be able to do something like that for the new champion of our fight show?"
“Wow!”
“Beat it, Ryan!”
I could tell it was a deliberate conversation. They wanted to get the con artist to confirm his statement in front of the audience so they wouldn't be able to say anything else.
“Brother, you were above that conman from the beginning.”
“...”
"I would do anything to survive. Even if it meant risking my own shame and learning from beasts."
Revan continued to whisper with a smiling voice.
“That host learned manners and etiquette from the empire’s greatest conman, who couldn’t even hand out a business card.”
“The finals begin!”
The host shouted.
“...I inherited all of his skills from the continent’s best assassin.”
The moment Revan finished speaking,
Pantera rushed at Ryan.
***
Abyss, a special criminal detention center.
A cage for beasts wearing iron helmets.
No human being enters Abyss for mere criminal activity. All the inmates are beasts who have committed unspeakable crimes.
No rehabilitation is possible. The last of humanity.
Even inside the camp, they were uncontrolled. It was hell.
The most frequent disturbance, by far, is violence. Even though Revan is a small, skinny eleven-year-old, they don't take that into account. If they had such humanitarian notions, they wouldn't have come to Abyss.
“What is this little bastard?”
“Cute. Does it have dick on it?”
A tall man, for a long time. A frightening size. A face full of scars. A vulgar way of speaking...
When Revan decided that resistance was futile.
“Hey, you all get out.”
Ryan appeared.
“What is that guy?”
“Hey, hey. That’s it, that’s it.”
The group that was about to start a fight quickly disappeared.
Ryan was a predator even within this beast cage. He was a "power user" who had slaughtered countless people before entering here.
"Yeah, you get out of here, you devil bastard. I don't appreciate any of this."
“...”
Ryan followed him around and helped him every time, but Revan found that behavior, born of that petty guilt, utterly distasteful.
“Fuck! What else can I do but die!”
“Just tame it!”
Unable to stand Ryan, who always blocks Revan's path and acts arrogantly, a group eventually explodes.
‘Damn, you wanna take on a psychic? You wanna get your ass kicked?’
But it was Ryan who got fucked over.
Everyone was shocked to see Ryan, beaten so badly he was coughing up blood. Even his fans were dumbfounded and disappeared.
Revan first spoke to Ryan, who was lying on the ground and coughing up blood.
“...What are you doing? Why don’t you just burn their heads off?”
“...”
For some reason, Ryan was speechless.
From that day on, rumors spread.
Why would the son of the great Duke Wassenberg come here in the first place? He was deeply disliked by his father, the Duke.
Since he caused a commotion by using this ability carelessly, the camp probably told him to live quietly and come out.
They threatened to excommunicate him if he tarnished his family name any further, and that bastard is scared that he'll be kicked out of the house right now, etc.
Ryan had been beaten up several times since then, trying to attack with his bare hands, and the rumors had finally settled into one certainty.
'Ryan Wassenberg never uses his powers.'
That day, too, Ryan was happily beaten up and passed out in place of Revan.
“Hey, I don’t appreciate it at all, so stop. Your father said he’d punish you if you tried too hard...”
A mass murderer? No, a person with this ability who doesn't use this ability is just a twelve-year-old boy.
“Don’t worry about me and just get out of here. You’re on your own.”
"Haha."
Ryan laughed at the words that seemed to express concern for him.
And said.
“Hey. If I said it wasn’t me who killed those people that day, would you believe me?”
“What the hell are you talking about...”
“It’s not that I don’t use my powers, it’s that I can’t use them. I’m incompetent.”
...They hung out together after that day.
They ate together, washed together, and got hit together again.
“Young Master, why are you walking around like this?”
One day, during a meal, a man with a hideous scar over his eye approached Ryan and pretended to know him.
He was already famous in Abyss.
The best killer on the continent.
The Dog of Wassenberg.
Nox Sirach, the one who committed the most 'murders' in the history of the Empire.
Even within the beast cages, there were predators, and Knox was the top beast.
Knox was always alone in this place where most people moved in groups, but no one bothered him.
What happens if you touch it?
“Get out. I don’t talk to trash.”
But Ryan was undeniably fearless, even against the formidable Knox.
They said that kid was a devil.
A guy who has been taking care of all the dirty work of Wassenberg since his youth.
Just as a hunting dog that has grown old and finished hunting is boiled in a pot, in the end, he is imprisoned in Abyss, taking the blame for the great sins of his family.
He said that it was most fitting for him to end his life here.
"Oh, Master. I told you not to do that. If you make big arm movements, your opponent will immediately see through them."
“Yes, you piece of trash.”
After a few days, Knox and Ryan formed a temporary alliance.
No one knows what deal was made between them, but Knox served as a shield for the boys inside Abyssus.
And taught Ryan.
How to build stamina, how to build a body, how to fight, how to take on multiple opponents, and even his secret weapon... a dangerous and sure-fire killing technique.
Ryan grew up very quickly.
He grew so much that he could overwhelm his opponents with just his height and size.
And exactly sixteen.
The day he became an adult.
A person with this ability who had never used this ability even once brought all of Abyss's hordes to their knees with pure force alone.
It was the day the king of beasts was born.
"Hehe. Congratulations, Young Master. Now I guess I won't be able to do it either."
The day after, he told Ryan that he had nothing more to teach him.
Knox took his own life.
Revan was shocked.
He was a devil who had committed an unforgivable sin, but at the same time, he was also the one who protected two innocent boys so that they could grow up safely in a cage.
But Ryan looked at the corpse of his teacher, who had left without even saying goodbye, and spoke with a sad look.
“A final battle fit for the devil.”
And he added, patting the shocked Revan on the shoulder.
“Do not mourn the deaths of those who deserve to die.”
The first thing Ryan did when he swore revenge was to suppress his useless emotions.
He vowed that he would one day kill his own bloodline with his own hands, and he pickled himself countless times so that he would not become dull when that day came.
Revan thought as he watched Ryan snoring and sleeping soundly on the day his master died.
He's a crazy guy with a mind of his own that's almost disgusting. You have to be like that to survive here...
***
Panthera rushed in.
Ryan didn't move at all.
They briefly brushed past, 3 seconds... no, 2 seconds?
Thud.
Panthera fell to the floor.
With a final scream of “Ugh,” he rolled his eyes and convulsed.
Incapable of combat.
The noisy surroundings became quiet as if cold water had been poured over them.
No one could really see what happened in the split second, but the game was over, and there was a winner.
Ryan looks back at me and smirks in the silent crowd.
I looked at him and felt fear.
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