Chapter 105: You Give Me No Choice
“Increase the fault tolerance of the plan and come up with an escape route after hijacking the ship?”
On the roof of the Sea View Tower, Igor listened to Ashe’s request and found it odd. “Shouldn’t your top priority be figuring out how to get through the Blood Moon Tribunal in a few days? Don’t tell me you don’t think you’ll be selected for the lucky eight, or that you believe only one person will die in this extra Blood Moon Tribunal.”
Not just Igor, even the ordinary death row inmates sensed that the next few Blood Moon Tribunals would result in heavy casualties—because the prison was nearly full.
As the number of inmates increased, the prison couldn’t expand or reduce the per capita living space, lower the living conditions, or convert other facilities into dormitories.
The environment at Shattered Lake Prison was already extremely close to the limits outlined in the “Guidelines on Prisoners’ Living Conditions.” If the prison dared to increase the inmate capacity by lowering living standards, human rights organizations would definitely come. They would accuse the prison of abusing prisoners.
Therefore, the prison’s only and best method was naturally to let the death row inmates suffer “reasonable attrition,” while also increasing the revenue from the Blood Moon Tribunals—because the prison couldn’t force the executioners to attack non-target death row inmates. To maximize casualties, the prison had to design game segments that resulted in “total annihilation” and “no escape.” That way, the livestream effect would naturally be explosive.
The Blood Moon Tribunal on the 15th was a prime example. The tribunal rounds were complex and exciting, and the death row inmates could even kill each other. And when Valcas was being executed, if he had the thought like “if I can’t make it, neither can you guys,” he could bring down all the other death row inmates with him.
Come to think of it, it was quite interesting. Human rights organizations would never allow the prison to increase death row inmate capacity by lowering living standards; but they thought it was acceptable for the prison to design Blood Moon Tribunals with high fatality rates to reduce the number of death row inmates.
Though there was no evidence, Igor felt that a portion of the advertising fees from the Blood Moon Tribunals must have become political donations to human rights organizations.
“Then what do you think I should do to safely get through the Blood Moon Tribunal?”
“Hmm…pray to the Four Pillars behind you? Or repent and beg for mercy from the Blood Moon Sovereign?”
“If Shattered Lake Prison is a cage, then the tribunal list is like the butcher outside choosing who to slaughter.” Ashe responded. “We beasts in the cage can’t impact what happens outside, unless there’s a butcher out there who knows me well. But sadly there isn’t one, though there are probably quite a few who want to eat me.”
“So instead of worrying about surviving the Blood Moon Tribunal, I should operate on the premise that I’ll be lucky enough to live, and formulate a more detailed prison break plan. After all, there are nine days until the next transport ship arrives, can’t waste them like this.”
Ashe leaned on the railing around the roof, arms crossed.
“Sounds like a waste of time.” Igor wrinkled his nose.
But Ronat beside them was excited. “No, Ashe is right! Even reducing the danger by 1% and increasing the success rate by 1% is worth spending time on. Friends, our time is precious. We could enjoy life after we return to the free world, but for now, please wholeheartedly prepare for the prison break—that’s good, right?”
“That’s right, we’d just be wasting time in prison anyway.” Langna said. “And I believe Brother Ashe won’t die so easily in Shattered Lake.”
The vote was 3:1. Igor naturally had to go along with the majority’s opinion. Though he wasn’t actually against perfecting the plan, he simply wanted to argue with Ashe.
Perhaps because he knew someone like Ashe could never become his scam victim, Igor didn’t want to waste his charm on Ashe either.
One had to know, when facing customers, Igor was a lovely person. With his spirit’s abilities, he could easily pry open a customer’s heart. He could chat with a customer all day long without boring them. Quite a few people would rather be scammed by him and want to chat with him.
“The chip’s restrictions make my plan easy to fail. The most likely point of failure is the period after we take the medic’s clothes and before we board the transport ship.”
“If the unconscious medic is discovered early, or if our actions take over ten minutes, or various accidents happen along the way, the guards will realize we’ve disabled our chips. Once they send a warning to the transport ship, we’ll have no chance of boarding, let alone hijacking it.”
“The risks are too great here, with too many unpredictable factors. If the plan fails, it will most likely be at this stage.” Igor looked around at everyone. “Any ideas?”
Ashe racked his brains, Langna stayed silent, but Ronat raised his hand. “Why not go for something more direct—kill all the guards first?”
“Unless we can take out all the guards at the same time, if even one escapes, he can sound the alarm.” Igor was a little exasperated. “Plus, the guards work in shifts. Some are always in the guard living quarters we can’t access. We won’t get a chance to wipe them out all at once.”
Ronat said seriously, “Then think of a way to gather them together!”
“What way? Pray to the Four Pillars like Ashe? Or just directly, pray for all the guards to suddenly drop dead—”
“What if we find someone, purify their chip, then have them go kill other death row inmates and guards? Wouldn’t the guards gather to hunt him down?”
Igor was about to reject this idea, but swallowed his words. He paced back and forth reflexively, sticking his thumb in his mouth and nibbling his thumbnail, deep in thought.
Ashe blinked. “That sounds…more reliable than purely relying on luck!”
“Ronny is so smart!” Langna patted Ronat’s shoulder and laughed.
“It’s definitely feasible, though the details need perfecting!” Igor’s eyes grew brighter. “Use bait to draw the guards’ attention away, whether it’s ambushing and killing them or taking the chance to hijack the ship, it’s much better than my original plan. We can also prepare more fallback options, like having Ashe disable more people’s chips and incite a huge riot at Shattered Lake!”
“Right under the prison’s nose, right in front of the guards, throw Shattered Lake into utter chaos!”
Thinking about directing this spectacular, magnificent drama made Igor’s blood pump faster, and his long-lost passion for work reignited within him!
Ashe said excitedly, “No time to delay, let’s go pick a lucky death row inmate as bait!”
Igor had no objections. The four headed to the Deathmatch Society.
Their requirements for the bait were: aggressive, hates the prison, obedient, gullible, and most who fit this profile gathered at the Deathmatch Society.
On the way, Ashe surreptitiously moved closer to Igor and whispered, “Ronat is really weird today.”
Today’s Ronat was all smiles, speaking actively, his expression sunny and passionate. It formed a stark contrast against the withered, dried up Ronat of the past few days, giving Ashe the creeps.
Igor also whispered back, “It means the ritual has entered the late stages. I won’t be surprised if Ronat’s cell is emptied out tomorrow.”
Ronat turned to look at them, shaking his head. “I should’ve mentioned I enhanced my hearing with a spirit, right? Unless you mask it with a spirit, I can hear whispers at this level!”
Ashe and Igor stopped in tandem, both with innocent “nothing happened” expressions. When it came to shamelessness, they were oddly in sync.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll definitely make it to next month.” Ronat thumped his chest. “My business with Langna won’t impact the plan. We’ll resolve it after the breakout, trust me!”
Ashe couldn’t help asking, “Then why the huge change these days?”
Ronat held up one finger to his lips. “Secret.” Then he angled his elbow out, letting Langna hook their arms. To onlookers, the intimate pair seemed impossible to be mortal enemies.
But Igor was lost in thought. Was this Langna deliberately making Ronat like this to cooperate with the prison break? Now this sunny, cheerful, proactive Ronat would naturally be more helpful to the plan, he even contributed useful suggestions right off the bat.
If Langna did this on purpose, it meant he had great confidence in the prison break. So much that he was willing to alter his ritual’s progress to accommodate the plan.
But even Igor, the plan’s proposer, didn’t have much confidence in the prison break. By his calculations, their chance of success was less than 10%, and even after perfecting it, less than 30%.
Where was Langna getting his confidence from?
Igor knew it definitely wasn’t in him.
At this thought, Igor instinctively turned to look at the cult leader beside him. Ashe was confused by his stare, hesitating briefly before angling his elbow out in offering, an exasperated “you give me no choice” expression on his face. “Didn’t expect you to actually envy this. I’ll force myself to oblige…”
Ah, how he wanted to hit him, to curse at him!
Igor was so furious he nearly snapped.
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