CHAPTER 1 - Prologue

[Scylla, Concubine of the 73rd Demon Lord]

[Human City—Months after the Human Nobles' betrayal]

The city below us was burning.

What was a peaceful city of humans became a gigantic lamp within a day. The humans were fleeing from the fire. Some were charred, and others were trying to douse the roaring flames, but were failing to do so as the smoke choked them off.

An army of 5,000 soldiers surrounded the castle, where I observed the devastation before me.

"Such pitiable things..."

The young lord spoke. He held a bottle of wine and sat drunkenly on an ornate seat made of gold that once belonged to the city's ruler.

Blood was splattered across the chamber's walls. It was a beautiful sight where the boastful mouths of those who chose to oppose the young lord were now eternally silenced. The knights that had commenced the eradication had already left, leaving me and the young lord alone with the corpses that were unceremoniously slaughtered.

The young lord's eyes were looking towards the city through a half-broken window.

"A burning sapling."

He pointed to a burning child.

The young lord's body swayed from left to right, looking at that one child and observing it carefully, frequently muttering random singular words ranging from 'tiny', 'flee', and 'live', to more ominous words such as 'disgrace', 'pathetic', and 'die'.

This happened for a while, with the young lord's words becoming more deranged until he stopped entirely.

He drank from the bottle of wine, then spoke.

"If we were to release a frail child to this world alone, what would happen? Would the child struggle, resist, and live? Could there be a hopeful outcome for those who were abandoned? Those who were left by their family—father, mother, siblings, and all? Such a child, devoid of protection and an absence of a nurturing family. A child who has not experienced the warmth of a parent's embrace and the comforting words of siblings..."

My eyes were fixed on the child he pointed to, who tore its own skin when it tried to put the fire out, dying in an unpleasant manner.

I sighed internally.

It seems like the young lord is in another mumbling session, though this time he may be just drunk. It is quite concerning that the young lord has been a drunkard lately.

Well, what can I say? I am merely a concubine to his lordship after all.

This much is common.

"What will happen... what will happen... Scylla, what do you think would happen?"

He turned to me, who was standing quietly by his side.

"If your lordship with such intelligence cannot answer it, then this one, who is a mere servant, cannot fathom to answer such questions."

I replied plainly.

The young lord tilted his head. His eyes darted for a while, then suddenly stopped.

"Oh, right."

A small grin was seen on his face.

"They shatter, collapse, and eat themselves. They waste away and die. Children who have no protection from the cruelty of this world face ruin. They wake up to nothing, live up to nothing, and ultimately expect nothing."

He paused and looked at me.

"On the contrary. If a child would be taken care of and given warmth, comfort, and protection.... the child can thrive in this world, much like a delicate seed planted in fertile soil. Just as a plant would flourish in the right environment, a child is all the same."

Although I consider myself to have adequate intelligence to even contest privileged scholars, the young lord seems to have ascended and understood something within the most inner fragments of the mind and discovered a part of it not known to anyone other than himself.

Basically, a madman.

"But what if those that made the child grow... its parents, its siblings... be taken away? Would that same plant continue to grow or will it wither? Would the child still be able to survive?"

The young lord turned his gaze towards me again, as if waiting for my answer.

Despite my insistence on replying further into his madness, I'm being forced to go deeper into his mental illness with each random question he throws at me.

By all means, let lightning strike this man.

"Would they not live off their own?" I finally answered. "As your lordship has just muttered, a child would not have the necessary skills to live, yet why couldn't they? I, myself, was a child who resembled such descriptions. Nevertheless, I live. It is only part of their laziness that obstructs them—that is why they die."

"Ah, a great answer," he smiled. "Pitiable, yes, quite pitiable, really. Not only are these children being made an outcast by society but also by their families. Much like that of an empty oasis of a desert, once a nursery of life, to suddenly vanish letting those that rely upon it to face the unbearable heat and death."

The young lord raised both his hands and started to shout.

"Oasis! Oh, oasis! A place of comfort and protection, our sanctuary! Where shall you be now? Has the greenery within your pond already withered? Or has the pond been reduced to a mere puddle? The water that has conserved and kept life in this vast, empty desert cannot be seen anymore. Ah... where has your water gone? I beggeth ye to quench my thirst!"

The young lord laughed hysterically, as if he were introduced to a joke that could kill him with laughter. Then, as abruptly as he began to laugh, he also abruptly composed himself.

"Now, let's say, by some miracle, that the plant survives in such a harsh environment. It clawed its way from the infertile ground with all the nutrients it could squeeze. The plant, slowly but surely, adapts to its environment."

The young lord stood beside me.

"Even if a child is still a child, it can decide for itself, fend for itself, and live for itself. A child can do so as they are living creatures themselves. And you, Scylla, standing with me now, are a fruit of that."

"No matter how unfair the world is?"

"Yes, my beloved. No matter how unfair the world is."

The young lord threw the wine into the cascading fire.

"That is... not the answer I expected."

The city below us burned. The young lord hummed.

I stood there watching, seeing the smoke rise, creating a thick cloud that harbored the deaths of many, a cloud that was composed of hundreds of souls woven together in one thick lump of dark ashes.

The place was devoid of life yet oddly encapsulating in its broken tapestry of chaos as everything was reduced to nothingness.

. . .

A CHILD REFLECTS ITS PARENTS, BUT THOSE WHO HAVE NONE SHALL REFLECT THE WORLD....

. . .

●●●

A FEW MONTHS EARLIER...

[Unknown]

[A broken down office]

"If you had the choice to live your life again, would you do it?"

. . .

The ridges of my mouth tasted like iron. Slabs of thick concrete pinned half my limp body to the cold floor. Faint streaks of light pierced through the cracks of the destroyed ceiling, casting long shadows over the lifeless bodies of my colleagues.

Their broken corpses were scattered across the floor. Some had their limbs twisted unnaturally, some clamped beneath the debris, some missing an arm or a leg, and some skewered by metal poles.

An earthquake had struck earlier. I must've blacked out during the chaos and only became conscious of the aftermath.

Other than the occasional noise of shifting rocks, my surroundings were quiet.

I lay silent. Each breath I took was ragged.

I feel like one pile of food waste thrown into a garbage dump. Looking at myself, maybe I am one. Currently, my pureed innards reflect that comparison well.

I only woke up to work today, yet this is how I ended up.

This is bullshit. Isn't this just damning?

I took a long breath out through my mouth.

The dust on my face danced.

Then fell.

My irritated eyes stared at the low, hanging light above me. The detached feeling in my legs was rather unsettling. There wasn't much else I could do. In this situation, people might feel despair, fear, or both. Yet there was a strange calmness to it.

Despite my current condition, my mind was wandering in a field of its own.

"If you had the choice to live your life again, would you do it?"

That question was in my head.

It was a question from a younger colleague at work. He was a person who had little understanding of how harsh reality could be. I wish I could have given him a 500-page breakdown of how life wouldn't go the way he thought it would.

But for me? I certainly would not.

That question is full of shit. In my humble opinion, it's stupid.

While my colleague might find this statement ridiculous, I believe I am completely rational.

Life handed me nothing but unreasonable demands, neglect, and abuse, whether it was from society or my family.

I only worked for the sake of working, to feed myself. Because of that, my colleagues considered me a statue—someone who rarely talked but was always there. Well, they were not far off.

They all had their lives, families to feed, and children to look out for.

What did I have? A father who only saw me as a tool for his own gain? The same person who wanted to kill me when I was a child? I'd rather walk through a road of shattered glass than waste another second of my life with him.

Such an idea of enjoying childhood is foreign to me now.

Going back in time would be a nightmare. I would rather die than let it happen. Funnily enough, I may die right here.

I coughed, and blood draped my cheeks red like some morbid paint.

My breaths were getting tighter. The dust clung to the air, mingling with a putrid, mucus-like substance that bubbled with every inhale I took, suffocating me on the inside. The back of my throat was dry. I couldn't even swallow my saliva.

Ahahah? Ahahah... I'm tired.

Maybe I should be grateful. Now that I'll be facing my death, I won't have to worry about anything anymore. I wanted to cry, yet no tears came out. I suspect they've dried up over all these years.

"If you had the choice to live your life again, would you do it?"

The question returned to the back of my mind and echoed.

"If you lived your life again, would you do it?"

"If you live your life again... do it?"

"Live your life... do it."

Ahhh... I feel sleepy.

I am a person who despises sleeping, deeming it something inefficient. Imagine wasting 8 hours on something trivial like sleep. I would rather stay up all night and watch leaves fall.

Although I say this, I've always wanted to welcome sleep without being plagued by nightmares and dreaming like a normal human being. This time could be that exception.

There certainly have been things that I've never been able to do. Even I had dreams. Tiny, yet in the end, futile dreams. Those are gone now.

My head felt fuzzy, and my eyelids were getting heavier with each passing thought. The world around me blurred into a mess. The pain I felt throughout my body was now gone, and the tips of my fingers grew colder.

I exhaled a long, pneumatic sigh and surrendered to it.

I closed my eyes and slept.

. . .

"If you had the choice to live your life again, would you do it? I mean, think about it. For me, going back to childhood sounds great. Playing with old friends, having no worries... shit, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. What about you?"

"Me? Why ask?"

"Just curious. Would you do it? It's like a second chance to make things right. Don't you ever wish you could escape to simpler times?"

"..."

"Isn't that worth going back for?"

"No.... no. Too much of a hassle."

. . .

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