Star Rank Hunter

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Chapter 167: The Out Of Place Convict [Part 2]

Perhaps it was because the gray cat had kicked it a few times to wakefulness, but when the little fellow saw someone coming in it immediately opened its eyes and looked pitifully at Cillin. It was just about to wag its tail when it recalled that it was being grabbed by the gray cat. Therefore, it gave up on wagging.

“Eh, this little fellow’s eyes are green in color!” Lung went closer and gave it a glance before exclaiming, “I remember that the hellhounds had red eyes when they were first researched by the base. The first time I see them, I even exclaimed that those researchers had purposely selected red eyed protector hellhounds.”

“It’s a genetic variation, I suppose. Perhaps its parents had a relevant recessive gene, and it was ultimately expressed on its body.”

Cillin gave the little fellow a little inspection, and found that it had recovered quite well. Not much time had passed at all, but scabs were already forming on its wounds. Its broken leg was also healing pretty nicely.

“You’re recovering quite well, but you still need to rest well for a bit.” Cillin rubbed the little fellow’s head and grabbed the gray cat by the neck, saving the little fellow’s tail from its claws. He moved the little fellow to the center of the operation table, “Rest well. When you wake, we’ll eat a big a meal.”

Cillin configured the medbay’s environmental setting into sleep mode before lifting the gray cat in his arms and leaving the medbay with Lung.

“So, what do you think?” Cillin asked Lung.

“It feels different from the other hellhounds. Maybe it’ll really work.” Lung rubbed his chin and said.

“I’m going to lie down for a moment. Call me if there’s anything.”

“Okay.”

After Cillin had returned to the lounge, he flicked the gray cat’s ears and said, “Alright, you can stop pretending to be asleep now. Even your whiskers are raised up.”

The gray cat had already woken up when Cillin and Lung entered the medbay just now. It just didn’t want to move until now. When it heard Cillin’s words, the gray cat opened its eyes and looked spiritless, “I can’t sleep well.”

“I can see that. Normally your sleeping posture isn’t like that. Did you have a nightmare?” Cillin scratched the gray cat’s chin.

The gray cat moved slowly according to the scratch and narrowed its eyes, “I don’t want to be captured by those researchers.” the data the gray cat had learned from that base’s system made it feel as if it had watched a realistic horror movie.

“That’s why I said we have to grow stronger.”

“You guys can never be stronger than me anyway!” the gray cat’s arrogant nature showed its face in less than three lines.

“Not necessarily. The elites haven’t even shown their faces yet.”

“How powerful are they?”

“I don’t know…”

…

Sector S, on a grade three prison planet.

Even the air inside this rampart-like prison was cold, dark, and devoid of any human warmth at all.

This planet was one of the many grade three prison planets in Sector S. There was nothing special about it. Grade three prison planets were in the middle of the status quo. The convicts imprisoned on these planets were not small fries, but they could only be relegated to being part of the background when compared to those people in grade four and five prisons. At least, that was how things were in the eyes of the prison guards and the defenders.

Unlike the prisons in other Sectors, be it grade one prisons or grade five prisons, no one was allowed to take even half a step away from the prisons in Sector S until they had reached their date of release.

It felt just like isolation;being imprisoned here several dozens of years or an even a longer period of time. Some people said that grade three prisons were the prisons with the lousiest treatment. In grade one and two prisons there were at least public brawls to be fought. The prison guards would not feel too anxious facing convicts of grade one or two prisons, since they were low level prisons in Sector S after all.

Convicts in grade four and five prisons were either relatively reputable or famous throughout the entire GAL. Their importance was incomparable to the previous three grades of prisons, plus the total amount of people in grade four and five prisons were less than the total amount of people in grade three prisons. Therefore, the prison space for each convict in grade four and five prisons was larger, and there were even some recreational facilities as well. Of course, these so-called recreational facilities were just some old and decrepit players and projectors which at least a number of them could not project a straight image.

Compared to the other four grades of prisons, convicts in grade three prisons neither had brawls to fight nor any recreational equipment at all. At best, they got to read newspaper or magazines from a few or a dozen years ago. They could also use them to wipe their ass after they were done reading.

Therefore, some people began to display mental problems after they were imprisoned in grade three prisons for a prolonged time. Impatient at their behavior, the prison guards would punish these strange convicts. The death row convicts who could not hold on after being put through both physical and mental torture would be discarded like trash or converted into food for the convicts of this prison.

Ka!

The elavator door opened. Two prison guards walked into the prison rooms of this floor. The prison rooms were all single-sided, and there was an extremely thick isolating board that separated each room so that the convicts could not communicate with each other.

After the two prison guards walked out of the elevator while holdings whips in their hands, they arrived at the entrance of the path. After verifying their identities at the inspection area, the door of the entrance of the path opened to admit the two prison guards. One of the prison guards pressed a button, causing one side of the walls of the prison rooms near the path to become transparent. This way, they could observe every convict’s status clearly.

Every time, there would be some convicts who, at the border of despair, would vent their dissatisfaction and maddened feelings at the prison guards by baring their teeth at them. The prison guards also enjoyed this situation the most, since it meant that they would have something to entertain them.

A prison guard swung the whip in his hands on the transparent wall. The second the whip came into contact with the wall’s surface, the wall instantly converted this high pressure into a high pressure gas wave on the other side of the wall. The impact of this converted high pressure gas wave would be enhanced several or even several dozens times stronger based on the prison guard’s swinging strength. Finally, it would land on the convict’s body.

The convict who had pressed himself against the wall and bared his teeth at the prison guards was slammed fiercely to the opposite wall by the high pressure gas wave. A bloody wound also appeared on his body. His hands and feets were bleeding out of the cuffs, and the wounds that weren’t healed in the first place worsened as blood dripped on the floor.

The convict roared on top of his lungs. No one knew if it was because of the pain or his despairing emotions.

The other convicts could also hear the convict’s shouts, but they were willing to hear them since this was the only occasion they could hear a human voice, even if it was the sound of a bloodcurdling scream. After the prison guards had left, after the walls had turned back to normal, they would not be able to hear any sounds from outside any longer. They could only hear their own mutterings and heartbeats.

The two prison guards stared at the convict who no longer looked like a human, rolling on the ground and screaming at the top of his throat. They laughed as if they had seen something fun.

When the prison guards were bored, they would whip every prison room once. It seemed that listening to the convicts’ bloodcurdling screams was the only thing that could make them feel as if they were the bosses running this place. Even if the convicts inside the prison room were very obedient, even if they did not break any rules, as long as the prison guards were willing, as long as they were willing, they would swing the whip in their hands and beat these convicts fiercely like a circus would train its animals.

However, there was a prison room that they would not whip. Perhaps they did not know themselves why they wouldn’t whip it. They just felt that they shouldn’t whip that room, and even if they did they would only do it once. They would not attempt to whip the convict in this room a second time just because he did not react to the initial beating. Once the prison guards had left, they would not remember that there was such a special convict either.

Just like before, the prison guards went around to whip a few prison rooms based on their mood. When they walked past the prison room of this special convict, they passed right by him as if they hadn’t seen him at all. They did not look once at the convict inside.

The convict imprisoned in this room did not look like a malevolent or fearsome hoodlum. Instead, there was the gentle and cultivated aura of an academic around him. Every movement he made contained some of the elegance of a gentleman and appeared to be very polite. Even his newspaper flipping movements were incompatible with this prison. There was just this nagging feeling that this person should be standing and speaking inside a wide lecture theater of an institute of higher education, and not keeping silent in this sinful, dark and dirty prison.

Right now, this unusual convict was sitting on the only chair of his room, spreading out a newspaper and reading. His other hand was holding a cup, and although the liquid inside the cup was obviously the bitter tasting water supplied in this prison room, the way he held his cup and drank gave off the wrong impression that he was enjoying a cup of tea of the best quality in a high class restaurant.

The convict did not change his newspaper reading movements despite the changes in the wall, the prison guard’s laughter and the bloodcurdling screams of the convicts. He had not even lifted his eyes.

However, when the prison guard walked past his prison room, this convict finally moved his gaze away from the newspaper and looked outside the transparent wall.

Perhaps the others could only see two prison guards standing outside, but in his eyes, he could see another figure beside the them.

The convict wore a genial smile and nodded as if he was exchanging a greeting. Then, he looked down on his newspaper once more.

The undetected figure froze for an instant when he saw the convict. He immediately gave him a salute before finally leaving the prison room.

In another prison room not far away from the previous prison room, a big man with an unkempt beard snored on top of his bed. Because his snores were too loud, the prison guard whipped him twice to wakefulness.

After the big man cried out twice because of the two whips, he sat up in a daze and scratched his messy hair before lying down once more. He did not snore this time, however.

After the prison guards had left in a litany of curses, the big man opened his eyes, got up and looked outside of the prison room. He said softly, “Zero! I didn’t think that you would come personally this time!”

There was a black butterfly tattooed on this big man’s arm. The patterns on the butterfly’s wings looked very bizarre. It looked like the face of a devil, and some people called this butterfly the ‘Devil Butterfly’.

Devil Butterfly was one of the three main tattoos in the Blue Butterfly Hunter regiment.

When the prison guards turned back around, the big man had already laid back onto his bed. The prison guards paid him no heed, and after they selected and whipped a few prison rooms while swearing incessantly, they left the area.

Half an hour later, a young man waited cross armed at a corner of a building not far away from this prison.

The young man’s bowed head suddenly lifted, “Pretty quick.”

A figure slowly appeared into existence before the young man.

“I’ve passed the item to him. The operation will begin when it’s time.”

“Have you seen something else, Zero?” the young man asked. This was because Zero’s face looked a little serious.

“I met someone who should not be at this place.”

“Who?”

“Hunting Blade Jiada.”