Death God of the Drifting Moon

Chapter 3:

Manhwa: Chapter 2

Pyo-wol hurriedly brought the plate to his face.

An unidentified scent stimulated his sense of smell. He didn't know what kind of food it was.

It became clear that the mix of things was probably a collection of leftovers.

Still, it will taste better than the moss Pyo-wol had scraped off. In fact, right after smelling the food, Pyo-wol's mouth was constantly drooling.

However, Pyo-wol didn't trust the food.

It was food given to him by the man who imprisoned him here.

He couldn't tell the contents inside the dish.

If it contains poison, then he may die.

He had no choice when it came to eating moss.

However, the situation is different now.

You can choose whether to eat the food on the plate or eat moss. After all, there was still a lot of moss. So even if he doesn't eat this food now, he can still survive for a while.

That thought didn't stop the edges of his mouth from watering. Still, he had time to deliberate on this.

He had to get information about the food.

The means of obtaining information in the dark, where not a single light enters, were extremely limited.

Since he couldn't use his vision, which is the most convenient way of obtaining information, it is necessary to mobilize the next developed sense, which is his sense of smell.

— That!

Pyo-wol took a deep breath, almost burying his nose in his plate.

Lots of smells mixed together.

It was as if the trash had been collected in one place, and the various smells were mixed together. Some were stinky, others still smelled edible.

If it was the old days, he wouldn't be able to distinguish the mixed smells. Before being imprisoned here, Pyo-Wol was just an ordinary boy. He was just a kid with no talent to stand out.

However, while he was trapped here, a great change occurred within him.

He became cautious and doubted everything.

Even if it was a small thing.

Being trapped in an underground space without a single point of light for a long time made Pyo-wol's sense of smell as sensitive as a hound.

Pyo-wol soon distinguished the odors that could never be distinguished one by one. He wouldn't have been able to do this before if he was still living on the outside.

Pyo-wol compared the odors he distinguished with those that remained in his memory.

"This smells like rotten fish and tea leaves. That's pork bones and the rest of the trimmings."

The types of food on the small plate were incredibly diverse.

It was incredible that Pyo-wol himself could distinguish all these smells.

There was no poison mixed.

It was all the food residue that someone had left behind.

To some it may just be rotten food, but to him it was a valuable resource that provided a lot of information.

There were more than five types of food that Pyo-wol was able to identify.

This meant that there were enough people to eat at least five types of food.

"As I thought, I'm not the only one."

He didn't think anyone would have made a three by three meter square space underground by themselves. To prepare such a space, considerable funds and manpower were required.

It meant that it was not a space that could be created by one individual's depravity or obsession.

If there were five types of food, there was a high probability that five or more people would eat it. Furthermore, the different degrees of spoilage in each food meant that the time in which they were eaten was different. This meant that several people ate at a time. The amount offered was too much for one or two people to eat.

Above all, each food contained the scent of a different person.

There were only five distinct smells that Pyo-Wol knew.

It was clear that more than five people had been imprisoned here for some purpose.

"No, I can't be the only one."

Pyo-wol thought that there would be others who were arrested besides himself.

Using this space to confine just one person is very expensive and inefficient.

Pyo-wol organized his thoughts.

"The number of people running this place is at least five, and the number of people in the same situation as me must be even higher."

Thoughts flowed in one direction.

"Those who arrested us would have made this place for some purpose. The problem is, what could its purpose be?"

He still could not guess the purpose of those who locked him here.

That's because the information was too sparse to infer from just one unidentified food mixed in with food waste.

Pyo-wol wasn't worried.

There was plenty of time for him.

After all, there was nothing else to do here.

The best thing I could do to pass time was think.

If he continues to think, and think without stopping, one day he will be able to come across the truth.

Fortunately, there was no odor that could be poison in the unidentified food.

Pyo-wol carefully began to eat his food.

This was also a gamble.

Nutrients other than moss were needed to restore muscular endurance and strength.

Even if it is a mixture of rubbish.

After organizing all his thoughts, Pyo-wol began to eat the unidentified food on the plate with his hands.

Furuk! Slurp!

The sound of him eating echoed in the darkness.

The food tasted terrible, but it was still more edible than moss.

* * *

Food was given at the same time, once a day.

The time wasn't really accurate. It was just Pyo-wol guessing with his sense.

The amount given is such that a person can barely survive for a day.

The food also tasted different every day.

This is because different types of food are mixed together every day. However, there were foods and spices that were always present.

It was pork giblets and spicy seasonings.

Whatever food was mixed, these two were always included.

This meant that it was easy for the folks here to obtain pork and spicy seasonings.

"A place rich in pork and spicy seasonings."

There are few places like this in the world.

Pyo-wol has been wandering the world alone since childhood. Thanks to this, compared to his peers, he had much more information.

One of them was Sichuan province.

There was a large watershed within an enclosed plot of land.

For this reason, it was particularly famous for raising large numbers of grass-eating wild animals, particularly pigs and sheep. And the unbearable cold continued in the summer due to the nature of the basin confined to the high mountain range, and people looked for spicy food to beat the cold.

Spicy food using pork and lamb is known as a symbol of Sichuan province.

Pyo-wol thought this was somewhere in Sichuan.

He didn't know the exact name of the place, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be a place far from Sichuan.

"Sichuan Castle is famous for its unique isolation."

The word "isolated" also meant that it was an easy place to avoid other people's surveillance.

In other words, the group that imprisoned Pyo-wol here was planning something to avoid the gaze of others, and it was clear that they chose a place in Sichuan Province as the location.

It would never be a good thing if they were trying to avoid others' gaze like that.

"There is no way that those who do good things can do such inhumane acts."

Pyo-wol bit his lip.

Blood burst and moistened his lips, but he felt no pain.

This kind of pain is nothing because he was already used to extreme pain.

Pyo-wol felt even more angry towards those who imprisoned him here.

It was clear that he, as well as anyone, would be equally furious if they were trapped in this space for no reason and treated like nothing but a beast.

Pyo-Wol suppressed his burning anger.

Feeling angry is in no way beneficial in this situation.

He had to hide his anger and become calmer.

He had to discover as much information as possible and use it to his advantage.

No one taught him, but Pyo-wol was learning his own way to survive in the dark.

The time has passed.

He figured he had been stuck here for at least four months from the amount of food he had eaten.

The person bringing the food didn't say anything to Pyo-wol.

The small window was mechanically opened once a day and provided him with food.

Pyo-wol also felt the limit of his sanity because he couldn't talk to anyone for four months and was isolated in a dark space alone.

More and more time was spent talking to oneself.

After asking and answering himself, he wondered if his mind was already divided.

But each time, Pyo-wol held on to his spirit like mad.

It was as if time had stopped here.

Staying sane in a place like this has never been easier.

In particular, it was easy to go crazy if you had nothing to do. So what Pyo-wol chose was to move. He walked along the wall in a narrow space of three or so in all directions. He walked and walked and walked until he collapsed from exhaustion.

He was like a hamster running on a wheel.

Calluses formed on the soles of the feet, and little by little muscle began to form on the legs. When he remained still, his hunger was tolerable, but when he started to move, a feeling of extreme hunger tormented him.

The food given once a day was insufficient. So she scraped the walls and ate moss.

He chose to eat moss to survive the day, despite the numbing hellish taste.

— Hoo! Hoo!

Pyo-wol's entire body was drenched in sweat.

He ate moss and walked around the narrow space all day. Thanks to that, he now had some muscles in his legs. His skin was still thin due to lack of nutrients, but it wasn't as weak as if it would break if he touched it with his fingers like before.

When his leg muscles gained some strength, Pyo-wol considered doing some upper body exercises. He soon decided to do push-ups. So his time was divided between walking and push-ups.

The push-ups caused him as much pain as the first time he walked.

At first, just doing ten reps left him out of breath. But as he endured the pain and kept trying, the number of repetitions increased day by day.

A few months passed like this.

Although he couldn't see it with his own eyes, Pyo-wol felt that his body had changed a lot.

He was still thin, but it wasn't just skin covering him like before, but strong muscles beneath the skin.

Pyo-wol had to try very hard before this could happen.

He was constantly fighting with himself, not anyone else, to the point of collapse.

It was a different kind of pain than the initial hunger. Pyo-Wol learned to bear such pain alone. It wasn't the only thing he learned. He began to perceive the passage of time through the internal reactions of his own body.

It is possible to measure the approximate flow of time through the defecation cycle, the time the mind becomes clear, and various other bodily changes.

There was another change.

They were his eyes.

His eyes began to adapt to the terrible darkness.

He didn't know when it started, but little by little the scenery around him slowly entered his eyes. It might have just been distinguishing shapes and lines, but it was still great progress.

Pyo-wol was satisfied with at least being able to stop being blind.

The underground space he saw with his eyes was desolate as he expected. There wasn't a single piece of furniture in the square space.

On one side, the feces excreted by Pyo-wol had accumulated and given off a foul odor. And unidentified insects gathered to eat the feces.

It was surprising that so many insects lived in a dark space where there was no light.

Pyo-wol looked at the swarm of insects in the distance. If he had seen such a sight before coming here, he would have been disgusted and scared, but now he felt nothing.

Isolation in the dark wore down his emotions, and his ability to feel fear seemed to have been killed.

His pulse suddenly tingled.

Surprised by the pain as if he was being pierced by a needle, Pyo-wol looked and saw a small snake biting his wrist. It was a small snake with degenerate eyes like other insects.

The snake soon wrapped its entire body around Pyo-wol's wrist with a tight bite.

Ssss...

Pyo-wol tried to get rid of the snake immediately. But at that moment, his eyes suddenly turned red, and intense heat filled his head.

"Poison?"

That was the last thought he had before Pyo-wol lost consciousness.

The snake biting his wrist fell. The snake crawled away from Pyo-wol and returned with the other insects.

The food that snakes could eat underground was extremely limited. For the little snake, insects were its only source of food.

It was a coincidence that Pyo-wol was bitten by a snake that had come to this place to swarm with insects. The snake enjoyed its supper without paying attention to the fallen Pyo-wol.

Pyo-wol fell to the ground, unable to move.

His body felt like it was on fire.

The venom of a small, unknown snake was truly terrifying.

The poison flowed through the blood vessels and attacked the entire body. Nerves and internal organs were attacked by poison. Despite the intense pain, Pyo-wol didn't scream once. His entire body was so stiff that he couldn't even move.

Pyo-wol's eyes were wide open in extreme pain. His eyes were red as if blood had burst everywhere and he was about to cry blood.

As the poison attacked his body, the heat continued to intensify.

Pyo-wol couldn't even let out a scream and had to endure the pain.

It would have been less painful if he had lost consciousness, but perhaps it was the effect of the poison, his mind was quite clear. So he had to feel the excruciating pain vividly with his bare mind.

Three days passed with excruciating pain.

The past three days were more painful and longer than the time he was confined in the underground space.

Different parts of Pyo-wol's body were broken as he suffered the pain by clenching his teeth.

After more than three days the paralysis was relieved.

The numbness that held his body was released, and the heat in his body disappeared.

In the end, he won the battle against the poison.

He managed to keep his life, but the result did not come easily.

He overcame the poison, but most of his internal organs, muscles and nerves were damaged. It will recover to its original state over time.

He didn't have the energy to move now, but he forced himself. Pyo-wol crawled toward the only door leading outside.

A plate of food was placed in front of the iron gate.

His mouth was dry and he couldn't taste any taste, but he had to eat something to survive.

Pyo-wol crawled like the snake that poisoned him.

After crawling for a while, Pyo-wol, who barely reached the iron gate, hurriedly placed his face on the plate. As he licked the food, Pyo-wol muttered.

- I will not die. No matter what happens!

His eyes were now a bright red in the darkness.