The Tale of the Black Bird
The red-brick buildings with their chimneys stretched out endlessly. From every smokestack, thick black smoke rose without pause, staining the twilight sky a deeper shade of gloom. The air hung heavy with the acrid mix of metal and oil. The repetitive clang of hammers, sudden bursts of explosions, and the sharp shouts that followed each one filled the industrial district of the Dungeon City Bastion once again today.
“Fucking noisy as hell, you piece of shit. I need to pull off one big score and get the hell out of here, move to the central district already.”
The pot-bellied man scowled, clearly annoyed by the noise, and kept digging at his ear with a finger. He reached for the flat metal hip flask dangling from his belt, which was thicker than most people’s waists. With a creak, he twisted open the handmade metal cap using his thick, grease-stained fingers. The sharp, pungent scent of old alcohol mixed with the metallic tang of blood wafted out.
Gulp. Gulp.
He pressed his lips to the opening and tilted his head back, the folds of his double chin quivering. The clear liquid slid hot down his cheeks and throat. Though he hated every single one of the 365 days and 24 hours in a year, this moment—sipping cheap whiskey after work—was one of the few things that wasn’t completely terrible.
“Khh, I wonder if another rich, clueless noble brat will fall for it today?”
He licked the corners of his mustache, savoring the taste before the alcohol could evaporate, while remembering the foolish young aristocrat who had naively handed over two hundred thousand dallants after falling for his scam.
“Maybe I should’ve just killed him.”
If he had, he might have been running an inn by now, drinking to his heart’s content and living like a king. “Tsk. Damn this soft heart of mine.” In truth, he had simply been scared of the child—no, the boy or girl—who wandered the Slums alone at such a young age without a party. But he had decided to believe it was mercy on his part. Like most drunks, he was remarkably lenient when it came to himself and his liquor.
“Oh, Goddess of Trials and Tribulations. Please guide more rich, ambitious fools to me today. I shall personally teach them the terrors of this world.”
Rock Smith Beef, self-proclaimed caretaker of the Slums, clutched the keys he had made in his spare time and trudged heavily toward the entrance of the Slums. He had no idea that a rookie adventurer, still burning with vengeance after spending a year inside a virtual world as a test subject for a fear vaccine, had not forgotten those two hundred thousand dallants and was lying in wait.
Even if he had known, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything. Survivors of a ruined world tended to be obsessively fixated on targets once they set their sights on them. And once a bear had tasted human flesh, it would crawl back down to the village even after being shot. In the end, today was simply the day an inevitable event had arrived a little earlier than expected.
The industrial district and the Slums were close enough that even a leisurely walk took only about twenty minutes. The reason was simple: the city had simply shoved all the loud, unnecessary things into one corner. Thanks to that, our Beef—who would become exhausted after just thirty minutes of walking—managed to reach the entrance of the Slums before he started panting like a dog collapsed in the middle of a summer street.
Gulp. Gulp.
“Khhhuuu… Perfect. I arrived right on time.”
It was the border between afternoon and evening, when the world began to be dyed in orange hues. This was the time when business was best. The Dungeon City Bastion had four main gates. Outsiders who entered through the North Gate, which was organically connected to the industrial district, usually became Beef’s unlucky customers. After all, near the North Gate, the only places to rest were either the bare ground or the Slums.
Sleeping outdoors wasn’t an option either—the surface rats known as the poor would prowl around, stirring up murderous impulses. So for outsiders arriving at the North Gate late in the evening, there were only two choices: drag their tired bodies all the way to the commercial district where the taverns and inns were, or…
‘Get a key from me, Beef, and spend the night in a rundown slum.’
If someone like that rich kid decided to settle down permanently, it would be a jackpot for Beef. Truly a hopeless dilemma.
—Whip!
“Hiiiit!”
“Run awaaay!”
“Don’t even think about touching my jerky, you useless little rats. Get lost!”
As always, Beef leaned back in the armchair he had set up at the entrance of the Slums, cracking his whip to chase away the slum children who kept sneaking out to steal his precious snacks. He waited for an unsuspecting customer to arrive.
After a while.
“Kkyu! Kkyukkyu!”
Instead of the customer he was waiting for, a small black bird that looked like a baby crow began hopping around on two legs, circling Beef.
“Kkyuu…?”
The tiny bird tilted its head this way and that, carefully observing him as if evaluating his face and physique.
“Are you after my jerky too?”
After the rat bastards, now a noisy crow brat had appeared. Wrinkles formed on Beef’s flat forehead. He was already in a foul mood from sitting still and getting bitten by mosquitoes while no customers showed up. This felt like the perfect target.
“Here. Eat this.”
“Kkyu?”
The small piece of jerky he tossed was no bigger than an ant booger. The bird that Beef had mentally named “crow brat” tilted its head. Though wary, it circled the jerky while making soft kkyu kkyu sounds. Eventually, curiosity won over caution. The little bird hopped cautiously toward the piece of jerky Beef had thrown.
That was when it happened.
“Hup!”
Beef’s thick arm swung with surprising speed.
—Whiiish!
“Kkyak!?”
The whip sliced through the air in an instant and crushed the small bird that had been pecking at the jerky. With a short, sharp cry, the bird crumpled pathetically like one stepped on by a carriage.
“Looks like I’ve got more snacks now.”
Beef praised himself, saying his adventurer days weren’t completely behind him, and rose from his chair to retrieve his prey.
Then he saw it.
“…Huh?”
Countless black arms had silently surrounded him, their maws gaping open like the jaws of a beast. A terrifying sight that his eyes refused to believe even as they witnessed it. It was a nightmare rising from reality.
“Ah, aaaaah…”
The pleasant buzz of alcohol vanished in an instant. Only then did Beef realize the cruel truth—that he had never been the one setting the trap.
“Huuuup…!”
Meanwhile, the child who had been hiding at the entrance of the slum, waiting for Beef to fall asleep, covered their mouth with both hands and squeezed their eyes shut. The child had seen it. From the pitiful baby bird that the pot-bellied Beef had crushed with his whip, something terrifying and strange had emerged—something that might haunt their dreams.
How long had they stayed hidden in the corner of the entrance like that?
‘I-is it gone?’
As time passed, fear faded and curiosity grew. The child cautiously peeked out to steal a glance at where Beef had been sitting.
‘It’s all gone…!’
The strange baby bird, the pot-bellied Beef, and even the chair he had been sitting on had all vanished. As if it had been nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream.
“Did I see things because I’m so hungry?”
About a week ago, the child had been so starved that they mistook a pebble on the ground for a cookie and tried to gnaw on it. So they thought it was possible. At least until they realized the strange baby bird was perched on their shoulder.
“Ugh… uwaaah…”
The child’s body froze solid like a rabbit facing a tiger. Humans tend to stiffen like this when they determine there is no escape from fear.
“Kkyurururuk…”
Thanks to its father’s educational materials, Kkachi understood fear better than anyone. It let out a low, soothing cry and gently rubbed its cheek against the child’s to help them relax. Originally, it had come to eliminate the witness who had seen its true form. But it couldn’t bring itself to harm such a young child. Its own weak and kind-hearted father would probably have only tortured or threatened them a little before letting them go.
If it could have used the child as biological energy by eating them, it might have hesitated. But in the long run, keeping the child alive to harvest fear later was far more beneficial.
‘You got lucky.’
Kkachi decided to let the child go safely.
“Kkyuuk, kkyuuuk!”
Like a mother bird feeding its young. Like a pelican turning its stomach inside out. In a somewhat grotesque manner, Kkachi spat out a piece of jerky much larger than its own body onto the child’s shoulder. Then it placed the jerky into the frozen, dazed child’s mouth and flew off toward Yuri, who was waiting for it.
After that day, a strange rumor began to spread among the children living in the Slums.
They said that at dusk, a single black bird that lived in the shadows would appear and swallow people who slept outside.
After that day, more children in the Slums began going to bed early even when hungry, and more children started having fits whenever they saw a crow late at night.
It was still the early days of a slightly chilly summer.