Another few months have passed since then.
The anomaly in the monthly evaluation was not a single occurrence anymore, but had become the norm.
1st place. Task completion rate 114%.
1st place. Task completion rate 121%.
1st place. Task completion rate 136%.
1st place. Task completion rate 142%.
1st place. Task completion rate 155%.
1st place. Task completion rate 161%.
1st place. Task completion rate 178%.
1st place. Task completion rate 185%.
.
.
The other junior guards could only gape at his ever-increasing record of overachievement.
By then, nobody among the junior guards looked down on him.
It was natural to be treated as a colleague by them, and it was crowded with people who approached first because they wanted to hang out with him.
"Hey, Garm. You were first place this month too."
"It seems like all of the prisoners in your charge are very disciplined."
"What's your secret?"
"Let's play poker after dinner."
The first ones to pretend to be friendly were surprisingly the first to be beaten by Garm.
After that, one by one, the number of guys who pretended to be friends increased.
But there were some who had always kept a certain distance.
Kirko was one of them.
"...."
She was always number one, but suddenly she was number two.
Ever since then, Kirko had been watching Garm.
As she ate her meal in silence, she thought back to the scene she'd seen of Garm at work a few months earlier.
'I can't believe he was doing that.'
It turns out that Garm's method of overachieving was actually quite simple.
Nothing much at first.
He beat the prisoners' vital parts with a triple baton, telling them not to be lazy.
Garm knew.
Like Santa Claus, who knew who was a good child and who was a bad child, Garm knew all too well which parts of the prisoners' bodies to hit to maximize the pain, but not interfere with their ability to perform their labor.
The three-tiered baton did not rest as if it was pounding meat for pork cutlet.
With each swing of the three-tiered baton, the prisoners, who had defied him, turned 180 degrees and acted as if they would jump into the fire at his command.
These prisoners, all of them known for their temper and strong-will on Level 1 or Level 2, were transformed into perfectly obedient workers after a month of working with Vikir, a.k.a. Garm.
Even the intelligent prisoners, who used to tease the guards not with strength but with brains, psychological warfare, and a sharp tongue, trembled at the sight of Garm.
'But up to that point, it was something I could think about.'
Up until this point, Kirko hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary.
Garm's method, or as it was sometimes called, the "Rotten Dog", was incredibly efficient and straightforward, but it's not all that different from Kirko's method.
If that's the case, Kirko was already doing a good enough job.
... However, there was something special about the way Garm worked.
peoeog- pasag!
Garm himself began to join in the labor with a shovel and pickaxe.
As an onlooker, Kirko couldn't help but raise a question mark over his head.
A guard doing labor? How is this any different from a real prisoner?
'No, why would a guard be in between the prisoners in the first place...?'
But regardless of that thought, Garm was very good at his labor.
It was as if he had been doing it his whole life.
Garm nagged the prisoners one by one, as if he had experience doing labor himself, and as if he had decades of experience building up his skills.
If a prisoner tried even the slightest trick or worked inefficiency, the nagging came back.
The prisoners were completely deprived of the leisure they had gained little by little while avoiding the eyes of the guards.
But that didn't stop him from scouring the prisoners.
'... the rumors were true.'
Garm shared his entire meal with the prisoners.
She didn't know what they were eating, but they didn't show any signs of malnutrition.
'But it seems to be a little different than the rumors?'
From what Kirko had heard, Garm was a pathetic man who was deprived of his meal by the prisoners.
But what about the reality?
The prisoners looked at Garm like he was a monster, doing more labor all morning and afternoon than all twelve of them combined, while never eating lunch.
Strong, overwhelming, all-knowing, charismatic.
Whether they were giant thugs, cunning manipulators, intelligent criminals, or naturally lazy slackers, the prisoners were all lambs before Garm.
Even if she knew how to do it, she wouldn't dare to follow.
Kirko finished her recollections with a shake of her head.
'What kind of a guard would do that to a prisoner if he did the work himself?'
* * *
But Vikir had a different idea.
'It would be much faster for me to do the labor myself than for the prisoners to do it for me.'
The goal was performance, and then promotion.
Sooner or later, he'd have to earn the right to command high-level prisoners and activate the Poseidon in the Level Ten area.
Of course, right now there were a lot of prisoners digging, and the impact was probably being absorbed by the roots of the Poseidon.
'But there's nothing like a direct impact on the surface of the shell.'
So Vikir couldn't wait to get promoted and move up the ranks to deal with bigger, stronger, more ferocious prisoners.
If they didn't listen to him, he would starve them and beat them.
A little bit of the torture he'd learnt in the Age of Destruction, coupled with the ability to sneakily trigger the Starvation Drought, could bring a prisoner down to their very soul.
'One of these days, surely D'Ordume will give me instructions. Get rid of those pesky explosives.'
That would be the big opportunity.
That would be the time when the prelude to a full-scale jailbreak would take place, so he had to time it right.
Right on time.
"Attention, everyone!"
A guard burst into the dining hall.
It was a mid-level guard of the rank of Major, the rank that Vikir was currently aiming for, with a single leaf insignia attached.
"There's a riot! All guards on duty and those on standby are to assemble! Tell those off duty to do so immediately!"
The atmosphere in the dining hall was tense.
As if that weren't enough, the Major blurted out a shocking statement.
"Riot! Level 8!"
A riot by the prisoners of Level 8.
It was a lot different from the riots of the low-level prisoners on Level 1 or Level 2.
The complexions of the lower-level guards turned white, and the middle-level guards also stiffened their expressions.
The Major broke out in a cold sweat.
"The reason we're gathering all the low-level guards is because of the tactics. The senior guards are currently absent."
D'Ordume and Souare made a rare trip to the ground.
It was a call from the prison warden, Lieutenant General Orka, who said that the convoy was understaffed.
"Colonel D'Ordume and Souare, they are on the ground escorting new prisoners. Brigadier-General BDISSEM and Brigadier-General Flubber are off... Commander Black Tongue is too dangerous, as you all know, and if he makes a move, his navel could be bigger than his stomach. We'll have to make do on our own."
The riot of the Level 8 prisoners was so terrifying that even the Major-level guards were terrified.
Naturally, the lower-ranking guards, the so-called Lieutenants, looked on, not daring to step forward.
Then.
Drrrr-
The sound of a chair being dragged across the floor could be heard.
Everyone's eyes turned to see Garm walking out with a nonchalant expression.
There was no worry, no hesitation, just an immediate reaction.
Then.
…tud!
Someone grabbed him by the wrist.
It was Kirko, sitting at a table diagonally across from him, observing him.
"Hey, are you crazy?"
She said in a small voice.
"It's Level 8. We're dead if we go."
"Then what are we going to do? They tell us to come."
"...."
At Garm's words, Kirko fell silent.
After all, you can't just not go when you're ordered to.
To a place where there was a 98% chance of being killed.
"Let's go see what the situation is."
Vikir walked away with a nonchalant expression.
His demeanor was so calm that it was almost as if he was going somewhere good and doing something good.
Eventually, the other junior guards also rose from their seats, their bodies and minds heavy.
Wasn't Nouvelle Vague a place where a command is a command, and a protest is impossible?
Everyone walked down the corridor, anxious and nervous.
And it was Vikir who stood at the head of the group.
Unlike the rest of the group, Vikir's eyes were calm and bright.
'Maybe this is a good opportunity.'
Is there anything more helpful in personnel evaluation than a riot by high-level prisoners?