Hole 3: Grave Robber
Chapter 1
The mole had dug a very deep trap hole; and inside Muoru had caught the
strange Crow, who looked like a child. Even though Crow had given him the
helmet, Muoru still tricked them into falling into the trap. He realized that
the deception went against his moral code, but he had no other choice.
There was no time.
How much time did Meria have left?
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And how much more pain can her heart endure?
There wasn’t a tool in the whole world that could measure that, but even if
there were, it would probably be better not to use it.
And so this was the second time he was going to talk about the pain Meria
didn’t need to suffer.
“Okay then, why don’t we talk?” Crow asked.
Looking at the Crow he’d captured, Muoru launched his questions.
“Well then, first of all…I’d like you to tell me who you truly are. Was the mask
you showed me back when we first met, a fake?”
“No, it’s not a fake,” Crow said, looking up at Muoru with an innocent
expression and once again pulling out the mask from somewhere on their
body.
“This is real. I got it from my “hunter” friends.”
“What? So, in other words, you’re saying that you’re not one of those
‘hunters’?”
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“Your intuition is sharper than any claw, Mole-kun.” Crow dropped the mask
and mocked Muoru the same way they usually did. Then Crow shrugged. “I
apologize for lying. I thought it would make things easier…but it’s a bit
difficult to explain my position.”
“It’s alright if it’s difficult. Just tell me, or I’ll bury you. I mean it!” Muoru
scooped up some dirt and held it over the hole.
It may have been a threat, but if Crow screwed around anymore he was
prepared to bury the lower half of their body.
Pouting, as if saying ‘give me a break’, Crow reluctantly spoke. ”Well
then…I’m a ‘representative from the victims’ association’ so to speak.”
Muoru shook the shovel and some clumps of dirt rained down into the center
of the hole.
“Hey, hey cut it out! I’m telling you the truth this time.”
“Well, you sound like you’re screwing around. But if not, tell me, what type of
suffering are you complaining about?”
“About the devils of course. Could there be anything else?”
“If you’re not joking about being a representative, then there ought to be
others,” Muoru said, intending Crow’s words to be just another joke.
However…
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“Yes, there are others. Ten of them,” Crow replied quickly with a thin smile.
“Why are you asking me about that anyway? You’ve already met them.”
“Are you talking about Meria?” Muoru asked right away. He couldn’t think of
anyone else it could be. “Is she also a member of your imaginary victims’
association?”
“She qualifies,” Crow answered. “But, she’s different…she’s not a member
yet”
“Why is that? Meria…”
There was no one who suffered at the hands of those monsters like the
undying grave keeper girl…and even if there were they’d been killed a long
time ago and were probably buried in a grave.
“Unfortunately our movements are limited to the day. Since that girl can’t
come out into the graveyard except at night, we’ve never met. But, I can’t say
I completely don’t know anything about her…” Crow was being vague and
speaking in a roundabout way.
Muoru wanted to probe further into what they meant, but before he could
ask another question –
“But I knew Maria well in the past. Definitely more than any other person
around these days,” Crow said something he couldn’t ignore.
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…The person he didn’t know, the grave keeper who Meria said was like an
older sister.
Why did that name come out of Crow’s mouth? I mean, Crow seems to know
the graveyard well, so it isn’t that strange that they would know it, but still…
Attempting to hide his discomposure, Muoru turned his gaze away from the
bobbed-haired person in the hole and sat down.
Then as he moved to sit on the ground cross-legged, he heard Crow say,
“Why do you think Maria died?”
He quickly turned around. Just a second ago, no, just a moment before, Crow
had been in the hole. But now they were standing to his side, their voice
sounding like they were close enough to rest their chin on his shoulder.
How did you do that?
“Grave keepers shouldn’t die. So then, how did Maria die?”
“She probably burned up in the sun.”
“What, she told you that?” Crow seemingly surprised, blinked at the response
that flew out of Muoru’s mouth. ”Yeah, it’s just as you said. Well, it’s not like
she roasted like a sunny-side up egg or anything. That’s one
misunderstanding I should clear up.
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“There is no way to kill The Dark. In fact, from the beginning, the concept of
death hasn’t applied to them. They certainly hate the light, but if it touches
them, their movement will only stop. They won’t die. And when night comes
they would simply start moving again…and resume their killing of humans.
“But, despite the fact that sunlight is necessary for humans, the grave
keepers who have stolen their powers will die if touched by it. Don’t you
think that’s strange? Why do you think that is?”
“I couldn’t care less about that. What I want to hear is…” Muoru had started
off curt, but then he trailed off, unable to get out what he really wanted to
say…He was completely confused, unsure how he should try and continue, or
what he should try and ask.
Crow sighed.
“Humans that consume a part of The Dark become grave keepers. So,
although Meria is still human, at the same time a part of her is “The Dark.”
Those two aspects are intertwined and they cannot be separated. And they
both have an equal effect on her. So if light hits her then her grave keeper’s
body would stop. Which would mean death for a human.”
Muoru craned his head to the side. “Stopping is death?”
Crow poked Muoru’s chest with their index finger.
“Can you stop your heart?”
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Muoru laughed.
“Idiot, if I did that…”
I’d die…right, so that’s what Crow meant.
“Right. Now it’s not just your heart, but also your breathing, your brain, your
nervous system, and everything else…See, the human body is in some way
always moving from the time they were in their mother’s womb until the last
moments of their life. Even when someone is asleep, fainted, or unconscious,
their body never stops. In other words, the concept of stopping is precisely
how humans are able to perceive death.”
Muoru grabbed his chest. “Hmm, so if the monster’s part becomes unable to
move, so too do the grave keeper’s heart, lungs and such- basically all of their
human parts also stop moving. And as a result, they die…is that what you’re
telling me?”
“That’s right.” Crow nodded.
Muoru bit his lip.
Many thoughts were racing around in his head. But overall he was mostly
thinking about how far he should trust Crow’s words.
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All this doubtful talk was nothing more than guesswork. But then again who
wouldn’t be troubled by putting their weight on a potential trap suspension
bridge.
…Still, Crow had an objective; and probably the only reason they got so close
to Muoru was to achieve it.
Right….there was no other way…I’d have to do it…to her….with my own
hands…
“Mole-kun, I want to hear how determined you are.” Crow looked directly at
Muoru. “You may not believe me, but I really like you Muoru. And I have an
idea of something you can do for Meria, a way to help her. So tell me, how
far are you willing to go for her?”
Muoru had absolutely no trouble answering.
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Chapter 2
The night air was bitterly cold, making Muoru run his hands up his upper
arms.
A humid breeze was blowing and above his head the leaves howled. Thin
clouds hung in the dark sky far above, and even father above than that was
the perfectly circular moon shrouded in a haze.
The thick mass of leaves blocked the moonlight, preventing it from reaching
the giant tree’s roots. Standing within that flickering shade made him feel like
he was taking a step outside the human world and entering into the domain
of darkness.
He kicked off his tattered shoes, stuck his fingers into a depression in the tree
trunk, and relying on just his physical strength, started to climb. His limbs
weren’t used to the motion, and he clung to the tree like a frog, sluggishly
making his way towards the top. He would have felt at ease if his palms could
grip the opposite side of the trunk, but the tree with ‘the strongest monster’
underneath was gigantic. It was so big that if he spread his arms out wide and
tried to hold it, there wouldn’t be any bend in his elbows.
Muoru realized he wasn’t good at climbing trees, but out of the things he had
to do, this could definitely be called the easiest.
Find it…
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He finally reached one of the branches jutting out from the tree. Though just
a branch, it was thicker than the usual tree trunk. It was so huge that when
the large-statured Muoru rested his entire body weight onto it, his body
didn’t stiffen in terror. He then stuck his head upwards into the overgrown
dark leaves.
Surrounded by thick leaves that seemed to absorb the moonlight, he could
barely see anything. In fact, he felt like trying to find something within the
leaves was about as difficult as fishing out a ring that was dropped into a
murky swamp.
No matter how much he strained his eyes, it was useless.
Left without a choice, Muoru started to search with just his palms and his
instincts. He couldn’t rush. From tip to tip, the total mass of the giant tree’s
branches could fill the entire mansion in the corner of the graveyard. Plus, he
had to search from his position without changing his grip that much.
Determined, Muoru blindly pushed his way through the thick leaves and
branches. It was like he had dove into a dark ocean and was roaming
randomly about the water. The sharp, pointed branches scratched his cheeks
and earlobes. And the detestable leaves even made it hard to breathe, to say
nothing of the fact that he couldn’t see anything.
Suddenly the sweaty bottoms of his bare feet slipped.
“Tch.”
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He grabbed a young branch at once and his body jerked, shifting the majority
of his weight onto his left hand. A chill ran through his body. The ground was
more than two meters down and if he were to break his foot or something at
a crucial time like this, then he’d be the biggest fool in the world.
He carefully set both of his feet back on the branch and restored his balance.
Muoru then reached his right hand into the darkness above…and plucked a
fruit.
He couldn’t see it, but even in the dark he knew that it was the fruit he was
searching for. The moment he grabbed it the fruit squirmed in his palm, like
he had caught a living fish.
Slowly, Muoru shifted his position and dangled down from the branch with
one arm. Then he jumped down. When he hit the ground, a rush of pain shot
through his legs which numbed them slightly.
But he pretty much didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment from his first
task.
The next one though…
Muoru timidly held his hands out into the moonlight. In his grasp was the
thing that would change his life.
The part of the monsters.
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The dark fruit.
…The grave robber’s harvest.
It was halfway between an apple and a peach in terms of general shape and
size. But looking closely, it also resembled a heart with large arteries or
something. As for the color, it looked like it had been painted jet black with
squid ink. And even though it was a part of the monsters, no claw or anything
like that suddenly sprouted out and attacked him while it was in his hand.
Could this tiny thing really grant humans immortality, but as a consequence
make them unable to stand under the sun?
However, Muoru had touched something very similar to the fruit in his
hands. It felt exactly like the monster’s sack of flesh he’d pushed before; it
wasn’t hot, it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t soft, it wasn’t hard, it felt exactly like an
organ from a corpse.
Since he wasn’t able to see at all, the fact that he had grabbed the fruit
blindly in the dark had instinctually made him uncomfortable. And exposing
the fruit to the light only intensified that feeling. The unpleasantness welling
up inside him was similar to having to vomit something up from deep within
one’s body.
He felt like chucking the fruit away into a random direction. Instead however,
he howled towards the moon and opened his mouth wide like an aggressive,
carnivorous animal.
Then he bit into the fruit.
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He imagined it would taste bitter like bad coffee, but it actually had no taste
at all. It didn’t have any juice nor smell like a normal fruit and he could barely
even feel its texture in his mouth. From the moment it entered his mouth,
whether it was on his tongue or going down his throat, all he felt was
something like sticky mud expanding. It was like his mouth was full of
flavorless glue.
Then a jolt of terror gave him goosebumps.
The contents in his mouth were wriggling like a worm.
A strong wave of dizziness assaulted Muoru and his instincts immediately
took up their defenses. In an effort to get their body’s idiot owner to throw
up the extremely foreign substance, Muoru’s immune system forced his
throat to convulse.
Desperately, Muoru covered his mouth with his hand to stop the
regurgitation. It was slow, but as he endured the discomfort,
gradually….gradually the contents of his mouth started to disappear. Yet they
weren’t so much going down his throat as they were slowly wriggling itself
into the walls of his mouth and permeating into his body’s cells.
…before long the first change occurred, but it wasn’t in his stomach. It was
his feet.
They felt different.
And before he knew it, his legs became terribly heavy.
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If he just stood normally, his legs weren’t impeded in any way. But when he
tried to walk, his ankles felt like they were shackled with an iron chain, or like
someone had grabbed onto his legs and was pulling him down.
Thinking back on it, Meria had always been the same way. He couldn’t recall
ever seeing her run.
Could this be what having the dark inside you feels like?
He looked down at his feet.
The shadow that extended from them seemed like it was strangely getting
bigger…and thicker. And from what should have been his shadow on the
ground – rather, through the shadow as a conduit, he seemed to feel a giant
presence coming from a deeper place.
….That’s it.
It was just like the dread he’d felt when he first arrived at the graveyard
blindfolded. The terror that he was walking over corpses, and walking over
something much larger beneath them.
And now, a part of his body had transformed into a fragment of that. Neither
walking nor lifting his legs could sever the connection he felt. And to make it
worse, he even saw a hallucination where his core and his heart were being
pulled downwards towards that darkness…Just like when Meria’s limbs were
torn off and automatically crawled back to her body and reattached
themselves, Muoru felt like his body wanted to return to the body of the
monster beneath the ground.
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He was hesitating. Far more than ever, he regretted the fact that he couldn’t
undo what he’d done.
…But for Muoru there wasn’t much to be confused about.
No matter how many signs, indications, and so on, if they got in his way he
would consider how to deal with them. And if they weren’t an obstacle, then
this wasn’t the time to be afraid.
He gave up and looked at his body.
There didn’t seem to have been any other changes so far, but…he had to
check.
From his pocket he drew out a piece of glass. He’d picked it up from the
garbage, some small cylindrical piece of some kind of liquid bottle. It had
been broken from the opposite end of the bottle mouth and was sharp and
pointed.
Decisively, he swung it across the back of his left hand.
The pain was more or less what he’d imagined.
As if he’d nicked a vein, a depressingly thick dark blood spilled out and ran
down his fingers. It was like he’d grown a second heart and a dull pain
pulsated with each of his heartbeats.
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Muoru looked at the wound with a complex look on his face. He was starting
to get the feeling that he’d done something extremely stupid to himselfThen
within several heartbeats the wound sealed up and vanished.
The gash on the back of his hand sealed itself back to normal from the inside,
like a pair of closing lips. It wasn’t fast or shocking, his skin just automatically
closed. And other than the sticky blood on the back of his hand, and the
stinging pain, there was absolutely no trace of the wound.
Naturally he felt uncomfortable, but despite the remnants of the pain, his
discomfort was more directed towards the wound that should have been
there.
His lips curled into a twisted smile.
But of course it was absurd to think a scratch on the back of his hand was
sufficient proof of his immortality.
And he absolutely couldn’t fail at what he planned to do next.
So another more in-depth test was necessary.
Still undecided, he extended a finger, but then he wavered
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It was only natural for there to be a far greater resistance to what he was
about to do than when he had put the part of the monster into his mouth.
Though he said it was just for confirmation, the action was the same as
suicide. His fingers trembled. His whole hand trembled. He simply couldn’t
stop shaking.
Feeling his resolve begin to weaken, Muoru bit his lip and recalled the feeling
of Meria’s neck in his arms.
Then he thrust his fingers into the inner side of his leather collar, and with all
his strength ripped it off.
The right artery attached to “the witch’s thread” ruptured and a flood of
blood rushed out from his torn neck.
Unexpectedly there was almost no pain.
However no matter how many times he tried to look down at his neck, the
endless pure red liquid spilled out from a place he couldn’t see. It was
undoubtedly a sight that would make people faint.
The right half of his body was colored red before he knew it, and without
thinking Muoru pressed his hand to the wound. Suddenly his vision started to
dim… he was low on blood.
Naturally, instead of using paint, his body was using the oxygenated blood
that should have flowing around his brain to stain the right side of his body.
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…This was bad, he thought from the deepest area of his consciousness.
This was different from all the wounds he’d suffered up till now. He felt like
he was going down. He couldn’t fight it, nor could he resist it. In fact, the very
places he should have been drawing energy from were disappearing. It left
him feeling hopelessly powerless.
-Whether or not it was true, he felt like he was desperately drowning. And in
the end even his consciousness started to fade. He lost his balance and fell to
one knee.
It’s no use, he thought in a daze.
Slowly his shoulders relaxed and with a lurch, he crumbled to his side with his
tongue sticking out from his lips.
…then he realized… his vision had cleared without him even noticing it.
His anemia had faded.
The fountain of blood had stopped.
And his wound had closed.
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He stood up straight, feeling just as strong as he normally did. He simply
frowned at his blood-soaked clothes sticking to his skin.
But as Muoru stood there, with a body drenched in blood, slowly, a genuine
smile leaked out from his lips.
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Chapter 3
Muoru should have been aware of how unskilled he was at that sort of thing.
At any rate, he was only a mole specializing in the digging of trenches. He
wasn’t a public prosecutor or a detective, so racking his brains would
naturally result in limited answers even if he just tried to guess.
But since he’d been brought to the graveyard he did have a lot of time to
think about things as he dug holes. Plus, he’d heard some stories that had
shed some light on his predicament.
So now he had new questions about his situation, with different hypotheses
coming to mind regarding the potential answers.
First, I’d like to emphasize the fact that I didn’t kill 2nd Lieutenant Hedger
Reeve.
And I swear, my old companion, the shovel labeled ”Case #50357: Dangerous
weapon A”, the item rolling around within the military court’s evidence
storage area, which was probably more like a junk room anyway, definitely
wasn’t what it looked like.
Someone else was the killer.
Hedger Reeve’s true killer.
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Somewhere in the world was the person who had removed Muoru’s shovel
from his sleeping area, hit Hedger’s empty head once, discarded Muoru’s
bloody companion in the trash pile and then falsely blamed him for the
crime.
During his trial no one had even satisfactorily looked into his potential motive
for the murder. However, if the military police had asked his soldier
companions for a bit of information, they would have probably gotten
sufficient answers supporting their claim. Probably statements like, “Muoru
was rebellious so he was often physically punished by the lieutenant” or “The
lieutenant would knock over Muoru’s food”, or “The lieutenant made Muoru
clean up the horse dung all by himself”.
But, I wasn’t the only one of Hedger’s called good for nothing underlings who
was the target of his bullying. In fact, there were most likely no ends to the
amount of people who resented the lieutenant.
So, even the true culprit’s motive stemmed from a grudge towards Hedger.
Muoru didn’t have any doubts about that hypothesis.
At first Muoru thought that the thought of killing the man had only come to
him once or twice. However, thinking about it now he wondered, was that
really true?
Did Hedger Reeve’s true killer really send him to the world of the dead out of
resentment?
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…from here on out, his theory was nothing more than a guess. And though he
was merely thinking ‘hypothetically’, What if the true criminal’s goal was
to utilize the prison system to falsely accuse a young working mole and make
him come here?
Even Muoru was aware of how absurd that idea sounded.
But it went without saying that this graveyard was definitely an abnormal
place. And on occasion, the common knowledge of the outside world was
obscured. So, he could only make a judgment based on what he had
personally seen and heard himself.
Which brought him to Crow’s first piece of testimony- “That old man is
terrible. It’s like, no matter how many people are employed to dig holes,
once they become unable to deal with the devils, they soon become useless.”
Even working a simple job of digging holes didn’t seem so simple here. And if
there were many cases where the laborers soon became useless, then it was
likely that Daribedor must have been looking for other people who, besides
having physical strength, would be able to keep a secret and cause no further
trouble in extreme situations. This meant that Daribedor probably didn’t
object to the idea of employing a former mole shackled with a prisoner’s
collar.
And…
Eventually death would comer even for the grave keeper who stole The
Dark’s power.
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And if multiple people couldn’t be grave keepers at the same time then
preparation was definitely important…perhaps, Meria was something like a
spare for Maria.
So if possible, they found someone who seemed to be able to withstand
dealing with those monsters. And if by chance the person was able to
tolerate harsh labor then that was probably like killing two birds with one
stone. Plus it didn’t matter if they tried to escape, because with a part of
their body changed to The Dark they wouldn’t be able to leave the graveyard.
In other words, the reason I came here…
In the end that reason was mostly unrelated to his hypothesis.
Daribedor had made him dig graves, in advance.
That was where another piece of Crow’s evidence came in. – “The demons
seem to understand their disadvantages. Now they aren’t just refraining from
hunting or luring out humans, they don’t appear before them at all.”
It was only after he’d specifically finished the grave, that the flesh monster
had come to the graveyard. So, in other words the attack had been planned.
How in the world they did it he didn’t know, but Daribedor or the masked
people probably had a way to summon the monsters.
Of course, simply summoning it wasn’t going to kill it. So in essence, calling
the monster was no different than sticking one’s hand intentionally into a
lion’s mouth.
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But in this graveyard…there was a grave keeper.
Even so, Muoru didn’t know why or under what pretense they were luring
the monsters, nor did he know if that act exposed the graveyard or the grave
keeper to danger. Could it possibly be for the sake of mankind or was that just
wishful thinking?
When he’d asked Crow about that they’d answered, “Even I want to know
that these days. What I do know is that the people who take down the devils
get a reward. And the bigger they are the more that sum jumps up. The
masked companions make their living off that.”
According to Crow, the reward surprisingly didn’t come from a country or a
temple organization, but from one human’s wallet. The true identity of that
person was largely unknown and even for the masked hunters it was half
shrouded in mystery. But some reasons for only one individual to provide the
rewards were that, there were no ties of obligation, and that they would give
“a very fair payment” to the person who took down the monster.1
The orphaned Meria and the others like her didn’t even have a family
register.2 They were humans that didn’t exist. So it must have been simple
for Daribedor to deceive them with promises of a reward.
1
“Very fair payment” This phrase is italicized in Japanese for emphasis. I believe it is supposed to show
Muoru’s skepticism with the current payment scheme run by Daribedor.
2
Probably the same as in other countries, but in Japan everyone must register their identity with a so-called
“family registry”. This is basically a record of each family in Japan. Since it doesn’t factor individuals but
families, basically the author is saying Meria has no family. Which would explain why in Japanese she is
called “Meria of the Mass Grave.”
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Even Muoru smiled in sympathy. It was a very easy story to understand.
Although he’d only seen the inside of the mansion once, he could still recall
the awfully extravagant furniture and decorations.
Provided a grave keeper like Meria was there, calling the monsters to the
graveyard would generate a large amount of money for the caretaker.
As that flood of guesses rushed into his head, Muoru worried that the
murderous feelings he’d once harbored towards Hedger were now burning in
his chest for a different reason. And due to those feelings he now felt like his
new companion in his hand was screaming to be used for a far more
productive task than digging holes.
However, if he did that then this time around he’d be facing a genuine life
sentence. And of course in that case there would be no chance to clear his
name from the false accusation. And he wouldn’t be able to disclose any
proof he had for his previous theories. He had no money for a bribe. All he
had was his own body and his feelings for Meria.
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Chapter 4
Suddenly Muoru felt a shift in the atmosphere. He strained his eyes and
scanned the dark graveyard, but he couldn’t see any change. Then he looked
towards the sea of gravestones, then the trees in the dark forest, but again
he didn’t see the bizarre giant-faced monster, nor did he see the sack of flesh
monster with many legs, or anything that could be called their kin.
Am I jumping to conclusions or am I just too high-strung?
Muoru looked down at the hole he’d dug at his feet. It was so comically large
that the average person probably would never think it was a grave. The grave
looked more like a ruin excavation site or a large-scale underground trench.
And Muoru felt that if a monster truly large enough to fill the hole
approached, anyone would be able to recognize it no matter how far away it
was.
But did that kind of thing really exist in this world?
At that moment, Muoru couldn’t think of a single joke.
“Mr. Prisoner,” a husky voice said.
The old man’s nose-less face was pale as if he’d lost all his blood. He was
gripping a black pistol in his shaking right hand, with a finger that looked like
a withering branch resting on the trigger.
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“Answer me! Where did you hide the grave keeper?”
Though the muzzle was pointed at him, Muoru barely glanced in the old
man’s direction.
“You didn’t find her? That’s too bad.” The boy flashed a small, challenging
smile. “I mean, how many places could there possibly be to hide here?”
“This is not the time to screw around. That thing is already coming here! It’ll-
”
“Is that so? That’s….good,” Muoru interrupted, turning to face Daribedor
directly. ”Well in that case, why don’t you hide yourself? I don’t think the
monster distinguishes between grave keepers, prisoners, or pigheaded old
men.”
“You…your collar!” Daribedor scolded, noticing Muoru’s collar was off.
Though Muoru’s legs were extremely heavy, he took a long stride towards
the old man. And a dry gunshot followed.
Daribedor fired two bullets, the first burrowing to the right of Muoru’s navel
and the second drilling directly into the center of his stomach.
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From that point, Muoru felt a cramping sensation, as if bizarrely powerful
pliers were twisting inside him. Grunting through the pain, he grasped
Daribedor’s neck, and like he’d managed to do with Crow several days ago,
he chucked the short-statured man into the deep hole.
Daribedor screamed. Maybe it was because of his hatred for the man, but to
Muoru it sounded hideous. Perhaps the fall broke one of his legs or
something.
Muoru dropped to his knees, clutching his open stomach with a smile on his
face.
“I’m sorry…you’re not injured, are you?”
A bloody froth came up Muoru’s throat and bubbled out his mouth. The pain
seemed to be coming from the ruptures within his body. Probably on the
inside of the small opening in his torso, his stomach was ripped open causing
his digestive acids to spill out and burn his organs.
Muoru could hear the man shouting out some profanities from the bottom of
the deep hole and he wished he had something to shut him up. But since
he’d made the hole with a water well in mind, no matter what the old man
did, he wouldn’t be able to get out of the hole without some tools to assist
him.
“Ugh.” Muoru lay down on the ground, groaning in pain.
This was probably the first time he’d ever experienced pain like this in his life.
Hole 3
293
Under normal conditions, something like a bullet would have been enough to
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