Chapter 4
“…Am I really going to die like this? Just as I’m starting to live my life, am I going to give up so easily?”
My inner desperation escaped into my voice without me realizing it. But no matter what I said, the corridor remained silent, with no one to answer.
I wanted to live. There was no particular reason. If I had to find one, it was that my mom and dad had died in a car accident.
They must have been in great pain and sorrow when they died. At least I hoped I wouldn’t die painfully.
The pale fingers resting on my knee slowly curled and clenched into a fist. They were so small I wondered how anyone could be matched by such hands.
But it was okay.
The character Lemonie had a slender frame compared to the average woman, but she felt no pain. This trait, combined with a personality bordering on psychopathy and a habit of courting death, hadn’t been good for her character—but it was not so bad for survival.
At least I wouldn’t hurt.
Alright. I’ll get up.
After a long while, I finally stood and drew the sword tucked at my waist. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough, but it seemed better than just sitting down hopelessly. I decided to head downstairs.
I carefully descended the stone steps, but with each step, the damp dust crushed beneath my soles made an unpleasant squelching noise. I made my way down to the sixth floor, but the scene was unchanged.
A windowless corridor as deep and dark as an abyss, intermittently lit by flickering torches. Most prisoners locked in Building B were beast-type monsters. Probably due to their keen senses and physical prowess, windows weren’t installed to prevent escapes.
The corridor was clean. No use to escape, aside from useless dust piles and spiders crawling along the ceiling.
Still, just to be safe, I turned my head to carefully scan the corridor—and then a massive roar thundered through, shaking the entire corridor. My whole body trembled. It felt like even my brain was rattled. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and my heart screamed wildly.
I forced myself to ignore my pale face and gripped the dagger with both hands. Another faint roar echoed from the opposite hallway.
The roar repeated steadily for some time. Something was wrong. I realized it was footsteps only after a shadowy figure suddenly appeared.
“Lemonie senior! Please save me!”
A man in a prison guard uniform. He was running wildly, so fast his arms and legs were a blur, and dozens of legs crawled on the ceiling above him, reflecting torchlight.
Up close, it was a gigantic centipede.
Thirty pairs of black legs bristling with spines moved like snakes. Its glossy black tail, seemingly too heavy for the wall to hold, thudded against the floor with heavy “thump, thump” sounds.
This horrifying yet strange monster paused briefly when it saw me.
It felt like our eyes met.
Its pupils, almost devoid of whites, gleamed in the firelight. Hanging upside down like a bat, it hovered down onto the floor, chasing us as if ready to pounce.
It seemed more aggressive, as if doubling its prey.
Unfortunately, my lack of sensation did not correlate with my fear.
Somehow, I ended up running away with the guard, clenching my teeth until my lower lip bled.
“Lemonie officer! Senior!”
I was running so hard my lungs felt about to burst when a desperate scream came from behind.
“Se-Senior!”
The guard was sobbing and limping. He clearly had no strength left in his legs.
Usually, in movies, the person who helps a wounded person dies first.
“…Run faster.”
My useless conscience. For half a second, I thought about abandoning him and running, but seeing his tears, I softened and urgently grabbed his wrist.
The monster following us was a centipede-like creature. I thought I’d read about it in a novel once.
“Is that a level 3 monster prisoner?”
I asked, just in case. The man who struggled to keep up nodded.
“Yeah, yes…”
My guess was right.
His name was Senafi, a level 3 designated prisoner who had accidentally succeeded in escaping by crawling on the ceiling. At the start of the story, Deon had killed two extras — they were me and Senafi. According to the novel, the description said something like “an iron-like leg to the centipede’s pupil.”
Then, maybe the monster’s weak point was its eyes.
“You have a dagger too, right? We need to stab both its eyes with the daggers.”
The man recoiled at my words.
“If I could have done that, would I have run away? By the way, Lemonie senior, did you put the demon restraining device on the level 1 prisoner?”
The man had no intention to fight. A guard like that—was that even allowed? I glanced helplessly around, and suddenly a long, thin antenna touched the heel of my boot. The giant centipede’s feeler.
Goosebumps ran over my entire body.
“If you can’t, then just run!”
“Senpai! Whether it’s the level 1 prisoner or Senafi, you have to take care of everything!”
Judging by his height similar to Deon’s, he seemed bulky, but he appeared more scared than me.
“Hey, don’t cling to me!”
“Senpai, why are you suddenly so polite and acting weird?”
He dragged out the last word, then grabbed my shoulder and clung to me. He seemed to think that since I was higher rank, I was someone to lean on.
That’s where the trouble began. During the struggle, I stumbled and misstepped on his leg. With a sharp scream, my vision plunged to the floor. When I looked up, the man had already fled far away.
“Lemonie, se-senpai! Hold on somehow! I’ll go get someone to help!”
“Hmph.”
I was dumbfounded, but there was no time to complain.
“…We have to aim for Senafi’s eyes…”
I raised the dagger with trembling hands, but suddenly a chill ran down my spine.
“…?”
A drop of moisture fell on top of my head. Touching it, something sticky stretched like cheese and dripped between my fingers.
What was that?
…Maybe saliva?
Suddenly, the loud roar struck my ears again. Fear engulfed me. When I came to my senses, a huge shadow covered the floor beneath my hands and knees.
No way.
…No way.
[Emergency detected. Guards and all staff, please calm the prisoners and stay in position. Emergency detected…]
In the stillness, the alarm bell rang again.
It was a monster. Realizing the giant centipede was right behind me, tears rolled down my cheeks from pure instinctive fear. But I had to live. How had I survived this long? It would be such a waste to die just because of a monster.
“The eyes, we have to attack the eyes…”
Ignoring my trembling teeth, I looked up, and the black pupil without whites filled my vision.
“Gyaaaah!”
I thrust the dagger into the monster’s open mouth. Whether I pierced its throat properly or not, I heard a painful groan from across the hall. But there was no time.
The monster’s crocodile-like jaw muscles were crushing the dagger.
“Ah…”
I suddenly felt foolish for trying to go downstairs armed with just one dagger.
There was no chance.
If I was going to die from one monster like this, what was I thinking trying to run down to the first floor? Was I about to die just like that?
A hot sensation welled up in my eyes. Was it resentment? Or fear?
Or was it because I was a weed-born with such weak vitality that I was frustrated at myself?
“Gyaaaah!”
The roar echoed again, and I burst into tears. But I had to live. Blood sprayed from the strike, causing me to close one eye. I barely pulled the dagger out and tried to stab again.
Suddenly, something fast and huge crashed onto both the monster and me. I fell backward, dizzy. Then I heard a strange sound of air rushing out, and a heavy weight collapsed beside me.
Sharp fangs were sunk into the monster’s eye.
The monster, its eye pierced, was thrashing about like a hunted herbivore before being tossed aside.
It was a black panther.
I couldn’t take in the full intimidating presence and weight all at once. But just the sight of its blood-red glowing eyes in the darkness told me it was Deon.
The moment our eyes met, I felt overwhelming thrill and fear simultaneously. I realized I had trespassed somewhere I should never have.
The black shadow illuminated by the torch stepped closer to me. I instinctively curled my shoulders and gripped the whistle.
“Thanks for helping.”
Deon stopped his steps. But with a narrowed gaze, as if sensing my mistake, he tightened his grip on me and resumed walking.
He hadn’t come to help me. He was annoyed at almost losing his prey to some Senafi.
I had to run. I had to move my legs and do something.
But since our eyes met, my whole body froze. Like a deer caught in a trap.
“Don’t come closer.”
Calm down.
Only then did I realize I was holding the whistle.
“Stop right now, Deon.”
I raised my trembling hand and blew the whistle. A piercing, woman-like scream echoed through the corridor.
The beast’s eyes widened as if about to devour me. The intense red afterimage stiffened my neck, casting an invisible spell that immobilized me.
“By the way, Lemonie senior. Did you put the demon restraining device on the level 1 prisoner?”
But they say adrenaline pumps through your body when you feel the threat of death.
That was me right now.
When my eyes met the divine beast, the man’s words flashed rapidly through my mind. That’s it. I searched my jacket, feeling something cold and metallic in my back pocket.
A large shackle made to fit a black panther’s front paw. The demon restraining device.
In “Chains on My Hands,” a 19+ romance, devices are placed around the prison to enable intimacy. The shackles are props to enhance Deon’s appeal as a prisoner. That was probably the original author’s intention.
But to survive, I had to put that shackle on the black panther. When I put it on his front paw, the hole shrank down to the size of Deon’s human wrist.
The demon restraining device blocked the prisoner’s magic energy. So Deon could no longer transform into the black panther.
Human Deon was still scary, but better than the beast.
“…Deon, think of it as a necklace. I’ll put it on. Sorry.”
I wasn’t the one who should be apologizing, but faced with his burning, sharp gaze, the apology slipped out before I knew it.
