The Nightmare Begins

Tonight the wind was blowing quite hard, even though the weather was very good with the sky not cloudy.

Roman felt the serenity pierce his bones, but somehow he enjoyed it so much that he almost forgot that he was now tasked to do the night watch.

It had been more than 10 minutes since Phil had gone to a brothel. During that time, Roman had only been lying down on his barrack terrace, doing nothing, with his eyes staring up at the sky while he was supposed to be going around ensuring the safety of the barracks area, which was also the ranch area.

Creak…

But not long after, the sound of the barrack door being opened from the inside made Roman stop frozen and immediately sit up afterward. He also directly looked behind to see who had opened the door.

"Zoro?!" Roman said as he saw the figure coming out of the barrack.

Zoro was the youngest slave on this tarantula ranch. He was only 15 years old, but he and Roman were considered quite mature compared to other slaves who worked on the worm ranch since most of them were still eight years old. Even a lot of female slaves who were forced to work in brothels were still under the age of 10.

"Are you lost again?" Roman asked. He seemed pretty surprised to see Zoro's presence in this barrack because this was not Zoro's barrack.

"Eh… no. I deliberately chose to move to another barrack for only tonight because I was barely asleep at all last night. The snoring of those guys on my barrack was terrible and totally a nightmare," Zoro replied as he closed the barrack door again. He then sat next to Roman with a facial expression that showed he was both annoyed and exhausted.

"I thought you unconsciously entered the wrong barrack again," Roman said after Zoro sat down next to him.

Zoro himself unconsciously often 'got lost,' entering the wrong barrack. And the unique part is that the other slaves who weren't supposed to share a barrack with him would also not notice his presence in their barracks until the morning because Zoro always preferred to sleep under the bed even though he had his own bed, which was just the same as the other slaves'. This was also the reason why the people in the barrack he belonged to were also rarely aware that the boy was not with them.

"For the first time, no," Zoro responded to Roman's words with the same expression and mood.

"But it turns out the people in your barrack are no better. Shit, these adult guys truly won't make me sleep," Zoro added.

"Huh? Weren't you just fine while getting lost in my barrack all this time?" Roman asked while raising his right eyebrow.

Zoro then sighed heavily, "Sleepwalking is different… I truly fell asleep when I experienced it."

"Really? I can't believe-"

"Oh! Come on! Why do you guys still think I'm possessed by a devil-like creature when I'm asleep and then use a teleportation ability to move to another barrack?"

"Because… that sounds reasonable, you know," Roman replied with an innocent face, or rather a face that showed his stupidity.

"Roman, this is twenty-seven thirty-three. I know that since five hundred years ago, we have experienced a civilization decline, but we are still supposed to have more advanced thinking than people from a thousand years ago," Zoro said after turning to Roman.

"But I still have good reason to believe that you are indeed possessed by a devil when you're asleep… if all those cases were sleepwalking, there should be at least one person who woke up when you started moving to another barrack, even if they all snored loudly. Right?" Roman said while holding his chin and looking up like it was quite hard to think about.

"Huh… Whatever," Zoro sighed and looked ahead again. He eventually chose to stop responding to Roman.

"If you believe in your theory that hard, I just hope you won't be a target for devils to be possessed next," he continued.

"Hmmm… to be honest, it would be quite interesting for me. I wouldn't mind," Roman replied, once again with his 'innocent' face.

"No offense, but I think you're starting to become crazy just like your grandfather," Zoro said after he turned to Roman again, this time with a facial expression that showed that the tiredness he felt had doubled after talking to Roman.

"Oh, yeah… about that…" Roman said. He suddenly remembered something because Zoro brought Phil into their conversation.

"You said you couldn't sleep. Does that mean you overheard my conversation with grandpa?" Roman made sure.

"Yeah, why?" Zoro replied curtly.

"You filthy people. I really wish I never heard that conversation," he added soon after.

"Eh, nothing. It's just he asked me to keep his going to the brothel a secret from anyone. Since you know it too, maybe you'd better keep it a secret as well. That old man is a bit scary; if someone knew his secret, he would blame me instead as the only person he told about the secret. He didn't even consider that other people had a great opportunity to hear him over when he told me about his secret because he always did it at an unsecretive place and time," Roman explained with a face expressing his annoyance.

"Alright," Zoro responded flatly.

"Then what are you going to do now?" Roman immediately asked Zoro a moment later as he turned to the boy.

"I don't know… maybe I'll just sleep on the terrace," Zoro replied. He sighed heavily after saying his first words. He also looked ahead again as he gave his answer to Roman.

"Oh, that's a good decision," Roman said.

"Yeah," Zoro responded curtly.

"Then I'll go to the toilet first. Please replace me here for a moment. You don't mind, do you?" Roman continued.

"Sigh… fine," Zoro replied while waving his hand for a while as if he was telling Roman to get out of there.

"Heh. You really are my best friend," Roman praised Zoro before leaving him afterward to go to a toilet far from the barrack; even the closest barrack from the toilet was quite far from it. Roman indeed chose the farthest toilet.

As soon as Roman went to the toilet, Zoro immediately realized what he was about to do.

'This is so fucked up… one guard went to release his virginity after sixty-nine years, and the other one went jerking off instead of going around to ensure safety,' Zoro thought.

***

Pluck… pluck…. pluck…

Drrt… drrt…

"Ah… what a relief…" Roman said after 3 minutes he was in the toilet.

'This is the fourth time I've done it today… kinda surprised that there is still something coming out,' he thought afterward.

BREAK! BOOOM!

But suddenly, Roman heard a loud explosion-like sound, followed by the terrified screams of hundreds of men, which shocked Roman highly shocked.

Roman quickly finished his activity in the toilet. His body was shaking with fear; his heart was also beating fast. The sound of the explosion earlier sounded like a sound of a barrack collapsing or being destroyed, and Roman realized that too.

"Help!!!!" This one word was shouted by hundreds of people hysterically after that; then the same big explosion sound sounded again, along with screams that were getting even more terrifying to hear.

After he put on his pants, Roman frantically opened the toilet door. A terrifying sight immediately 'welcomed' him less than a second after that.

"Roman!! Help me!!" Zoro screamed hysterically while crying as his leg was pulled tightly by the mouth of a giant wolf that was also about to chew up his whole body.

"Aaaah!!!!" Zoro screamed helplessly when the same wolf separated his left leg from his body in the end. This sight became even more terrifying for Roman because Zoro looked at him with a torn and bloody face.

Roman froze with a blank mind. His eyes widened at the chaos here.

Several giant wolves suddenly appeared out of nowhere, fiercely destroying the barracks. They tore, ate, and trampled the slaves on this tarantula ranch.

No one could escape the wolves because they were even bigger than the barracks. The slaves eventually could only scream in great fear and pain without knowing what had actually happened and how the wolves had appeared here.

No help came as the wolves pulled their facial skin from their faces while they were still screaming hysterically.

Neither did any help come as they watched the wolves chew their lower bodies as they slowly died with their hands gripping their own intestines.

Roman, the last slave here with complete limbs, had witnessed all of this clearly.

'What… is happening?' he thought in disbelief.