46 Reclaiming Hope (IV, Three-in-One Mega Chapter)

"Fuck," Balboa muttered.

He got to his feet and walked to the front of the cell, peering out, but all he could see was darkness.

A few days ago, he would have leaned here cursing nonstop, then stuck his hand out and waved it around wildly, trying to provoke the guards. But he no longer did that.

For one thing, nothing here would respond to him. For another, this darkness could freeze a man's bones soft and brittle. He had no intention of needing an amputation just yet.

The captain frowned irritably, his weed-like brows twisting together and making his rough, ugly face look even more vicious. But he still refused to give up. He stood at the door and stared for a while longer, only returning to the cell after confirming that there truly wasn't a single living thing here besides himself.

Still, to be honest, although he called it that in his heart, Balboa found it difficult to regard this place as a prison based on the furnishings alone.

A broad sofa made of soft material, a carpet that was obviously far from cheap, a satin-covered bed he had never imagined he would get to lie on in his life, and a private shower room as large as half a public bathhouse.

When had he ever had the right to use things like these? Him? Balboa of the Hellhounds? What a goddamn joke.

Before he enlisted, he had been a blacksmith's son, drinking every day—either dead drunk or on his way to getting dead drunk. Until one day, he and several drinking buddies got into a conflict with some other people in a tavern, and under the influence of alcohol, he beat one of them half to death.

And then?

Bang—! The sheriff who arrived beat him half