Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 341

Outskirts 3.

From Beast to Human (3)

Maria didn’t like children.

Children are barbaric, noisy, whiny, emotional, and unpredictable.

But apart from that, she didn’t harbor any illusions or unrealistic expectations about them.

It’s only natural for children to be barbaric, noisy, whiny, emotional, and unpredictable. That’s precisely why they need guidance.

To mold that being, who is essentially still a beast, into a respectable member of society.

“Hmm, heu-heung.”

Maria approached the girl with a soft hum.

Rotten blood splattered her shoes, and entrails spilled out around her.

It was difficult to imagine the suffering one would have to endure to end up in such a state.

Had she been thrown into a blender?

But Maria feigned indifference, casually approaching the girl as if on a leisurely stroll.

The girl gazed at Maria with drowsy eyes.

Maria closed the distance to less than ten steps. She was close enough to feel the heat radiating from the surrounding candles.

Maria walked past the girl.

‘She’s watching me.’

Maria acted nonchalant, as if observing a stray cat during a walk.

Maria pretended not to be interested in the girl, circling around and examining the gruesome scene as if it were a curious exhibit.

It would be a lie to say it wasn’t repulsive.

Even making frogs or cats look like this would sicken me. But even worse, the ‘things’ the girl created were made of humans. The remnants of their original forms made it all the more disturbing.

“Heu-heung, hmm, hmm.”

But Maria maintained her composure, humming as if she found the girl’s creations fascinating.

The simple nursery rhyme Maria hummed was commonly sung among children in the Middle East.

The girl remained focused on Maria, seemingly recognizing that she posed no immediate threat.

“Heu-heung.”

Just then.

Maria heard a humming sound directly behind her, without any indication of someone approaching.

The moment she whirled around, a chill running down her spine, she met the girl’s eyes floating in the air.

Maria realized she had underestimated the situation.

Instantly, darkness engulfed her vision.

***

Long ago, a Persian emperor sought to discover the ‘purest language’.

After much consideration, the emperor entrusted a newborn baby to a mute shepherd couple.

Years later, he decided to learn what language the child, raised in the highlands with only sheep and wind as companions, would speak.

He wagered with scholars whether it would be Akkadian, Egyptian, or Sumerian.

Years later, the shepherd couple presented the child to the emperor.

The emperor asked the child what he desired most.

The child uttered the word ‘ba’. It meant bread in Sumerian.

The emperor concluded that Sumerian was the ‘purest’ and original language.

However, the shepherds had a different interpretation.

The child was merely imitating the sounds of the sheep.

***

Maria opened her eyes.

The ground was above her.

It took her a moment to realize she was upside down.

Blood rushed to her head, causing dizziness. She felt nauseous from the throbbing headache, but she resisted vomiting while inverted.

She attempted to lift her arm, but her entire body was tightly bound, as if fixed in place.

Looking down, she realized she was part of a grotesque ‘gonggi’ [a Korean jacks game piece] made of corpses.

The limbs of unfamiliar corpses were intertwined with her body. She was numb below her waist due to the constricting pressure.

Her left arm seemed to have twice the normal number of joints, including her fingers.

Fortunately, her right arm was relatively intact, except for her little finger.

“Hoo…….”

Maria considered screaming but decided to conserve her strength for a potentially more critical moment.

The sun was already high in the sky. She hoped not too much time had elapsed.

If this dragged on, Victor would undoubtedly bomb the area or something.

Then, she felt her vision gradually returning to normal.

The gonggi was slowly rotating. This seemed to be preventing her from dying due to the blood rushing to her head.

‘That child.’

Maria immediately scanned her surroundings for the girl.

The girl was playing ‘dolls’. The problem, of course, was that the dolls were the horribly contorted corpses of Soviet soldiers.

The Soviet soldier’s corpse was repeatedly forced into prostration, mimicking the locals who worshipped the girl.

“Heung, heu-heung.”

Then Maria heard the girl humming. It was the same song she had been humming earlier.

Maria gritted her teeth and twisted her body. Excruciating pain shot through her lower body, but she couldn’t seem to break free.

After a considerable struggle, just as she felt a slight loosening, the gonggi flipped over, and her body slipped and crashed to the floor.

Thud.

A wave of disgusting odor rose with an unpleasant, sticky sound.

Fortunately, she wasn’t further injured, but she really didn’t want to know what she had landed in.

“Hoo…….”

Maria struggled to her feet. Thankfully, her legs responded.

Honestly, she had been lucky this time.

Her neck could have been broken instead of her left arm. But Maria was the type to trust her luck.

“Heung, heu-heung. Heung.”

Maria dragged herself toward the girl again. The Soviet soldier’s corpse collapsed with a thud.

The girl’s gaze returned to Maria. This time, Maria didn’t avert her eyes. Instead, she continued the song, adding verses the girl had never heard before.

This time, the girl didn’t crush or break Maria.

‘Good. It’s working.’

Maria walked past the girl and approached the Soviet soldier’s corpse she had been playing with. She sat in front of the corpse as if it were the most natural thing in the world and pulled the corpse closer.

As expected, the already decomposing corpse readily fell apart at her touch.

Maria began to make dumplings, squeezing the contents with her hands.

The girl watched with curiosity.

The dumpling, mixed with blood, entrails, and dirt, resembled the ‘gonggi’ the girl had made, but it was much smaller.

If her left hand were intact, she could have made it more elaborate, but it was still quite neatly shaped.

As Maria hummed and made dumplings, the girl began to imitate her movements.

The girl’s dumpling was much larger than Maria’s and had more ‘ingredients’ mixed in. But it wasn’t as refined as Maria’s.

“Hmm…….”

The girl seemed dissatisfied and repeatedly mashed and remade the dumpling.

Around that time, Maria gradually began to change the ingredients, switching from corpses to dirt from the floor.

It was easier to work with because it was soaked in blood and had fewer impurities.

Maria’s dumplings became more elaborate, while the girl grew frustrated with her repeated failures and roughly squeezed the corpses.

“Ah!”

Crack.

The sound of corpses being messily crushed echoed from behind, but Maria didn’t even glance back.

But the girl wasn’t satisfied with that and even crushed the dumpling Maria had made.

At that moment, Maria shouted at the girl with a hardened expression.

“No!”

The girl looked surprised, as if she didn’t know Maria could shout.

But at the same time, she frowned, as if she didn’t like Maria’s actions.

In an instant, Maria was slammed face-first into the ground.

It felt like a truck had hit her below the knees. Her nose was crushed, and the blood on the floor mixed with her own.

But Maria grabbed the floor and straightened her back. Then she glared at the girl with fiercely burning eyes and shouted again.

“No!”

The girl didn’t know what to do.

If she attacked Maria, the humming and dumpling-making would stop. In the end, the girl chose to do nothing rather than hear the unpleasant ‘no’ shout.

When the girl’s actions ceased, Maria scraped together the dirt stained with her blood and began to make dumplings again.

This time, it was a fairly neat and pretty dumpling.

Maria gave the dumpling to the girl. The girl carefully accepted it as if receiving a precious treasure.

“You make it.”

The girl clearly didn’t understand Maria’s words, but she understood the intention.

The girl began to make balls out of dirt, not corpses, just like Maria had done.

The girl finally succeeded in making a small dumpling. Maria felt a surge of joy at the education that had finally begun to take hold.

The girl continued to make balls as if she was having fun.

Maria was able to observe the girl’s power up close. It seemed like a type of powerful telekinesis, but the way she used it suggested a giant, transparent being was manipulating her hands.

Precision was lacking, but the power was immense.

‘Now it’s time to move on to the next stage.’

***

“……What is that doing now?”

“Hmm, well. It’s usually called corporal punishment. It’s a barbaric method, and there’s a lot of debate about it in the education world these days, but in fact, both Dr. Samuel and I grew up being spanked by our parents, didn’t we?”

Above the canyon, in a trench created by the Soviet army to monitor the girl, Samuel and Victor were observing Maria.

Samuel looked dumbfounded at Victor’s answer.

“Corporal punishment? Which one is being punished?”

Samuel’s point was valid.

Maria’s condition was beyond terrible. She was already unable to walk and was crippled.

Nevertheless, Maria continued to scold and wield a branch whenever the girl did something she disapproved of.

Because her bones were broken and there was no intact place on her fingers, she had to tie the branch to her arm.

“If Maria hadn’t been an ability user, she would have died. She is already straddling the line between life and death. Are you saying that monster is being punished by a critically ill patient?”

“That’s not the important thing, Dr. Samuel. Corporal punishment is effective when the person being punished believes the person wielding it has power.”

“But in that state…….”

“Look closely. Does it seem like it’s about who hits harder and gets hurt more? In the first place, is it even possible for Professor Maria to physically harm that girl?”

Only then did Samuel notice faint red scratches on the girl’s skin.

They were so subtle that they were barely perceptible.

Samuel realized that the mere presence of those wounds was an incredible miracle.

It’s not surprising for a rock to crush a sprout, but it’s an astonishing wonder for a sprout to wound a rock.

Moreover, the relationship between Maria and the girl’s power was even more complex.

“A Soviet army regiment-level force couldn’t even scratch that monster. I’ve heard that Professor Maria is a madman, but this is beyond imagination.”

“…… 대체 [daeche – Korean for ‘what the heck’].”

Samuel muttered in disbelief, staring at Maria.

The girl could have killed Maria at any moment. In fact, she had inflicted attacks that could have done so several times.

But Maria fainted and then got up again to scold the girl and wield the whip. And in the process, something amazing was happening.

The intensity of the attacks the girl inflicted on Maria began to diminish.

“It seems like a simple method. Is it a carrot and stick strategy? If you listen to Maria quietly, you become a fun playmate, but if not, you become an annoying opponent who shouts unpleasant things and whips you.”

Victor muttered, sounding amused.

As he said, Maria was teaching the girl, who had never ‘properly’ played, various games.

Of course, the games she could play were limited due to her physical condition.

But everything was amazing to the girl, who had never played with anyone before.

“It seems to be progressing more smoothly than I thought. I thought I was going crazy when Professor Maria recklessly ran away and went into the canyon at first, but if time passes like this, she might actually succeed.”

“…….”

But Samuel found it difficult to share that optimism.

Maria was now walking a precarious tightrope on a stormy cliff.

Her bones were broken, and her flesh was torn by the girl’s casual actions. Her blood loss was already critical.

If the girl got bored or lost interest even slightly, Maria would be no different from the other corpses.

‘And Maria, you know that fact better than anyone.’

Samuel couldn’t understand why she was risking her life to ‘educate’ the monster.

What grand plan was Maria pursuing, what did she see in the girl that drove her to such lengths?