[Chapter 2]
* * *
- O Child, forgive me for forcing such a heavy burden on you.
Saying so, the radiant angel placed her hand on my shoulder. Her touch felt warm and gentle.
- However, please understand that this is a necessary sacrifice. That thing must remain sealed.
The angel's voice was as quiet as a whisper, and her body appeared so faint as if she would disappear at any moment.
I didn't realize it back then, but I understood now. The angel was dying. She had used up all her strength, even the power meant for herself, to create the seal.
- If it is released, it will lead to a catastrophe far greater than the tragedy that occurred in this city today…
- O Child.
- Please, protect the seal. The path will be one of suffering, where the seal will press upon your flesh and torment your mind... But you should understand; this is the right path for the sake of the world.
With those words, the angel pushed me deep into the ground. She buried me deep underground, beneath the ruins of the city, to hide the existence of the seal inside me from the rest of the world.
Perhaps that was the angel's final arrangement. Because when sealing something, the best way was to ensure that no one knew where it had been sealed.
Angel...
Naturally, it was obvious, but the seal wasn't something I, who was just a boy, could endure.
I couldn't even see what was right in front of my nose in the cramped darkness nor was I able to move a finger in that dreadful prison.
No means to find comfort from the intense fear and loneliness inside. And whenever I felt unbearably agonized, I remembered the angel's final plea.
- Please, protect the seal for the sake of the world.
It was the beacon in my heart, my only solace. And when it seemed impossible to bear even with that, I simply stopped thinking.
Because by emptying my mind and becoming like a tree or a stone, time passed by smoothly.
However, no matter how long I endured... it did not disappear.
On the contrary, the underground seal was the first to disappear.
I couldn't blame the angel because she herself would have never expected the seal would be broken in this manner.
A large excavator digging through the subway tore the seal apart.
- Hyung-nim! Over here! Please come here!
[A/N- "Hyung-nim" This is how younger males address an older male in Korea]
- Holy shit... it's a kid's body.
- It seems like someone left a body at a construction site. We should report this to the police first.
- Man, we have to deal with a dead body as soon as we finish lunch... Huh? Hyung-nim, this kid is breathing!
The janitors clearing the construction site were the first to discover me after I was freed from the seal.
The dwellers on the bottom-rung, who would clean anything, from household trash to corpses for money.
- He has no ID, can't speak, nor does he even know his name. Was this kid a victim of human trafficking?
- Ah! Can't you tell by the color of his eyes? They are as yellow as gold; this child was obviously abducted from beyond the dimensional portal!
- Hyung-nim, what should we do about him? Should we hand him over to the police or an orphanage?
- No, we'll take care of him ourselves.
- But Hyung-nim, we are already struggling to feed nine mouths as it is...
- If we send him to an orphanage, he'll definitely be sold off to warm some rich old man's bed. Since we are the ones who rescued him and if no one cared from the start… we should take responsibility.
The janitors could have simply left me in the garbage pile or sent me to an orphanage.
If they were greedy, they could have sold me to human traffickers and taken a cut for themselves.
However, they didn't. And even though I had nothing, they accepted me as their brother. That was how they became my family.
There was James-hyung, who was always kind to me; old man Deokbae, who would take me to various internet cafes and billiard halls; Chunsik-hyung, who shared his comic books with me; and even the foreman, who taught me so much about life...
They weren't my blood relatives, but the kindness they showed me was thicker than blood. Looking back, the time I spent with them was perhaps the happiest moment of my life.
Yet, I couldn't even repay a tenth of the happiness they had given me.
It was because of what the angel had sealed inside me...
『That is some effing long flashback.』
After the underground seal broke, it began to target me vigilantly. It tried to break from its seal and seize my body.
『When will this end?』
Nevertheless, the seal left by the angel who sacrificed herself to prepare remained strong. And no matter how much it wrenched my body and the seal, it never fell apart.
Yet it didn't cease. Instead it persisted with its tedious and agonizing struggle, as if determined to seize my body. It stole my senses, deprived me of sleep, and inflicted agony...
Years went by, the boy had now become a young man. And as I grew accustomed to its torture, we both arrived at the same conclusion.
As long as I remained alive, the seal would never break.
『For someone with such a strong attachment to life, why do you insist on living such a boring life?』
Upon realizing that fact, it began changing its approach. It no longer attacked the seal, instead, it tried to influence me.
Just like the snake that tempted Adam and Eve, it dug into the gaps within my heart and poured out vulgar temptations.
Money, fame, power...
I struggled to resist its temptations. Yet each time, its temptations became more specific.
- Do you wish for gold? Serve me. I shall build you a gold mine.
- Do you wish to kill that rude one? Kneel before me. I'll give you unmatched strength.
- Do you desire those women on TV? Offer more sacrifices. Then all women will be beneath you.
At times, when life felt too harsh, there were moments when I was almost tempted to give in. However, I resisted until the very end.
In order to live up to the courage of the angel who sacrificed herself and the goodwill of my colleagues who took me in, for the sake of the wor—
『Enough.』
『It's time to open your eyes…』
『My Chosen One.』
***
The cool night air brushed against his face.
His neck felt stiff, as if he had just awoken from a long nap. And then...
...A rotten smell?
Dung Beetle raised his heavy eyelids. It was still dark, as if morning had not yet come.
"Where is this... Chief? James-hyung? Where is everyone?"
He tried to get up by pushing his hand against the ground, but he froze in place.
The sensation under his fingertips… was all too familiar, and he instinctively looked down.
Damn it.
Only then did Dung Beetle realize he was lying on a pile of corpses.
Swallowing back his fright, he got to his feet.
As his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, he began to inspect his surroundings.
The place looked like a large warehouse with an enormous number of corpses cramped inside. It looked like there were at least hundreds or possibly over a thousand.
...Why am I here?
Dung Beetle continued to rack his brain, trying to get a grasp of 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 memories were hazy, like the broken film reel. Yet, it didn't seem like thinking any further would yield any answers.
So, he decided to first get off the pile of corpses and escape this place. Or at least, he tried to.
As he grabbed onto the corpse's hand to climb down, something caught his eye. Dung Beetle gazed at it intently.
There was a gold ring on the corpse's finger.
"This..."
It looked just like the ring Uncle Deokbae wore, the one he cherished as his mother's keepsake.
[A/N- "ring Uncle" This is an Asian way to address an acquaintance. It need not be blood relatives; people use the term loosely to refer to older men who are a decade or two older and are afforded some form of seniority in the family's social circle.]
"...It probably just looks similar."
The familiar uniform and the gas mask that was identical to his own…
"No way."
Muttering that he couldn't believe his eyes, Dung Beetle lifted the corpse.
The corpse was light. Judging by its weight, it couldn't have been Uncle Deokbae, who could easily devour five servings of meat in a single sitting.
However, only after lifting the entire body, did Dung Beetle realize that the corpse had been cut in half.
No.
Denying all the evidence before his eyes, Dung Beetle carefully removed the corpse's gas mask. And as soon as he did that, a horrifying truth stared right back at him.
"Uncle Deokbae...?"
It was the face of the perpetually smiling Uncle Deokbae. However, his face was currently frozen in rigor mortis, devoid of its usual smile.
Fear and pain—The emotions he must have felt just before dying, were preserved on his face.
"..."
And before he realized it, Dung Beetle began checking the surrounding corpses as well. Strewn around the place he had awoken, were the bodies of janitors clad in gas masks and work uniforms.
"James-hyung? Chunsik-hyung...?"
As he approached the corpses and removed their gas masks, familiar faces appeared.
James's corpse with a hole in the neck.
Chunsik-hyung, with his chest slashed, and the foreman's body was... too horrific to describe.
"I-is this a dream? T-this is a dream, right?"
For some reason, he suddenly felt cold. Dung Beetle hugged himself tightly, desperately wishing for the dream to end.
"Tomorrow is payday. I need to wake up soon..."
However, no matter how long he waited, the dream didn't end.
"...Ah."
Only after some time did the deeply buried memories resurface.
The director, who was especially irritable today, the tragic scene at the site, the bodies of the commie elves and the thugs, and then…
The face that sneered at him, without bothering to wipe the blood splattered across his cheek.
"...Player."
The shock hit him as if someone had just whacked the back of his head with a hammer.
The superhuman movements he had only seen on TV, the screams of his colleagues, the alarm that didn't ring, and the blade that slashed his neck.
The last memory before death pierced Dung Beetle's brain like shards of broken pottery.
"B-but didn't I die as well...?"
Recalling the final moment, Dung Beetle fumbled around his neck.
But all he found were dried blood scabs. He couldn't feel any wound from being sliced by the blade.
It was as if his neck had never been cut in the first place.
"What is... going on...?"
…Here?
He couldn't finish his sentence because he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, along with an unfamiliar presence.
Feeling a bad premonition run down his spine, Dung Beetle shut his mouth and carefully hid his body among the pile of corpses.