• Boy, forgive me for placing such a heavy burden upon you.

The shining angel had said that as he placed his hand on my shoulder. His touch was warm and gentle.

• But know that all of this was a necessary sacrifice. It had to be sealed.

The angel's voice was soft, almost a whisper, and his form seemed faint, as though he might disappear at any moment.

At the time, I hadn’t realized it, but now I understand. The angel was dying. He had used all his strength, even his own, to seal it away.

• If it ever breaks free, the disaster it would bring would be far worse than the tragedy that unfolded in this city today…

• Boy.

• Please, guard the seal. Though the seal may weigh down your body and torture your mind, this is the only path, the right path for the sake of the world.

With those words, the angel pushed me deep into the earth. Beneath the ruined city, buried in a deep underground, I was hidden from the world, along with the seal.

That must have been the angel’s final measure. After all, the best way to hide a seal is to ensure no one knows it even exists.

‘Angel…’

It goes without saying, the seal was not something a mere boy like me could withstand.

In the sticky darkness, where I couldn't even see what was right in front of me, I found myself trapped in the worst prison imaginable, unable to move even a single finger.

There was nothing to comfort me in the face of the overwhelming fear and loneliness. At times, when the agony became unbearable, I would recall the angel's request just before the seal was placed.

• Please, protect the seal. For the world.

That was the only light in my heart, my one and only support. But when that wasn’t enough, I would stop thinking altogether.

When I emptied my mind and tried to exist like a tree or a stone, time passed surprisingly quickly.

But no matter how long I endured… it didn’t disappear.

If anything, the first thing to vanish was the seal underground.

I couldn’t blame the angel. He never could have anticipated that the seal would break like this.

How could anyone predict that a massive drilling machine for the subway would rip through it?

• Boss! Over here! Come take a look!
• Damn... it’s a kid's body.
• Looks like someone dumped it at the construction site. Let’s call the police first.
• Damn it, now we have to deal with a corpse right after lunch... huh? Boss, this kid, he’s still breathing!

The first ones to discover me after I was freed from the seal were the cleanup crew at the construction site.

They were bottom feeders, the kind of people who would clear away anything for money, from household trash to dead bodies.

• No ID, can’t speak, doesn’t know his name... Could this kid have been trafficked?
• Don’t you see those eyes of his? They’re yellow, like gold. He’s definitely been kidnapped from the other side of a dimensional gate!
• Boss, what do we do now? Turn him over to the police or an orphanage?
• No, we’ll take him in.
• But boss, we already have nine mouths to feed…
• If we send him to the orphanage, he’ll 100% end up sold to some rich old guy’s bed. If we’d ignored him from the start, fine, but we saved him… So it’s our responsibility.

The cleaners could have left me among the trash or sent me to an orphanage.

If they’d been greedy, they could have sold me to traffickers and made a quick buck.

But they didn’t. Instead, they took me in as one of their own, made me family.

James, who was always kind. Duckbae, who took me to internet cafes and pool halls. Chunsik, who shared his comic books with me. And even the foreman, who taught me so much about life…

We weren’t related by blood, but the kindness they showed me was thicker than any blood tie. Looking back, the time I spent with them was the happiest of my life.

But I couldn’t repay even a fraction of the happiness they gave me.

Because of what the angel sealed inside me…

『What a ridiculously long flashback this is.』

After the seal in the underground broke, it had been watching me closely. It tried to break the seal and steal my body.

『When will this finally end?』

But the seal the angel left behind, with his life on the line, was strong. No matter how much it rattled my body and tugged at the seal, it couldn’t be broken.

Still, it didn’t stop. If anything, it persisted, continuing the long and painful tug-of-war, determined to take my body. It dulled my senses, robbed me of sleep, and tortured me with pain...

Years passed. I grew from a boy into a young man, and eventually, I became accustomed to its torment.

And then, we both realized it at the same time. As long as I didn’t die, the seal would never break.

『A guy with such a strong will to live… Did you really live such a boring life?』

The moment it realized that, its tactics changed. Instead of attacking the seal, it began to tempt me.

Like the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve, it slithered into my mind, whispering filthy offers.

Money, fame, power…

I did my best to ignore its temptations, but with each refusal, the offers became more and more specific.

• Do you want gold? Serve me, and I will create a gold mine for you.
• Do you want to kill that rude man? Kneel before me, and I will give you the strength to defeat anyone.
• Do you want the woman from the TV? Offer me more tributes, and I will place all women beneath you.

Sometimes, when life felt unbearably harsh... I was tempted. But I endured.

I held on, to honor the courage of the angel who sacrificed himself, and the kindness of my companions, for the sake of the wor…

『Enough.』

『It’s time to wake up.』

『My chosen one.』

The cool night air brushed against my face.

My neck felt stiff, as if I’d just woken up from a long sleep. And then...

‘...Rotten stench?’

Dung Beetle slowly opened his heavy eyelids. It wasn’t morning yet, as everything around him was still cloaked in darkness.

"Where... Where is this? Foreman? James? Where is everyone?"

He pushed against the ground to get up, but froze.

The sensation in his fingertips... It was too familiar. Without thinking, he looked down.

‘Damn it.’

Only then did Dung Beetle realize he was lying on a pile of corpses.

Swallowing his panic, he stood up.

As his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, he could make out his surroundings.

It looked like a large warehouse, filled to the brim with an enormous number of bodies. There had to be at least hundreds, maybe even thousands.

'Why am I here?'

He racked his brain, trying to figure out the situation. Where was he? Why was he here? And where were his comrades?

'I can’t remember anything. What was I doing before I lost consciousness?'

His memories were hazy, like a broken film. No matter how much he tried to think, there were no answers.

For now, his priority was to get out of this place. He began to climb down from the pile of corpses.

Or at least, he tried to.

The moment his hand touched a corpse to steady himself, his gaze locked onto something.

A gold ring on the corpse’s finger.

“This...”

It looked just like the ring that Duckbae always treasured, saying it was his mother’s keepsake.

“…It’s just a coincidence.”

The familiar work clothes, the gas mask identical to his own…

"No way."

Muttering to himself in disbelief, Dung Beetle carefully lifted the corpse.

It was light. There was no way this light body could belong to Duckbae, a man who could easily devour five servings of meat in one sitting.

But as he lifted it fully, Dung Beetle realized the corpse had been severed in half.

‘No.’

He desperately denied the evidence and gently removed the gas mask from the corpse.

And there, staring back at him, was Duckbae’s face.

Always smiling in life, but now, frozen in death. His expression was stiff, hardened by rigor mortis, and there was no trace of a smile.

Only fear and pain.

The emotions he must have felt just before he died were etched on his face.

“….”

Without realizing it, Dung Beetle began checking the other bodies nearby. Around the spot where he had woken up, the ground was littered with corpses dressed in gas masks and work uniforms, just like his.

“James? Chunsik?”

He removed the masks from the bodies, revealing familiar faces.

James had a hole in his neck.

Chunsik’s chest was sliced open, and the foreman’s body… was too gruesome to describe.

“This has to be... a dream, right? This is a dream, right?”

For some reason, his body suddenly felt cold. Dung Beetle hugged himself, desperately wishing for the dream to end.

“I’ve got to wake up soon… Tomorrow’s payday…”

But no matter how long he waited, the dream didn’t end.

“…Ah.”

After what seemed like forever, the memories he had buried deep inside resurfaced.

The site supervisor being a complete ass, the horrible scene at the job site, the red elves, the thugs’ corpses, and then...

That face, grinning and not even bothering to wipe the blood from his cheek.

“…The Player.”

It felt like someone had smashed him over the head with a hammer.

The superhuman movements he had only ever seen on TV, the screams of his comrades, the unresponsive alarm, and the blade cutting into his neck.

The final memories before his death stabbed into Dung Beetle’s mind like shards of broken pottery.

“I... I died, didn’t I?”

Recalling his last moments, Dung Beetle reached up and felt his neck.

All he found were scabs of dried blood. But that was it. There was no wound, no sign that his throat had ever been cut.

As if it had never been slit in the first place.

“What the hell is...”

...Going on?

Before he could finish the thought, he froze. In the distance, he heard footsteps approaching, accompanied by an unfamiliar presence.

Dung Beetle closed his mouth and carefully hid himself among the pile of corpses. A bad feeling crawled up his spine.