"Major! Major! The target, Kuro—the Devil—has a firearm! I repeat, the target, Kuro has a firearm!"
The soldier's panicked voice blared through the radio, sharp and clear even amidst the chaos.
I stood there, gun in hand, and for a moment, the world felt still. Around me, a wall of heavily armed men formed an unbreakable ring. Their black combat gear glinted under the flickering streetlights, their fingers hovering over their triggers.
I knew what was coming. I always did.
Then, the command came.
"Lieutenant! Orders have been confirmed! Execute him!!"
The silence shattered.
A thunderous hail of bullets erupted, tearing through the air—and my body. I felt each impact like tiny explosions, my flesh giving way as if it had always been meant to. There were over twenty of them, their guns barking in unison. Six bullets per magazine.
Math wasn't my strong suit, but even I knew the numbers didn't favor me. Over a hundred rounds. Over a hundred wounds.
It didn't take long for the pain to dull, replaced by an overwhelming numbness. Blood soaked into the pavement, pooling beneath me like an offering to some unseen god. My vision dimmed, my breaths grew shallow.
I was going to die.
---
I wasn't born a monster. Once, a long time ago, I was just a boy.
Orphaned young, I grew up in a small, run-down orphanage on the outskirts of the city. It wasn't much, but it was home. Sister Jessica, the head of the orphanage, was the closest thing I had to a mother. She was kind, soft-spoken, and treated us like her own children.
She gave us warmth in a world that seemed intent on being cold.
But warmth doesn't last forever.
One night, some men came. Not men—monsters. They stormed our home, tearing through it like wolves in a den of lambs. They robbed us of what little we had. They laughed as we cried. They made us beg for mercy.
And then they killed Sister Emily.
I'll never forget the sound of her body hitting the floor.
Something inside me broke that night. Something I don't think ever healed. I lashed out, driven by a rage so fierce it swallowed everything else. I killed them all. Every single one of them. My hands, trembling with fury, were stained red before I even realized what I'd done.
But killing didn't solve our problems. If anything, it made them worse.
The men who died that night had friends—dangerous ones. We couldn't leave, couldn't risk being found. Trapped in that blood-soaked house, starving and desperate, I did what I had to do to keep the others alive.
We ate.
I don't need to say more than that.
Survival does things to you. Changes you. It carves pieces out of your soul until you don't recognize the person in the mirror. By the time we escaped that place, I wasn't just a boy anymore. I was something else entirely.
The newspapers gave me a name: The Devil.
---
And now, as I lay there, bleeding out on the cold concrete, I couldn't help but think about the irony.
The world called me a monster. A devil. A creature without humanity. But I never asked to be any of those things.
Did I deserve heaven? No, not even close.
Hell? Maybe.
But honestly? Even that felt wrong. Whatever crimes I'd committed, whatever sins I'd carried... they weren't born out of malice. They were born out of necessity. Out of desperation.
Was this really all there was to my story? To die here, riddled with bullets, with no one to mourn me?
The world around me faded to black. My heartbeat slowed, each thud growing softer, more distant.
And then, just as silence claimed me, I heard a voice.
A soft whisper, gentle and otherworldly, brushing against my ears.
"Your story isn't over yet."
Before I could process it, the darkness swallowed me whole.
As the darkness enveloped me, it didn't bring silence. Faint noises began to grow, distant and distorted, like whispers carried on an unnatural wind. The voices were unintelligible, speaking in a language I couldn't comprehend. The sound swirled around me, chaotic yet purposeful, pulling me toward something unknown.
I tried to move, to open my eyes, but my body refused to obey. I was trapped in this void, drifting between life and death.
Then, slowly, the darkness began to change. Small particles of light pierced through the black, flickering like embers in the wind. They danced and swirled, illuminating the nothingness around me.
"Am I alive?" The question echoed in my mind, repeating over and over.
I willed myself to move, to fight against the oppressive weight holding me down. My entire being strained as I tried to open my eyes. I kept trying and trying, until finally—
I succeeded.
---
The first thing I saw was an elderly man. His figure loomed over me, his face partially obscured by shadows cast from a dim, flickering light.
"Have I been saved by him?" The thought came unbidden, a fragile hope I dared not grasp too tightly.
I tried to speak, to thank him, or maybe to ask where I was—but no sound came. My voice was gone, as if stolen from me. I tried again, but my throat felt... strange. It wasn't just that I couldn't speak—it was as if my throat itself was small, underdeveloped, incapable of forming words.
It was a disorienting, alien sensation.
The man's face came into sharper focus as my vision adjusted. His expression was unreadable—not kind, just cold, like a stone carved into the shape of a man.
And yet, something about him felt... familiar. His emotionless gaze reminded me of my own reflection, the one I used to see in the mirror after I had abandoned my humanity.
Even so, there was no malice in his eyes. Only a quiet intensity, as though he were studying me, searching for something I couldn't name.
I tried not to strain myself further. Speaking seemed pointless; I could barely manage to keep my breathing steady. Instead, I fixed my gaze on the old man, matching the cold and calculating look he gave me. It was strange—almost eerie. Our expressions were mirrors of one another.
His appearance was striking. His hair was a stark grey, almost white, and a beard extended from his chin, giving him an air of quiet authority. He seemed... timeless.
I shifted my focus, trying to take in my surroundings despite the odd weight and weakness in my body. The effort was taxing, but I managed to glance around. The place was unusual—entirely made of wood. The floor, walls, even the ceiling seemed carved from the same material, their textures rough yet sturdy. It wasn't the kind of construction I was used to.
The old man sat on a cushion, poised and still, his presence commanding yet strangely distant. My thoughts raced as I tried to piece together what was happening. This scene—this man—it felt otherworldly, like something I wasn't meant to witness.
I struggled to move, forcing my fragile body to obey. My arm weakly stretched out toward him, almost instinctively. Something about him drew me closer, even though my mind rebelled against the impossibility of it all.
This shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't even be here. The last thing I remembered was... bullets. Hundreds of them. My body torn apart. My life fading away. And yet, here I was, alive—or something close to it.
But then I saw it—something that stopped my thoughts cold.
My hand.
It was small. Too small. Like that of a toddler—or worse, a newborn. Panic surged through me as I glanced down at my body. It was the same: tiny, frail, underdeveloped. My breath caught in my throat.
"What the hell is this?"
I tried to move again, to confirm the terrifying truth my eyes were showing me. My limbs barely responded, weak and sluggish like they hadn't been used in years. No, that wasn't it—this wasn't weakness from neglect. This was something entirely different.
The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning, and my heart felt like it stopped.
"I've... been reincarnated?"
It was the only explanation. Nothing else made sense. My body was no longer my own—not the one I remembered, not the one riddled with bullet holes. This was new, untouched, unscarred.
For a moment, a strange hope flickered within me. But then, reality struck hard.
"Why? Why me?"
I killed thousands—no, millions. My hands were drenched in blood, my sins innumerable. I didn't even deserve hell, let alone another chance at life.
So why?
Why reincarnate me of all people?
-----
A few weeks passed.
As the days rolled by, my assumptions solidified into certainty. The language spoken here—it was nothing like any I had ever heard before. No familiar tones, no recognizable patterns. It was alien, incomprehensible, like a completely different world.
The old man never spoke to me. Not once. He would simply sit, observe, and sometimes leave the room without a word. But there was someone else—a young woman, likely in her twenties. She was the one who took care of me.
She handled everything. Feeding me, cleaning me, even carrying me around when needed. At night, she would read me books in that strange language, her voice calm and deliberate. I didn't understand a word of it, not at first.
But then something curious began to happen.
As the days turned to weeks, fragments of meaning started to surface. A word here, a phrase there. It was like my mind was piecing together a puzzle, one small part at a time. Was it this new body? Was it naturally gifted with heightened learning capabilities? Or was it my old, battle-hardened mind—relentlessly adapting, as it always had?
Whatever the case, I could feel myself beginning to grasp the language, slowly but surely.
Every day, the old man and I would sit across from each other, locked in the same silent ritual. His gaze was calculating, unwavering, like he was peeling back every layer of my existence with his eyes alone. And mine? Mine was the same—cold, and constantly analyzing.
It was strange, almost unnerving. Like two predators sizing each other up. And yet, neither of us made a move. It became a game of silent observation, one I found myself growing more and more intrigued by.
The silence spoke volumes, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that he was searching for something in me—something even I couldn't name.
-----
Half a year passed.
By now, I had come to understand the language much better. Though I still couldn't grasp all of it, I could manage simple sentences, fragments of conversation. Yet there was one thing I couldn't figure out—my name. The girl who took care of me always called me "Young Master," but it felt hollow, like a title rather than a true identity. The old man, ever silent, still never spoke. His demeanor remained as cold and distant as ever, his presence nearly as still as death itself.
Physically, I had grown accustomed to this new life. I had started to crawl—everywhere. It was humbling, to say the least. Every time I tried to move, I was reminded of my helplessness in this new form. But I had no choice. I was a baby, after all.
Outside a window, I could see the vast world stretching out beyond the house. A sprawling field of green grass, dotted with distant houses. From what I could tell, we lived in a rural area—far from the cities I once knew. It wasn't much, but it was peaceful.
One day, as usual, I was gazing out of the window, my eyes scanning the horizon for something new. That's when I saw him—the old man, swinging a sword with precision and grace. Sweat dripped down his face as he moved, his movements fluid but deliberate. There was something mesmerizing about the way he wielded that sword, as though it was an extension of himself.
And then, as I watched him, one word came to my mind—strangely clear, yet foreign.
"Chhuchobio?"
The word felt strange on my tongue, and yet it seemed to resonate with something deep within me. It was as though I had known it for ages, yet I couldn't understand why. What did it mean? Was it a name? A title? Or something else entirely?
I couldn't answer that question. But one thing was certain—the old man's swordplay, the sweat on his brow, the power in his every movement—it was all somehow linked. And I had to learn more.
As I was mesmerized by the old man's graceful sword swings, I was caught off guard when he suddenly turned to look at me. His eyes met mine, and in that split second, I lost my balance. I had been standing on the edge of the low table, and my legs gave way beneath me. I tumbled forward with a loud thud, landing straight on my face.
The impact was sharp. My small body didn't know how to brace for it, and all I could do was lie there, stunned for a moment.
The girl heard the crash and came rushing over, panic clear in her voice.
"Kyaaaaa!! Young Master?!!" she exclaimed.
"I—I hope you're not hurt!"
I didn't respond. It wasn't like I could—my tiny body couldn't even lift its head yet. I was probably bruised, but I didn't feel the pain. It didn't matter much.
The girl hesitated for a second, then muttered something under her breath.
"J… J… Just to be sure, I'll cast a healing magic for you."
Healing magic? I thought, blinking in confusion. Was it like… a forehead kiss? Or maybe beating the floor? It reminded me of what Sister had done when I was younger. But something was different this time. The girl wasn't kissing me on the forehead or hitting the floor.
Instead, she raised her hand, and I saw a small glowing light form in her palm. She muttered a strange incantation, and in an instant, the words reached my ears.
"[Healing!]"
The moment she finished speaking, my face was bathed in a soft green light. The warmth was soothing, and I felt the sting of the fall begin to fade. The pain was gone—completely vanished.
I blinked in amazement, feeling my body healing, something I had never felt before.
"Magic, huh?" I muttered under my breath.
Wait... Magic?!
What the—by magic, she meant actual magic?
Am I dreaming? Did I hit my head so hard that I've lost all sense of reality? Or worse... have I gone completely mad?
No… no, this isn't just some delusion. This strange place, the old man's flawless swordplay, and now this undeniable magic—it's all too real.
This isn't my world. Everything here defies the logic I once knew. A sinking realization crept over me as I pieced it all together.
I haven't just survived… I've been reincarnated.
Not just in another body. Not just in another time.
In an entirely new world!.