DS | Chapter 2

Yoon Seol forced himself to move and checked the condition of the fallen man. Fortunately, he seemed to be breathing fine.

“What the…?”

Muttering to himself, Yoon Seol frowned in disbelief. Did that guy faint just from seeing my face? Feeling uneasy, he checked for any visible injuries but found none. The man’s expression, which had changed bizarrely when their eyes met, kept lingering in his mind, making him feel strange.

Yoon Seol tried to stay calm. He needed to contact 119 before it was too late. With trembling hands, he took out his phone, only to be greeted by an unexpected pop-up.

[You have left the service area.]

Sucking in his cheek, Yoon Seol reread the message on the screen. A plausible thought crossed his mind. Could this be a dream? Ah, dreams could sneak into the subconscious so cleverly. If this was all a dream, it would make sense. But before accepting it, he needed to confirm if it was really a dream.

Putting his phone back in his pocket, he wrapped his left hand around his right middle finger and bent it back with all his might. If it were a dream, his finger would bend like rubber and touch his wrist, just like in the lucid dreams he used to have every day. However, the finger barely bent.

“Ouch, that hurts.”

Yoon Seol grimaced and mumbled. It wasn’t just that. He couldn’t breathe if he pinched his nose, and pinching his cheek with his nails stung annoyingly. A sense of foreboding crept over him along with the anxiety covering his body. If this wasn’t a dream, how could he explain this phenomenon?

He looked down at the fallen man. His head throbbed. If this wasn’t really a dream, then Yoon Seol had only one thought about what to do with the man. Leaving an unconscious person lying in the snow was too dangerous. It might seem okay for a moment, but Yoon Seol knew it wasn’t. It was a lesson learned from losing his only family.

He took off his coat and wrapped it around the man’s body. He realized the order of things was off. If the man hadn’t been lying in the snow, he would have left him and figured out where he was first. But Yoon Seol couldn’t ignore someone fallen in the snow.

Feeling the creeping anxiety, he looked around again. Ahead was an endlessly stretching road, and behind was a decaying stable. Yoon Seol cautiously approached the stable. The door was misaligned at all four corners, possibly from neglect.

Then, he heard voices beyond the stable. Yoon Seol quickly looked in that direction. Not far away, he saw stalls set up in an alley. Yoon Seol ran to the alley and approached the nearest young man.

“Please help, someone collapsed over there.”

“What? Where?”

“Over there, behind the stable. And could I borrow your phone for a call…?”

Before he could finish, the young man’s face turned dramatically pale upon meeting Yoon Seol’s eyes.

“Ahhh!”

As an unexpected scream erupted, everyone in the alley turned around. Confused, Yoon Seol frowned. To make matters worse, the expressions of those who saw him changed. They looked as if they’d seen something they shouldn’t have.

While Yoon Seol stood bewildered, the young man’s face turned a ghastly blue.

“Don’t touch me, you devil!”

What was that just now? Yoon Seol stopped his hand from scratching the back of his head and asked.

“Are you talking to me?”

The young man just glared without answering. Just in case, Yoon Seol looked behind him, but there was no one there. He stepped closer to the young man, who recoiled in fright, tripping and falling on his backside. Apples and bread rolled out of the basket he dropped, tumbling across the snow-covered street. People around them were murmuring.

“Did you mean me? Do you know me?”

Yoon Seol asked, watching the apples get smeared with wet snow and mud. Then, a voice filled with hatred erupted from the young man’s frozen face.

“Who wouldn’t know you? You murderer!”

Ha. The absurdity made Yoon Seol chuckle. A murderer? Me? I haven’t lived like a saint, but I’ve never done anything to deserve that.

Yoon Seol frowned deeply.

“Is he crazy…?”

As he spoke, irritation began to rise, and Yoon Seol raised his voice.

“But seriously, what kind of talk is that? I ask for help for a patient, and you call me a murderer?”

The young man, slowly getting up, glared at Yoon Seol as if he wanted to kill him and shouted.

“Shut up, you trash.”

At this point, it seemed certain the guy was just crazy. It seemed better to seek help from someone else rather than waste time meaninglessly. However, the young man blocked Yoon Seol’s path as he tried to pass.

Yoon Seol slapped away the young man’s hand holding him and said.

“Trash is telling you to shut up and move, so why block the way?”

The young man spat out his words as if chewing on a knife.

“Where do you think you’re going? You deserve to burn at the bottom of this hell.”

Honestly, with that level of verbal abuse, wasn’t I the one who got hit first? Shouldn’t it be considered self-defense if I just hit him once? While Yoon Seol was seriously contemplating the unexpected curses, he noticed the faces of the people around him turning pale. The young man continued to rant at Yoon Seol.

“Where are you going to massacre innocent people again? Is this crowd not enough for you?”

“Seriously, what are you babbling about? Explain properly.”

“Why are you pretending not to know, so deceitfully?”

The young man’s eyes shone strangely. He pointed a finger at Yoon Seol’s face and spoke slowly.

“Black eyes.”

“What.”

“And black hair.”

“…”

“With the mark of the Demon King.”

Just as Yoon Seol frowned and was about to retort, the people surrounding them began to back away in fear. They exchanged glances and then, in a panic, turned and started running.

“Run! Before we all die!”

Someone shouted. While everyone was fleeing, the young man stood his ground, gritting his teeth and glaring at Yoon Seol.

No way, are these people actually believing that crazy guy? About the Demon King and all that nonsense without context?

Caught in the sudden chaos, Yoon Seol was at a loss. Then it happened.

“What are you doing, oppa!”

Someone shouted loudly. Soon, a girl who looked just like the young man squeezed through the fleeing crowd and ran over. She clung to the young man, trying to cover his mouth. But he roughly shook off her hand. The girl, trying not to fall, was eventually thrown to the ground.

Having witnessed an unexpected sibling scuffle, Yoon Seol closed his eyes tightly and tilted his head back. Forget about saving anyone; I just need to find a way home.

As he thought that, the young man, having freed himself from the girl’s grip, began to shout in desperation.

“Kill me, go on!”

“…”

“Gouge out my eyes, cut out my tongue, and kill me. Scrape out my insides while I’m alive!”

Yoon Seol lost the will to respond and just stared at the young man. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again. Everything before him was strange. If this wasn’t a dream, then where was this? What were they doing, and why were they shouting such nonsense?

Yoon Seol watched as the young man’s venomous lips moved again.

“Why can’t you do it? I’m not afraid; your death will be a hundred, a thousand times more horrific!”

“This guy, seriously, just because you have a mouth…”

Their eyes met. Suddenly, the young man’s pupils dilated grotesquely. Soon, his eyes and then his mouth opened slowly, as if in slow motion. He was convulsing as if in agony.

A groan soaked in pain came first. And finally, a bright red, fishy liquid was vomited out.

The liquid that spewed out covered Yoon Seol’s face.

Disgusting. It’s hot and wriggling. It drips down his jawline.

Yoon Seol blinked very slowly. The blade that pierced the young man’s neck glinted excessively in the sunlight.

The young man’s eyes, as he collapsed, were filled with nothing but Yoon Seol’s face.

Covered in something unpleasant, Yoon Seol just stood there. Then he absentmindedly wiped his face.

Only then did he realize. It was blood. Blood that pulsed warmly, spewed from the stomach through the esophagus.

“…”

The young man with the knife in his neck was twitching as he lay crumpled. A bright red stain spread across the snow. Yoon Seol slowly stepped back.

It was a scene he had seen before. The bright red marks on the snow, he could never forget. His body turned cold, and nausea welled up. The young man on the ground rolled his eyes back, looking up at Yoon Seol. His blood-soaked lips moved.

“…”

Instead of words, more blood splattered.

The young man vomited blood and buried his face at Yoon Seol’s feet. And then he moved no more.

Yoon Seol took a step back.

“Ah, damn.”

He muttered without realizing it. But that wasn’t what he really wanted to say. He opened his mouth again.

“Ha… what is this…”

But those were the only words that came out.

He couldn’t believe what had just happened before his eyes. A sudden dizziness overwhelmed him, and he staggered, bracing himself on his knees.

Everything was blurry, like looking through an unfocused camera or watching a video with terrible quality.

As he slowly lifted his gaze, he saw the face of the one who had stabbed the knife into the young man’s neck. It was the girl from earlier.

Their eyes met. The girl, her face pale, knelt before Yoon Seol and began to beg, bowing her head.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty! My brother is an uneducated fool… he spoke nonsense without knowing anything.”

“…”

“Please, please just let this worthless body be preserved, let it be buried in a human form…”

Nausea rose from his stomach, and Yoon Seol bit his trembling lips tightly.

Meanwhile, the sound of people who had come out late, trembling in fear, echoed in his ears.

“The Demon King has revived…!”

Yoon Seol slowly lifted his head and looked around. A dozen or so people who had missed the chance to escape were all staring at him, stiff with fear. Every time their eyes met, the same expression appeared on their faces.

The fear of facing death. It was something Yoon Seol knew all too well.

The expression that spread across the face of his only remaining family on a snowy day. Something he had long forgotten, or rather, wanted to forget.

Someone whispered as if groaning.

“We have to run.”

“It’s too late… we made eye contact…”

“Run anyway!”

As everyone fled chaotically, the alley quickly turned into a mess.

The girl who had been standing in front of Yoon Seol also began to stagger and run away. Over the already chaotic stalls, items flew through the air and tumbled to the ground.

The alley, which had already become a pandemonium, now reeked of blood, transforming into a scene of hell. And at the center of that chaos stood Yoon Seol.

The blood-soaked marks spread across the snow. The sound of someone muttering madly clung to his ears.

Demon King, the Demon King to be torn and killed. The Demon King whose eyes should be gouged out, tongue cut, and insides burned…

With those cursed words, long-buried memories surfaced.

The guilt that deserved death many times over. The guilt that wouldn’t be strange if he died spilling blood on this snowfield.

The powerless self who couldn’t save even the last remaining family member, leading to their death.

“Seol-ah, Seol-ah. It’s okay, it’s not your fault…”

As Yoon Seol stumbled backward, he knelt on the blood-stained snow and retched. But nothing came out.

While everyone in the alley ran for their lives, Yoon Seol just crouched on the cold ground, waiting for everything to pass.