"So there's a pretty mouthy new fish in the tank. Let's see—"
One of the men who had gathered around—a particularly large one—stepped up to Jack and drove his fist into the man's gut without so much as a warning.
The motion was seamless, almost casual. At the heavy thud, Jack's body folded like a buckled beam.
"Hh… haah…"
A groan of pain. But Jack didn't go down.
His arm swung wide, and with his fingers extended sharp and straight, he lashed out at the face of the man who was still grinning with his fist buried in Jack's stomach.
The man leaned back, yanking his upper body out of range to dodge the strike—though it grazed him by a hair's breadth, leaving a thin crimson line across his face.
Clutching his stomach, Jack glared up at the man through a sheen of cold sweat.
"Hh… hah, hah… damn it. Lost my Mana Material and this is what I get? Doesn't matter though—you're done."
"…What?"
Despite having just taken that devastating blow, there was a grin curling at the corner of Jack's mouth.
With a trembling hand, he dragged a fingertip—its razor-sharp claws still glistening with the man's blood—across his own cheek.
And then—the expression of the man watching Jack shifted from confusion to pure shock.
"I can… I can feel it… the torrent of Mana Material you had left in you—power, it's surging through me!"
"!? …This guy—"
Veins bulging on his forehead, the man lunged at Jack. But Jack caught the outstretched hand with his own palm, meeting it head-on.
A straight contest of strength. The opponent stood nearly two meters tall, a full head above Jack. But Jack didn't budge an inch. If anything, he was slowly, steadily forcing the man back.
"You gotta be kidding—his pressure is—"
"Don't underestimate this blood-soaked Jack."
It seemed the story about absorbing the opponent's blood to steal their Mana Material was true after all. Jack didn't understand the principle, but the man was far too dangerous to let down his guard.
Jack shoved the man back, then pivoted in a spinning step and charged straight into the Snake members who had them surrounded.
Fresh blood sprayed through the air. The men reacted instantly, trying to pin him down, but Jack's knife-sharp claws weren't something you could block barehanded.
The amount of blood wasn't massive—hardly what anyone who'd made a living brawling would even call an injury.
But Jack's exhilarated laughter was changing the very atmosphere.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! The power… the power is overflowing! As expected of Snake's fighters! Way different from the penny-ante Hunters in Pepri!"
Was it just me, or was Jack genuinely unhinged too?
Keeping their distance from Jack's volatile emotions, the Snake members drew back—but their killing intent was palpable. They were calm.
As befitting a violent faction that had preyed on Hunters themselves, they were far more experienced in combat than Jack.
The whole blood-absorption trick would probably be figured out pretty quickly, too… given that Jack was literally dripping with the stuff.
Jack's voice boomed through the entire prison.
"Listen up, I'll say it one more time! Foxes, Snakes—I'm not scared of any of you! Management of the food in this prison is officially under the charge of the former Level 8 Red Hunter, Thousand Transformations! It's decided!"
"!? Thousand Transformations, you say!?"
The Snake fighters erupted in murmurs. Their faces twisted with rage.
Even during the actual fight with Jack, they hadn't shown this much fury.
Though for the record, nothing had been decided? At minimum, I'd been planning on trading cleaning work for meals.
But before I could object, Grand seized on Jack's words. He pushed his glasses up with a dainty flick and spoke in a voice that carried.
"Hmph… there's no need to even check the data. The gap in caliber was already obvious, but Thousand Transformations only arrived on Prison Island today. You lot, locked up here for so long, never stood a chance. If he gave Jack a hard time on top of that, what hope could you possibly have? Surrender now if you don't want to be swept aside. The lord has declared that if you bend the knee here and now, he shall accept you with a magnanimous heart."
"!? No he hasn't said that!?"
Bend the knee? I never said anything like that!
I planned to leave the moment the tour was over, and having subordinates drafted without my consent was deeply uncomfortable.
Also—lord? When had that title come into play? He'd slipped it in so naturally that I'd been too slow to call it out.
But Grand didn't so much as flinch at my flustered interjection.
With a theatrically precise adjustment of his glasses, he swept his gaze around the surrounding prisoners—who had been in an uproar over the Snake-versus-rookie brawl—and addressed them.
"The lord has said he will discard any useless subordinates. But don't worry. I pledge here and now that I will use data to convince the lord of your usefulness. So choose: do you passively wait for death to come, or do you once more raise a banner under the lord's banner?"
At Grand's ringing words, the gaunt, skeletal prisoners exchanged glances.
I didn't want a single one of them. I despised anything with the word "bandit" attached. Sky bandits, sea bandits, mountain bandits, forest bandits—I hated them all.
Without thinking, the words I'd been holding back slipped out.
"No, I'm actually planning to leave right away—"
"Did you hear that, everyone!? The lord has declared he will break out of this very Prison Island! Are you going to let your bones rot on an island that strips your strength just by existing!? Of course—there will be no coercion. Anyone who cannot decide anything of their own will has no use to us!"
No no no no. I was leaving, but you people were still inside the prison! I didn't know how long they'd be locked up and didn't want to know, but I was the only one here who could walk out immediately as a visitor.
But while I could only blink helplessly, things were already moving without me.
Jack licked the blood from his fingertip and turned a deep, predatory grin on the Snake members.
"Heh… you guys might want to rethink your position here. Or… would you rather just die right now?"
The air went taut. It was unmistakably the kind of tension you could call killing intent. Under Jack's pressure, the Snake members clenched their teeth—and cast a glance at me.
Their stares were loaded with intense negative emotion. Killing intent, resentment, and the faintest flicker of fear. Once again, I had absolutely no recognition of any of these men's faces—but…
The man who seemed to be their leader—the one who had punched Jack's stomach earlier—said nothing and simply flicked his wrist. That single gesture was enough for every Snake member to silently peel away, retreating like an ebbing tide.
Thorough control through sheer force. He hadn't raised his voice, hadn't charged in swinging—somehow, that made it even more terrifying.
They were not beasts who lashed out on emotion. This was the same terrifying fighting force that had given even Zeburdia trouble.
I should never have set foot on Prison Island. I should never have gone on this tour.
Jack pried open the large crate. Inside, it was divided into several compartments.
In the section lined with chunks of meat, vegetables, and seasonings, there were also solid rations—the kind said to be so tasteless, so punishingly nutritious that they only entered a Hunter's options when faced with the choice of starving to death or eating them.
Even Jack's cheeks tightened at the sight.
"Ugh… Zeburdia. That's just inhumane… This is brutal."
"Just this? It's apparently distributed several times a day, but there's no way it covers every inmate. They're trying to spark fights among the prisoners… The person who designed this prison has quite the personality."
The emaciated prisoners who had been watching from a distance now stared at us with hungry eyes. Unlike the Snake crew, we only numbered three in total (not counting me, of course), so they were probably sizing us up as easy marks.
The prisoners were weakened but numerous. If we got surrounded and attacked, without my Barrier Ring I'd be helpless.
"My lord, we've acquired the food. Using it as a bargaining chip will lend our camp some proper standing."
"…No. Take only what we need and abandon the rest."
"Seriously…?"
Jack sounded surprised, but I had no use for a camp. If anything, I'd rather not have one. Not once in my life had I ever thought, "I want my own faction."
All I cared about was when Officer Jin would get me out of this prison. That was it.
At my words, Grand bowed respectfully.
"…As you command, my lord."
"!? Hey, are you serious!? We just chased the Snake guys off!"
"…"
At Jack's outburst, Grand turned to look at him in silence. Their wordless exchange lasted only a heartbeat.
"Tch. Fine. If you need me again, just come back. That's all there is to it."
"That will suffice. Trust my data."
Jack was caving? A Red Hunter who had been drenched in blood while dressing down Snake's fighters—following orders from Grand, who looked like nothing more than a pretty-boy intellectual? Surprising, but whatever.
Grand might have had his own agenda, but at least I could avoid getting gang-beaten by everyone around me for now.
Grand turned to Zack, who had been standing off in the corner minding his own business and looking elsewhere.
"Zack. That arrangement works for you too, yes?"
"I merely follow the Great Will."
"…That's all you ever say, isn't it?"
Jack let out an exasperated sigh.
But according to my data, there were plenty of oddballs in the world. I couldn't figure Grand out, but Jack was undoubtedly a fringe case by any normal standard.
§ § § The rooms inside Prison Island went to the fastest claimants. Naturally, the comfortable, spacious rooms belonged to large groups who treated them as territory, and some prisoners couldn't even find a room to sleep in.
In that sense, Prison Island made the law of the jungle more real than the outside world.
It was less imprisonment and more like exile—and in that, you could see the Empire's excessive harshness toward its criminals.
In that regard, Jack and the others were, in a sense, lucky.
On this Prison Island, where the rate of Mana Material drain was incomparably faster than the outside, those who arrived later held an overwhelming advantage. Jack had felt that keenly while facing down the Snake members.
In a room roughly midway between Snake and Fox territory—the one they'd taken after evicting its previous occupant (who, upon seeing Jack and company, had realized he had no chance and simply left—it was probably a common enough story)—Jack and Grand sat down to talk.
"Hey, Grand. Why'd we give up the food? We could've used that to recruit allies, easy."
Jack's objective was to create a new force rivaling both Fox and Snake, take control of Prison Island, and ultimately escape.
For that, he needed to gather as many people as possible. Picking a fight with Snake and seizing the food had been for that exact purpose.
But even though Jack had risked exposure of his abilities to secure the supplies, Thousand Transformations had casually thrown them away.
They'd won this time, but one of Snake's fighters had been remarkably strong. Snake held the numerical advantage, and there was no guarantee of winning again.
Jack hadn't lost his composure, but his power was useless against an opponent with truly overwhelming strength—someone he couldn't even draw blood from.
If he had overwhelming force, that would be different, but Jack couldn't take over this prison on his own. That was precisely why he'd allied with Grand.
"That's something you should take up with the lord."
"As if I can do that! You didn't exactly object either!"
Thousand Transformations was currently shut away in the back room.
With only a single door between them, Jack's words could certainly be overheard. But he'd earned the right to gripe a little.
Jack hadn't taken up Thousand Transformations out of loyalty. He'd recruited him on practical merit—otherwise he could have just joined Snake or Fox.
"Calm down, Jack. You're being rather short-sighted. Even my data says abandoning the food was the right move. That's why I went along with it."
"What?"
"Actually, keeping the food crate would have been the bigger problem. Jack—could you have defended that crate from both Snake and Fox?"
"That's…"
Snake's fighters had been considerably stronger than Jack had expected. He'd managed to win by landing the first blow, but if they'd all come at him at once, he couldn't say how it would have ended.
And that wasn't all of Snake's fighters. Factor in Fox—an organization on equal footing—and holding the crate would have been nearly impossible.
After all, what they had was food, something essential for survival. The other side would have come for them with everything they had, knowing death was on the line.
Grand explained it as though instructing a child.
"Understand—by repelling Snake even once, we've raised our stock. But if we lose next time, our reputation drops. And if our reputation drops, recruiting soldiers becomes harder. So cutting ties at that point was the right call. Of course, if the lord had chosen to hold the ground, I would have obeyed that order without question—but I'm grateful he was the one who suggested we let it go."
"I see…"
Thousand Transformations was a former Level 8 Hunter—he probably wouldn't lose to most opponents. But you couldn't discount the advantage of numbers or organizational structure.
Still, the fact that he'd hit the brakes there was almost like an admission that his own abilities weren't that high.
Was Jack really making the right choice by following Thousand Transformations, who might not actually be that strong?
As if sensing Jack's doubt, Grand shrugged.
"Well, wait and see. Honestly, my current data doesn't include information on the lord. There's no rush to draw conclusions—better to do so after raising your own value first. I intend to do everything in my power as well."
"Works for you? Wouldn't you be better off flexing your skills in a bigger organization?"
"That's exactly why. In the first place, someone who joins a large organization wouldn't be given leeway to call the shots. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to climb to the top."
Jack didn't know anything about Grand. But the fact that someone who appeared to have almost no combat ability had been locked up here alone—that had to be for a reason.
"Grand—what did you do to end up in here?"
"…Ah. Let me clear up the misunderstanding. I'm not like the rest of these lot—I didn't commit any crimes."
Grand sighed.
"I joined the revolutionary army. I wanted to prove how useful the data I'd collected could be."
A revolutionary army. Pepri was peaceful, but in other countries there were those at war and those suffering under dictatorships.
"You didn't win?"
"No… we actually did win. But then, when I tried to organize the revolutionary army a second time, I got caught."
"Huh?? …I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow… The revolution was a success, right?"
If you'd led a successful revolution, you'd be a hero. At the very least, someone at the center should have been living large. So why try to form a second army?
As Jack stared wide-eyed, Grand shrugged again.
"Well, yeah. But succeeding once could just be luck, right? To prove my data was truly effective, I needed to change factions and do it all over again."
There wasn't a trace of shame in those words.
This guy… he was a political prisoner. And he was a hundred times more devious than Jack, who had simply rendered a small country's Treasure Hunters useless.
Why Jack and Grand had ended up in the same prison was beyond me. Jack had only crippled a minor nation's Treasure Hunters—that was all.
"Well, don't worry. I won't be switching factions this time. This will be the second time—if it works again, my data will be proven complete."
I had no idea how much of that to believe. But he was clearly brilliant—no question about that. The question was whether I should work with him.
"Fine, whatever. As for Zack… he just follows the Great Will, right?"
At Jack's words, Zack—who hadn't said a single word until now—nodded.
His crime was at least clearly defined. Maybe Zack was actually the most decent of the bunch. He'd been useless when we got the food, but in the worst case, he'd fight if you sicced him on someone.
Grand clenched his fist and made a forceful declaration.
"Starting tomorrow, we gather people and bolster our fighting strength. Fox and Snake haven't made any concrete moves yet—there should still be time. Before then, we absorb those who don't belong to any faction and build a third power."