The World Does Not Exist for ■■

Translator: FenrirTL
Editor: ford53
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< Chapter 2: The Unlucky Day (2) >

“My child, forgive me for laying such a heavy burden on you.”

The shining angel said these words as she laid a hand on my shoulder. It was a warm and soft touch.

“But know that all of this was a necessary sacrifice. It had to be sealed away.”

The angel’s voice was but a whisper, her form fading as if she would disappear at any moment.

At the time I didn’t fully understand, but now I could.

The angel was dying. For the sake of the seal, she had expended all her energies, even those meant for herself.

“If it were to be unleashed, it would bring about a disaster far greater than the tragedy that has befallen this city today… my child.”

“Please, protect the seal. Though it will crush your flesh and torture your spirit on a path of hardship… know that you are doing the right thing, for the sake of the world.”

With those words, the angel pushed me down into the deep recesses of the earth.

Beneath the ruins of the city, deep underground, she buried me to hide the existence of the seal from the world.

It must have been the angel’s last arrangement. The best way to ensure something remains sealed is to prevent anyone from knowing it was sealed at all.

“Angel…”

Of course, the seal was too much for me, who was nothing more than a mere boy.

In the sticky darkness, where I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me, I was imprisoned in the worst kind of jail, unable to move a finger.

There was nothing to alleviate the terrible fear and loneliness. Occasionally, when the agony became too acute, I would recall the angel’s plea right before I was sealed.

“Protect the seal. For the sake of the world.”

That was a beacon for my soul, my sole pillar of support. Whenever it seemed unbearable, I stopped thinking altogether.

If I emptied my mind and stayed put like a tree or a stone, time passed quite quickly.

But no matter how long I endured… it did not disappear.

What vanished first was the seal underground.

I couldn’t blame the angel. She hadn’t anticipated that the seal would break in such a manner.

Who could have expected a giant excavation machine drilling through the subway would tear through the seal?

“Hey, bro! Come over here!”

“Damn, it’s a kid’s corpse.”

“Looks like someone abandoned it at the construction site. Let’s call the police first.”

“Huh, just after we eat, we gotta deal with a body… Huh? Bro, this kid, he’s breathing?”

The first to discover me freed from the seal were the cleaners at a construction site.

From household trash to corpses, they were the bottom-feeders of life who would take care of anything for money.

“No identification, can’t speak, don’t even know his name… was he a victim of human trafficking?”

“Don’t you see by the color of his eyes? Shining like gold, he’s clearly a child snatched from beyond a dimensional gate!”

“So, what now, boss? Shall we hand him over to the police or to an orphanage?”

“No, we’ll take him in.”

“But boss, we already have nine mouths to feed…”

“If we send him to an orphanage, he’ll surely be sold off to some rich old man’s bed. We found him… so it’s our responsibility.”

The cleaners could have just left me among the trash, or sent me to an orphanage.

If they were greedy for money, they might have sold me to human traffickers to make a profit.

But they didn’t. Instead, they took me in with nothing to my name and became my family.

Always kind, brother James.

Deokbae, who frequented the PC cafes and pool halls with me.

Chun-sik, with whom I shared comic books.

And Team Leader who taught me so much about life…

While they were not my family by blood, the goodwill they shared with me was thicker than blood. Looking back, the time I spent with them might have been the happiest moments of my life.

Yet, I couldn’t repay even a tenth of the happiness they gave me.

Because of ‘that thing’ that the angel sealed inside me…

“That’s a hell of a long way to go.”

After the seal underground was broken, ‘it’ kept a watchful eye on me, waiting to shatter the seal and seize my body.

“When will this ever end?”

The seal left behind by the angel ready to face her own death was robust. No matter how much ‘it’ shook my body and the seal, it never crumbled.

Nonetheless, ‘it’ did not stop. Instead, it continued a tiresome and painful tug-of-war, trying to rob my sensations, disrupt my sleep, and cause pain…

Years went by, and as I grew from a boy to a young man, and became accustomed to its torture, we both realized at the same time that as long as I lived, the seal would never break.

“You cling to life so fiercely, yet you lived such a joyless existence?”

As soon as it knew this truth, ‘it’ changed its tactics. Instead of attacking the seal, it tried to tempt me.

Like the serpent that lured Adam and Eve, it wriggled into the voids of my heart, pouring out vile temptations.

Money, fame, power…

I stubbornly ignored its enticements. Yet each time ‘it’ returned, the temptations became more specific.

“Do you desire gold? Serve me. I will create a gold mine for you.”

“Do you wish to kill that impudent one? Kneel before me. I will grant you power that can overthrow anyone.”

“Do you covet that woman from TV? Offer up more tribute. Then I will lay all the women at your feet.”

Occasionally, life felt unbearably cruel… I was tempted to give in… still, I resisted to the end.

To honor the angel’s courage and my comrades’ goodwill, for the sake of the world…

“Enough.”

“Now, it’s time to open your eyes.”

“Oh, my chosen one.”

***

The cool night air wrapped around my face.

My throat felt stiff as if waking from a long sleep. And then…

‘… Rotten smell?’

Dung Beetle lifted his heavy eyelids. Either it wasn’t morning yet or the surroundings were enveloped in darkness.

“Where is this… Team Leader? Brother James? Where is everyone?”

He tried to get up, leaning on the ground, but suddenly stiffened.

The sensation he felt at the tips of his fingers… too familiar, he involuntarily looked downward.

‘Damn.’

Dung Beetle finally realized he was lying on top of a pile of corpses.

With his panic restrained, he rose to his feet.

As his eyes slowly adapted to the darkness, the general outline of the surrounding landscape became discernible.

The vast space resembling a large warehouse was filled with a tremendous number of bodies, piled high. There were at least several hundreds, possibly even over a thousand.

‘… Why am I here?’

Dung Beetle racked his brain to grasp the situation. Where was this place, why was he here, and where were his colleagues?

‘I can’t remember anything. What was I doing before I lost consciousness?’

His memory was blurry, like a broken film. No amount of pondering seemed likely to yield an answer.

He attempted to leave the mound of corpses, or rather tried to get down from it.

The moment he noticed something on the finger of a body he had grasped to climb down, Dung Beetle’s gaze was fixed there.

A gold ring worn on the corpse’s finger.

“This is…”

It closely resembled the ring that Uncle Deokbae cherished, saying it was his mother’s keepsake.

“…It must be a coincidence.”

Familiar work clothes, the same type of gas mask he wore…

“N-No way…”

Dung Beetle muttered in disbelief, lifting the corpse.

It was light. The body was too light to be Uncle Deokbae, who used to polish off meals fit for five.

Only after he lifted the body did Dung Beetle realize that it was halved, severed by something.

‘No.’

Dung Beetle denied all the evidence, carefully removing the gas mask from the body. Then, a dreadful truth confronted him.

“Deokbae, uncle…?”

There was the face of Deokbae, who always laughed, but no trace of laughter was found on his face which was stiffened by rigor mortis.

Fear and pain.

The emotions he must have felt just before his death were embalmed on his face.

“….”

Without realizing it, Dung Beetle began to check the surrounding bodies. The area where he woke up was filled with the bodies of cleaners in gas masks and work clothes.

“Brother James? Brother Chun-sik…?”

As he removed the gas masks from the bodies, familiar faces were revealed.

Brother James’ body had a hole in the neck.

Brother Chun-sik had a long slash across his chest, and Team Leader’s body was too gruesome to describe.

“Is this, is this a dream?”

Why all of a sudden was his body shivering with cold? Dung Beetle hugged himself, desperately waiting for the dream to end.

“Tomorrow’s payday; I need to wake up quickly…”

But no matter how long he waited, the dream did not end.

“… Ah.”

Memories that had long been submerged in the depths finally floated into conscious thought.

The superintendent, who had been exceptionally irritable today, the horrendous scene, the bodies of the red elves and thugs, and then…

That face, not even wiping the blood splashed on his cheek, just smirking.

“… The Player.”

It was as if his head was struck with a hammer.

The superhuman movements as if something seen on television, screaming colleagues, the silent alarm, and the knife blade piercing his throat.

The last memory before death stabbed Dung Beetle’s brain like shards of broken porcelain.

“I, I died, didn’t I…?”

Dung Beetle felt his neck, recalling the last moment of his memory.

Dry blood clots were all over but no more. He felt no cut from the blade.

It was as if his neck had never been severed in the first place.

“What the hell… is this…?”

He couldn’t finish the thought. A foreign noise nearby, along with the sound of footsteps, stopped him.

Dung Beetle closed his mouth and cautiously hid among the pile of corpses.

A bad feeling ran down his spine.