CROW

The crescent moon shone brightly overhead, casting delicate shadows beneath the surrounding objects.

"Agh…"

A pained grunt resounded, breaking the silence of the moonlit night.

It was a young man.

He felt pain—an incredible, mind-numbing pain. It was as though, at any moment, his head would burst open, and countless fleshy meat tendrils would squirm out, soaked in thick, oily pus.

Suddenly, his eyes became unfocused, lifeless. He grew pale as a corpse, his breathing coming to a sudden halt.

A long silence hung in the air.

But before the silence could settle, those eyes regained their vitality. A few unrestrained breaths came and went, as his face suddenly stiffened.

Koff! Koff!

He erupted into a violent cough.

Gradually regaining control, he suppressed the urge to cough again and surveyed his surroundings..

'I… where am I?'

His eyes were listless, unfocused, movements stiff as though he had just awakened from a deep slumber.

His mind raced. His pupils gradually sharpened. Brows Furrowed, he felt something was amiss.

After scanning his surroundings, he realized it was nighttime. He was sitting on a rusty, wooden bench, facing the constantly undulating surface of a moonlit pond.

'What happened? I'm not the kind of person who'd fall asleep on a park bench,' he thought dazedly, trembling slightly from the cold. 'Did I perhaps get robbed?'

"..."

Straining his body, he walked to the pond and looked at his reflection. Suddenly, his pupils dilated.

"Eh?! Who is this?"

Disheveled black hair, dark circles under his brown eyes, pale face. Wearing a vested shirt, a dirty, ragged coat, and matching torn trousers, the person in the reflection had a rather 'homeless' feel to him.

But he didn't care what he looked like at that moment—because the person in the reflection wasn't him.

He frowned. Though there were a few similarities between the reflected face and his real one, they weren't the same. He reined in his thoughts. Countless possibilities surfaced in his mind.

After a moment, he calmed down, raised his head, and let out an amused sigh. A single word escaped his lips: "Transmigration."

Indeed, he suspected he had transmigrated to another world, into someone else's body. He, of course, had read about similar situations in popular web novels—so he was fairly knowledgeable about his current condition.

'I've always entertained the thought of getting transmigrated like this, but for it to actually happen… I'm at a loss for words,' he thought casually.

But right at that moment, his head suddenly started to throb uncontrollably. The headache grew worse by the second.

He scooped some water from the pond and washed his face. Then he got up and sat back on the bench, clasping his head with a pained expression.

Suddenly, a crow flew down and landed on the bench, seemingly out of nowhere. He gave it a cursory glance before closing his eyes.

'Agh… what's this unbearable headache?!'

The headache was getting worst each passing moment. He did not think he could hold on any longer.

"You have a seed of corruption implanted inside you."

A deep, almost humanlike voice came from his left.

Eyes wide open, he turned and leaned down. Fixating his gaze on the crow, he marveled, seemingly forgetting all about his headache.

"How—how fascinating! The crow talks!!"

At that moment, his head felt very strange. It was as if something alien was pressing down on him from the inside, smothering his thoughts. The sensation was so bizarre that he struggled to concentrate, his mind slipping into a fog. Yet, alongside this confusion, he sensed his awareness becoming increasingly strange and ridiculous.

It was hard to describe what was actually happening in that little head of his.

Not to mention, The veins in his forehead was slowly becoming visible, and beads of sweat was falling down. The whites of his eyes were gradually getting redder by the second. He was panting heavily.

At this point, He was so close to the crow that it involuntarily flung backward and adjusted. It looked at him with its pupilless eyes and produced an almost humanlike voice.

It said, coldly and with indifference, "If you do not seal it, you will lose control and turn into a monster."

He paid no attention to the crow's warning. Instead, he looked down at it with sinister eyes and probed, "And?"

Just as he said that, he moved his hand forward, trying to grab the crow by it's slender neck.

The crow instantly flung backwards. It gazed at him from above.

After nearly ten seconds, it retracted its gaze and flew further away, seemingly attempting to leave.

Even though he was dealing with quite an obnoxious headache, he shot up with an eerily fluid motion and started following the talking crow.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

As he ran, he shouted while tightly holding his forehead with his left hand,

"Hey there, Mister Crow! Wait up. Where are you going? Oh my, could it be that you're scared? Don't be—I won't hurt you, I promise."

There was a deep sense of foreboding in his words.

"Why don't we have a little chat? Don't go, please."

At this moment, his eyes were bloodshot, and faint cracks appeared all over his body. Blood and flesh gathered inside, forming eyes with clear blacks and whites. The veins in his forehead protruded outward, as though they might burst at any moment.

The crow, unaffected by this grotesque sight, flew without looking back.

Thud!

Suddenly, he fell to his knees and genuflected. He grabbed at his forehead and let out a stifled scream. Involuntary curses and heavy panting echoed in the night. Blood-red liquid trickled down from his nostrils and ears.

Ba-dump! Ba-dump!

His heart pounded like a madman, trying to break out of his ribcage.

The crow, flying high above, observed for a long while before it descended slowly and cautiously.

"I can help you seal the seed… if you follow me," said the talking crow from a moderate height.

At that, an eerie silence fell.

However, before the silence could settle, he suddenly sat up straight and gave it a sinister smile.

"How very fascinating! Yes, very fascinating! Can you really, now? My, oh my. That sounds sooo wooonderful!"

The crow looked at him from above, unmoving. Its gaze—cold and indifferent.

Seeing no reaction from the crow, he slowly stood and looked up, seemingly unaffected by the bright red blood flowing from his ears and nose.

"So, what should I do?" he asked, laughing quietly—sinisterly.

Without a word, the crow silently flew to the right, in a particular direction.

Letting out a soft chuckle, he followed.