Chapter 1

He opened his eyes.

Everything before him was black.

A thick darkness, in which no shapes could be distinguished, was spread before his eyes like a curtain.

“……”

He thought something was wrong with his eyes. So he blinked.

No matter how many times he closed and opened them, all he could see was still the thick darkness.

A pitch-black darkness had taken hold of him.

A perfect darkness, where not a single speck of light entered.

He was within it.

He tried to move his hands and feet. But his body wouldn’t budge, as if it were tightly bound by iron chains.

There was no strength in his limbs.

His entire body was lethargic.

The only thing he could move was his eyelids. There was no strength in any other part of his body.

‘It’s not my eyes that are wrong.’

He couldn’t be certain, since he couldn’t even make out his own hands and feet, but he instinctively realized that there was nothing wrong with his eyes.

If he had gone blind, he would have felt some kind of pain. But there was nothing unusual about his senses.

If that was the case, it meant that it wasn’t he who was wrong, but that the space he was lying in was abnormally dark.

A pitch-black space where not a single speck of light entered.

‘Am I underground?’

He thought that might be the case.

He had never heard of a man-made structure that could block out light so perfectly.

If so, there was a high probability that the space he was lying in was either underground, where light could not reach, or a space just as perfectly sealed.

‘How did this happen?’

He slowly retraced his memories.

About himself.

About why he had ended up in this situation.

His head throbbed as he tried to recall his memories.

His mind was blank, as if his brain had been turned to mush.

It was painful.

Tears were streaming from his eyes.

It felt as if someone had stuck their fingers into his head and was stirring it around.

He forced himself to swallow a scream.

It was agonizing, but he did not stop thinking. And then, little by little, his memories returned.

‘My name is Pyo Wol. I am fourteen years old.’

An orphan without parents, a wanderer who roamed All Under Heaven without a destination.

No roots, no home.

He, Pyo Wol, scowled deeply.

Pain had once again washed over him like a tidal wave. Still, he did not stop thinking.

As a result, he was able to perfectly recall who he was.

Now it was time to deduce why he was here.

‘That man…’

Pyo Wol recalled the man from his last memory.

A middle-aged man whose sharp eyes were at odds with his unremarkable, ordinary face.

The man he had happened to run into while begging had said.

—You look useful.

That was Pyo Wol’s last memory.

After those words, Pyo Wol had lost consciousness and woken up in darkness.

The fact that he had been left abandoned like this in a space without a single speck of light was surely related to that man.

Pyo Wol knew neither the man’s name nor his identity.

He also couldn’t figure out why the man had locked him up in a place like this.

It wasn’t a grudge.

An Orphan of the World who lived by wandering and begging was unlikely to have earned a grudge deep enough to be treated like this by someone.

‘There must be some purpose.’

If the goal was to kill him, he would have been killed already.

There must have been some need or purpose for him to be locked up and not killed.

His head throbbed as if it would shatter.

Just making this much of a deduction in his abnormal state had consumed an immense amount of mental energy.

Pyo Wol closed his eyes.

Whether his eyes were open or closed, the world was dark.

He wondered what meaning there was in closing his eyes.

Still, it was less painful to have his eyes closed than open.

He didn’t know how much time had passed.

The line between whether he had lost consciousness or maintained it was blurry.

His mind was a mess.

Still, Pyo Wol struggled to find a clear mind. As if his efforts had paid off, his mind became much clearer a moment later.

“Hoo!”

Pyo Wol was surprised as he let out a sigh without realizing it.

The last time he had come to his senses, he hadn’t even been able to take a deep breath. All he could do was force himself to continue his shallow breathing; he couldn’t even dream of taking a deep breath like this.

Being able to breathe deeply was a clear sign that his bodily functions were returning to normal.

It might have been Pyo Wol’s delusion, but he decided to think positively.

Existing alone in a darkness without a single speck of light was agonizing.

The darkness made a person think of many things.

Idle thoughts washed over him like a tidal wave, taking over his mind and body, and the overflowing thoughts were enough to drive a person mad.

Moreover, Pyo Wol was in a state where he couldn’t move his body.

The sense of isolation, as if he existed alone in the primordial darkness, slowly ate away at his sanity.

If time continued to pass endlessly like this, he would surely be seized by his thoughts and go mad.

That was why Pyo Wol tried his best to think positively and keep his mind clear.

‘My name is Pyo Wol, fourteen, my father’s name is Pyo Inhak, my mother’s name is Lee Seonhong.’

Amidst the countless thoughts, he tried to recall only those related to his identity.

The only way to keep his sanity intact in the tidal wave of thoughts was to solidify his identity.

He didn’t know how much time had passed.

It could have been just one shichen, or it could have been several days.

It was impossible to grasp the passage of time in such a thick darkness.

Moreover, Pyo Wol’s entire body was paralyzed.

All of his bodily activities had dropped to rock bottom.

He was barely being sustained, just breathing, but most of his functions had stopped.

Because of that, he couldn’t even feel hunger.

It was as if he were dying while still alive.

It was the most terrifying moment in Pyo Wol’s entire life.

To overcome the fear, Pyo Wol muttered endlessly.

“My name is Pyo Wol…”

Time was passing just like that.

＊＊＊

His fingers moved slightly.

It was proof that his strength was returning.

Although he couldn’t be sure what kind of expression he was making without light or a mirror, Pyo Wol thought he must have a look of rapture in his eyes.

Little by little, the feeling in his whole body was returning.

Strength entered his fingertips, and his sense of smell came alive.

The damp smell that reached his nose told him that this place was underground, just as Pyo Wol had guessed.

But the fact that this place was underground was not very important to Pyo Wol. The most important thing to him was that the feeling in his whole body was returning.

His fingers fidgeted, and he felt a chill at the tips of his toes.

Pyo Wol felt that he was alive. And he was grateful.

It felt strange to feel gratitude for such trivial sensations, but just being able to feel that he was alive was enough to make him feel like he could breathe a little easier.

Although he was trying his best to maintain his identity, Pyo Wol was going mad. If a little more time had passed like this, he would have surely gone mad. No, perhaps he was already mad.

Pyo Wol thought it didn’t matter either way.

For now, he was just happy that the feeling in his hands and feet had returned.

With a little more effort, he would be able to move his arms and legs.

But there was one bad thing as well.

As the senses in his whole body returned, the functions of his organs also revived.

As the functions of his organs came back to life, he felt extreme hunger.

The feeling of his stomach being wrung out as if it were laundry tormented him.

His mouth was so dry that he could smell his own bad breath.

Only then did Pyo Wol realize that he was dying.

Starvation was in progress, as he had eaten nothing while trapped in this place.

If he couldn’t eat for a few more days, he would surely die.

He was left with only two choices.

Either go mad and die, or starve to death.

The corners of Pyo Wol’s mouth twisted.

From deep within his heart, anger toward the man who had locked him in this place welled up.

The anger soon became Killing Intent.

‘What on earth did I do wrong?’

It was a question he had asked himself dozens of times. But no matter how many times he asked and thought about it, he had done nothing wrong.

He hadn’t even begged from the man.

He had literally just been passing by.

But the man had captured him and thrown him into a hellish place like this.

Respect for a human being, courtesy toward himself—such things were nowhere to be found, no matter how hard he looked.

No matter how insignificant he was, he shouldn’t be treated worse than an insect.

At least, if he was a human.

That man clearly didn’t think of him as a human. That’s why he had thrown him into a hellish place like this.

‘Why?’

If he had done nothing wrong, the question of why he had to be trapped here arose.

If he had done nothing wrong, there was no reason for him to be trapped here.

Yet, if he was trapped here, it was clear that the man had acted with some definite purpose.

Pyo Wol thought about what the man’s purpose could be.

But he knew nothing about him.

If he knew something about him, he might be able to deduce something, but he had no information about the man at all.

Pyo Wol bit his lip.

He could feel the flesh tear and blood trickle down.

Even though he was such a mess, his blood still felt warm.

That fact made Pyo Wol feel relieved.

It was because he felt like he was still human.

＊＊＊

His fingers moved.

It wasn’t just twitching like before; he could now clench and unclench them as he willed.

The feeling in his feet had also returned a lot.

He could now slowly rotate his ankles.

He was still just as hungry. So it was painful. Still, Pyo Wol did not despair.

He felt like he was really going to die of hunger, but the fact that his hands and feet could move gave him hope.

Pyo Wol held on tightly to that thread of hope.

What he needed now was the faint hope that he could live.

He knew very well that the moment he let go of that thread of hope, he would fall into an abyss from which he could never climb back up. So he clung to hope tenaciously.

One good thing was that the extreme hunger had opened up all his senses.

His nose picked up various scents that he would never have been able to smell under normal circumstances.

Even the scent of moisture in the air, and the dampness rising from the floor.

His ears were also wide open.

His senses had become so sensitive that he could hear the faint sound of a stream of water flowing along the wall.

What he needed most for his survival right now was a sip of water.

If he could just have a sip of water, he felt like he could really sell his Soul to a demon.

“Haaah!”

A rough breath escaped through his lips.

His mouth was dry and cracked like a drought-stricken rice paddy, and his upper and lower lips were stuck together. When a rough breath forced its way out in that situation, it hurt as if his skin was tearing.

The more he tensed his abdomen, the rougher his breath became, tormenting Pyo Wol. Still, Pyo Wol did not stop tensing his abdomen.

He didn’t want to be hungry anymore.

He didn’t want to suffer from thirst anymore.

So he tensed his abdomen to turn his body over.

He struggled to transfer the power generated from his abdomen to his arms and legs.

Having been motionless for a long time, his entire body was as dry as firewood.

If he had the luxury of time, he would have calmly researched ways to revive his muscles, but unfortunately, he didn’t have much time left.

If he waited endlessly like this, his breath would be cut off before long.

He had to move before that.

“Keuk!”

A groan like the cry of a beast echoed in the darkness.

Pyo Wol truly used all his strength.

As if his efforts had paid off, his body began to shake slightly.

The shaking grew larger, and finally, when it reached its peak, Pyo Wol exploded all the strength he had gathered at once.

“Keoheok!”

With a scream, Pyo Wol’s body flipped over.

He felt the texture of the floor with his chin and forehead.

Pyo Wol shivered at the chillingly cold and damp sensation. But that was only for a moment; Pyo Wol soon began to crawl desperately toward the place where he heard the sound of flowing water.

He wriggled like a snake, advancing little by little.

Sareuk! Sareuk!

His chin, scraped against the floor, was torn and bleeding, but Pyo Wol did not stop moving.

An eternity seemed to pass. And he was finally able to reach the wall that blocked him.

Blood burst from his forehead as he slammed it against the wall, but Pyo Wol didn’t even feel the pain.

Pyo Wol stuck out his tongue.

His tongue touched the wall.

A single, refreshing sensation on his tongue.

It was water.

Pyo Wol greedily licked the water that was trickling down.

“Heoeup! Heueup!”

Only the sound of him drinking water echoed in the darkness.