I heard him loud and clear.

He had just asked me to assist him in his suicide.

The scars on his arms had raised my suspicions.

This old man had longed to die for a while now, and this wasn't his first attempt.

"Wait, 'help you commit suicide'?" I asked.

"It's simple enough. I put my finger in the hole, and you make me bleed with something sharp. I'll handle the rest," he explained.

"So you just want me to scratch you? You know you can't die from that, right?" I responded, confused.

"You really are stupid," he retorted, annoyed.

Then there was silence.

"I'm a hostage of that damn greedy merchant," he continued.

"The Chief?"

"Yes. The marks on my arms, they're not from me. They're from him. He comes here every month to cut me. That way, if I die within the next 30 days, he gets the debt points from my death. That's why he waits until the very last moment to fill his bar each month," he explained.

"So you want me to scratch you so that when you die, it's me who gets the points instead?" I asked.

"That's right. I want to die, but I refuse to pay his debt at the same time. If you help me die, I'll help you live. What do you say?" he asked me.

"And how would you help me by dying?" I didn't understand his proposition.

"Their mage has placed a curse on me. As long as I live, my spells activate but have almost no effect. I can barely create some light or accelerate the growth of the mushrooms growing in my cell... But if I die, the curse will be lifted," he explained.

I scratched my nose, not sure where this was leading.

"Before I hang myself, I'll cast a potent spell that will activate after my death. It's a spell that will turn my corpse into a time bomb. It will blow up the wall separating us and the outer wall too. You'll be able to escape."

"So you're a mage?" I asked, curious of this magic he mentioned.

He paused and there was a hint of pride in his voice as he said, "I specialize in explosive magic."

I found it cool, but I didn’t want to show it.

"Let's say everything goes as planned, and I end up outside. What do I do next?" I asked.

"You run to the Secret Fruits field, eat as much as you can, and level up," he said.

"So, I choose a class... I become a mage, and then how do I get out?" I was visualizing the scene as I spoke.

"No, not a mage. It's a class that requires spells to be useful. You'll become an assassin. They have an ability that allows them to temporarily become invisible," he said.

My eyes widened.

This ability seemed incredible.

"Wow! I didn't think that was possible. I could hide and wait for the right moment to run away!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, you can stay near the field, nobody goes there. You'll level up quietly, and when you get the chance, you'll run away by following one of the Lookouts."

I weighed his plan in my mind. It was full of dangers and uncertainties, but it was the only chance I had. It was the only light in this dark place.

"So, are you ready?" he asked, I could hear him putting his finger in the hole.

I took a moment to think and replied.

"No, I'm sorry."

His idea was good, but I couldn't accept him dying for me.

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I was definitely too naive to be in Hell.

He said nothing in response to my refusal.

I heard him move back and sit against another wall in his cell.

That's how our conversation ended, and it was also the last time we spoke for a while.

.

Five days went by. The old man and I hadn't spoken again. Despite his advice, I continued to pace around my cell.

I was close to hitting 100 miles.

It was early in the afternoon when I heard the prison's entrance door open and close.

Fast-approaching footsteps filled the silence.

Suddenly, Guil appeared in front of my cell. Dressed in his loyal green poncho, he looked at me with sadness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I was not in the village, I came as soon as I found out!" he said, panic in his voice.

I approached the thick, rusted bars of my cell and asked, "Can you get me out?"

He seemed surprised and took a step back. "I... Um..." he stammered.

I didn't need more information to know he wouldn't do anything.

I let go of the bars and went to sit at the back of my cell.

"Maybe I can talk to the chief, with some luck, he might allow you to eat and drink!" he said hopefully.

I didn't respond.

He looked around, then disappeared from my field of vision, reappearing dragging a decrepit old wooden stool in front of my cell door. He sat down and started speaking again.

"Why did you steal Turcos? You know it's forbidden and besides, you were going to receive enough to cover your debt" he said.

I laughed sarcastically. "My debt? You mean the 20 points? With all the work I've put in, you'd think they'd have covered it!" I replied.

My debt was still unpaid, and the end of the month was approaching, adding to my anxiety. Losing my mind seemed worse than death to me.

"If you had asked me, I would have helped!" Guil repeated.

"Listen, Guil. I didn't steal anything. The Chief or someone else wants to sacrifice me for points. And the thing is, you know about it, so don't play innocent," I accused.

He looked surprised. "What? What do I know?"

"You were on that dirt road because you had an appointment with the small guy, the slave trader, to buy me. In the end, you got me for free, I worked like a slave all month, and now you're going to sacrifice me. By the way, you could have arrested me later, I didn’t know about your ‘plan’ so I would have kept working till the end of the month," I explained.

His surprised face turned into a look of embarrassment. "I... I knew you were an escaped slave. A level 9 this early after spawning, and in that dangerous road? That was obvious. But I never wanted it to end like this. If we took you in, it was for you to become one of us, not for you to end up here," he said.

He seemed sincere, but once again, I wasn't buying it.

"Yeah, sure. So what's the business, you buy slaves out of the kindness of your heart?" I asked.

"We do what we must to survive. Slaves help us in the fields. But often... they attempt to escape or steal and end up here. We treat them as well as possible, but they fail to understand that we're their best shot at survival," he explained.

"Or someone sets them up to be able to sacrifice them. You really don't see what's going on here?" I asked him. I found it hard to believe that someone could be in such denial. He said nothing.

"The disappearing Turcos stock, your chief leveling up, the slaves, who miraculously all end up here? You don’t see a pattern?" I listed.

"There's nothing like that..." Guil replied, almost desperate.

His eyes hid no malice, he seemed convinced of the chief's good faith, of the entire village's.

I thought myself naive and unfit for this world, but I had found someone worse than me.

I stopped trying to convince him.

The silence lasted several minutes.

He broke it with a new question: "What became of him?" he asked.

"Who? The human trafficker?" I queried.

"Yes."

"He got killed by a Drifter," I said simply.

Guil exhaled sharply and looked upward.

"He was a former Lookout. A good guy. He was the kindest. But... We had a few hard months in the village with the crops, and I ended up learning that he was giving his PP to the farmers so they could pay their debts," he began to explain. I listened carefully.

"He went months without paying. And when he hit his fifth unpaid debt," he said, emotion in his voice, "we started considering him as much of a Drifter as a human. He was becoming uncontrollable, and we had to make a tough decision. He was a hero who had saved the village multiple times, so we decided to banish him instead of killing him."

He regained his composure, trying not to cry.

"He was the only archer-class lookout we had, swift and dependable," he cleared his throat, struggling to maintain his calm. "Even after being exiled, he helped us by selling us new players. We gave him access to the Secret Fruits garden so he could quickly level up the slaves, making them more useful when he sold them to us," he finished, swallowing hard.

His words echoed in the stark silence of the prison. Anger welled up in me; he was part of this whole mess.

It felt like he was confessing just to ease his guilt, thinking that leaving this prison would clear his conscience.

I rose, gripped the bars, and stared into his eyes. "No one will forgive what you're doing here. There's a warped justice in this world, and one day, it'll find you," I said.

He simply looked at me, wide-eyed, then silently stood up.

The sound of his departing footsteps echoed in the prison. He didn't utter a single word.

His retreat suggested my words had hit home.

As the echo of his departure faded, I retreated to the back of my cell.

The old man's voice broke the silence for the first time in five days: "Wow. You didn't hold back. But you're right, he's just as rotten as the rest," he said.

I didn't respond immediately.

I took a deep breath and asked, "Hey, old man, I'm in. Let's get out of here."