“It seems safer to just stay locked in there.”
I muttered, staring at the prison bars, but the clueless domestic abuser didn’t hesitate a moment before reaching through them.
Apparently, this guy wasn’t just a domestic abuser. Ethan said he’s a convicted murderer.
Maybe it’s a mercy to keep him in jail because he could meet a much worse end if we let him out.
The man groped around on the floor, trying to pick up the keys that had fallen outside the bars. It looked like he could find it with a little effort.
“Let’s go. Get out of his way.”
Ethan said to me.
I moved past him with Knox at my side and pushed forward.
Behind me, I heard the sound of a domestic abuser opening a window in the dungeon. The man went in the opposite direction of where we go, toward the police station where the monster was.
“If that door is opened, won’t we be in danger here?”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at my question.
“Let’s hurry.”
I grabbed Knox’s arm and started walking, but at one point I felt the floor rattle lightly. What was that?
I paused for a moment, but Knox and Ethan kept walking without saying a word, so I couldn’t question them. Besides, we had to get out of here in a hurry.
I kept walking, unable to stop myself. A little further on, we finally came to a dead end.
There was a round hole in the ground, barely big enough for a man to fit through.
Ethan sat down on one knee in front of it and looked inside.
“It hasn’t been used in a while, so it’s probably dusty.”
I stared at him in disbelief. They pushed bodies out like a slide at a water park.
“You mean we have to go in here?”
“Yes. This is where they send the bodies out. It’s like a deep pit, like a well, with this passageway leading down the side.”
“They take the bodies to……. That’s so barbaric, you really use something like this?”
Knox asked Ethan in disbelief. Ethan ran his fingers along the floor of the passage, checking the dirt once more, and frowned.
“Actually, this dungeon wasn’t even in use until I got here. I built it as a formality back in the day, not that there’s much use for a dungeon in a small town like this.”
I think that’s what I heard at some point when we were making plans for Happy House.
Anyway, so we weren’t even using the dungeon, and then as soon as Ethan came down to Brunel, they arrested a domestic abuser with a murder conviction, so they opened it up, right? It’s Ethan again.
“But you did use it at some point, didn’t you?”
Ethan nods at my question.
“They don’t give convicts funerals, so when a prisoner dies, they need a place to dispose of the body. In the past, they dug a pit as deep as a well, put the body in, and then incinerated it.”
So if you go down this water park slide-like passageway, you’ll reach a well-shaped incinerator.
“If it’s a deep pit like a well, how do you get to the top?”
“There’s a ladder that connects to the ground. To burn them, someone would have to climb down, light the fire, and clean up.”
I swallowed hard and stared at the dark hole as Ethan spoke.
It was somehow creepier now that he said it hadn’t been used in a while. It looked like something a horror movie would love.
That’s when Knox spoke up.
“Did you know Knox Cornell Ludpurshire is an elite physician, a direct descendant of the Marquess of Ludpurshire?”
I crossed my arms and leisurely listened to Ethan’s explanation until Knox suddenly interrupted, referring to himself in the third person. What the hell?
“If it’s been that long, Ethan, you don’t know what’s at the end of this passage, and if it goes wrong, the world loses a great man.”
(N: Basically, he’s saying you go first.)
As I listened, I realized that Mr. Knox had a point. I nodded in agreement.
“You know, I’m a heiress to House Sinclair myself. A socialite superstar. If something goes wrong, my fans will be sad.”
A fan is a fan, I thought, though I doubted how many of them were still alive, so I agreed with Knox.
I realized that if I was going to talk to him to get him to consider becoming a consulting physician for Happy House, I’d have to do it the right way. Ugh. Socializing is hard.
Knox looked at me and grinned.
“Ms. Cherry, you’re making sense this time. People like us must maintain a social facade.”
“That sounded like shit, but now that I hear it, it sounds right. Social graces, they’re so important.”
As Knox and I exchanged lines, Ethan took a seat in front of the hole.
“Both of you can stay here, if you want.”
“…….”
I washed my face dry in silence. I wanted to avoid it, but I guess I couldn’t.
“Damn it, it’s what it is, Sir Ethan; you go first, then Mr. Knox. I’ll be last, but you go downstairs and catch me.”
Ethan nodded as he went first and sat down in the hole. Then Knox, hearing the order of descent, objected.
“Lady being last is dangerous. I can be last…”
“You want to go down first?”
“I don’t want… to go down first.”
Knox grinned and nonchalantly fell into line behind Ethan.
Without hesitation, Ethan pushed himself into the hole.
A moment later, the sound of Ethan landing was heard in the distance.
The passageway… seems to be quite long.
Me and Knox exchanged glances. He sat down at the mouth of the hole, looking very shaky, and then looked at me with a grim look on his face and said,
“I’ll see you there alive.”
Then Knox disappeared into the hole. I heard him land below.
“Catch me!”
I shouted into the passageway and lowered my body down. I stepped into the hole, steadied myself, and took a deep breath.
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you at the end, Ms. Cherry.”
I could hear Ethan’s voice calling to me from below. He was being so impatient for stalling.
“Okay, I’m coming down.”
I shouted and headed straight down. It felt like I was really going down a slide, and it wasn’t long before I saw the light.
A width.
I was hugged by something fluffy yet solid. I mean, hugged…Hugged?
I looked up and saw Ethan’s face, his back to the sunset sky. He said he’d catch me at the end, and he did.
Beyond Ethan’s face, I could see the sky in a circle, so we were indeed in a deep hole that looked like a well. I wonder if this is what the frog in the well sees.
The sunset circle was so beautiful and peaceful. It was as if everything that had happened was a lie.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing this in a corpse incinerator.
“Are you okay?”
Ethan asked me. I suddenly realized I was still in his arms, the realization coming too late, but I slid down into them anyway.
Knox, who had his bag slung over his shoulder, leaned against the wall and looked at us.
“‘Hey, Ethan, we better go up there. Where does it connect to?”
Ethan answered, shouldering the one remaining bag on the floor.
“It leads to the mountain behind Brunel village, the mountain behind Ms. Cherry’s Happy House.”
At Ethan’s words, I thought for a moment about the mountain behind Happy House.
The mountain behind the Happy House was not very high and had a gentle slope. Still, the mountain itself was quite large, and it was easy to make a living by gathering and hunting, as long as you avoided the monsters.
“You mean outside the village. Good.”
Knox sighed, glad to hear it. I walked over to him and took my bag from him since he was the wounded one.
“I’ll use my strength.”
“I can see now enough that Miss Cherry is strong, but it’s a gentleman’s duty to help a lady… Ugh.”
Knox, who was about to decline my offer to carry the load himself, narrowed his eyes at the pain in his thigh and swallowed hard. I patted him on the shoulder.
“Just lean on me.”
Knox looked at me with a strange expression that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was the same with Ethan. Ignoring them both, of course, I stood in front of the ladder.
“I’ll go up first this time.”
The two men nodded. With that, I stepped on the ladder and climbed up.
“Careful, lady. Careful.”
Knox watched me climb with concern as I made my way up.
Being around Knox made me feel like I was a real aristocrat.
Anyway, after climbing a bit, I soon saw the ground. It seemed to be near the entrance to the forest.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Happy House and get into bed to rest.
“It seems safer to just stay locked in there.”
I muttered, staring at the prison bars, but the clueless domestic abuser didn’t hesitate a moment before reaching through them.
Apparently, this guy wasn’t just a domestic abuser. Ethan said he’s a convicted murderer.
Maybe it’s a mercy to keep him in jail because he could meet a much worse end if we let him out.
The man groped around on the floor, trying to pick up the keys that had fallen outside the bars. It looked like he could find it with a little effort.
“Let’s go. Get out of his way.”
Ethan said to me.
I moved past him with Knox at my side and pushed forward.
Behind me, I heard the sound of a domestic abuser opening a window in the dungeon. The man went in the opposite direction of where we go, toward the police station where the monster was.
“If that door is opened, won’t we be in danger here?”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at my question.
“Let’s hurry.”
I grabbed Knox’s arm and started walking, but at one point I felt the floor rattle lightly. What was that?
I paused for a moment, but Knox and Ethan kept walking without saying a word, so I couldn’t question them. Besides, we had to get out of here in a hurry.
I kept walking, unable to stop myself. A little further on, we finally came to a dead end.
There was a round hole in the ground, barely big enough for a man to fit through.
Ethan sat down on one knee in front of it and looked inside.
“It hasn’t been used in a while, so it’s probably dusty.”
I stared at him in disbelief. They pushed bodies out like a slide at a water park.
“You mean we have to go in here?”
“Yes. This is where they send the bodies out. It’s like a deep pit, like a well, with this passageway leading down the side.”
“They take the bodies to……. That’s so barbaric, you really use something like this?”
Knox asked Ethan in disbelief. Ethan ran his fingers along the floor of the passage, checking the dirt once more, and frowned.
“Actually, this dungeon wasn’t even in use until I got here. I built it as a formality back in the day, not that there’s much use for a dungeon in a small town like this.”
I think that’s what I heard at some point when we were making plans for Happy House.
Anyway, so we weren’t even using the dungeon, and then as soon as Ethan came down to Brunel, they arrested a domestic abuser with a murder conviction, so they opened it up, right? It’s Ethan again.
“But you did use it at some point, didn’t you?”
Ethan nods at my question.
“They don’t give convicts funerals, so when a prisoner dies, they need a place to dispose of the body. In the past, they dug a pit as deep as a well, put the body in, and then incinerated it.”
So if you go down this water park slide-like passageway, you’ll reach a well-shaped incinerator.
“If it’s a deep pit like a well, how do you get to the top?”
“There’s a ladder that connects to the ground. To burn them, someone would have to climb down, light the fire, and clean up.”
I swallowed hard and stared at the dark hole as Ethan spoke.
It was somehow creepier now that he said it hadn’t been used in a while. It looked like something a horror movie would love.
That’s when Knox spoke up.
“Did you know Knox Cornell Ludpurshire is an elite physician, a direct descendant of the Marquess of Ludpurshire?”
I crossed my arms and leisurely listened to Ethan’s explanation until Knox suddenly interrupted, referring to himself in the third person. What the hell?
“If it’s been that long, Ethan, you don’t know what’s at the end of this passage, and if it goes wrong, the world loses a great man.”
(N: Basically, he’s saying you go first.)
As I listened, I realized that Mr. Knox had a point. I nodded in agreement.
“You know, I’m a heiress to House Sinclair myself. A socialite superstar. If something goes wrong, my fans will be sad.”
A fan is a fan, I thought, though I doubted how many of them were still alive, so I agreed with Knox.
I realized that if I was going to talk to him to get him to consider becoming a consulting physician for Happy House, I’d have to do it the right way. Ugh. Socializing is hard.
Knox looked at me and grinned.
“Ms. Cherry, you’re making sense this time. People like us must maintain a social facade.”
“That sounded like shit, but now that I hear it, it sounds right. Social graces, they’re so important.”
As Knox and I exchanged lines, Ethan took a seat in front of the hole.
“Both of you can stay here, if you want.”
“…….”
I washed my face dry in silence. I wanted to avoid it, but I guess I couldn’t.
“Damn it, it’s what it is, Sir Ethan; you go first, then Mr. Knox. I’ll be last, but you go downstairs and catch me.”
Ethan nodded as he went first and sat down in the hole. Then Knox, hearing the order of descent, objected.
“Lady being last is dangerous. I can be last…”
“You want to go down first?”
“I don’t want… to go down first.”
Knox grinned and nonchalantly fell into line behind Ethan.
Without hesitation, Ethan pushed himself into the hole.
A moment later, the sound of Ethan landing was heard in the distance.
The passageway… seems to be quite long.
Me and Knox exchanged glances. He sat down at the mouth of the hole, looking very shaky, and then looked at me with a grim look on his face and said,
“I’ll see you there alive.”
Then Knox disappeared into the hole. I heard him land below.
“Catch me!”
I shouted into the passageway and lowered my body down. I stepped into the hole, steadied myself, and took a deep breath.
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you at the end, Ms. Cherry.”
I could hear Ethan’s voice calling to me from below. He was being so impatient for stalling.
“Okay, I’m coming down.”
I shouted and headed straight down. It felt like I was really going down a slide, and it wasn’t long before I saw the light.
A width.
I was hugged by something fluffy yet solid. I mean, hugged…Hugged?
I looked up and saw Ethan’s face, his back to the sunset sky. He said he’d catch me at the end, and he did.
Beyond Ethan’s face, I could see the sky in a circle, so we were indeed in a deep hole that looked like a well. I wonder if this is what the frog in the well sees.
The sunset circle was so beautiful and peaceful. It was as if everything that had happened was a lie.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing this in a corpse incinerator.
“Are you okay?”
Ethan asked me. I suddenly realized I was still in his arms, the realization coming too late, but I slid down into them anyway.
Knox, who had his bag slung over his shoulder, leaned against the wall and looked at us.
“‘Hey, Ethan, we better go up there. Where does it connect to?”
Ethan answered, shouldering the one remaining bag on the floor.
“It leads to the mountain behind Brunel village, the mountain behind Ms. Cherry’s Happy House.”
At Ethan’s words, I thought for a moment about the mountain behind Happy House.
The mountain behind the Happy House was not very high and had a gentle slope. Still, the mountain itself was quite large, and it was easy to make a living by gathering and hunting, as long as you avoided the monsters.
“You mean outside the village. Good.”
Knox sighed, glad to hear it. I walked over to him and took my bag from him since he was the wounded one.
“I’ll use my strength.”
“I can see now enough that Miss Cherry is strong, but it’s a gentleman’s duty to help a lady… Ugh.”
Knox, who was about to decline my offer to carry the load himself, narrowed his eyes at the pain in his thigh and swallowed hard. I patted him on the shoulder.
“Just lean on me.”
Knox looked at me with a strange expression that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was the same with Ethan. Ignoring them both, of course, I stood in front of the ladder.
“I’ll go up first this time.”
The two men nodded. With that, I stepped on the ladder and climbed up.
“Careful, lady. Careful.”
Knox watched me climb with concern as I made my way up.
Being around Knox made me feel like I was a real aristocrat.
Anyway, after climbing a bit, I soon saw the ground. It seemed to be near the entrance to the forest.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Happy House and get into bed to rest.
