Chapter 3: Hell

Waking up at 7 a.m. in the morning, leaving home at 8 for school, attending classes seriously without sleeping or talking, go to clubroom after school, and then, at 7 p.m. go back home and sleep before the day changes.

Such a wholesome and healthy school life is what I, Kurono Maou, have been leading. Or rather, I had been leading. One day I was suddenly attacked by a headache in my clubroom and fainted. When I woke up, I was in a weird room.

There, a fearsome ring with protruding needles was attached to my head, and from then on I began an unimaginable everyday life in hell.

I don’t know how much time has passed from the day I woke up in this facility. At least, I think it has not been a month but I can’t tell the exact number of days.

Even then there are a few things that I came to know. First of all I, with that geezer as the chief, have been subjected to human experimentation by this group with the Christian-like cross symbol.

Through the white ring still attached to my brain physically, my actions are being completely controlled. With just a mere thought, that geezer or masked men can give me pain strong enough to make me wish for my own death.

On top of that, they can also completely paralyze my body making me unable to do anything. Externally manipulating my mind, they have complete control.

Thanks to this, they have kept me as a prisoner without using anything like handcuffs even once. Even during the painful experiments there is no need to hold my body down. Resistance to pain itself can also be controlled by them after all. As for the experiments conducted on me, they are not something simple like testing side effects of a new medicine.

From the top of the head till the knees, my body is being completely restructured by them; something similar to an evil secret organisation is being done here. And above all else the biggest problem is that these restructuring experiments are not done through some kind of high technology but instead are based on [Magic].

The first experiment done on me included making my body compatible to hold magical force inside body.

Would it be better to call it pulled out? I don’t know the details but, as a result, now inside me I can definitely perceive a different energy. With just that, it might sound nice to have awakened to a new power. But that experiment was the most painful out of all the ones done on me.

It was as if melted iron was being made to flow inside my veins moreover due to the ring my consciousness was kept forcefully awake and even fainting was not allowed.

Now that I think about it, it’s amazing I didn’t die from the pain. Even after the experiment, it took some time for the remaining hot sensation inside my body to lessen. Due to this experience, I was able to understand the craft know as [magic] brought about by magical power, without any problems. But, understanding and actually using it is a different thing. What kind of magic I can use is still unknown, since I have not tried it even once.

But since the control ring on my head is made of magic craft, then similarly, I am certain I should be able to prevent its effect with magic too.

Thus, I who had now clearly become able to use magic had to undergo many other experiments after that. What kind meaning or result each and every experiment held; I had no way of knowing.

Various liquids with gaudy colours were many a time injected into me. One time, my head was also drowned in a murky liquid which stank worse than the gutter. Even though I’m not an alien, they even embedded various metal pieces and gem like stones inside my body.

And then, with every experiment came pain inducing secondary effects in succession like headaches, stomach aches, nausea, high fever, and then starting with dizziness, loss of eyesight, full body paralysis, hallucinations, necrosis, breathing suspension and many other fatal symptoms, that made maintenance of life activity doubtful, started appearing regularly as well.

But, no matter how lethal a symptom may appear, at the end I was always able to regain my healthy body.

During the endless cycles of destruction and regeneration of my body, I started hallucinating; maybe, I have already died many times and brought back to life each time.

After all there is something like magic. It won’t be surprising no matter what they do.

Just how has my body been modified under these experiments, I barely knew. The only visible results to me were that I became able to feel magical power and that the words spoken by the geezer and masked men started sounding like Japanese to me.

That and the fact that times like these where my self-consciousness was clear was slowly becoming shorter and shorter. Not because my sleeping time was getting larger. This is the time where I am in a half-dreamy state and my body starts moving on my own.

My sleeping hours in a day was not even 2 hours. In the first place, I was too unsteady to know whether I woke up in the morning or at night.

After coming here, I have not seen anything other than white walls. Maybe in this world, the shining sun and sky, the lush green earth didn’t exist.

I, only now, finally came to realize that this was not the world I was previously in but a [Different world] ruled by the concept known as Magic.

Just how many times have I fallen in despair?

I can only hazily remember the faces of my family, of my friends at school.

Still, inside this empty prison room of mine, as long as I kept on remembering those peaceful school days of the distant past, I’ll keep on being resurrected by the needles in my mind.

Today, my condition is pretty good.

Neither head nor body hurts anywhere, the sensation of the tears flowing on my cheek can also be felt clearly.

Aah, I want to go back, I want go back home——–

“No.49, come out.”

Opening the door, the masked man called me.

No.49. That is my name here. What does that mean? I don’t really have a reason to think on it.

“Hurry up.”

Stand—–Come—–Walk—–

Before the headache becomes worse, quickly standing up, today once again I continue walking beyond the dark tunnel.