Chapter 11 Sealed Inside Endlessness

I couldn’t resist at all.

The strange, snake-like creature wrapped around me, pushed through the rocks, and sucked me deeply into the ground. Not only were the rocks here probably hundreds of meters thick, but the caves here had naturally collapsed and stacked up for thousands of years, forming the so-called ground, under which there was an extremely thick layer of stacked rocks.

The way this thing moved was very strange, as if there was some kind of transportation system inside its body. It was almost like a straw, so I ended up being sucked down rather than dragged down like I had been expecting.

I was well-versed in science so I knew how much pressure was being exerted by the weight of all of this gravel. As I was dragged more than a meter deep into the ground, I found that the surrounding rocks were extremely heavy. This monster’s body shouldn’t have been able to withstand the force at all, but it’s gel-like consistency seemed to leave it unaffected as it sucked in countless pieces of gravel. The gravel scraped my skin as it moved through the creature’s body, leaving me feeling like I was spinning in a washing machine with thousands of steel wool balls.

I thought I would be directly crushed into minced meat, but by some miracle, the rocks that kept getting drawn in were constantly transported up by the substance in the monster’s body. It seemed like they were being pushed out while I was constantly sucked down further.

Despite this, almost my whole body was covered in wounds. The rocks here were so densely packed together that I was unable to move at all and the sharp stones kept scraping my skin so fast that I didn’t even have time to feel the pain. It felt like I was being chewed.

If you had ever eaten drunken shrimp,⁽¹⁾ then you would probably know exactly how the shrimp felt when they were being chewed.

At this time, I suddenly stopped moving. The rubble around me smacked me in the face a few more times before it also stopped moving.

I couldn’t move at all, nor could I feel any sensation in my body. I didn’t know what was going on, but my mind was buzzing.

After a while, I came back to my senses and tried to feel around with my skin and a few fingers. This place was so narrow that my hands and feet were completely stuck and I couldn’t move a millimeter.

I figured I was probably trapped in a very narrow gap under the rock. Based on how completely stuck I was, this gap could perfectly accommodate me, without leaving an ounce of extra space.

When a mountain’s geological structure collapsed, big rocks would fall down and form gaps. Smaller rocks would then fall into these gaps and fill them up, but if the angle was just right, the gap wouldn’t fill up all the way and a very small cavity would form.

It was pitch black all around, and I couldn’t see anything. My limbs were twisted in a strange arc, but my bones didn’t appear to be broken. My flesh felt like it was being pressed in on all sides, making it impossible to take a deep breath. It was very stifling. But the worst part was, I couldn’t turn my head at all. My jaw was stuck in such a way that I couldn’t open my mouth, which meant that I could only make an “uh-uh-uh” sound.

I tried to breathe as best I could and found that there was still oxygen between the rocks so I wouldn’t suffocate. At this time, the skin all over my body suddenly began to ache violently. This degree of pain made me feel like all of my skin had been scraped off by that rubble. Now I was the one who was skinned, and all of my flesh was sticking to the rocks here.

It took me about ten minutes before I finally started to think seriously about my current predicament and realized that I was trapped. I didn’t know how deep I had been dragged underground just now.

At least ten meters, I said to myself.

Strangely enough, that thing had sucked me down but ignored me and left directly. Before it left, however, it stuffed me into this underground gap.

This was definitely not a coincidence; it should be intentional.

Otherwise, how could I be so lucky as to enter a cavity the same size as me? If I hadn’t entered this cavity, I would have been crushed like tomato pomace in a juicer.⁽²⁾

In other words, this thing did it consciously. But for what purpose? Was it a way to store food?

Right now, I was in an extremely desperate situation. There was no room or opportunity for anyone to come and rescue me. The ten-meter-deep gravel slope couldn’t be dug, and it was impossible for Poker-Face to rescue me through the hairline gaps in the surrounding rocks.

I suddenly remembered a horrible dream I had before where I was sealed in a bridge pier with cement.⁽³⁾ I could breathe, but that space was as small as the one here, and I couldn’t move at all.

That dream was really amazing. In it, I made a bet with someone that if I was trapped anywhere, I could find a way to escape as long as I didn’t die immediately.

Then I went to the concrete pier. In that space, I kept thinking of ways to escape by going over everything I had learned and wondering whether the various objects around me could be used.

Any slight possibility could give me the confidence to escape.

But there was nothing in that concrete pier. When I tried coming up with more than a dozen ideas and found that it was absolutely impossible to escape, I felt despair in my dream.

I had never felt such pure despair in reality. It was the despair of one waiting for death, purely waiting for death.

Now that I couldn’t come up with any escape ideas, this feeling immediately came to mind.

I couldn’t do anything at all or see anything, but at this time, I suddenly saw something light up.

It was the countdown watch. It was still on my wrist. My hand was twisted due to my current position, but the watch had suddenly started glowing for some reason and the light was shining through the gap.

Was the countdown over? Did I fail?

<Chapter 10><Table of Contents><Chapter 12>

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TN Notes:

(1) Drunken shrimp is a Chinese dish based on shrimps marinated in Chinese wine.

(2) Tomato pomace is an inexpensive by-product of tomato manufacturing that consists of the dried and crushed skins and seeds of the fruit.

(3) A bridge pier is a type of structure that extends to the ground below or into the water. It’s used to support the bridge superstructure.