NOVEL NEXT Chapter 154
Chapter 154: The Arrival of the Korean Correctional Officers
“Did you hear? Today, the correctional officers from Korea are coming.”
A young correctional officer, still showing signs of youth on his face, spoke to a middle-aged officer he was patrolling with.
“What about it?”
The middle-aged officer replied nonchalantly.
The young officer scratched the back of his head, seemingly taken aback by that reaction.
“I mean, it’s just— there’s supposed to be a hero correctional officer among them, and I’m just a bit curious.”
“What’s so heroic about a correctional officer? Is he Superman or something?”
The middle-aged officer remained cynical.
“…They say he’s in charge of handling Awakened Beings. He was active during the Abnormal Gate incident, and he formed a guild with the ex-convicts, achieving a recidivism rate of zero for years…”
“Hmph, as if there are any decent Awakened Beings in that tiny country. They probably all look like mental defects. Once they deal with some real tough guys, they won’t even know what hit them.”
“….”
The young officer fell silent, feeling a bit defeated.
It was true; this special prison in America housed some truly unimaginable and horrifying criminals.
There were some whose madness was beyond mere brutality.
Suddenly, the middle-aged officer stopped in his tracks.
He grabbed the baton strapped to his waist.
Then, he banged it against the steel bars of a nearby cell.
“Hey, you there! What are you still doing lying down? Get up and sit up straight!”
The middle-aged officer shouted in a loud, booming voice.
Inside the cell, a dull-eyed inmate squinted as he slowly raised his body.
“Ugh, seriously loud… I’m feeling tired today, can’t you just let it slide a little?”
“What kind of nonsense are you babbling? Splash some water on your face and get a grip.”
The middle-aged officer banged the bars once more with a clang.
“Hey, stop it! It’s noisy, so quit banging already.”
The dull-eyed inmate complained, glaring at the middle-aged officer.
“And who do you think you are, telling me what to do? Why don’t you keep your mouth shut?”
The middle-aged officer merely scoffed at such defiance.
“What about it? You think being an inmate makes you my boss? You behave like a proper inmate, got it? You’re B-rank, so don’t act like you deserve any special treatment. There are plenty of B-ranks around here. What’s so special about that?”
“I’ve got my eyes on you. Once I get out of here, you won’t see me as a nice guy.”
The dull-eyed inmate threatened.
“Big talk for someone behind bars. Go ahead and keep that attitude. Just try to maintain your composure, or I might just forget I was being nice the next time I see you.”
The middle-aged officer warned, banging the bars hard once more before moving on.
The young officer, who had been watching the whole exchange in a daze, quickly hurried to follow the middle-aged officer.
After glancing back once, he opened his mouth.
“That was impressive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I still find it difficult to deal with the inmates here. But you handle them so smoothly.”
Capturing C-rank and below Awakened Beings wasn’t all that hard.
Officers could be tough with them; a timid officer would usually get chewed out by seniors first.
The atmosphere itself made it hard for inmates to rebel.
They had seen the real consequences faced by their fellow inmates when they tried to fight back.
But B-rank and above was a different story.
They were acutely aware of their strength and social standing.
The officers couldn’t ignore that.
And it wasn’t just that.
B-ranks and above had a kind of inherent aura that C-ranks did not possess.
The young officer initially thought it to be nonsense, but after experiencing it firsthand, he realized how wrong he was.
Just looking into their eyes made him feel a sense of oppression.
It was no illusion; it was real.
Because of these factors, the young officer found it quite challenging to manage the inmates in this facility.
Even pointing out a single mistake was no small task.
“With enough experience, you can handle it all.”
The middle-aged officer said casually.
Yet, the young officer’s eyes were filled with admiration.
They ascended the stairs to the 4th Floor.
That was where A-Class Awakened Beings were held.
Just seeing the entrance to the ward made the young officer feel a twinge of anxiety, and he gulped.
The middle-aged officer didn’t wear a relaxed expression either, unlike when they patrolled the lower levels.
Beep.
As the middle-aged officer placed his finger on the fingerprint reader, the door opened.
But it didn’t open fully; only the outer door opened.
Beep beep beep.
This time, he began entering a code.
Soon, another door opened with a mechanical sound.
However, still not all the doors were open.
Finally, the middle-aged officer pulled out a set of keys, searching for the right one.
The last door had a rather outdated locking mechanism.
Click.
Once he found the right key and unlocked the padlock, all doors leading to the ward finally opened.
The young officer thought the seemingly excessive locking mechanism was actually quite warranted.
The 4th Floor was a place teeming with A-Class Awakened Beings and human murderers.
A-Class Awakened Beings, without a doubt, made for a rather elite group in society.
Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t commit serious crimes like murder that could plummet their well-off lives.
Yet, to have committed murder suggested it was either accidental or that they derived pleasure from it.
They were truly dangerous individuals who might commit such acts again if released back into society.
Closing the door behind him, the middle-aged officer began patrolling again, with the young officer following closely.
The pace of their steps felt somewhat quicker, and it was not merely an illusion.
The young officer’s gaze fell upon an inmate sprawled carelessly on the floor of a cell.
However, the middle-aged officer didn’t scold him this time.
He simply glanced over and moved on to the next cell.
The young officer understood perfectly why the middle-aged officer acted that way.
It was common knowledge among rookie officers that messing with the inmates on the 4th Floor wouldn’t end well.
It was a crucial lesson, one impressively drilled into them by the seniors.
“Hey, correctional officer.”
Someone called out to them.
Turning around, they found an inmate with a snake tattoo staring at them.
“What do you want?” the middle-aged officer asked.
“This.”
The tattooed inmate pointed a finger at a magazine lying on the floor.
On the cover was a picture of a naked woman.
It was a pornography magazine.
“I’m kind of tired of this one; bring in a new one.”
In many states in the U.S., pornographic magazines were banned from prisons due to many inmates becoming more aggressive and violent after viewing them.
California, on the surface, did not allow the import of porn magazines in prisons either.
Yet, since the prison was a living environment, it wasn’t too strictly prohibited to sneak them in for inmates to share among themselves.
However, correctional officers didn’t openly provide inmates with porn magazines.
That would compromise their authority as officers.
Yet, here was the snake tattooed inmate explicitly demanding one from the officer.
He was acting like he was addressing a subordinate.
Still, the middle-aged officer showed no signs of displeasure.
He replied with a plain expression.
“Got it. I’ll bring you a new one on my next shift.”
“Next shift? When’s that?”
“In two days.”
“In two days? Damn, that’s too late.”
The snake tattooed inmate cursed and grumbled.
Suddenly, he fixed a sharp, lewd gaze on the young officer.
“Hey, you there, correctional officer.”
The young officer stiffened involuntarily and looked at the tattooed inmate with tense eyes.
“You’ve got a nice figure; wouldn’t want you to get hurt once you come in here, heh heh heh.”
“….”
Despite the blatant sexual harassment, the young officer couldn’t muster any anger.
His body trembled slightly, not from rage but from sheer intimidation.
He was completely overwhelmed by the tattooed inmate’s lascivious and penetrating gaze.
The pressure felt from a B-Class was on an entirely different level.
An A-Class was something else altogether.
“Yo, show me your butt. I might need to take a step back. Yeah? That way, I can last through two days.”
“….”
“Are you mute, you little punk? Show me your butt right now, you idiot.”
“That’s going too far. Stop it.”
Fed up, the middle-aged officer stepped in.
“This isn’t a joke.”
Now the tattooed inmate glared at the middle-aged officer with a hint of madness in his eyes.
“If it’s not a joke, I might have to report this to the Warden.”
The middle-aged officer invoked the Warden’s authority.
The two figures that could not be messed with were, in fact, the Warden and the Deputy Warden.
In such instances, leveraging their authority was the most effective way to respond.
“Heh, fine. I’ll drop it for now.”
The tattooed inmate twisted his mouth into a sly grin.
Only then did the unbearable tension slightly dissipate.
“But make sure you bring in something good, okay?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Answering matter-of-factly, the middle-aged officer moved on.
Staying any longer wouldn’t do any good, especially for the young officer.
The young officer was still sweating coldly, his expression anything but relaxed.
◈ ◈ ◈
“Ugh, ugh….”
Coming out of the 4th Floor ward, the young officer wiped the sweat off his forehead and took a deep breath.
It wasn’t such a long patrol, yet he felt completely drained.
He might have actually lost a few pounds.
“…Why the hell hasn’t the government executed those guys?”
Now a bit more composed, the young officer vented his frustration.
There were states in the U.S. with and without the death penalty.
California was one of the states that did have it, and they actually carried out executions.
Yet, he had never heard of any of the death row inmates on the 4th Floor being executed.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
The middle-aged officer spoke up.
“What do you mean?”
“They probably think they have some sort of value.”
“What value do those crazy bastards even have?”
The young officer exclaimed, filled with indignation.
“How am I supposed to know that?”
The middle-aged officer replied bluntly.
Beep.
Just then, a sound came from the walkie-talkie the young officer had in his upper pocket.
He quickly pulled it out and held it to his ear.
– To the correctional officers in Red Ward: A delegation from Korea is scheduled to visit in 20 minutes. Please prepare accordingly.
“What? The Korean correctional officers are coming here?”
The young officer muttered in disbelief.
“What?”
That was the first time the middle-aged officer had shown a look of incredulity.
“What was the Warden thinking? Why would he want to show them this place?”
What possible reason could there be to expose such dangerous felons?
It wasn’t like they could show the tightly controlled environment of the other wards either.
To put on a show for external display, the more manageable wards would be enough.
No, they didn’t just have to show those wards; they must!
The Red Ward was such that even seasoned officers struggled with it.
“Wow, I’m also shocked. I didn’t expect them to come here.”
The young officer shook his head in disbelief.
“This…”
Suddenly, the middle-aged officer seemed to recall something.
“What?”
“I think the Warden is actually trying to scare us.”
“No way, really?”
The young officer’s eyes widened in surprise.
He had just experienced the extreme pressure from the snake tattooed inmate, and the aura that the inmates here exuded was no joke.
Especially from the A-Class.
Not just any A-Class.
These were the truly unhinged ones.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kinds of inmates the Koreans had dealt with, but there was certainly a qualitative difference in the sort of trouble these ones could cause.
“Well, it’s not for us to worry about. Let’s just prepare,” the middle-aged officer urged, nudging the young officer to hurry along.
◈ ◈ ◈
“Where is this place?”
The Security Department Head looked up at a building that appeared to have approximately five floors.
“Haha, you may be looking with anticipation, but there’s nothing special here… this too is a ward. It’s just that it houses only B-Class and above inmates,” Dean, the Deputy Warden of Alcatraz, replied with a smile.
“Oh.”
In Korea, B-Class and above inmates were also housed on the top floors, so Lee Si-hyun and his group understood what he meant right away.
In the U.S., it seemed they’d built a whole separate building for it.
“Shall we go inside then?”
Dean said as he stepped forward.
Lee Si-hyun and the group followed him, just like before.
‘This feeling…’
Lee Si-hyun tilted his head.
He felt an unpleasant sensation coming from the building.
This was the first time he had experienced something like this during a tour of Alcatraz.
“Brother? Is something wrong?”
As Lee Si-hyun stood there lost in thought, Kang Baek looked at him curiously.
Lee Si-hyun’s gaze turned towards Kang Baek.
His expression had returned to normal.
“No, let’s go inside.”