I Became a Leader in a Wretched Prison - Chapter 61

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 61

Even with Mint by his side, he couldn’t fall asleep for the first time.

Helios carefully and cautiously raised his upper body so as not to wake Mint.

He ran his hand over his face once more.

He knew well why he couldn’t sleep.

“Kahahahahaha!”

The Boss he had seen during the day.

It was because of that monster wearing his father’s shell. For a monster, it looked far too human.

The smiling lips, the curved corners of the mouth, even the position of the wrinkles were identical.

The similarity was chilling.

If it had recognized him and spoken properly, terrible damage might have been done to Helios’s mind.

“Kill them. You are my son, aren’t you.”

“F-Father, I… what if I can’t kill them?”

The giant spider and centipede he had seen during the day. His childhood when he faced the real things, not illusions created by the Tower.

“Then what choice do you have?”

“…”

“You’ll have to become part of them.”

Father had forced his young son.

He gave him a Kia-Infused Weapon and told him to kill them somehow.

Now that he was grown, he knew that Father had no intention of killing his son that day.

He also knew that pushing him into a fight with obvious failure was purely because he genuinely wished for his Kia Awakening.

Father didn’t hate his son.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love him.

The reason he suffered throughout his childhood was because his father’s love was cruelty disguised as affection.

‘Hup.’

Helios felt suffocated.

Could this even be called love?

Bugs appeared and appeared again, then disappeared. Things that accumulated, carrying death. Things he never wanted to see again.

Father appeared in his nightmares every night.

Before meeting Mint, Helios often suffered from nightmares and couldn’t sleep.

‘Weak child.’

Even when he berated himself, the nightmare that had once been revived didn’t easily disappear.

Wasn’t it enough that he had cut down the Boss that bore his father’s appearance with his own hands?

Helios gradually felt his breath becoming constricted. It was unbearable, like drowning in water. If he stayed like this a little longer, even his breathing would become labored.

He couldn’t wake his Master who was sleeping soundly. Just as he was trying to force himself to get up.

“Can’t sleep?”

His shoulders flinched.

When he slowly turned his head, Mint had her eyes closed.

With her eyes still closed, she asked again.

“I asked if you can’t sleep.”

Her tone, which seemed like picking a fight, was buried in her drowsy voice and sounded gentle.

“Just…”

He couldn’t say that he couldn’t sleep because of mere nightmares and trauma.

“It’s nothing that concerns Master.”

This Master with endless strength probably never thought of such things.

She would obviously mock him.

“Why wouldn’t it concern me? If Pretty One can’t sleep, his Kia will lose strength and droop pathetically, and Master will have to annoyingly run around to keep our Pretty One from dying, right?”

It wasn’t even funny.

Even when fighting while so exhausted from grueling training that he felt like collapsing.

Instead of properly helping, she just giggled and waved some stick? Right, she called it a ‘cheering stick.’

Despite leisurely just waving that stick around.

A sharp voice flowed from Helios’s mouth.

“Who’s your Pretty One?”

For a moment, he forgot about the nightmares and the suffocating pressure on his chest, glaring at Mint as he spoke.

Mint chuckled with her eyes still closed.

“Good, you look somewhat normal when you’re angry.”

“…”

What could she see with her eyes closed? Yet she accurately pointed out the truth, which made his anger flare.

“What do you know when you have your eyes closed?”

“I know. Your breathing is different.”

“…”

He didn’t like the night. What was there to like about things that reminded him of nightmares and the darkness of the basement?

But right now, at this moment, this night and darkness were bothersome.

“Why can’t you sleep?”

Because in the darkness, her voice melted with leisure might make him mistake it for being affectionate.

He could have driven the point home again that it was none of her business.

But.

“Master, you’ve probably never experienced sleepless nights, have you?”

He couldn’t help it. The Master before him, this person who had entered This Place in a man’s form for unknown reasons, seemed like the strongest person in the world.

So helplessly, he opened his mouth.

Because Mint would probably treat his worries and nightmares as nothing, as trivial.

“Sometimes I wonder if our Puppy even sees me as human.”

She’s watching. At the same time, she’s not watching.

“Actually, yeah, there were hardly any nights like that. When you’re busy surviving, that’s how it becomes.”

“…Are you telling me not to complain when I’m well-fed?”

Mint replied with a throaty laugh.

“Why do you always interpret things so negatively? Just because you’re going through puberty doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want.”

“…Cut it out.”

Mint was speaking while recalling the time when she had just entered the prison.

However, Helios’s reaction was cold, having no way of knowing that she was talking about her memories from this prison.

“Do you have some kind of trauma?”

It wasn’t uncommon. As she had said, why else would insomnia be the most common ailment in this prison?

“Yaaawn, what should I do to be able to sleep?”

Mint blinked her sleepy eyes.

It would be easy if I just knocked him out…

But that wouldn’t be the right answer, would it?

Of course it wouldn’t work. That’s not the correct solution.

‘Still… wouldn’t it be okay?’

With her common sense distorted, her thoughts stretched out in uncommon directions.

First, she wanted to put this insomniac disciple to sleep, then quickly get some sleep herself.

In fact, Mint had already been half-awake even when Helios couldn’t sleep and kept tossing and turning.

It was natural for her, as she could sensitively react to even the slightest vibrations in the air and wake up.

Moreover, she couldn’t help but know even without opening her eyes. Helios’s Kia was fluctuating quite unstably.

Though she didn’t mention it, if left like this, there was a possibility he might go into Rampage. The chances were quite high.

This was all because the Male Lead possessed enormous potential.

‘Now then.’

To put Helios to sleep, she first needed to help him escape from the mental trauma that had captured him.

To make him reach a stable state.

When he got angry earlier, his mind seemed clear, so maybe making him angry would work?

‘No.’

If she made him angry all night, he wouldn’t be able to sleep, so that idea was rejected.

Faced with what seemed like a completely blocked dilemma, Mint soon found a refreshingly simple solution.

“Helios. You still haven’t answered.”

Why bother looking for answers in distant places?

“Why can’t you sleep?”

Just ask the person involved.

“Was the 38th Floor that shocking?”

“It wasn’t… quite shocking.”

Helios stubbornly let his pride get the better of him. Though he immediately regretted it.

‘At this rate… how can I argue against Master always calling me a child?’

But he didn’t want to speak honestly.

Even though he’d already been caught suffering from something, revealing everything down to the bottom with his own mouth was a different story.

It was embarrassing. And it made him feel weak.

Mint wasn’t in a hurry.

Because Mint had a plan for everything.

‘If I think this is getting tiresome, tomorrow instead of entering the Tower I’ll have to make him do physical training drills.’

Now she even rested her chin on her hand and asked leisurely.

“What would help you sleep comfortably?”

The same question. Helios made a bewildered face.

“If I knew that, would I be like this?”

“Good, when you get angry your eyes become normal, pretty boy.”

“When are you going to drop that nickname?”

“When you’re not pretty anymore?”

“….”

Helios, who had opened his mouth to retort, couldn’t continue his words.

Because Mint had covered his eyes with her hand.

Yes, that was the reason.

…It wasn’t because the question ‘When I don’t look pretty to you anymore, are you planning to abandon me?’ was hovering at the tip of his throat.

“Try to remember.”

Her always languid and dry voice contained unidentifiable playfulness and sometimes indifferent mischief, but it was serious and low.

Reassuring enough to feel at ease without thinking.

“…What?”

“The existence that dominates you. Nightmares, hallucinations. The things that dragged your life down.”

“….”

“What torments you the most there?”

At these words, countless memories naturally surfaced as if he were under hypnosis.

Most of them were from his childhood.

The memories that dominated him.

What tormented me the most?

…Father.

Though Helios didn’t say it aloud, Mint continued as if she had understood.

“You’ve thought of it, I see.”

Silence.

“And don’t you have any intense memories strong enough to overcome those nightmares and hallucinations?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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