The Devil Who Grants Wishes - Chapter 241



241 – Prisoner’s Story

“Haaa… Haaa…”

I have a headache. I become delirious because I cannot drink water. The numerous joints in my legs are screaming to stop moving. Every time he takes a step, the sound of his joints crackling flows through his body, not through the air, directly to his ears.

But I can’t stop.

If I stop here, I will have to work with a pickaxe in that mine forever.

You can’t stop since you’ve already run away. If you are caught here, you will have to hit with an even harder pickaxe as punishment for running away.

Wow!

“aaahhh!!!”

But is it because it ran so desperately? The prisoner’s foot was caught by a huge tree root sticking out of the dirt floor, and he fell forward and rolled downhill. As it was going downhill, the more the prisoner’s body rolled, the more it accelerated, eventually reaching a speed that the prisoner could not stop with his own strength.

The prisoner came to a halt when he was struck by a huge tree blocking the road, and if the angle of the collision had been quite bad, the impact was so severe that he could have lost his life.

“Ouch… Ugh…”

Nevertheless, the prisoner moves.

It hurts so much that I feel like I’m going to die, but my survival instinct to live forces me to move my body that feels like it’s going to die.

The prisoner, whose bones are clattering and who stands up again on shaky legs, wants to get out of the mountain where this mine is located as quickly as possible.

“Hmm…”

“Hi…”

However, the prisoner’s escape ends there.

Capricorn, the devil who was managing them, stood before the prisoner’s eyes as he barely raised his head while holding on to his trembling body.

Although the overall appearance is similar to that of a human, Capricorn has the head of a goat rather than a human, and coldly scans the prisoner with eyes with yellow whites and square pupils.

A prisoner who is under such gaze is like a mouse with a cat in front of him, he is so frightened that he just trembles without even thinking about running away.

“Let’s see… Ah, I guess I wasn’t making a wish for Faust, but was working in the mine for the purpose of punishment.”

While Capricorn feels annoyed by the prisoner who caused him unnecessary trouble, he also feels elated that he will be able to properly fulfill his contract as a devil. Until now, the ‘slaves’ who worked in the mines and salt pans were so obedient that they did not even think about running away, so Capricorn did not have many opportunities to work.

This was extremely humiliating for a devil who had already been hired by Faust as a contract. Even though he was paid, he couldn’t do the work.

But that was resolved thanks to this prisoner’s minor aberration. He regains his pride as a devil and feels rewarded for his work.

“It is not wrong to simply make a wish to Faust, so if you run away, you will not be severely punished. Since everyone would have returned after completing their labor quota anyway. But you made a wish and stayed here. “You didn’t come, you committed a crime and came here, so you will be punished accordingly for attempting to escape.”

“No, no… I… I am a duke…”

“Yes, because he was originally a noble, he could use magic, and that’s probably why he was able to escape from the mine. But here, he’s just a prisoner.”

Capricorn, a devil with a goat head, walks forward little by little and approaches the prisoner, and at the same time, the prisoner sees a thick black fog.

Even before the brain could make a decision, the spinal cord decided to run away, and the duke’s body desperately took a step back on shaky legs, but it was already far too late.

Because he didn’t look behind him and walked, his legs lost strength, and he tripped over something again. With his eyes tightly closed, he returned to the mine he wanted to escape from. .

The punishment for this escape will not be light. I will have to work with a pickaxe for 10 more years in an ageless, infinite mine prepared only for prisoners, where time stands still.

“Hmm… I guess I’ve been in such a harsh environment for a long time that I’m having trouble feeling bad at all. That’s why it’s important to properly balance hope in order to get rid of bad feelings in a good way… Tsk, well, for the first time. “Since I finished my work, let’s go see Aigokeros to commemorate the occasion.”

However, Capricorn, the devil, does not care at all about what will happen to the prisoner, who has become a low-class product due to emotional wear and tear. Of course, the devil is not good enough to care about prey like that.

I’m just trying to meet friends after a long time and enjoy the bad feelings together.

**********

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“I repent… I repent…”

“I am not the one to apologize to. It seems that there are many people who are misunderstanding something, so please be careful.”

“Yes, yes…!”

Unlike those who were punished by Faust and worked in the mines and salt farms, the treatment of those who made the wrong wish to Faust and ended up in the mines and salt farms was surprisingly merciful.

Private miners and salt farmers could not manage all the mindless people who made wishes to the devil, and some of them had already died of old age, so Faust described the treatment of those who made wishes to Pierre. Entrusted to

Using them not only in mines and salt fields, but also in all kinds of places, including to provide public support during the farming season, Pierre improved the Holy Empire and his authority over it day by day.

Of course, there are not only good things.

“I, I’m getting out of here!! What kind of nonsense is this!!”

People who have made a wish to the devil, in other words, mean that their hearts are broken enough to wish to the devil. To put it a little more seriously, they are vagabonds who are not surprised to commit a crime at any time.

Even the Korean military, which is notorious for dragging physically disabled people into the army, does not drag mentally disabled people or people who have committed crimes, so we can get some idea of Pierre’s pain when he suddenly had to deal with such people all at once. .

“No disturbance. That’s not what you came here for, right?”

“S-stop… Ahhh!!”

However, unlike modern Korea, the level of human rights here is much lower, and crucially, there is something called magic. This is the magic that makes it possible to fully cope with any disturbance or unexpected situation that arises.

The man who was swinging the pickaxe in his hand and threatening the people and priests around him was unable to do anything due to the overwhelming mana that enveloped his entire body.

It’s not just that. Mana, which penetrates between the joints and makes it impossible to move, causes pain worse than gout, and the person who wanted to cause a riot becomes unable to do anything other than scream.

“Hee, hee hee…”

“Come on, everyone, hurry up and finish your quota for today and then go back and rest.”

You can clearly see how special they are treated from the fact that Pierre, who has a lot of work to do as he is the top leader of the Faust Church, takes care of them himself, but those who receive that special treatment do not care about such things.

Seeing the terrible suffering of a colleague who has become an example, feeling the pain from the pickaxe attack enveloping his body, he just wants to escape from this hellish place as quickly as possible.

If they had the power to go back before they made a wish, they would never go back and make a wish to the devil.

And of course this is the future Faust wants. A world where everyone lives by working hard on their own, without making wishes from the devil.

Of course, this is a lesson that only those who have already made a wish to the devil once can learn, and the problem is that it is not very effective for those who wish to wish to the devil in the future.

“Oh, and Brother Jiang has filled all his quotas as of today. You can go back now.”

“Really…?”

“Of course. Didn’t you want money? It’s far short of the wealth that can encompass the entire world that you originally asked for, but it’s enough to allow you to live a comfortable life without having to do difficult things in the future. It will work.”

“Thank you… Thank you…”

“Ah, just in case, you shouldn’t be blinded by this amount and make another wish. The first time, they paid you a generous wage and made you work just for the purpose of rehabilitation, but the second time, they said rehabilitation was impossible. “You will be judged and treated as a prisoner.”

“Yes, yes…!!”

Also, what can effectively control them is the presence or absence of graduates.

Newcomers look with envy at those who leave after paying the price for their wishes, while old-timers continue to suffer day after day, looking at the rosy future they too will soon face.