"Step on him!"
"You wretched brat!"
A group of children crowded around someone, kicking him. The children themselves were so gaunt that they looked half their age.
"Huff! Huff!"
The kids, who looked in bad shape, quickly got tired after just a few kicks and started gasping for air.
"This... damn brat."
"Who the hell is this guy anyway?"
They exchanged glances, looking down at the fallen figure.
"...Let's go."
"Just leave him like this?"
"Do you want to kill him?"
A tense silence followed. Conflict was evident on everyone's faces. But soon, they all nodded irritably.
"Let's go."
"Spit! What bad luck!"
The children turned away, spitting in frustration and exhaustion. Even in their eyes, there were indescribable emotions.
"Are we going to starve again today?"
"If those damned bastards hadn't started the war, we could've at least begged for food."
"Begging, my ass. They say more than ten people starved to death in the lower village. Who's going to give us anything when even the nobles are starving?"
"Damn...."
The children trudged away, their faces showing similar expressions of despair, fear, or perhaps helplessness in the face of insurmountable hardship. The powerful shake the world, but the powerless suffer the consequences. The despair of those whose lives are upended through no fault of their own is indescribably deep and heavy.
"Why do you keep looking back?"
"Won't he die like that?"
"Damn it, if he dies, he dies. I'm about to die myself, so what does it matter? Stop wasting energy and move!"
The child, finally agreeing, nodded and quickened his pace. But he kept looking back, as if something was bothering him. What he kept looking back at might have been the humanity he had to leave behind and the guilt they had to abandon to survive in this world.
Long after everyone had left,
rustle,
The one who the children had trampled started to rise shakily.
Withered and small, even without being trampled, the child looked like he would collapse any moment. Having endured such severe violence, he placed a trembling hand on the ground.
His clothes were so tattered that calling them rags would be generous, and his hair was a tangled mess. He looked more like a beast than a human.
"Spit."
The child spat out blood, but the metallic taste in his mouth didn't go away. Like a weak animal, he looked around cautiously and, seeing no one, began searching inside his clothes.
In his dirty hand was a single, flattened, blackened dumpling that he had fiercely protected from the beating.
The child took a small bite of the dirt-covered dumpling with his small hand and slowly put it into his mouth. It tasted so bad it made him want to retch, but he chewed and swallowed it without a reaction, savoring it as if it were the finest delicacy.
His thin fingers tore at the dumpling again. He had taken a severe beating for it, but he didn't resent it. Getting beaten was better than starving to death.
The child understood this clearly.
Today, someone will die. Among those who had trampled him, some would die in a few days.
People die if they don't eat. The child knew he would die too. So, paying the price of a beating for a dumpling was a bargain.
Survival. There was nothing more important. At least not here.
As the child wiped the blood from his mouth with a dirty sleeve, someone spoke to him.
"Are you okay?"
The child immediately shoved the remaining dumpling into his clothes and bared his teeth. He crouched, looking like a wary wild animal.
Seeing this, the beggar, who had spoken from a distance, made an awkward face.
"No, I was just worried... Are you alright?"
"...."
It was a genuinely concerned voice. Such kindness was almost unthinkable in this cold world.
However, the child only returned a cold, frosty gaze to the warmth extended. The beggar, aware of this, did not easily withdraw his kind attention.
"Don't be so wary."
The beggar approached the child stealthily, as if he were genuinely concerned.
"Your body is in such bad shape that if you sleep in the cold, you will freeze to death. I..."
The beggar stopped short after taking a few steps. The child had pulled out a sharp blade from his clothes instead of the dumpling.
A moment of bewilderment flashed across the beggar's face. As he alternated his gaze between the child and the blade, his face contorted wickedly, unlike the gentle manner he had shown before.
"You damned brat..."
The beggar, as if calculating something in his mind, glared at the child and then took a few steps back. It seemed he judged that dealing with a blade was not worth the risk, especially for a leftover piece of dumpling.
"Do you really think you can survive a few more days like this?"
"..."
"You're almost dead, you brat... If you die, I'll make sure to eat you. I'll be watching, you bastard."
The beggar hurled curses and threats at the child, ones you wouldn't believe were directed at a child, before turning around and swiftly walking away in frustration.
After watching the beggar disappear for quite a while, the child stood up as if determined. His limping steps continued slowly and steadily towards a deserted area.
Under the cover of nightfall, the child climbed up to a secluded mountain slope, where even in broad daylight, it would have been dangerous. With a practiced hand, he dug through a pile of fallen leaves.
After a few tries, a space appeared, barely large enough for a person to crawl into. The child squeezed himself inside and collapsed in exhaustion.
His consciousness was fading, but instead of succumbing to the drowsiness, he took out the dumpling from his pocket and began tearing it into small pieces, chewing them slowly.
His expression didn't resemble that of a child at all. While chewing the dumpling, the child looked down towards the village below.
This world is like hell.
The value of life is never the same. In a peaceful world, human life has immeasurable value, but in a world like this, a human life is worth less than half a stale dumpling.
The value of the child's life was even less than that.
The most wretched ones are eventually driven to places where no one lives.
From his vantage point high above, the child could see countless lights below.
A village. A place still too far and terrifying for him.
The boundary separating the human-inhabited village from the mountain where he stood was those flickering lights. They seemed fragile enough to be extinguished at any moment, yet they were so beautiful that he couldn't look away.
The child, while mindlessly tearing the dumpling and stuffing it into his mouth, gazed in a trance at the sea of lights below.
The taste of earth and the scent of decaying leaves filling his nose.
The child's gaze shifted further.
The lights far away were several times brighter and more splendid than the ones nearby.
It was a place where the child couldn't even set foot now. Those who enjoyed those bright lights were far stronger than those who relied on these flickering lights.
The child slowly reached out his emaciated hand.
The lights seemed close enough to touch. They looked as if they would be genuinely warm if grasped.
But, of course, his hand didn't reach them. Not even a trace of the warmth contained in those lights could be felt.
All he could feel was the biting cold that pierced through his bones.
But the child wasn't disheartened or regretful.
He had learned something.
Those lights weren't always there from the beginning. Those who now possessed many lights had taken them and seized them from others.
If they could steal, so could he. Just like he had stolen and shoved the stale dumpling into his pocket earlier. Someday, those lights too...
The lights reflected in the child's eyes grew larger.
The lights, spreading warmly, soon enveloped the world as if ablaze. The boundary that had divided them crumbled, and the whole world was filled with bright lights.
It was mesmerizing. Even though he knew he couldn't catch the warmth, the child reached out again.
But at that moment.
Crack!
A crack appeared in the world he had been staring at. A spiderweb of fissures spread across the warmly glowing world, and soon, dark red blood gushed out through the gaps.
The child's pupils trembled.
The dark red blood quickly engulfed the world. There was no warmth. The cold, repulsive void swallowed everything.
"Ah..."
For the first time, a voice escaped the child's lips.
But that was all. It wasn't a proper word, just a groan like the cry of a wounded beast.
"Ah... Ah..."
The world turned entirely black, leaving nothing behind. The child's eyes were filled with cruel despair.
"Aaaaargh!"
✿❀✿❀ ✿❀✿❀ ✿❀✿❀
"Ryeonju-nim."
"...."
"Ryeonju-nim?"
Long eyelashes, which had been tightly closed, trembled lightly. Slowly, the eyelids lifted, revealing pale-colored eyes. The two eyes, which were scanning the desolate room in a daze, eventually focused on the person standing in front of them.
"We're ready."
He looked down instead of answering.
A crimson robe that seemed to be ablaze, a luxurious dragon pattern embroidered with gold thread, long fingers revealed under wide sleeves, and colorful rings adorning those fingers.
This is reality. He is not wearing torn and dirty rags.
He flipped over the hand that had been resting on the armrest. His palm was soaked in cold sweat. He stared at it for a while before finally speaking, his expressionless face revealing nothing.
".... Dong Gyeong "
"Yes."
At his command, Dong Gyeong quickly brought a mirror to him.
He looked at his face reflected in the mirror, finding it unfamiliar.
A face adorned with splendid makeup. Through the fringes of the crown draped over his face, the visage of a full-grown man emerged. He was different from that beast-like child. A pale face, red lips, and eyes sunk into gloom.
Have I changed?
Is the man in the mirror different from who he was before? Just because the face and the attire have changed?
He set the mirror aside and slowly stood up.
Although the attendants hurriedly came to adjust his attire one last time, he paid no attention to their touches and walked towards the door he saw ahead.
Step. Step.
He paused momentarily as he grasped the doorknob.
-Do you understand?
He hadn't answered that question yet. Maybe he never would.
But....
He opened the door roughly, finally opening his eyes.
Bang.
Beyond the wide-open door, the sight unfolded in a single glance.
Countless people were lined up.
Suppressing the boiling excitement and the desires that seemed ready to explode.
Those armed with eyes like blades were waiting solely for him, just him.
A deep smile twisted up on Jang Ilso's red lips.
His gaze turned to the side.
Ho Gak-Myung, who had been standing to the side of the lined-up crowd, met his eyes. After a moment of silent exchange, Ho Gak-Myung nodded heavily.
"We are ready, Ryeonju-nim."
"...."
"Your command."
Jang Ilso's eyes slowly turned to the sky. It was blue, without a cloud in sight. The sun, rising in the east, shone brilliantly as if welcoming him.
"It's a good day."
His gaze resembled that of a child from the past, staring at an unattainable light.
He still hadn't reached what he desired. So....
"Let's go."
Now, he must go and seize it. The things he had only ever gazed at.
Step.
He took a step. A deep smile lingered on Jang Ilso's lips.
The most splendid place in the world. The place where those with the greatest power live. The path to that place was already wide open.
"First... shall we start with Hanan?"
His narrowed eyes curved like a crescent moon.
"Let's go. To take over the world."
"Yes!"
The lined-up followers trailed after him.
The blade, which had been holding its breath for a moment, now began to swing towards the world. It showed no signs of stopping until everything was over.