episode_0001

“You son of a bitch!”

A voice loud enough to burst eardrums exploded from the man’s mouth. His face flushed as if it would burst any second, and he swung his fist towards Asel.

With a dull thudding sound, Asel’s head snapped back. His body, having lost its balance, plunged into the mud puddle, and the inside of his mouth was torn, giving off a bitter taste of blood.

He was clearly hit in the cheek, but the world spun around as if his jaw had been dislocated. It felt like his head had gone strange.

No, maybe it wasn’t because he was hit.

Asel shifted his blurry vision to look at the pile of pure white powder spilled beside him.

A drug that, when consumed, causes hallucinations similar to reality and magic amplification. It was an item far inferior to what nobles enjoyed, but in a slum like this, it was hard to acquire and was quite a valuable commodity with a considerable price.

And it was also the item Asel had spilled while transporting it. What’s more, he spilled it right in front of the person who ordered the delivery.

Of course, the man was at fault. If he hadn’t pushed Asel just because the delivery was late, the drug wouldn’t have spilled into the mud puddle and become unusable. But to the man, such things didn’t matter.

“Do you even know how expensive this, this is?! You shitty little brat, fuck!”

Shouting that, the man kicked the fallen Asel with his foot. With each kick, heavy with weight, Asel felt like his breath was cut off sharply. But the pain wasn’t that severe. It was probably because he had accidentally inhaled the spilled drug.

“……”

Asel narrowed his eyes, feeling the faint pain and foreign sensation in his body. Blood flowed from between his closed teeth, but his entire attention was focused on the hallucinations caused by the drug.

A place called Earth. The image of a man born in South Korea, growing up under ordinary parents and living an ordinary life, unfolded before his eyes. The young man’s life, feeling more like a dream than a hallucination, was deeply etched into Asel’s mind.

Sleeping on a bed under a cozy blanket instead of tattered, moldy scraps of cloth. Complaining that he hates food he’d never be able to taste in his life, and laughing and chatting with people his age.

“Die, you son of a bitch! Die!”

-Is there anything you want to eat?

The voices of reality and hallucination were heard simultaneously.

One side of his vision was red. It seemed blood flowing from his head had gotten into his eye. But the hallucination was still vivid. Although it flowed quickly, everything felt as vivid as if he had experienced it himself.

Then, tap.

“……”

It rained in the hallucination. At the same time, raindrops fell on his cheek. The young man in the hallucination took out an umbrella and used it. Meanwhile, in reality, he…

“Asel!”

Along with a familiar voice being heard, the hallucination disappeared.

Asel shifted his blurry vision to look where the voice came from. His only blood relative, Evelyn, was urgently running towards him.

Come to think of it, was this delivery area near their home? It seemed she roughly guessed what was happening here from the man’s voice and rushed out.

-Rumble!

The sky flashed, and soon after, the sound of thunder was heard. The world was momentarily tinted blue. The thin rain streaks began to gain more strength.

“Stop it!”

Just as Asel was gazing spellbound at the blue lightning flashing between the dark clouds, Evelyn, who had arrived nearby unnoticed, struck the man’s back with her small hands and shouted loudly.

“I said stop it, you son of a bitch! Don’t hit my little brother!”

“Ha! Fine, you worms. It was already shitty, let’s just die here. Evelyn, I’ll cut off all your arms and legs and sell you to a brothel.”

Saying that, the man turned his body towards Evelyn. At that, unconcealed fear settled on Evelyn’s face. Seeing that, Asel groaned and barely managed to raise his body, which wouldn’t move well.

The hallucination symptoms had disappeared, but the analgesic effect remained. Asel forced his creaking body to move, picked up a sharp stone lying nearby, and brought it down onto the man’s instep with the weight of his entire body.

“Aah! You bastard!”

The man twisted his face in pain, as if his instep were being crushed, and screamed in agony.

Strength suddenly drained from the man’s body. Acute exhaustion and seizure due to external impact above a certain level. It was a typical withdrawal symptom of an addict who hadn’t been able to take the drug. Asel ignored the curses the man was spewing while collapsed and hobbled towards Evelyn.

Before Evelyn could say anything seeing that, Asel opened his mouth first.

“Sis, let’s run.”

“What?”

“I said let’s run. Quickly!”

Asel frowned, grabbed Evelyn’s hand, and forcefully pulled her up. Only then did Evelyn understand Asel’s meaning, and she began running in the opposite direction from the collapsed man.

“Hah…… hah……”

Asel also ran, following her. Fortunately, the man hadn’t focused his kicks on his legs, so it wasn’t to the extent that he couldn’t run away.

They reached a place far enough that the shouting man’s voice faded. Asel and Evelyn sat leaning beside a half-broken trash can, breathing heavily. A foul smell wafted from the trash can, but both Asel and Evelyn were already so used to this level of stench that they were numb to it.

“Phew…… are you okay?”

After catching their breath sufficiently, Evelyn looked at Asel’s swollen face and asked. Asel was about to say he was okay, but the pain he felt as the drug’s effect gradually wore off made him twist his face. Seeing that reaction, Evelyn wore a tearful expression.

“Ugh…… it hurts, doesn’t it? Your fingers…… a few are twisted.”

“What can you do? It’s better than getting them cut off.”

Saying that, Asel let out a long sigh.

In the slum, loss of body parts was a very common occurrence. There were people who voluntarily cut off and sold parts of their body, and many who had them forcibly taken by others.

Thinking like that, a few broken fingers were relatively fortunate. Of course, the broken parts weren’t just his fingers, but he could still endure it.

Those who couldn’t endure had already all died after just screaming.

“Shall we go see the old doctor woman?”

“If we go there, we’ll have to starve for a week. Today’s delivery was the first one in two weeks, wasn’t it?”

“But……”

“It’s fine. We can just take the painkillers we bought before and endure it. It’ll heal on its own.”

Asel muttered that, spitting out the blood pooled in his mouth.

There are hospitals even in the slum, but the cost is at a level that’s considerably insane, so if we go and get treated and even get medicine, we’d have to endure for days just drinking the dirty water pooled on the ground. If that’s the case, it’s better to just take the painkillers we bought a long time ago and saved, and endure.

Thinking that, Asel put his trembling hand inside his worn shirt. Then he twisted his face.

“Ah, fuck.”

The three painkillers he had clearly put in his pocket had all turned to powder and were rolling around inside his pocket. Some were even wet with rainwater and melting. It seemed the painkillers had been crushed when he was beaten by that man earlier.

But what could he do? He had to take even this.

Muttering curses inwardly, Asel scraped together the sticky, melted painkiller powder and shoveled it into his mouth.

A terrible bitter taste lingered on his tongue. He wanted to neutralize it with other food, but all that was here was dirty mud water. Asel sighed deeply, staggered, and got up. Evelyn followed him and got up as well.

“Let’s go.”

“……Yeah.”

Asel and Evelyn pushed back their rain-soaked hair and began walking without a destination. Since the man lived near the sewer entrance they had used as their home, they couldn’t go home.

Then they had no choice but to find a new residence. Still, since there were a few potential residences they had noted before, they should focus on looking around those.

-Rumble!!

As they thought that and began to move, the sky flashed brightly, and the delayed sound of thunder rumbled low.

“……”

Asel briefly gazed at the clouds where lightning writhed, then soon moved his steps.

*

The year Evelyn was 10 and Asel was 9. Their parents, who were usually engrossed in demon worship, made their children sacrifices for a ritual to summon a demon.

In other words, they were live sacrifices. A ritual of cutting open the belly alive and pulling out the organs and heart.

Sensing this, Evelyn and Asel left home the day before the ritual and settled in a slum far from their parents.

Fortunately, their parents didn’t particularly look for Evelyn and Asel. Instead, a week later, the two found a newspaper stating there had been a large-scale death incident and an attempted demon summoning ritual in the village they used to live in.

Three years passed like that. Evelyn turned 13 and Asel turned 12.

To survive in the slum, the two began working separately.

Evelyn got a job at a contraceptive device factory. It was work making cheap condoms from animal carcasses left after butchering.

When she first started the work, she just puked all day and was beaten by other workers. Now, she’s reached a level where she can make the devices even with her eyes closed.

“Here’s your daily wage.”

The factory where Evelyn works pays the daily wage on the same day. Even so, it’s an income barely enough to buy a single fruit in the city.

But Evelyn smiled every time she received money. Then, occasionally, the factory owner with anger issues would slap her cheek telling her not to smile, but the next day, they would sometimes give her a little more money, apologizing. Even that wasn’t much.

Compared to Evelyn, who does legal work but receives a small wage, Asel does illegal work but receives a lot of pay.

Drug courier.

A job where it’s easy to become a target for those who seek drugs, and where one is highly likely to be beaten to death by drug addicts who have reached a severe stage.

Furthermore, the magic amplification effect of the drug was popular among twisted mages, so there were countless cases of being kidnapped by crazy mages who were dependent on the drug. That’s why Evelyn stopped Asel as soon as she heard about the work he was doing.

But Asel didn’t listen to Evelyn.

No matter how trashy a slum it was, in the end, money was important to the powerless. Evelyn shouted at Asel several times to quit when she saw him return injured, but at the sight of Asel taking out one or two silver coins with a difficult smile, she eventually fell silent.

Time passed like that. Before they knew it, Asel had become a well-known drug courier, and Evelyn had become a recognized skilled worker at the factory.

They earned more money, but it was like sand grains that disappeared after buying a few painkillers. Their life was still impoverished.

The newly found residence was also not in very good condition.

An ownerless house crawling with rats and swarms of insects, filled with foul smells. Maggots crawling out of moldy walls. The corpse of the house’s former owner, left neglected in the kitchen, had long since become a dwelling for insects.

They couldn’t even clean it up. The corpse, which had melted and become one with the floor due to the drug, would remain there until it turned to bone, unless it was completely burned away.

Still, was it fortunate to have a roof and walls to escape the wind and rain?

Thinking it over, it did seem that living in a shack with a corpse was better than living in a completely open sewer. Asel thought that and threw firewood full of bugs onto the bonfire.

It was firewood torn partly from the walls.

“Cough, cough.”

Just then, Evelyn, who had been in the kitchen, walked out. Seeing the blazing bonfire, she wrapped the cloth draped over her shoulders around herself and approached the flames. Asel chuckled seeing her.

“Cold?”

“Yeah…… it’s always cold these days. I keep coughing, and my chest feels tight.”

“A cold?”

“Seems like it, ugh. My head and neck hurt too……”

Evelyn said that and buried her face in her knees. Then she spoke in a muffled voice.

“Are you okay? We were in the rain together, weren’t we?”

“I’m fine. The broken parts sting a bit, but I can endure it.”

“That’s good, cough…! Ugh, what is this, not being able to go to work for days……”

“It’s okay. Still, we can buy food with the money we’ve saved, can’t we?”

“Is that so……?”

Evelyn, who had replied weakly, sighed and picked up a bug crawling nearby and threw it into the flames.

“No jobs came in, right?”

It was a question about drug transportation. Asel didn’t bother to lie.

“None. It seems I’ll have to rest well for the time being. Since my body hurts.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s right. If you go to work now, hospital bills might even be more?”

“If I don’t go to the hospital, that’s that.”

“Will you say that even when you’re dying?”

At Evelyn’s joke, Asel let out a chuckle. Evelyn also smiled back and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. While doing so, she let the corners of her eyes droop.

The chill she felt was getting worse. Her eyes felt like they were burning, and her eyelids kept drooping. Her body was cold, but her head was hot. Every time she coughed, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. It felt somewhat strange to call it a simple cold.

But she didn’t show it. Evelyn had no intention of making Asel worry at all. So she forced a smile.

“Don’t you have any interesting stories?”

“Interesting stories?”

Asel let out a ‘hmm’ and a humming sound, and began to think deeply. Then, as if something came to mind, he looked at Evelyn with a somewhat serious expression and spoke.

“I think I realized my past life.”

“Are you crazy?”

It was an immediate response. Asel grumbled, avoiding Evelyn’s cold gaze.

“But it’s true.”

A few weeks ago, when he took the drug and saw the hallucination.

At that time, he thought it was just a simple hallucination, but now he didn’t. Asel was convinced that the scene he saw then was from a past life.

It was a realm close to instinct. To begin with, even now, after quite some time had passed, he hadn’t forgotten a single detail of the scene he saw then.

But Evelyn didn’t believe Asel’s words. Anyone would have done the same.

He wasn’t some saint blessed by God, what’s this about a past life? Evelyn lightly tapped her cheeky younger brother’s forehead with her finger and got up.

“I’m tired, so I’m going to sleep first. You should also stay up for a bit and then sleep.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Evelyn lightly kissed Asel’s forehead, found a suitable spot in a corner, and lay down. Asel watched her for a moment, then soon continued putting firewood into the bonfire and thought.

‘I did realize my past life, but it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.’

His life in the past life. He roughly felt and saw those things, but there were no immediately noticeable changes.

His self wasn’t shaken, nor was he buried in the memories of his past life. The only change he could point to, at most, was a feeling that his head had gotten a little better. Even this wasn’t without the possibility of being a delusion.

“……Haa.”

Carrying on his thoughts, Asel sighed deeply and stopped thinking.

It was a trivial thought that wouldn’t yield an answer even if he pondered it immediately. To begin with, the memories of his past life weren’t even clear. Many parts were lost, and the overall flow was strange. How should he put it, it felt like watching a type of play.

In any case, having them wouldn’t be of much help in his current life. After neatly shaking off the distracting thoughts, Asel covered himself with the cloth he had thrown nearby and lay down.

The bonfire would go out on its own. Since it was a flame fed by rotten firewood, it often went out quickly if wood wasn’t added periodically. Asel paid no mind to the fire blazing beside him and quickly fell asleep.

Thus, the next day.

As expected, the bonfire was out. The weather was brighter than expected, and his body felt better than yesterday.

Asel stretched and approached Evelyn, who was still lying down. Then he gently shook her body.

“Sis.”

“…….”

There was no answer. Asel felt something was strange and his face hardened.

“Sis?”

“……”

“Wake up. Sis, please wake up for a moment.”

Still, there was no answer.

Thinking ‘surely not,’ Asel checked Evelyn’s pulse, but she wasn’t dead. Rather, her breathing was rough. Her face was red, and her forehead was hot as if it would burn any second. The symptoms were so severe it was strange to call it just a cold.

“……Ah.”

Just as Asel’s expression began to rot away like that, a single disease name he had seen in his past life came to his mind.

A disease where the chest, neck, and head hurt, coughing occurs, and chills persist. A disease his past self had suffered from in the same way Evelyn was suffering.

It was pneumonia.