An elderly orc entered the room and sat before the Deputy Wardens.
"You've been imprisoned in the Dungeon for twenty years?" a Deputy Warden asked, leafing through the prisoner's file.
"Yes... Deputy Warden, sir, I understand the mistakes I made..."
The Deputy Wardens exchanged glances and denied his application for release.
"Good! That's what orcs are like. They never learn what they did wrong..."
A noble in the audience said this, while others whispered among themselves. Did the Dungeon really have a procedure like this? They had thought anyone thrown in there died within days.
As the old orc left the room, they saw the high walls that, according to the story, had risen miraculously in just one week.
The prisoners called the old orc Freeman. Among them were humans, centaurs, elves, and gnolls—peoples the Dachaso Mercenary Company knew well.
As a Carriage carrying new prisoners passed through the high walls, the inmates gathered around and bet on who would break first. In the Dungeon, the newcomers would pay for their rash acts with endless regret for the rest of their lives.
The prisoners watching the film remembered their own lives and fell into sorrowful silence.
The Dungeon guards' first lesson for the new prisoners was its cruelty. When one newcomer could no longer bear the darkness and began to scream, a Deputy Warden dragged him out and beat him to death amid the noblewomen's cries of "Oh, my heavens!" The remaining newcomers went deathly quiet.
The next day, Andy and the other prisoners went to the Mess Hall for food. They picked out the maggots, which Old Zoran took to feed a fledgling he had found a few days earlier.
The nobles thought the scene was vivid. The prisoners thought it was nothing like reality. They had no separate