Pyo-wol glanced at the snake passing near him.
It was the one responsible for biting his wrist. He almost died because of the snake’s venom. But he felt no animosity.
The cold reptile was the first one to settle down in this underground space earlier than him. If anything, Pyo-wol was the one intruding.
Pyo-wol did not particularly hate or fear the snake since it did it out of survival. The snake had to bite for it to live.
The snake slaughtered a large insect at the corner where Pyo-wol usually deposited his feces.
While his eyes had slowly adapted to the darkness, he had never seen so clearly as he does now. It seemed that some change had taken place inside his body when he fought against the poison that penetrated him.
‘Is this poison tolerance?’
He had heard of stories of people becoming stronger from surviving after being poisoned before.
Pyo-wol thought that it would be the case for himself.
The problem was that not only did he gain resistance to poison, some changes have also taken place in his body. It seemed that the poison had a synergistic effect and affected his eyesight.
There was only one way to confirm his guess.
Pyo-wol caught the body of the snake that was eating an insect and returned to where he was prior.
The captured snake immediately opened its mouth wide and dug its fangs at the back of Pyo-wol’s hand.
The effect was immediate.
He could feel the heat rising from the back of his hand. It was enough proof that the poison had started to penetrate his body.
Pyo-wol prepared for the pain by gritting his teeth. Having resistance to the poison did not diminish the pain at all.
Like Pyo-Wol predicted, he could feel the excruciating pain at the site of the snake’s bite. Scorching heat rushed through his veins as if it was trying to burn his whole body.
It was painful.
He almost regretted his decision. But the pain was more bearable than he thought.
The first bite had left him completely paralyzed, while the second time did not. Sure, it was still painful, but he can still endure it.
When a day passed, the pain started to completely disappear.
Pyo-wol was soon convinced that he had finally developed poison tolerance.
It may only be towards a certain type of poison, but it was clear that he had his own weapon that others didn’t know about.
His vision also seemed to have gotten a little clearer.
‘Okay!’
For the first time, a smile graced Pyo-wol’s lips. It was the first smile he made after being locked up in an underground space.
After that, another change occurred in Pyo-wol’s daily routine.
Once a day he let the snake bite his wrists. He knew that his body had developed a tolerance, but Pyo-wol never intended to be satisfied with his current level.
He wanted a more perfect immunity. So he repeatedly let himself be bitten by the snake every single day.
He also observed the behavior of the snake. The tiny snake with degenerated eyes was the only intelligent creature in the subterranean space, besides Pyo-wol.
When he stared at what the snake was doing, he can see that it rolls its head. (뱀이 하는 짓을 보면 나름 머리를 굴리는 것이 보였다.)
Snakes were exceptional hunters.
It can approach the prey without making a sound and kill it at once. It stealthily conceals its presence so that even vigilant insects will not notice.
Occasionally, there would be insects who noticed the appearance of a snake, and when that happened, it made a peculiar cry of ‘washing’. Then, the movements of the worms hardened like a lie. (간혹 뱀의 등장을 눈치채는 녀석이 있었는데, 그럴 때면 ‘씻’ 하는뱀 특유의 울음소리를 냈다. 그러면 벌레들의 움직임이 거짓말처럼딱 굳었다.)
It can incapacitate its prey using sound.
But even so, the snake is not greedy. It doesn’t make the mistake of intimidating insects around it and chasing them away.
The appearance of such a snake attracted Pyo-wol’s interest. So besides dedicating his time in training his stamina, Pyo-wol would also come and observe the snake. For Pyo-wol, watching the snake was his only means of entertainment.
Pyo-wol unknowingly fell in love with the snake’s movements. To increase his strength, he tried to imitate the movement of a snake as he walked around the room.
He practiced trying to navigate through the darkness without a sound or presence.
The days went by quickly with him doing the same thing over and over. Pyo-wol routine would consist of eating the served food, observing the snake, and training his body. Pyo-wol had to constantly repeat these three actions in order not to go crazy.
Otherwise, he would have already gone crazy, engulfed in terrible pain.
Eating food, training the body, observing and imitating snakes was the only way to lose weight.
In the darkness, Pyo-wol was resembling a snake little by little.
* * *
Clang!
Pyo-wol opened his eyes to the sudden vibration.
In an instant, a look of disbelief appeared on his face.
It was because the iron door that had kept him locked up here for a long time was opening on its own.
Pyo-wol stood up.
Soon the iron door was wide open.
There was no difference in scenery between the inside of his room and the outside. The pitch-black darkness that covers his eyes and the humid air that irritates his skin remained.
Pyo-wol came out of the iron gate and looked around. Outside the door was a large hallway.
On his left side were numerous rooms with doors all wide opened. Perhaps, all of the rooms had opened simultaneously. The hallway has no end in sight.
Pyo-wol moved to the room adjacent to his room. He had to walk approximately twenty steps to reach the next room. Given the size of his room which was only about three square meters or around ten steps in each direction, there would be another ten steps left that would serve as a barrier in between the rooms.
‘So that’s why I couldn’t sense the presence of others.’
No matter how sensitive his senses were, it would not be able to overcome the thickness of the wall.
Pyo-wol looked inside the room.
An awful stench stirred his nose.
It was the smell of rotting flesh.
Someone’s body had been left decaying in the darkness. The foul odor indicated that the decomposition had already progressed considerably.
Pyo-wol went into the room and inspected the body, ignoring the foul smell. The deceased had its face collapsed, so he couldn’t tell in much detail, but judging from the built of the skeleton, he could tell that it was a boy of the same age as him.
Perhaps the boy was also imprisoned here at the same time as him. The situation in the other rooms was the same. In each room, either a boy or girl of a similar age as Pyo-wol was dead.
Unlike Pyo-wol, they could not endure hunger and died of starvation.
Their room was as humid as Pyo-wol’s room so it was full of moss. They probably did not seem to consider consuming the moss. Maybe they weren’t able to adjust well to the darkness like he did and hence failed to notice the moss growing around the room.
A bowl of rotten food was placed in front of their own doors. Similarly with Pyo-wol’s case, the food was also rationed. But they must have been picky and left the food untouched.
In the darkness, Pyo-wol’s eyes flashed red.
He continued to walk straight down the hallway.
Twenty rooms passed. And twenty bodies were also found. One corpse per one room.
Pyo-wol soon reached the end of the hallway. There was a large iron door blocking the hallway. The iron gate was much thicker and larger compared to the ones that blocked their rooms.
The bolts of the gate were also taken out.
Pyo-wol pushed the door hard and the towering iron gate opened slowly.
Beyond the iron gate, the same hallway where Pyo-wol had been imprisoned continued, and again, twenty iron gates were lined up in a row.
The only difference is that there was only one survivor in the area where Pyo-wol was, but in the new section, there were as many as two survivors here.
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