Rebellion Rising from the Depths: Mocked by the Hero Who Impregnated My Childhood Friend Before My Very Eyes. - Chapter 5: Disposal of the Used.

Disposal of the Used.

After his father took his last breath, Noah remained motionless for a long time, still gripping his hand.

The heat remained, but it was not the warmth of a living human; it was the lukewarmness of a life in the process of being lost. With every squeeze, he could feel it drifting away from his fingertips. Having taken on the pain of others so many times, Noah understood that boundary all too painfully.

I couldn’t protect him.

That single fact sank heavily into the depths of his chest.

Once he had exhausted himself from weeping, even tears would no longer come. His mind was clouded with a white haze, and every attempt to think led him back to the same places. Leon’s laughter. Lydie’s words. The medicine vial that had been empty that morning. And finally, the voice of his father telling him, “You are not incompetent.”

All of it resonated over and over within the small room.

The old woman from next door brought some hot water and a piece of white cloth—old, but still usable. Noah intended to thank her, but he didn’t know if the words actually formed a sound.

During the night, he wiped his father’s body.

The thin chest. The knotty hands. The palms hardened from a lifetime of labor. The body that had seemed so large when he was a child was now pathetically frail beneath the blanket. Noah’s hands stopped many times as he wrung out the cloth. Every time he touched the cooling skin, reality rushed in, taking shape bit by bit.

His father would say nothing more.

He wouldn’t laugh.

Never again would he tell him to “go on,” or that it was “all right,” or call him a fool with that exasperated tone.

As dawn broke, Noah placed the white cloth over his father’s face.

He took off his own best jacket—one he had been saving for winter—and laid it gently over the body. It didn’t matter anymore. He wanted to send him off with at least some shred of dignity. The fact that the person he felt that way for was no longer in this world stung his heart once again.

***

In the morning, he went to the grave-keeper.

It was a communal cemetery on the southern outskirts of the capital, where the poor and those without kin were buried. The soil was thin and the headstones crude, but it was better than being left in the open. The problem was money.

The grave-keeper flipped through his ledger and his face darkened the moment he saw Noah’s name.

“…It’s you.”

“Just the bare minimum is fine. For the hole, and a wooden marker.”

Noah produced the entire contents of his wallet. The copper coins he’d gathered since last night, a few silver coins, and the rest of his living expenses. The money that hadn’t been enough for his father’s medicine.

The man looked down at the coins and snorted.

“Not enough.”

“This is all I have.”

“Then it’s the communal pit. No marker, either.”

The communal pit.

A hole where many are buried together, their names never carved.

Noah’s fingertips trembled. He wanted to leave at least a name. But he no longer had the money for even a single wooden marker.

“…I understand.”

That was all he could say.

On the way back, he stopped by the church. He asked for even a simple prayer, but the young priest frowned as he looked at his ledger.

“If there is no donation, formal procedures are required.”

“Formal procedures?”

“Verification of the bereaved’s identity, medical records, and then—”

The priest’s expression changed midway. He seemed to have found a different piece of paper. His gaze moved from the paper to Noah, immediately taking on a slight tint of wariness.

“…I’m sorry. We cannot accommodate you here.”

“Why?”

When he asked back, the priest would no longer make eye contact.

“It is the regulation.”

Regulation.

That again.

The regulations that changed with a single word from a hero. The regulations that became strict only to turn away a single pauper.

Noah didn’t ask further. The act of begging for anything was already profoundly miserable.

***

Around noon, a few neighbors lent a hand.

No one talked much. He didn’t know if they knew the circumstances or not. There were only the quiet movements of people used to the end of the sick and the funerals of the poor. They placed his father’s body on a crude cart and hauled it to the cemetery on the southern outskirts.

The sky was high and clear.

The wind was dry, and until yesterday, he might have thought it a good day for laundry. The fineness of the weather was strangely infuriating today.

There were no flowers at the communal cemetery, nor any voices in prayer. There was only the smell of unearthed soil and rows of splintered, old wooden markers. The grave-keeper pointed mutely to a pit, his face telling them to get it over with quickly.

Noah lifted his father down from the cart.

He was light.

Incredibly light.

Just a short while ago, this man had still been alive, coughing, laughing, and stroking Noah’s head. Now, only the weight of a physical body remained.

Kneeling by the pit, Noah touched his father’s face through the white cloth.

He tried to say something. Thank you, I’m sorry, I promise. There should have been many words he needed to say. But they all became tangled in the back of his throat, and not one of them took a proper shape.

In the end, only a raspy sentence escaped.

“…I’m going now.”

It was the kind of thing he used to say.

He thought it was strange, even to himself. There was no one left to wait for his return.

The sound of the soil falling was shockingly abrupt.

With a dry, scratching sound, the white cloth gradually disappeared. Noah could only watch. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t redo it. It was over.

Even after the burial was finished, the grave-keeper did not give him a marker to leave a name. Instead, Noah tried to carve his father’s name with his fingernails into a flat stone he found nearby. But the stone was hard, and his nails broke immediately. In the end, he only managed to trace the surface of the stone with blood-stained fingers.

***

On the way back, the old neighbor woman who had helped push the cart handed him a small bundle. It contained two pieces of dry black bread.

“You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, have you?”

Noah took it, but his voice failed to form a thank-you. The old woman said nothing more, only patting his shoulder briefly.

It was nearly evening by the time he returned home.

The moment he opened the door, Noah stopped in his tracks.

The room had been ransacked.

The desk drawers had all been pulled out and tossed onto the floor. The contents of the shelves were overturned, and even his mother’s old dishes were broken. The area under the bed had been pried open, right down to the seams in the floorboards. It was the mark of a search—and not the messiness of a common thief. It was the mark of a thorough search to find something specific.

A cold chill ran down Noah’s spine.

What were they looking for?

No—he didn’t even need to think about it.

It was something regarding himself. His ability, the records of the battlefield, or something that would be disadvantageous to Leon. Or perhaps, it was simply to make sure. To confirm that he had nothing.

Before anger came a sense of emptiness.

Thinking that even the place where he should mourn his father’s death had been desecrated made something deep within his chest quietly freeze.

Just then, the door closed behind him.

He turned at the dull sound.

Before he knew it, two men had entered the room. Both were wearing black cloaks; they weren’t city guards, but looked like private soldiers of a noble house. Both the swords at their waists and the clasps on their chests bore a familiar crest. The Hero’s crest.

Noah instinctively took a step back.

“What do you want?”

His voice was dry, surprising even himself.

One of the men replied with emotionless eyes.

“Noah Feld. There is something we wish to confirm. Come with us.”

“I refuse.”

The answer was immediate.

The men didn’t even flinch.

“You have no right to refuse.”

“It was supposed to be over yesterday.”

“The public punishment was,” the other man said lowly. “This is a private confirmation.”

Private.

The meaning of that word was all too blatant.

Noah measured the distance to the exit with his gaze alone. It was a cramped room. The door was behind the men. He could potentially jump out the window, but this was the first floor facing the street. If he shouted, someone might hear. But whether they would help was another matter. The private soldiers of a Hero’s house versus an incompetent whose qualification was revoked for misconduct. He didn’t even need to think about whose side of the story they would believe.

“…To come after my father’s funeral.”

As Noah spoke, the man in the black cloak twisted his mouth slightly.

“Then it’s perfect. It means your personal affairs are settled.”

At that way of speaking, something inside Noah snapped.

His body moved before he could think. He grabbed a nearby chair and smashed it against one of the men. The chair shattered with a loud crack, but the man merely took it on his arm. Immediately, the other man stepped in, and a fist buried itself into Noah’s stomach.

His breath was crushed out of him.

Before his knees could buckle, a sharp pain ran through his neck. A needle. The moment he realized he’d been pricked by something invisibly thin, his vision wavered.

“Don’t resist.”

Along with a whispering voice, the strength drained from his body.

Poison, or a sleeping drug.

As Noah collapsed, he still managed to grab a fragment of the broken dishes on the floor. His palm was cut. But before he could swing the shard, his wrist was stepped on.

His bone creaked.

“Ah, ugh…”

A pathetic sound escaped him.

The man kept the pressure on his foot without mercy and spoke by Noah’s ear.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.”

He didn’t need to ask what that “over” referred to.

A cloth was shoved into his mouth, and his arms were tied behind him. Even though he wanted to resist, the drug circulated rapidly. The edges of his vision stained dark, and the sensation in his legs faded.

The last thing he saw was the ransacked room.

The broken plates. His father’s old tools spilled from the drawer. His mother’s sewing box. The hollow left in his father’s bed where no one remained.

All of it sank into the darkness.

***

When his consciousness next surfaced, Noah was tied to a chair.

It was cold. Damp. The smell of iron, blood, and mold pierced the back of his nose. He knew immediately it was a basement. When he opened his eyes, candle flames flickered against the walls of a narrow stone chamber. Drainage grooves ran along the floor, encrusted with old, black blood.

His wrists were fixed behind his back, and metal shackles were around his ankles. Leather straps bit into his chest and forehead. Even when he tried to twist his body, he could barely move.

Standing across from him was a man he didn’t know.

A thin face with round glasses. He wore gray robes that made it impossible to tell if he was an official or a scholar. Two black-cloaked soldiers were by his side. On a desk against the wall, stacks of paper and metal instruments that looked like small torture tools were neatly arranged.

The man confirmed Noah had woken up and wrote something on a piece of paper.

“You’re awake?”

Even his voice was dry.

Noah tried to spit out the cloth in his mouth. A soldier pulled it out roughly. The corner of his lip tore.

“Where is this?”

“Are you in a position to ask questions?”

The man with glasses pulled up a chair and sat in front of Noah.

“There are things I wish to confirm. If you answer, this won’t be drawn out.”

“…I refuse.”

The man didn’t get angry at all; he simply flipped a page.

“Noah Feld. Age twenty-three. Unique ability: Pain Proxy, correct?”

His heart leaped.

He didn’t expect to hear that name here. It was a name given to his ability for convenience during guild registration. He hadn’t understood the detailed logic himself. The injuries and fatigue of his comrades flowed into him. He had thought of it as nothing more than an inconvenient, disadvantageous power.

“…What about it?”

“Who have you told?” the man asked without pause. “The details of that ability—to whom?”

Noah frowned. “Details or whatever, even I—”

Before he could finish, a soldier’s fist buried itself in his stomach. Gastric juices welled up, and he fell into a coughing fit. Because he was tied to the chair, he couldn’t lean forward, and his throat burned.

“Answer honestly,” the man with glasses said matter-of-factly.

“The Hero’s wounds, curses, and fatigue. For a certain period, they were transferred to you. Discrepancies have appeared in the cross-referencing of battlefield records and your medical records. It is no coincidence.”

Medical records.

They had looked into those as well.

Noah’s fingertips went cold. The number of his injuries, the duration of his high fevers, the reports of his vomiting blood—he had applied for all of them at the guild. If someone connected them, they might indeed realize something was wrong.

But to go through the trouble of investigating…

“Is it Leon?”

The man with glasses did not answer.

Instead, he picked up a small metal needle. The tip was stained a dark red.

“I ask again. Who have you told?”

“No one.”

“A lie.”

The needle was inserted into the gap beneath Noah’s fingernail.

His vision exploded.

A voiceless scream was crushed in his throat. His entire body reflexively bucked, but the leather straps forbade it. A sharp fire raced in a straight line from the base of his nail to his brain.

“…Ugh, ah…!”

“Who?”

The first one was pulled out, and a second was inserted into a different finger.

Tears overflowed of their own accord. His body convulsed, and his breathing became ragged. He wasn’t used to this kind of pain. It was different from a wound on the battlefield. This was a pain created solely to hurt the opponent.

“…I… don’t… know.”

“Not ‘I don’t know,’ but ‘I haven’t told anyone’?”

“I haven’t told…!”

The man with glasses signaled the soldier. This time, it wasn’t a slap to the cheek, but a fist. His head snapped to the side, and his mouth was cut inside. Blood spread over his tongue.

The questions were repeated many times.

Who did you tell? Where are the records? Who has noticed? Do you have evidence of taking on the Hero’s injuries? Have you consulted anyone in the royal family, the guild, or the temple?

Every time, Noah answered, “I don’t know,” “I don’t have any,” or “I haven’t told anyone.”

Half of it was the truth. He didn’t understand the essence of his ability himself, and there was no evidence. He hadn’t had the luxury to consult anyone. That was likely why he had stayed alive. If he had grasped something, he surely would have been disappeared much sooner.

But the men did not believe him.

This time, his arm was sliced shallowly with a thin blade. Blood flowed. Next, seared iron was pressed against the wound. The smell of burning skin filled the air, and Noah screamed until his throat was shredded. The soldiers didn’t even flinch at the sight.

The torture was less about finding the truth and more like a ritual to make him speak.

Noah realized midway that no matter what he answered, the end would be the same.

The man with glasses continued to write something on the documents. What was there was not the truth, but a record of a pre-established harmony. A record merely to measure where Noah would break and how far he would be destroyed.

***

He didn’t know how much time had passed.

There were no windows in the stone chamber. He could only measure time by how many candles had been replaced. His consciousness would fade and return, and every time it did, some part of his body was newly in pain. His left ribs creaked terribly with every breath, and his wrists were bleeding from being rubbed against the metal. His lips were swollen, and one eye would only open halfway.

When consciousness returned again, the number of people in the stone chamber had increased.

Even though there had been only one set of footsteps, he could tell the atmosphere had changed.

The man with glasses and the soldiers all bowed their heads at once.

Noah forced his swollen eyelids open.

Leon was there.

Even in the dimness of the dungeon, that man strangely didn’t look dirty. Fine black clothes, groomed hair, and a profile so smooth it was cold. He entered the torture chamber with a face that looked as if he had just stepped away from a ball for a moment.

The very fact of it induced a profound nausea.

“Well?” Leon asked the man with glasses. “Any information of value?”

“None at this point. It is highly likely the individual does not understand the full extent of the ability himself.”

“I see.”

The reply was so flat it was anticlimactic.

Leon came to stand in front of Noah. The tips of his boots stopped at the edge of a pool of blood.

“A terrible face.”

His voice was that of someone stating a completely trivial observation, not even mocking him.

Noah swallowed his blood-mixed saliva and squeezed out a raspy voice.

“…You dragged in… my father, too.”

Leon’s eyebrow rose slightly.

“The medicine?”

“You… stopped it.”

After a moment of silence, Leon chuckled.

“If you were a more obedient man, I might have shown some consideration.”

At those words, Noah’s vision nearly turned red.

He wanted to leap up, chair and all, but his restrained body wouldn’t move. Seeing Noah with nothing but his teeth clenched, Leon narrowed his eyes with a hint of enjoyment.

“At first, I thought it was a coincidence.”

Leon grabbed Noah’s chin and forced his face up. His fingertips were cold.

“It was when we were hit by the Dire Wolves of the North. That should have crushed my left arm. But the wound was shallow, and instead, you collapsed with a high fever that night.”

Noah’s breathing stopped.

“Next was the Holy Dragon’s curse. The erosion marks that should have remained on my body were gone by the next morning. In their place, your left shoulder was seared. It was all too perfect.”

Leon released his grip and smiled thinly.

“So I had it investigated. Your application records, medical records, battlefield placements, and the flow of mana. It matched with amusing consistency. You were a vessel, after all. A convenient container to take on the wear and tear of others.”

Vessel.Container.

Noah stared, forgetting even to breathe.

Leon snorted at the sight.

“You weren’t even aware? You truly are beyond saving. That was precisely why you were so easy to handle, though.”

“…From the beginning…”

The voice leaking from his throat was barely a sound.

“From the beginning, you knew…”

“I utilized you.”

Leon admitted it simply.

“Is there a problem? Power is meant to be used by those capable of using it. Rather than having it held by an incompetent like you, it serves the kingdom better if used by me, the Hero.”

For the kingdom.

He wanted to laugh at those words. If he laughed, he felt he would bleed.

“How many people… do you think have died?” Noah said, squeezing the words out.

“Because of the wounds you pushed onto me… because I bore them, how many—?”

“I don’t know,” Leon replied instantly.

“They died because you were weak.”

At that coldness, Noah truly lost his words for an instant.

How could he speak so lightly of people dying from being unable to endure pain? Even after knowing who he had funneled that pain into so he could continue standing at the front.

“But, well, I suppose I could give you my thanks.”

Leon leaned in slightly and whispered into Noah’s ear.

“You were useful. More than I imagined.”

Even his breath induced revulsion.

Noah shook his head, trying to turn away. But his chin was grabbed again and forced back to the front.

“The problem is that you are no longer useful.”

There was no longer any anger or contempt in Leon’s eyes.

There was only the gaze of one looking at a broken tool.

“Yesterday, you blurted out unnecessary things at the interrogation. About supporting the wounds, about me not being able to stand. No one takes that seriously. However, it is a different matter if someone with good ears hears it. It is best not to leave any seeds of doubt.”

There must be those in the capital who view the Hero with hostility—nobles, the royal family, political enemies. Even if no one believes it now, it would be troublesome if someone eventually began to investigate seriously.

So, he would kill him.

For that reason alone.

“…Are you going to kill me?”

He didn’t ask for confirmation.

Still, Leon answered. “Yes.”

As if it were that simple a matter.

“Publicly, it will be that you were driven to desperation and fled, or that you died in an accident. It can be handled however. There is no one left to miss you.”

His father’s grave flashed through his mind.

True, there might be no one to miss him. His father was dead, Lydie had become an enemy, and his comrades in the subjugation party had all taken that side. His name had been stripped from him, and he was a laughingstock in the city.

Even if he vanished from the world, no one would be troubled.

That reality pierced deeper than the torture.

***

Leon turned back to the man with glasses.

“It seems there is no evidence.”

“No, sir. Not at this point.”

“Then dispose of him. There is no need to keep him around any longer.”

The man with glasses bowed. “Understood. To that place.”

That place.

At those words, Noah saw one of the soldiers give a faint smile.

As he was leaving, Leon turned back once.

“That’s right, Noah.”

The voice calling him was strangely calm.

“Did your father say anything at the end?”

The pit of his stomach was crushed.

Noah glared back. That was all he had left to give.

Leon looked into those eyes and turned up the corners of his mouth slightly.

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

With that, the Hero left the stone chamber.

Footsteps receded.

The door closed.

The air in the dungeon was far colder than it had been before.

***

After that, the torture grew shorter.

It was no longer meant to make him talk. it changed to something meant to break him just short of death. His ribs were broken, two fingers were bent backward, and weights were dropped onto his feet. The pain was now continuous; he didn’t even know which part hurt the most.

Noah lost consciousness many times, and every time he was brought back by cold water being splashed on him.

Midway through, a bitter liquid was poured into his mouth. It wasn’t poison, but likely a drug that stripped his body of its strength. He could feel his extremities go numb and the flow of his mana grow sluggish. Perhaps it was to prevent him from using his ability. Though, at this point, Noah had no strength left to take on the pain of others.

How much time had passed?

Eventually, the man with glasses said, “That’s enough.”

The leather straps were removed. His body collapsed from the chair and tumbled to the floor. Cold stone touched his cheek. Then, a coarse cloth like a burlap sack was pulled over his head. His arms were tied even more tightly, and his ankles were bound together.

He was lifted.

His shoulders pained him as if they were going to pop out. His groans were muffled within the sack.

He was carried through some long passage, and midway through, the night air touched his cheek. He knew they had gone outside. A cold wind pierced his blood-and-sweat-stained body.

He was tossed roughly onto a wooden bed.

Something else was also loaded there. Hard. Cold. Something like a human arm struck his cheek for an instant, and Noah realized a moment later: corpses. At least more than one. The stench of decay hit his nose.

A horse’s neigh. The creak of wheels.

The cart began to move.

Outside the sack, the voices of men could be heard.

“Are we really throwing him in alive?” “Doesn’t matter. Once he falls into the Abyss, it’s the same.”

The Abyss.

That single word remained vividly in his ears.

A great pit on the outskirts of the capital. There were many rumors about it—that it was an ancient ruin, or the scar of an old calamity. Now it was a den of monsters and feared as a disposal site for corpses and cursed items. Those who fall do not return. That was the kind of place it was.

“Convenient for dealing with ‘accidental deaths.’” “I hear there are many demonic beasts lately. Not even bones will remain.”

The men laughed casually.

The cart left the cobblestones, and the road gradually grew rougher. Every time the wheels jolted, his broken ribs creaked, and a groan escaped from deep within his throat. The inside of the sack was damp with blood and sweat. Breathing was difficult. His head felt fuzzy. He thought he might simply die before reaching the Abyss.

But his consciousness stubbornly remained.

In the gap where it faded and returned, Noah remembered only his father’s last words.

Live.

Why would he say such a thing? he wondered now.

In a world like this, how and for what was he supposed to live? Everything was stolen, no one believed him, he was used like a tool until he broke, and in the end, he was simply thrown into a hole with corpses.

Yet, those words strangely wouldn’t vanish.

The cart jolted violently and began to head down a slope.

The wind grew stronger. Mixed with the damp earth and the stench of decay was the smell of something older and colder.

One of the men said, “We’re here. The Abyss.”

With that voice as the final sound, the cart proceeded toward the edge of the darkness.