Huh? This Doesn't Exist?
"...Damn woman."
In the White Mind Space, the red-haired demon spat curses without end.
"Goddamn bitch. Worthless bitch. A demonic bitch—wait. That's a compliment, isn't it?"
The swearing went on and on. He thrashed across the floor, irritation pouring off him in waves.
"So what is the second thing an intelligent being hates most...! You could at least tell me before you go!"
The frustration boiling in his chest finally overflowed. He vomited hellfire and set about burning the White Mind Space, and the space—unwilling to tolerate the offense—began to close slowly around him.
"Haa... Fine! I just have to leave, don't I? I can throw my fit once I'm out!!!"
He opened a door to escape the narrowing space and dragged his consciousness back into the real world. In human form, he looked in through the window at the corpse-like woman.
"I am taking you to Hell. No matter what. Talent like yours is exactly what Hell needs."
How many beings could enrage a Great Demon with nothing but words? Well. Count them across every dimension, and they would probably still fit on two hands.
"You're the second existence who's ever managed to piss me off with talk alone, Runaway Soul. Haa. Vacation, my ass. Should I just drag you down to Hell right now?"
Then, all at once, excellent prey caught his eye.
"Ho... That human ought to be plenty, shouldn't he?"
The man who had ridden his motorcycle into the alley was packed with negative feeling—enough that even a trickle of magic could serve as a detonator and leave room for him to awaken as a criminal.
"Honestly... the humans of this dimension are disgustingly kind and righteous. Finding talent like that is far too hard."
The demon shifted into the shape of a cat and poured every drop of magic he had brought from Hell into the courier. The man faltered for a moment, then turned the body that had been heading for its destination back toward the truck.
"The return is miserable. In another dimension I could have made him a demon worshipper on the spot and turned him into a murder weapon with no morals at all. Here, the best I can manage is a common criminal... Tsk."
Watching the courier pull something from the truck, the demon smiled with pleasure.
"Now then... can that piece of trash endure a trial like this? Haha. Common sense says she can't. All she has to do is get herself killed before the day is out and skip off to Hell with me."
Why was I like this?
I carried negative feelings on an ordinary day, but right now the emotion was so violent I couldn't get a hold of it.
"...Something's wrong. Nobody's egging me on, so why do I keep wanting to hurt someone?"
Had I eaten something bad? No. I always ate by the same fixed routine. Food couldn't be doing this to me. What was I even supposed to call the feeling? Right—it was that floating, unmoored sensation a drug addict had once described.
"Yeah... I'll go rest in the truck for a bit. I got here early anyway. There's plenty of time."
Malice boiled up from my gut. I shook my head, walked to the truck, dropped into the seat, and closed my eyes, trying to force the feeling down. But malice, once it had started to climb, steadily ate into my reason.
Do it.
Commit the crime.
Kill.
The voice rang in my ear without pause. This was dangerous. I decided I would dump the package and get somewhere with no people, fast.
I climbed out of the truck again, and in the very instant I meant to set the package down, my finger pressed the doorbell before I knew what I was doing.
Ding-dong.
"...I need to get out of here. Now."
If the owner came out, I had no idea what I might do. A signature was not what mattered. Put an actual person in front of me, and I might use violence.
Reason told me to get back to the truck. My body refused, planted where it was, and in the end I watched the owner step outside.
I had been certain that the sight of a person would make me commit a crime. Instead, the moment she appeared, every negative feeling vanished as if it had been washed clean.
Black hair, dry and brittle, fell all the way to her waist, as if she didn't even have the strength to care for it. Her skin was more corpselike than a zombie in a movie, enough to make me wonder whether she was alive at all. And that wasn't the end of it. Her unfocused eyes looked as though she had lost every will to live, and the dark circles sagging nearly to her cheeks left me unable even to guess how ruined a life she was living.
Looking at her, I caught myself thinking something truly rude.
No matter how unhappy a life I live, isn't it still better than hers?
Every negative feeling I had been holding drained away, and I felt something brighter begin to fill the space it left. That was when her heavy mouth opened, carefully.
"...Who is it?"
"Haha, delivery. Are you Seol Jiyeon?"
"Yes?"
"I need the recipient's signature. Would that be all right?"
"Not like it's something I can't do."
She said it as if it were nothing, finished the signature in a flash, and held out her hand.
"I've signed. Could I have the package now?"
"Ah... sorry. Here you go. Have a good day."
"You have a good day too. Oh, and I'm not sick, so you don't need to call the Safety Report Center."
"...Understood."
She looked so much like a corpse that worry got the better of me, and I offered a greeting I never usually gave. She accepted it with a smile, as if this were simply how her days went. Watching her take it, I thought, carefully, that I couldn't tell what she meant.
Is she really not sick? Or is she saying I don't need to concern myself with her?
"...She can smile even looking that sick. How positive do you have to live before something like that is possible?"
I didn't know. I didn't dare guess. I had spent every day on negative feelings, envying other people, and now I was ashamed of myself to the bone. I should have lived grateful for the small things. Had I simply wanted too much? How badly must that woman envy every trivial thing other people possessed?
"All right. Starting today, I live grateful for what I have. Someone like me still has a life worth living."
I thanked her in my heart and climbed into the truck. The bewitching voice that had been tormenting me until a moment ago let out one last death rattle and was gone.
"You're Seol Jiyeon, right?"
Honestly, I was terrified when I went out for the package.
Some enormous man was holding a huge delivery box and glaring at me like he meant it. If he had shown up at night, I was sure I would have wet myself on the spot. But a moment later he smiled and asked me to sign as the recipient.
"I'll need the recipient's signature. Would that be all right?"
He looked so warm when he smiled that I started to repent.
Right. You really shouldn't judge a person by how they look.
Wasn't this very appearance of mine making people assume I was about to drop dead? I looked sick enough to invite the misunderstanding, yes. But I was the one who had been on the receiving end of it, and here I was thinking the same thing. It was so absurd I laughed before I could stop myself.
"Not like it's something I can't do."
I signed on the terminal he held out, and the whole time I kept worrying. He wasn't going to report me to the police or the Safety Report Center, the way that delivery man had last time, was he? A report would be a real problem.
The paramedics handled me far too roughly. The officers turned everything into far too much of a hassle. What the two shared was simple: they kept me from eating, and instead of a proper meal they brought tasteless porridge. I wanted neither. So when the courier offered his goodbye and turned to leave, I caught him and spoke with care.
"I'm not sick, so you don't need to contact the Safety Report Center."
At that, every feeling on earth crossed the courier's face, and he nodded. Watching him, I understood. Say it while looking like this, and there wasn't a scrap of persuasiveness in it.
After he left, I carried the package inside and started finishing my writing.
"Almost three thousand characters... Time to revise this and eat?"
"I can hardly starve, can I? I'll accept what has to be accepted."
"I'll say it as many times as I have to. I did not choose my sex."
"...Honestly, I don't know."
To put it bluntly, even if a god had made me a sickly pretty boy, I was fairly sure I would have been living the exact same life. At first the complaints had piled up without end. Now there were far fewer of them.
"Well. Live long enough, and I'll get used to it bit by bit. To looking this sickly. And to looking like a woman, too."
I opened a delivery app, ordered a bowl of mala tang, and went back to finishing the chapter. At the same time, I wrote down in advance the story I would use next.
The story of the terrifying courier I had just met.