EP.1 There Is No Country for Sinners
The carriage stopped where the road ended.
A barren wasteland without a single tree. With no shade to block the scorching sun, every living thing on the ground groans in the heat. In this wilderness where even the dirt mounds exhale shimmering breaths, exhausted by the heat, a standing signpost declared the end of the road.
The two officers saw the signpost and realized they had arrived at the right place, and that they had to commence their next task.
The officers split up. While one approached the signpost, the other headed toward the back of the vehicle, fiddling with the three-section steel baton hanging at his waist.
The officer heading to the back of the vehicle was extremely tense, tightly gripping his only weapon, the steel baton, in one hand. The baton kept slipping because of the sweat on his palm, but he didn't have the leisure to care about that.
Transport vehicles were usually used to escort criminals, and those audacious humans who broke the laws of the Military Nation were bound to rebel whenever they saw an opening. Until now, the officer had shown such criminals the harsh taste of his steel baton, and he was quite satisfied with its effect.
However, today, for the first time since putting on his shoulder epaulettes, he wondered if this steel baton was insufficient.
The place they arrived at was the Abyss Prison, Tartarus. A place that confined only the vicious criminals who could never assimilate into society, a legendary land where people only went in and never came out.
It was said that to know the prisoners locked up there, it was faster to look in history textbooks than in newspaper articles, and that even the Military Nation, which boasted mighty military power, could not kill them and only managed to imprison them. A land of sin where monsters with combat power comparable to a nation, beast kings, and war heroes who single-handedly defeated armies roamed like ordinary residents.
What they brought today was precisely a criminal to be locked up in that very Tartarus.
'Damn it, I heard he's a first-time offender, but what kind of vicious crime did he commit to be transferred straight to Tartarus?'
I too fervently agreed with his thoughts. What on earth did I do to be sent straight to Tartarus without a proper trial? Such a harmless and sound person, at that. There was clearly a major error.
The officer took a long, deep breath and then pounded the back door with his steel baton, bang bang.
"Step away from the door if you don't want to be beaten!"
The Military Nation's way of treating criminals was similar to how they treated explosive materials to be disposed of. In the sense that they wrapped them tightly in packaging with extreme caution.
Even for a petty criminal who committed a minor crime, it was standard to restrain their limbs and put a hood over their head, and at the officer's discretion, a gag could be put in their mouth or they could even be put in a straitjacket.
The officer, having been informed that the person to be escorted was a criminal to be imprisoned in Tartarus, had applied the maximum restraint devices he knew. Blindfold, hood, gag, and even a straitjacket. It was a measure that wouldn't be strange if an ordinary person died from respiratory failure.
And since I was an ordinary person, I was actually having difficulty breathing. Save me.
Even against a prisoner whose lung movements, essential to life, were not free, the officer did not relax his tension.
One shouldn't expect common sense from the opponent. It was none other than a criminal to be imprisoned in that infamous Tartarus.
Seeing as they left the job to such a low-ranking officer, the criminal probably wasn't high-risk, but he still couldn't neglect his vigilance. Not out of duty, but for his own life.
Well, actually, it wouldn't have mattered even if he had neglected it.
Because I didn't have the ability to untie even a properly tied rope, let alone a straitjacket.
"Opening it!"
The damn officer didn't show any openings. After opening the back door, the officer retreated with quick steps. With his whole body fully tensed, he gripped his steel baton and aimed it at the criminal.
The back door opened, and the cursed vicious criminal revealed himself to the world once again...
Exactly the same as the beginning, still trapped inside the straitjacket, rolling on the floor.
The officer, slightly relieved by the identical appearance to when he was locked up, tried to approach him... but suddenly raised the steel baton above his head. I read his thoughts and let out an unheard groan.
Ah, wait. Sto...
"Oof!"
The steel baton struck my abdomen hard. At the shock that reached my bones, I let out a painful groan, but it was blocked by the gag and didn't come out. I was beaten by the steel baton without any resistance.
As if ensuring the kill, the officer struck down with the steel baton five or six times, then looked at my reaction and was relieved.
'Fortunately, it seems the restraints haven't been undone. I won't have to worry about being ambushed.'
The officer, having gained certainty, grabbed the belt of the straitjacket and pulled. My body, which had been sprawled on the vehicle floor, was tossed about and rolled down to the ground. Seeing me being dragged powerlessly, the officer felt puzzled.
'I heard he was a vicious criminal to be locked up in Tartarus, but what's this? The feel of hitting him is similar to an ordinary petty criminal, isn't it?'
Reading the officer's thoughts, I swallowed my rising indignation and twisted my body.
Of course it is.
I am neither a criminal to be imprisoned in Tartarus nor a terrorist of the century. Let alone a crime to be recorded in history books, I just commit a little fraud in the back alleys,
I'm just a petty criminal whose only ability is reading minds!
***
It was when I was playing a card game with the usual suckers, betting house deeds.
It is a prejudice that gambling is bad. If you have money, or backing, or in a slightly unusual case like me, telepathy, gambling is like sweeping money off the ground. There were many fools in the world who were willing to gladly pay their entire fortune for a momentary thrill. I was like a confessional priest who fully understood their secret desires. It's just that I took half of the winnings instead of a tithe.
As usual, I was about to secure a house by playing against the suckers. Suddenly, the outside became noisy.
The grandmother from the house below, who received a cut without even joining the game, sent a signal, and the sucker who had been groaning over a back hand that wouldn't connect turned red and flipped the board. Postponing my dream of getting a house, I hid my traces and waited, when military police I had never seen before kicked the door open and came in.
The military police conducting a sudden inspection and the gamblers who cleaned up the game. Up to that point, it was a usual occurrence. As always, I put my hand inside my coat to share a cut with the military police too.
At that moment, the military police grabbed my wrist.
'By military law, I arrest you all.'
The military police squad that came out for a sudden crackdown beat everyone here and arrested them.
The Military Nation was a much crazier country than I had expected. I tried desperately to defend myself, but they sent me to trial without any evidence or witnesses. It didn't even take a full day for me to become a felon. In a courtroom without any spectators, I was sentenced to hard labor in Tartarus without any resistance.
My mind-reading ability was of no help in the absurd courtroom. The military police claimed we were plotting something while pretending to play cards, and the judge, knowing there was no conclusive evidence, struck the gavel.
Thud, thud, thud, guilty. While the wooden hammer symbolizing justice apologized for its own injustice by striking its head three times, no one raised their voice.
Logic? Principles? If such things existed, the military government wouldn't have staged a coup.
I was thrown onto the cold floor of the detention center.
And I was escorted to the world's worst prison, Tartarus.
***
Recalling the past while tied up made me even more desolate, but the officer didn't consider my circumstances and dragged me along. Thanks to that, I could feel the ground with my entire back. Every time the officer pulled the belt, the rocky sand scraped against my back.
Ah, Mother Earth. Your skin is a bit rough. I should apply some moisturizer for you.
After offering a blasphemous prayer to the Earth Goddess and being rolled around like a piece of luggage for a while, the officer standing in front of the signpost looked worried as he saw the officer dragging me.
"Lieutenant, is it okay to do this?"
"So what? He's a criminal anyway."
"No, I mean. He's a guy who's going to be locked up in Tartarus, is it really okay? What if he escapes later and takes revenge..."
"He's been wearing a blindfold since the authorities handed him over to us. This bastard won't know my face or name."
The Lieutenant hooked the belt connected to my straitjacket and then dropped it. Because of that, my body ended up hitting the ground. I shuddered at the shock felt throughout my body.
I'm a telepath, you know? Lieutenant Evian of Edelfight. Just wait till I escape. I'll come find you first and take my bloody revenge.
"And how's he going to get out once locked up in Tartarus? Stop worrying for nothing and send the telegram."
"I'm worried about you, Lieutenant. They said there was an incident at Tartarus last time. If this guy escapes too..."
"If this bastard had the ability to escape from there, he would have escaped from our transport carriage. Instead of worrying needlessly, hurry up and call the person in charge. Let's hand over the prisoner and go back quickly. Coming to Tartarus even once is too much."
"I've sent the telegram. We just need to wait for a reply..."
At that moment, the arrow on the signpost began to shake. The two officers, and I who were reading their thoughts, instantly tensed up.
An arrow painted on a steel body. For some reason, the arrow, which was clearly just a painting, was vibrating crazily. Everyone watched the signpost in silence. The arrow painted on the signpost shook more and more, then spun round and round as if an earthquake had occurred—
And pointed to the ground.
Crack, the sound of something breaking was heard.
At that moment, the two officers doubted their eyes at the spectacle unfolded before them.
In the place that was a wasteland until a moment ago, a bottomless pit had suddenly taken its place.
The suddenly revealed bottomless pit was extremely alien.
A wide wasteland. It was hard to find a single tree or blade of grass, but thanks to that, it was a wide-open plain visible to the horizon,
And a hole with no visible bottom was punched through without any context. It was too big and deep to be called a trap dug by someone, and too unnatural to be a natural object.
Not only the officers but even I, who was reading their thoughts, momentarily suspected it was a hallucination, but the endless darkness that only a void could create and the flow of the wind moving inward claimed that it was reality. The officers lost their words and looked down into the abyss.
Just when the two officers were thinking if they were dreaming.
[Confirmed.]
A dry voice came from the signpost. While the two officers were having a fit at the voice of unknown origin, the signpost continued to speak in a mechanical attitude.
[Mission execution confirmed. Please wrap up your mission by handing over the prisoner to us.]
The officers, overwhelmed by the scenery, saluted the signpost. It was a comical sight, but the two were brainwashed as if the signpost had become an ability user who created this bottomless pit.
"L-loyalty! I am Lieutenant Evian of Edelfight. Where should we hand over the prisoner?"
[Your mission is to escort the prisoner to Tartarus.]
Tartarus.
A prison in the abyss, said to have been created by a god to imprison giants.
Of course, the name must have been taken from mythology, but it was easy to deduce that Tartarus was within that deep darkness. The officer looked down at the distant bottomless pit and swallowed hard.
"D-do we have to go down ourselves?"
[There is no need for you to accompany us. We will leave the method of handover to your discretion.]
Hey, signpost. Wait a minute.
The officer smiled faintly. Because he grasped the true meaning of the words that there was no need to accompany and just send him down.
No, actually, it's hard to even say he grasped it. In fact, the officer was full of thoughts of throwing me into the hole from the very beginning.
The signpost's words were equivalent to giving legitimacy to his plan.
"Hey, pick up that side."
The subordinate officer, who caught the meaning, hesitated and grabbed my leg.
"I-is this okay? If he falls, they won't even find his bones..."
"So what if they can't find his bones? He's irredeemable trash, that's why he's being locked up in Tartarus. What does it matter if he dies like this?"
Wait, hey, no, sir. Please calm down.
I'll reform. I'll read thoughts only moderately and commit less fraud from now on, so please, if you're going to throw me, at least tie a rope...
"Even so..."
"If you don't like it, do you want to hold my hand and go down all the way there? Huh?"
Not liking that, the subordinate briskly lifted my leg. I struggled desperately, but with my body tightly restrained by the belt, I couldn't put up any resistance.
The two holding me on either side matched their rhythm and swung me left and right. One, two. Every time I moved from left to right, I soared higher and higher and then came back down.
And the third time, right after I went up the highest, something holding me disappeared.
A complete sense of liberation enveloped my body.
...Ah.
Like that, I was thrown into the unfathomably deep bottomless pit.