"Move those hands. We're nowhere near the monthly quota."
I fed a strip of fabric under the sewing machine and swept a glance around the room.
Guards moved between the workstations with suppression batons, eyes tracking everything.
Day six inside.
As expected — no other Blue Serpent members in Wing One.
Most syndicate soldiers are mana users. Anyone affiliated would've been sorted into Wing Two.
Which meant I had no faction to lean on. No one watching my back.
Igor had offered protection in exchange for eighty percent of every future paycheck — a deal that was, in practice, a slavery contract. What he actually wanted was to parade me around as a trophy. A fallen officer under his thumb.
I hadn't bent.
So the beatings kept coming.
Most were opportunists — inmates catching the mood or satisfying their curiosity. Occasionally someone showed up to settle a personal score with Cain from the outside.
I didn't just absorb it.
Every time, I made sure at least one of them walked away with a caved-in nose or their lunch on the floor.
The infirmary became a regular destination. Every other day, more or less.
"Should I make you a loyalty card? Stamp it every visit."
Estel had clearly seen her share of inmates beaten half to pieces. She delivered her flat jokes with the same drowsy smile either way, like she was commenting on the weather.
"Or I could put in a word upstairs. Say I need a medical assistant. At least during labor hours, no one would touch you."
She must have read something in my expression — the unspoken why are you helping me — because she answered it without being asked.
"I don't know. You just don't seem like a bad person. Might sound ridiculous, but I'm good at reading people."
It didn't sound ridiculous at all.
She genuinely had the [Eye of Truth] trait — the ability to distinguish good from evil, and lies from honesty.
It was exactly why I chose my words carefully around her.
"...I'm fine. You don't need to do anything."
"What? You actually enjoy getting beaten up? Is that some kind of——"
"..."
I'd made a mistake with her character design. I was increasingly certain of that.
Either way, I declined her offer.
The labor post I wanted was somewhere else entirely.
The mines.
Labor assignments were divided between two options: factory or mines. Which one was harder wasn't worth debating. The mines were where they sent you when your demerit points piled up.
And the mines have zirconium.
A primary material in magical engineering.
Swallow it, and the hardened mana channels in your body activate.
More accurately — they rupture. Within twenty-four hours of ingestion.
Then the channels burst, and you die.
Unless you can control the rupture.
"Future research will almost certainly unlock new applications for zirconium."
A throwaway line from the novel's early chapters. A thread I'd planned for the protagonist to pull later.
The protagonist develops a method for regulating the channels.
It's one of the reasons he eventually raids this prison — to secure a supply of the material for training mages.
And I knew the method. I'd written it.
The author's knowledge. Cain's innate talent.
Together, the odds of successfully building a mana circuit approached certainty.
How to get the zirconium——
I ran through the options.
The mines were restricted — only laborers and assigned guards went in. Full-body showers and bag checks on the way in and out. Asking someone to smuggle out a fragment wasn't viable.
Not that I have anyone to ask. Every direction is hostile.
Estel? Not through her either. [Eye of Truth] would read my intentions the moment I opened my mouth.
Building rapport with the guards wasn't possible — not with my current restrictions.
One conclusion remained.
Go down myself. Swallow it on-site.
And a reliable path down already existed.
Drrr-rr-rr-rr—
Beneath the clatter of stitching machines, the inmates at the next station muttered between themselves.
"You've done a lot. Can't you spare me a few? I'm way short on my quota this week."
"Shut up. Stop talking to me. One more warning and I get bumped to the mines."
Igor's men from another room. They snapped their heads down the moment a guard's eyes passed over them — then, when the gaze moved on, one head crept back up.
A weasel face. Rottun.
The one who'd upended a food tray over my head in the canteen. The one who kept finding small ways to start something. The one who'd gone hardest with his boots during the beatings.
His eyes found my basket — the completed garments stacked up from working with one good hand.
His hand began drifting toward it.
"Hey, new blood. Pretty good output for someone working one-handed."
Good timing. I'd been planning to set something off anyway.
Thud.
I caught his wrist.
Before he could react, I pulled — and fed his hand under the sewing machine.
Drrr-rr-rr-rr—!
The needle drove into the back of his hand.
The output was already set to maximum.
"AAAAAAGH!"
By regulation, injuring a fellow inmate was fifteen demerit points.
I pinned his arm down with my shoulder and locked the joint in one motion. Every attempt to pull free would only add to the pain.
Beep — BEEP—
"What is this?!"
Guards came running, whistles shrieking — I ignored them completely.
"You crazy—!"
Inmates grabbed at me, trying to drag me off. I held on with everything I had.
"How dare you cause this in my facility— stand down, now!"
Gerek.
Failure to comply with a direct order: five demerit points.
I leaned close to Rottun's ear.
"Does it hurt?"
"Ghk — ghkk——"
He nodded like a man possessed.
His trousers had already darkened with urine.
...Not letting go yet.
Choosing this method means Igor's crew will come at me harder. Better to make the example clear enough that the smaller ones think twice before moving at all.
Besides — the demerit count wasn't quite there yet.
"Wha — h-hey——"
I bit down on Rottun's earlobe.
And wrenched my head sideways with everything I had.
"AAAAAAGH!"
The ear tore. Blood sprayed across the air.
The guards reached me in the same instant.
Crack—
The shock baton connected, and I went down.
"Ghk — kkh — kkh—"
Through a tilting field of vision, I watched Rottun being half-carried toward the infirmary. A trail of red followed him across the floor.
"Creating this kind of scene on your sixth day inside."
Gerek's face had gone deep red, his jowls trembling with poorly contained fury.
"Insubordination. Indoor violence. Assault on a fellow laborer. Destruction of equipment. Your work assignment changes to the mines starting tomorrow. Let's see how long you last down there with those arms and legs."
His tone stayed measured. His face said something else — the indignity of it all happening on his watch, in his workshop.
Igor stepped forward.
"Officer Gerek. Allow me to handle his discipline personally."
Slap.
Igor's head turned.
"Don't mistake my leniency toward the floor captains as a favor. I extend it so situations like this don't happen. Do your job."
"...Understood."
* * *
Slap.
Igor's palm landed across my cheek.
I hadn't bothered to dodge.
Both arms were pinned by his men anyway — and honestly, after enough repetitions, the pain had dulled into something almost familiar.
"Do you know why no one goes too far when they beat you? Me included?"
I did. It was also the reason I could move the way I had been.
"Demerit points. Enough of them and you go to solitary. In serious cases, more time gets added to your sentence."
"You know that, and still.... Thought you had nerve. Turns out you're just stupid."
This prison existed to maintain a labor supply — that was the point of it. If genuine rehabilitation had been the goal, men like these would have been executed long ago.
Kill another prisoner. Inflict injuries severe enough to remove someone from the labor pool. Do either of those things and even a bribed guard couldn't keep the consequences away.
Violence has limits here. Even for someone like Igor.
Especially for someone like Igor. He had too much to lose to throw it away.
I watched the next punch come and braced my core.
Thud.
"...!"
More followed.
I clenched my jaw and held.
This is the ceiling of what they'll do.
They could beat me however hard they liked. They couldn't actually kill me. Fractures, bruising, cuts — the infirmary could handle all of it. A few days of stiffness, then back to baseline.
"You don't know what solitary does to a person. One more infraction and you go straight in — and whatever spine you have left will be good and broken by the time you come out."
"Looking forward to it."
His men watched me hold a calm conversation while taking punches to the stomach. The expressions on their faces were somewhere between disturbed and exhausted.
Solitary.
No light. No sound. Less than three square meters of sealed space. Barely room to stretch out fully. One meal a day — watery soup and a single piece of bread.
Most people don't make it.
The isolation, the dark, the hunger — they break something that doesn't go back together. People come out genuinely, clinically mad.
[Indomitable Will]
Type: Quest — Passive
Effect: Fighting spirit cannot be broken. Full immunity to all mental interference.
Not a concern of mine.
* * *
Clang — clang — clang—
Helmeted, masked inmates moved through the mine in every direction.
"Faster! Move!"
The work environment was dangerous, so the mine ran more guards than the surface.
Rumble—
I heaved the cart handle up with one hand and tipped it. A load of thoronium crashed into the collection vehicle's bed.
— Why'd they send the cripple down here? He can't even swing a pick.
— Shut up, he might hear you. This is the guy who wrecked Rottun's hand and bit his ear off. Don't poke it.
The whisperers caught my eye and looked away fast.
"Koff."
The dust was thick enough to taste. A few months of this and the lungs would be gone.
...Need to get reassigned eventually.
Fortunately, mapping the mine didn't take long. The zirconium extraction zone, the cart routes, the patrol patterns — all of it was already in my head.
"No wandering. Keep moving."
"Understood."
I turned the cart back toward the inner workstations.
At a four-way junction I stopped, let go of the handle, and pressed a fist into the small of my back.
Rattle — rattle—
"Hey — you. Who told you to stop?"
A guard's voice came down immediately.
I ignored it and stared down one of the passages.
Rattle — rattle—
"Are you deaf?"
Still nothing.
The sound of approaching wheels, growing louder from somewhere inside.
"Prisoner 776 — respond!"
The guard's face tightened as he started toward me.
At the same moment, the nose of a cart appeared at the end of the passage. Rough-hewn chunks of violet ore stacked on top of each other.
Zirconium ingested — mana channels rupture within twenty-four hours at the latest. Bringing them under control takes time. Significant time.
I need a space where no one can interrupt the process.
The demerit count was already where it needed to be.
One specific action here, and I'd hit the exact threshold for the minimum solitary sentence.
Crack—
I let go of my cart and broke into a run toward the one in the passage.
BEEP—
The whistle cut through everything. Every head turned.
"Situation developing — requesting backup at passage A-08. You lot — get him!"
The guard called it in, then pointed at the nearest inmates.
"Five bonus points to whoever brings him down!"
The hesitation evaporated. Inmates dropped their picks and carts and came after me, eyes lit up.
My damaged legs couldn't carry me properly — the gap closed fast.
"Five points — I can move up!"
"Back off, he's mine!"
By a margin of less than a second, I reached the cart first.
"What the — what are you—"
Crash.
The inmate gripping the handles had frozen in confusion. I hit him at full stride and sent him sprawling, then caught my balance and started digging through the zirconium.
Small. About the size of a pebble.
Anything larger and the channel rupture would be more than I could manage.
A fast scan. Two suitable fragments — I closed my mouth around them.
"What is wrong with you, same stunt twice?!"
"Oi — he's got something in his mouth!"
I curled tight against the floor, spine up, and took the boots and fists across my back.
"Don't swallow that, you'll die! Your body will tear itself apart!"
"Idiot — someone dies in our workstation, we all take the heat for it!"
Gulp.
One fragment down.
From above, nothing to see.
That should be enough of a show.
I couldn't have held out much longer regardless — the numbers were too far against me.
My body got flipped over.
Hands descended on my face, prying, probing — checking my mouth.
I waited the right amount of time, then let my jaw go slack as if the strength had finally run out.
Dust-caked fingers reached in and pulled out the one remaining fragment, slick with saliva.
"The points are mine!"
"Like hell — I'm the one who knocked him over!"
Good. Exactly what I wanted.
With any luck, the story settling around this would be: tried to swallow zirconium and kill himself. Failed.
I lay on my back, looking up at guards and inmates staring down at me with expressions ranging from baffled to disgusted, and the black ceiling of the mine beyond them.
I smiled.
One of the inmates said, in a completely hollowed-out voice:
"Officer. He's smiling."