The entrance ceremony was over.
The bodies of the dead prisoners were tossed off the cliffs into the crater like garbage.
No one cared about the fate of the prisoners, who would still be reported as 'alive and imprisoned' in the terrestrial registers because they had not been officially 'executed'.
They would remain trapped in this prison on paper forever, even after death.
On the other hand, the prisoners who survived the ceremony received their floor and room assignments.
Vikir, who had not only come here with more than three thousand life sentences, but had also shown a nonchalant attitude during the inspection of his belongings, medical examination, and bath, was naturally assigned to Level Nine, the ninth floor.
… Clang!
Vikir was locked in a cramped room. Level Nine was basically a solitary confinement system.
The atmosphere in the room was surprisingly plain.
A large black brick stone chamber. The entire stone chamber was lined with bars made of BDISSEM, a substance that absorbs mana and physical power.
"This is why you can't even dig through the bricks with a spoon."
Not only were the bars closely spaced, but they covered the ceiling, walls, and floor, making escape impossible.
There was no point in digging a hole to get out through the walls or the floor, as they were 10,000 meters below the ocean floor.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Cold droplets of water dripped from the bricks.
The water was extremely salty and concentrated.
Indeed, an enormous amount of moisture sticks to the entire body.
A dark, cold, dank aura filled not only the cell, but the entire hallway.
The interior of the stone chamber was bare.
Not even the usual bedding or bowls, just an empty cube of space.
But Vikir's assessment was pretty harsh.
"Not a bad place to live."
After rolling across so many bloody battlefields against demons, it's a nice change of pace.
Vikir muttered to himself.
…Kung!
The heavy iron gate beyond rang loudly once.
kkigigigigigig-
A door so heavy that it took over a hundred guards to open it.
It opened and the prisoners who had originally been held here were seen entering.
Presumably on their way back from forced labor outside.
"heoeog! keuheoeog! kkeuleuleug-"
"Ughhh...."
"kkeueug- kkeueueueug-"
The condition of the prisoners returning from their forced labor in the workshops was terrible.
Vikir recalled the information he already knew.
All of Nouvelle Vague's prisoners, from level one to level nine, were required to go to the workshop every day at dawn to perform labor.
The labor is to dig down into the interior of the volcano where Nouvelle Vague is located.
It's an expansion project to increase the interior space of Nouvelle Vague.
It's an extinct volcano, but it's still a volcano, and the enormous amount of geothermal heat inside doesn't dissipate over time.
So the prisoners dig and dig and keep digging, boiling, burning, drying up, day after day.
"The new prisoners are put to work tomorrow, too."
A voice came from the side of the cage where Vikir was standing.
The guard he had seen earlier, Lieutenant Garm, was now standing beside him.
He walked up beside a procession of prisoners groaning from burns and exhaustion.
"You will wake up at 4 a.m. and work nonstop until 1 p.m. You will have 10 minutes for lunch, after which you will work again until midnight. After that, you will return to your room and have an hour of prayer and repentance before going to bed at 1am."
That's three hours of sleep a night, one meal a day, and that meal had to be consumed in less than 10 minutes, and it had to be something crappy like black bread or a piece of jerky.
Not to mention the grueling, high-intensity slave labor that continued day after day.
Garm's voice echoed upward due to the Nouvelle Vague's vertical panopticon structure.
Vikir could hear the sound of Garm's voice and the wavelengths it created, and he could sense the overall structure of the Nouvelle Vague.
'...A large cylindrical structure. Prisoners' cells are arranged in a circle around the walls, with a workshop in the center of the bottom nine levels.'
The stronger prisoners, closer to level 9, seemed to be working in the central depths of the bottom nine levels, breaking rocks and digging down into the ground, while the weaker prisoners, closer to level 1, were working in the distance, blowing mounds of dirt and rocks and dumping them outside.
The prisoners in the middle were divided into work areas according to the level of the floor they were imprisoned on, and worked to move piles of rocks and dirt.
This means that if you're closer to level 9, you're working in the deepest, hottest, and most dangerous part of the worksite, and if you're closer to level 1, you're working in the shallower, less hot, and safer part.
This may sound complicated, but it was very easy and simple to illustrate.
Lieutenant Garm said.
"You are currently engaged in the glorious labor of expanding the great Nouvelle Vague. Do it with pride, and do it well."
Expanding the Nouvelle Vague.
To be more specific, they were currently creating an area deeper than the 9th floor underground called 'Level 9'.
Aka "Level 10," a massive undertaking to create a 10th underground floor.
Since they're digging down to the 10th floor, it makes sense that the workshop is on the 9th floor.
"The new section, Level 10, will house criminals who cannot be housed on Level 9. It would be wise for you, the prisoners, to cooperate if you care about your own safety."
Garm had a point.
Every once in a while, Nouvelle Vague would have a rampage of criminals it couldn't handle, and it was always the prisoners who were the first and most likely to die.
So from the prisoners' point of view, the weaker they were, the harder they worked on the construction, and the sooner the more dangerous ones were sent down below, the better off they would be in the long run.
Vikir nodded in agreement.
'Indeed. Nouvelle Vague has a lot of out-of-order monsters.'
Vikir could think of quite a few criminals he knew who were currently imprisoned in Level 9.
'Cystus Ent Megidio, Lord Griffin, Aurora of Sleeping Beauty, Snowwhite of the Assassin, Cinderella of the Glass Heel, Marquis de Sade,' ....
Each of these monsters was powerful enough to wipe out an entire nation with a single blow.
Imprisoned here after being sentenced to life imprisonment more than 5,000 times during their time on earth, even the Nouvelle Vague's Level Nine floor could not contain them.
"For your information, if you refuse to serve or resist the guards' control, you will be sent to solitary confinement. Don't think there's a floor worse than Level 9."
Garm opened his mouth as if aiming his words at Vikir.
Vikir heard the words and nodded slowly.
The cell the guard was referring to was probably nothing like the one Vikir was in now.
'Solitary. A terrible place. I've heard it's a hard place to get out of alive once you're locked up in it... and that there's only one prisoner in all of Nouvelle Vague who can survive it.'
Vikir was recalling all the information he'd heard before his regression.
"... Huh!?"
"Oh, they're coming, they're coming!"
"Get out of the way or you'll get eaten!"
The low-level prisoners, returning from their labor, backed away to the left and right, terrified.
The guards, too, stood tense, their weapons crossed, staring at the other side of the gate.
Black shadows stretched across the fiery horizon.
Shadows that are big, small, or incredibly large.
"...."
"...."
"...."
They are the prisoners of Level 9, returning from their work in the center of the labor fields.
All eyes were on the returning prisoners of Level 9.
Vikir turned his head away as if he didn't care, and spoke in a deep tone.
"Hey, guard, do you happen to have a newspaper or something?"
Lieutenant Garm, who was breaking out in a cold sweat, turned his head.
Then, incredulously, he replied.
"Newspapers? Why would you look for such a precious thing in a prisoner?"
"Newspapers are precious? I didn't know that."
"Anything from the outside world is valuable, especially something as informative as a newspaper. Even among the guards, newspapers are rarely seen, and only the warden and a few other privileged people can read them."
The connection to the outside world is both precious and dangerous.
At least that's how it worked in Nouvelle Vague.
Vikir clicked his tongue ruefully.
"We're as good as prisoners and guards who are imprisoned here."
At that, Garm put his hands on his hips in disbelief.
But he did not bother to pull out the three-stage baton attached to his waist.
'...Tomorrow, that leisure will disappear.'
Even if you are a demon trapped in Level Nine, once you taste the labor of the Nouvelle Vague, you will be stunned.
This prison is named after the volcano Nouvelle Vague, which was once hotter than any other.
It is now an extinct volcano, but the geothermal heat still trapped inside and unable to escape is as hot as hell.
Garm expressed his condolences to Vikir, who had to dig down there starting tomorrow, especially the deepest and hottest part of it.
It's where even the demons of Level Nine die casually.