Episode 316 Superfluous Humans (3)
[Familiar Land (2), 3rd Basement]
Only then did the 68 survivors who gathered here fully understand their situation.
“Damn it. Food, thermal insulation, etc. First of all, do you mean you have to worry about your life tomorrow?”
“Did everyone see the video earlier? Fighting back is impossible in the first place.”
“Then, first of all, we have to decide who will be our food tomorrow…”
“Who will we offer as a sacrifice?”
Rather than ward off the cold with something to eat right away, we must quickly find a way to soothe the hunger of man-eating flowers tomorrow.
Daylily of Blood.
It is said that this dangerous beast will become calm if it can only eat one person a day.
If there is a lot of movement in catching prey, more prey is needed, so I had to make it so that it could eat the prey with minimal movement.
“That means… one of us has to make a sacrifice.”
“Damn it. It’s unity and everything is destroyed.”
“This is the devil’s trick to alienate us!”
“So. If it’s a trick, what are you going to do? You’re not going to follow me?”
“……Who said that? It’s just like that.”
No one disputed the idea that human sacrifice should be performed by selecting one person from the group.
Then, the question now is who, how much, and how to decide the sacrifice.
“There’s no one who will volunteer as a sacrifice, right?”
“How are you going to select the offerings in the first place? Designation? Voting? Or based on conditions that will benefit the community?”
“Shouldn’t we first decide how many people to pick before that?”
Food and drinking water here are limited. Even most of them are rotten or contaminated.
If you hold on and hold on, you might be able to survive for about two weeks.
In order to shorten 68 days to about 14 days, more than 50 people are needed.
“Damn it! 50 out of 68? That’s almost it!”
“Even that was minimal. I may have to offer more sacrifices. I can’t stand hunger for three days.”
“Crazy bastard, then what shall we do? Shall we throw everyone but you as food for that fucking flower!?”
“Who said that!? It’s just that each person can endure hunger for a different period!”
“This fat bastard is real! Anyway, since he was in school, he only knows how to whine when he’s hungry!”
Fights intensify everywhere. And one of them screamed in anger.
“Then I can eat you!?”
In an instant, the atmosphere in the crowd turned cold.
The student who spoke out also noticed that he was flustered and stuttered.
“Huh? What is this atmosphere. I just did it guys… Of course I didn’t mean it. Just… Just…”
But everyone had a gut feeling. What to do to survive two months here.
It is not the end of deciding the ‘food’ to feed the daylily of the blood tree.
They also had to decide what to eat.
Cannibals. An old taboo of mankind. However, a way of survival that was once familiar enough to be taboo.
The message the devil was throwing was simple.
‘ Eat each other ! ’
It wasn’t the true bottom that he fell into mere prey in front of an absolute being.
What is below that is the secret room in the basement, where the brutal fratricidal predation takes place.
“…” ”
…”
“…”
The students were realizing the devil’s goal one by one.
No one said it out of their mouth, but the increasingly heavy and bloody silence shows it well.
After a long silence, one person stepped forward.
It was ‘Arthur Gordon Pym’, a third year student who was the leader of the aristocratic faction.
Gordon opened his mouth in a heavy tone.
“Guys. We’re forced to make tough decisions.”
At that, everyone raised their heads.
Gordon continued.
“Severe decisions will continue to be required. … But for now, let’s focus on our immediate problems.”
At that, all the students nodded their heads.
Let’s set aside for a moment the scary and terrible thoughts of food, drinking water, food sacrifices, cannibalism, and so on.
What was urgent right now was ‘feed’ to soothe the bloody daylilies tomorrow.
Gordon said, swallowing dryly.
“We have to decide what to offer to the man-eating flower tomorrow. Do you all agree?”
Everyone nods. Gordon said again.
“Does anyone have any ideas on what criteria to select the offerings for?”
“……How about voting?”
Someone raised their hand and said.
vote. good night. A good way. Usually, students have decided many things in this way at school.
However, voting is basically a process of producing a result of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when there is a specific agenda.
“To vote, the person or conditions to be prey must be presented first. Then, we can vote on whether or not to follow them.”
A specific person can be chosen by vote to be offered as a sacrifice or not.
However, it is too direct and aggressive, so it is impossible with normal mental strength.
As a way to avoid guilt as much as possible, the students chose to ‘turn around’ the target.
“Hey… how about this?”
A hulking man full of muscles opened his mouth with his arms crossed.
“Originally, even in nature, weak individuals are weeded out and only strong individuals survive. That’s why… the sacrifices are made in the order of the weakest. That’s right…”
“Nonsense!”
Then, an immediate response came from the side.
A female student with a neat hairstyle and glasses argued in a clear voice.
“We’re human! We’re civilized and intelligent! That’s not true! We’re not wild animals!”
“Then, on what criteria do you want to choose tomorrow’s offering?”
“That…… As I said earlier, we are civilized and intelligent, right? So, what if we were sacrificed in order of the worst brains? Wouldn’t it be better to use school grades as the standard?”
Opinions came out that they should be sacrificed in order of weak strength or poor study.
The big boy who had been screaming earlier shouted with his arms crossed.
“It’s only right to sacrifice the weakest ones first! For example, such a poor guy!”
Where he looked, there was a male student crouching with a small body and a timid impression.
But when he was at school, he would usually cower at the cry of a big boy, but he didn’t cower anymore.
“I’m weak? Well, I think I’m stronger than you right now?”
“What is it?”
The tall male student flinched momentarily.
The shy male student slowly got up from his seat.
Then she looked at the big boy with bloodshot eyes.
“Unfold your arms.”
“…”
At that, the tall male student was unable to say anything but broke out in a cold sweat.
…puck!
At that moment, a timid male student rushed at me.
A large male student freaks out and folds his arms in a defensive posture.
I saw a large boy with his arms undone, with one of his wrists amputated and wrapped in a dirty cloth.
It was the student whose wrist was eaten by the mimic that came out of the random box given to him by the fairy earlier.
The timid male student grabbed the large male student by the wrist, shook it, and gnashed his teeth.
“How about it? I don’t know if it was when I was at school, but I think I’m stronger than you right now. Do you still want to do it in order of strength?”
“Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You don’t let this bread shuttle go!? Are you crazy!? Don’t you know I’m an official of the barbarians!? Just one word to my father and I can make your father stop his business!”
“Try to fold it. Where? You’ll have to get out of this fucking tower to do that? Where can you do it! Huh?”
As if they had a lot of resentment, the two boys started to fight after hitting each other.
Actually, it was not a fight, but rather a unilateral beating of a male student with his wrist cut off.
Maybe because he ate a few red candies? The fists thrown by the timid male student were quite fierce.
Then Gordon intervened between the two.
“Now, stop it. Now is not the time to fight among ourselves. If we don’t, the atmosphere will get out of hand.”
When Gordon, an officer of the aristocratic faction, said this, even the timid male student sighed and stepped back.
The hulking man with his wrists cut also hurriedly crawled back on three legs.
The groin was already yellow and wet.
Since then, numerous issues have emerged.
“As expected, it would be better to become prey in order of strength.”
“Let go of those who can’t study! Are you going to waste your brains?”
“Where are the lower graders coming and going! I have to sacrifice the lower grades first!”
“It’s not okay to judge by grade level! I’m three years old, so I’m older! Do it in order of age! Shouldn’t we give preference to seniors!”
“Damn it! Age is free, so what kind of treatment do you want for that! I’m not saying this on my knees, but let’s do it in order of grade!”
“Money! How about going without money!? It’s that simple!”
“Would you like to go in order of having more friends? Let’s sacrifice those without friends first! Friendship vote! Friendship vote!”
“You know our family is the best when we go out of the bar, right? The world is originally a network~ Let’s think about it even when we go out of the tower~ I’ll remember the real faces of those who sacrificed themselves for me, and I won’t forget them later and take care of them… “
The hotter the atmosphere gets, the faster the guilt evaporates.
At first, the students, who hesitated because of guilt, were now spitting with bloodshot eyes as if they were bargaining at the Dottegi Market.
“Vote like an intellectual! By vote!”
“Okay! Let’s decide democratically!”
“Majority is best!”
“Yeah! Try until unanimity comes out where!”
Through discussions intellectually and democratically as cadets of the Colosseo Academy, the most prestigious university in the empire.
As a result. It has been decided that one of the students will become the daylily’s food tomorrow.
A first-year student who can’t remember his face or name.
I can’t study, I can’t exercise, but I don’t have a special appearance, and I don’t have friends who can protest on my behalf.
He cried out a protest close to a wail or a scream.
“It’s unfair that I was chosen!”
“Shut up! It was a majority vote! You were voted unanimously!”
“You guys colluded with each other!
As the student who would become ‘prey’ desperately shouted, the faces of the other students hardened.
“Hey, are you proud of not having friends?”
“Networking is also a skill. Don’t you know?”
“What is a worthless person like you doing living? What can you do to benefit the community?”
“…Bad words. If we treat you here and now, make you an idiot, and throw it to that flower tomorrow. What are you going to do?”
“Just go ahead as long as you’ve been selected. You can reward your family when you get out of the tower later. I’ll tell you that you were a hero. Huh?”
Threats and conciliation continue everywhere.
Those not chosen desperately tried to secure their safety by building walls.
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…”
The male student who was chosen as the prey began to cry.
And everyone who saw his tears looked away, albeit for a moment.
I hate to admit it. That the male student who had been reduced to mere ‘prey’ is also someone’s precious child and brother.
But what? If others don’t die, I will die. This is such a place.
……No, maybe the world outside the tower was actually like this?
Everyone retched almost simultaneously.
The atmosphere was getting more and more distorted in the huge contradiction and confusion.
Right then.
“stop.”
The madness that had swelled tautly subsided for an instant.
There was one hand that caught the attention of all the students.
“…I will become the prey.”
The footsteps that struggled through the crowd.
Black hair, red eyes, expressionless expression that makes it hard to read what he is thinking.
It was Bikir.
