The Purple Serpent
A serpent.
Coldness.
Everything before my eyes was pitch-black, as though I were fast asleep, yet a chilling breeze scraped against my skin. It made no sense to feel this cold; I had curled up beneath a thick blanket before drifting off. Had the boiler broken down again? It had been acting up a few days ago, and while I’d put off fixing it to pinch pennies, I never imagined it could get this freezing.
I tried to squirm and pull the covers tighter around myself, but my body refused to obey. Was I having sleep paralysis?
I forced my eyes open to check, but instead of the stained ceiling of my apartment, an open sky greeted me. A velvet expanse scattered with brilliant stars...
Beautiful.
Wait. Hold on. Why the hell was I looking at the sky?
I tried turning my head to survey my surroundings, but even that minuscule effort proved agonizingly difficult. Had I sleepwalked outside? Or was this just a vivid nightmare? Whatever the case, somebody help me!
"Waaah—!"
...Huh?
What was wrong with my voice? Why was the shrill wail of a newborn baby coming out of my mouth?
I rolled my eyes downward to look at my hands. What entered my blurred vision was a tiny, fragile fist—a limb so delicate it looked as though it would snap under the slightest pressure, attached right to my own body.
Did I regress into a baby or something?
Even if that were true, this wasn't my apartment, nor was it an orphanage. I was lying in the middle of some strange, unfamiliar cobblestone street.
Whooosh—
As panic set in, the only thing consoling me in this absurd situation was the biting wind.
A great literary master once wrote, "There is no death more absurd than an accidental one." And right now, I was on the brink of freezing to death by pure misfortune. For all I knew, that might have been how my previous life ended, too.
Please, somebody pick me up! I'm gonna die here!
"Waaah—!"
"What's that? Is that a baby crying?"
"Leave it. We've got enough trouble putting food on our own plates."
Perhaps my desperate prayers reached the heavens, because the voices of two women drifted toward me.
"Look, over here. It's a little girl. She's adorable."
"You're right. She's going to bewitch plenty of men when she grows up."
The two women who found me immediately began appraising my looks.
Wait, ladies... Did you just say a girl? What about my son? My lifelong partner?!
Total panic struck as I realized I had lost the loyal companion who had stood by me my entire life.
Sliiiip...
Even in a crisis like this, exhaustion crept in. They say babies sleep constantly, but drifting off at a moment like this felt absurd.
"Are you really taking her in?"
"Think of it as an investment. The boss will love it."
With the voices of the two women casually calculating my future value fading into the background, darkness consumed my vision.
"Lina, take this to table three!"
"Right away!"
Eight years had passed since my reincarnation into this other world. Nowadays, I was running around waiting tables at a combined brothel and tavern. The name they gave me here was Lina—a thoroughly common name in this realm.
"Grilled sausage and barley beer for table seven!"
"Coming!"
Abandoned on the street without a clue as to who my parents were, I had been scooped up by two of the establishment's top earners and put to work. It wasn't anything involving spreading my legs; my duties were strictly limited to menial chores like cleaning, washing dishes, and serving food.
Lately, however, our 'kindhearted' little pimp bastard—excuse me, the proprietor—had taken to hinting that once I came of age, I'd take on proper work here. By 'proper work,' he didn't mean bussing tables. He meant spreading my legs.
I had to get out of this place before that