I Want to Live
I want to live.
It happened during my routine health checkup.
“Mr. Kim Ji-an, I’m sorry to say this, but…”
“…It seems you should prepare yourself.”
The doctor delivered the news with a grim expression. Well, I had more or less expected it. No one knew better than I did that my body was far from normal. I had been born with anemia and every blood-related disease imaginable. I knew better than anyone that I was destined to die young.
…I wish he wouldn’t look so dark.
Staring at the doctor’s somber face, that was all I could think. After all, I had no lingering attachments to the rest of my life. Both my mother and father had already passed away from blood cancer. Mother when I was in middle school, and Father right before I graduated high school. The curse of that same blood cancer had now come for me as well.
“You don’t have much time left.”
I answered the doctor’s words with calm detachment.
“…Yes. I see.”
“Even if you start treatment now, it’s uncertain whether you’ll survive.”
The doctor spoke as if trying to tether me to this hellish world a little longer. Honestly, I had no obsession with living. Or rather, it was easier to say I had already given up. I had wanted to live—desperately. But God had never answered that prayer. My body was too weak to exercise, and even when I was forcibly conscripted into the military, I was discharged as a conscientious objector. If they were going to do that, why drag me in at all…?
“Please, start treatment now.”
If they had caught it even a year earlier, I would have accepted without hesitation. I would have clung to life support if I had to. But not long ago, even the lover I had trusted had abandoned me. She said seeing a sick person made her own heart hurt.
…What bullshit.
She had simply cheated with a healthy guy. I had pretended not to notice, but even my last remaining hope had betrayed me. This world was hell. That was what life had been for me. And now the doctor’s death sentence had fallen upon it.
Only then, for the first time in a long while, I smiled faintly.
“…It’s fine.”
“Are you truly giving up on treatment? It’s late, but if you start now…!”
The doctor kept trying to keep me anchored to this world. At this point, he was starting to look like a devil to me. Yet my mood was better than it had ever been. A splitting headache crashed over me, but even that felt good.
“I said it’s fine.”
“Even if I live, I’ll need dialysis for the rest of my life.”
“My body is already so broken I don’t think I can endure the treatment.”
“…What’s the point of living anyway?”
My dreams and hopes had been extinguished long ago. It felt like I had never seen anything but gray in this world.
“Just let me die.”
“……”
I knew it was a cruel thing to say to someone trying to help me, but I spoke firmly. Perhaps he saw the emptiness in my eyes, because the doctor no longer urged treatment. Good. That was enough. What was the point of living in pain? What was the point of living as a half-corpse? There was nothing left for me. What was the use of continuing like this?
…….
If I had had a dream, if I had any hope of living, I would have fought desperately to survive. …If there is a next life, please let me be born with nothing. That would at least let me feel more at peace. With that thought, I returned home.
In a house overflowing with trash, I took a drag from my cigarette and exhaled slowly. I hoped my life would end just a little sooner.
“…I don’t want to commit suicide.”
I couldn’t do it because I felt like I would struggle and beg to live if I tried. As I spoke, I coughed a few times from the pain surging through me. Cracked, dry lips. A haggard, emaciated face. Looking at myself, I gave a crooked smile.
“…Ha.”
And at that moment.
Glory of Victory: The Empire Awaits You! (Advertisement)
The game I had been obsessed with as a child blared loudly from my phone. Glory of Victory. It was a strategy game that had once shaken up the mobile gaming market. The story was simple: the protagonist, whose family was slaughtered by the enemy Vampire Kingdom, seeks revenge against the vampires. In the end, the protagonist rises to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Empire and topples the Vampire Kingdom with his great achievements.
Really, there had been a time years ago when I lived and breathed this game.
I stared blankly at the phone. Was it lingering attachment from the past? I couldn’t look away. An inexplicable temptation washed over me.
…It says it’s waiting for me.
It was ridiculous. I thought I had no lingering attachments to life, yet here I was getting emotional over a mere game. But that was ridiculous too.
Why are you waiting for me?
Because of that advertising copy that foolishly said it was waiting for me. It felt like the marketing team’s thoughtless slogan was speaking directly to me. That was what felt so absurd.
With a hollow laugh, I clicked the advertisement.
"Large-Scale Update Pre-Registration"
"There is no fear for you who have conquered the vampires!"
"Advance! For the Empire!"
⟨ Offer your body willingly to the holy war that will make the Empire great! ⟩
On the site filled with aggressively worded slogans, I entered my phone number and personal information as if in a trance. Then I tossed the phone somewhere far away.
“…I probably won’t even be able to play it, but whatever.”
It was a game I wouldn’t be able to play anyway. It didn’t matter.
Like that, three days passed.
I woke from a deep sleep because of the intense pain that crashed over me.
“Cough…?!”
A rush of red blood poured from my mouth.
“Ugh…!! Uuugh…!!”
I was losing my mind. The dark crimson blood was clearly not a healthy color.
“Haa… haa……”
High fever began to consume my body. My vision spun.
“…In the end… uweeeek……”
I couldn’t even finish my own mutterings. A bitter laugh escaped me. So this is how it ends. …So futilely.
“Damn it… damn it…!!”
I wanted revenge on my ex-girlfriend. I wanted to live happily with my family. Everything I thought I had given up long ago came rushing back at the moment of death. Honestly, I wanted to live. If there was even the slightest chance of getting better, I wanted to seize it. But there was no chance of getting better. Living would only mean more hell.
In that agony, I clutched the toilet bowl again.
“Ugh!!”
Another wave of nausea. I vomited blood once more. I kept retching blood. Before I knew it, one of my eyes had gone blind. My ears weren’t working properly either. It hurt. It was sad. My body kept raising its temperature without stopping. Even at the moment of death, my body refused to stop burning.
…I want to live… I want to live an ordinary life too……
I couldn’t accept death. That was the natural instinct of any living being. Tears poured down in a flood. I still had far too many regrets in this life. I didn’t want to die. I was scared—of disappearing from this world as easily as turning off a computer.
“…That’s… that’s unfair…!!”
I shouted with a hoarse voice from the bathroom floor, but my body was breaking down piece by piece. Left eye, right ear. Now even my arms had no strength. Nausea kept coming, but I no longer had the strength to hold onto the toilet. I collapsed onto the cold bathroom floor. Even then, my body continued to vomit blood in heavy spurts.
I want to live.
Even though I knew it was useless, I used my still-moving right arm and my still-working right eye to grab my phone. Just as I was about to call an ambulance—
Pre-registration information notice.
Dear User Valentine! Congratulations. You have been selected as a beta tester.
We sincerely congratulate you.
We will be monitoring your data from now on.
— Glory of Victory Operator tls
The moment I saw the message on my phone, I closed my eyes for the last time. I thought I would simply die like that.
But something strange happened.
…Previous… life…?
With those words, I fell into a deep sleep.
When I woke up again, I had become a girl with a very small frame. And not just any girl—a ragged, beggar-like girl wearing tattered clothes.
And before me floated a message window along with an image of an incredibly cute girl.
Welcome back to our world once again!
Enlist in the military and let us look forward to your heroic tales on the battlefield!
But the race name floating beside the girl was anything but ordinary.
This is me?
Yes. I had been reincarnated. As a vampire, no less. And in a world where the protagonist hated vampires more than anything else.
…Life.
Just in case, I asked the status window.
“…What happens if I don’t enlist in the military?”
You will die.
“…Excuse me?”
The overly simple answer made me ask again. The status window kindly explained.
If you do not enlist in the military, you will experience the most horrific death imaginable.
It is a scheduled death. Will you still refuse?
If I didn’t, I would face a terrible death. That was the warning the status window gave me.
The vampires are on the brink of destruction and are reducing their numbers.
As someone who has played the game, you should know this very well.
It seemed to be around the middle of Glory of Victory 1. I knew that period inside and out. Of course, I also knew what happened to all the abandoned vampires from the Vampire Kingdom. If they returned to the kingdom, they would be executed. If they went to the Empire, they would be beaten to death. Hiding their identity was extremely difficult.
In short, the best option was—
“…Enlist in the Imperial Army, which is accepting anyone because they’re short on troops during wartime?”
Correct.
“Build up achievements there, seize power…?”
Your understanding is quick. As expected of User Valentine.
“……”
To avoid dying, I had to join the very group that was bloodthirsty to kill my own kind. What kind of insane difficulty was this? The treatment of vampires in the Empire was truly unbearable. Of course, humans and vampires looked very similar, so it wasn’t easy to get caught. Moreover, the appearance the status window was showing me right now—
“…My ears aren’t that pointed, and my fangs aren’t that big either.”
There were no obvious vampire traits visible on the outside. My ears weren’t overly pointed, and my fangs could be hidden if I tried.
“…One more question. What is the protagonist’s current rank?”
Eryk's current rank is Second Lieutenant.
Since the protagonist had only recently been commissioned, he was still just a hot-blooded rookie filled with nothing but vengeance. Honestly, as long as I didn’t get caught by that insane vampire-killing bastard, I was confident I could survive.
That day, I abandoned the name Kim Ji-an and became Valentine.
Five years had passed since then.
I had desperately endured in order to survive.
“Valentine, Major… or should I call you slave bitch?”
“…L-Lieutenant Colonel, that’s not—”
“Blood magic? Did I see that wrong?”
I was now facing a crisis of death.