First Step Into the Slum
The rusty hinges screamed like a dying animal—“skreeeeeeeee—”
The sound scraped against my eardrums, the kind of noise you’d expect from metal that hadn’t seen a drop of oil in decades. And in that moment, I finally planted both feet on solid ground.
Not Earth.
A completely unknown land. The soil of a fantasy world.
“Huuuuaaaaah…”
I wondered if Neil Armstrong had felt exactly like this when he first stepped onto the moon. Of course, unlike the moon, this place was crawling with breathing locals. Anyway.
What greeted my feet was an absolutely disgusting sensation.
It hadn’t even rained, yet the ground was a muddy sewer path sloshing with unidentified liquids. I hadn’t exactly expected smooth asphalt or marble flooring after peeking through the crack in the door earlier. But still…
Come on. This is supposed to be a fantasy world, isn’t it? In a setting where muscle-bound warriors radiate magical auras while lugging boulders around, shouldn’t the streets at least have some paving stones or gravel? That’s just basic world-building etiquette.
I wasn’t asking for a dazzling metropolis crowned with shining magic towers. But this sticky, rotting, foul-smelling mud puddle currently soaking my shoes? That felt like it crossed a line.
“F-for now… let’s go find some food.”
I dragged my feet forward, beginning my serious quest for food supplies.
But no matter how far I walked, not a single building that looked remotely livable appeared. The scenery lining both sides of the path resembled less a residential area and more a massive garbage conglomerate. It was closer to a sprawling shantytown slapped together from random junk.
The frames were made of rotten, paper-thin wood, and the walls were nothing but mud slapped on haphazardly. They looked like they’d collapse if a passing dog so much as sneezed. Puddles of unidentifiable filth pooled in every corner, emitting a nauseating stench.
Every single house looked exactly like the trash heap I’d just come from.
Of course, the buildings did vary slightly in shape. Some crooked roofs sprouted pathetic chimneys that belched thick black smoke. Every breath I took carried a choking, acrid smell that felt like it was shaving years off my lifespan in real time. If an environmental inspector saw this, they’d slap fines and seizure notices everywhere. It was the perfect, textbook example of a completely rotten slum—nothing special, just pure decay.
Still, I refused to give up hope.
In fantasy worlds, the beginning is always supposed to be a gutter! This was probably just the newbie-killing trash village. Once I got out of this district, a sparkling, beautiful world would surely open up before me!
Because… this was a fantasy world, damn it!
When you think fantasy, the standard trope is a bustling metropolis overflowing with every kind of race, right? A shining marble plaza, towering majestic magic spires! Somewhere out there had to be a city teeming with humans, elves, dwarves, and beastkin all mixed together!
And in that city, there would definitely be… mature, seductive-looking older elf sisters who were actually over five hundred years old, plus adorable loli beastkin girls with fluffy ears and tails that twitched cutely. Hehehehe…
Just imagining it made my hunger fade. An unconscious, sleazy grin crept across my face.
The tragic fact that my current body was a tiny, shabby little girl even smaller and more pathetic than the loli beastkin in my fantasies? I decided to delete that thought from my brain for now.
By the way, why did everyone in this neighborhood have pitch-black hair? What was up with that?
In the fantasy worlds I knew, even random passerby #1 and #2 were supposed to be flaunting fluorescent pink or mint-chocolate-colored hair.
That said, it wasn’t completely devoid of fantasy elements. The colors of people’s eyes, for instance, were quite diverse—red, blue, purple, and so on.
Why leave hair at the default black setting and go all out only on the eyes? It made no sense.
Grumbling internally, I kept walking until finally, far ahead, something resembling a plaza came into view.
Of course, there was no angel-carved fountain or neatly paved ground. It was just a vast, worn-out dirt clearing that perfectly matched the slum’s filthy atmosphere.
Now, you’re probably wondering—how exactly was this tiny, penniless body supposed to get food?
Tsk tsk. How amateurish.
In medieval fantasy worlds like this, there is one unbreakable rule that never fails: the existence of religion, an institution as powerful as the state itself in both authority and wealth!
And the clergy who run the church on the fat donations of the faithful have one mandatory daily task—charity work for the poor, carried out in the name of love and mercy!
Surely, on one side of this wide square, they would have set up several massive cauldrons and be distributing warm bread and steaming soup to starving, pitiful weaklings like me.
I’m an atheist. But if a religious person is offering free food? Who cares! It’s food!
With hopeful steps, I headed toward the free distribution center that would save my pitiful stomach.
However, instead of a beautiful nun smiling kindly while ladling out soup, I couldn’t even spot a single hem of a priest’s robe.
“Th-this… isn’t right…”
It felt like my rock-solid fantasy knowledge, accumulated over years of consuming every possible medium, was being completely denied.
Had the local gods collectively gone on strike? Or were they protesting because donations were down?
Wandering aimlessly across the muddy ground with nothing to show for it, my stomach began to riot, demanding food immediately.
God, I’m so hungry…
That was when I heard a dull, violent thud from a distant alley.
Thud!Thump!
When I turned my head, I saw several burly adult men stomping on someone curled up on the ground like they were trampling an animal. The victim had a frame too solid to be a child, yet still carried the soft features of youth—a boy.
“Ugh, ack!” “It’s you, isn’t it? The little shit who stole bread from our shop last time! You rotten brat, today I’m gonna make sure you can’t even pick your own bones out of the dirt!!”
The boy being beaten was clutching something large and incredibly hard-looking to his chest.
The men’s veins-bulging kicks mercilessly slammed into his sides and back. Yet even amid that brutal assault, the boy curled into a tight ball, desperately hugging that large, solid object as if it were more important than his own life.
“……”
I froze on the spot, mouth hanging open.
This wasn’t some flashy action scene with colorful effects from behind a monitor. These were the sounds of bones rattling and flesh splitting, the sight of bright red blood droplets splattering across the ground.
It was raw, unfiltered violence—the first time I had ever witnessed it with my own eyes.
Ten thousand simulations exploded inside my head.
What should I do?
Should I step in?
Should I try to stop them?
And exactly how?
What if I clumsily got involved, drew their attention, and ended up a human sandbag just like him?
If there was one thing I was proud of in my life, it was my excellent sense of self-awareness—knowing my own limits and place in any situation.
Yes, if I had seen this in 21st-century South Korea, where CCTV and police stations exist, it would have been different. In my old healthy adult male body, I might have shouted to intervene or at least hidden in a corner and called 112.
But right now, I was painfully, bone-deep aware of the pathetic specs of this body.
A tiny frame that looked like it would blow away in a strong wind. If I tried to play hero and caught even one stray kick? There was no way the broken bones would heal properly.
Besides, in this filthy, unsanitary environment, there was no chance of finding antibiotics or healing potions. Even a single scratch could lead straight to tetanus or sepsis. Death would be all but guaranteed.
So I neither intervened nor ran away. I simply stood there, frozen stiff.
All I could do was tremble and watch helplessly.
“Ptui! What a filthy persistent little bastard. Fine, just eat it then.”
One of the thugs spat a thick glob of phlegm beside the curled-up boy.
“But if you touch our stuff again, it won’t end like this next time. I’ll chop your hands clean off!”
With that vicious threat, the final kick slammed into the boy’s stomach.
In the end, while I stood there like an idiot with my mouth open, doing nothing, the gang dusted themselves off and casually strolled out of the alley.
Only after they had completely disappeared from sight did I finally manage to move my frozen body. On shaking, spindly legs, I cautiously approached the boy who lay sprawled on the alley floor like a corpse.
“Hey… a-are you okay? Do you have any guardians I could call? Should I get a doctor… or, uh, a healer?”
“…Ugh, ughhh. H-haha… I protected it… thank god…”
A wheezing laugh leaked out between the boy’s bloodied lips. Even after what looked like several broken ribs, he seemed overwhelmingly relieved.
“Protected what? That thing you’ve been hugging since earlier—what the hell is it?”
“What else… it’s bread…”
I seriously doubted my ears for a second.
No matter how I looked at it, the thing resembled a crude wooden club. And he was calling that bread? If you smacked someone’s head with it, it wouldn’t be the bread that split—it would be their skull caving in. It looked more like a lethal weapon than food.
French baguettes couldn’t even compare to this terrifying visual.
Did this world knead cement instead of flour to bake its bread?
“Th-that’s bread? Not a blunt weapon?”
“Ugh… of course it’s bread… what does it look like to you, kgh…”
The boy swallowed a pained groan, pushed himself up with blood-stained hands, and leaned weakly against the dirty mud wall. His head turned toward me.
“Wait. It’s you, Vita.”
Vita? Out of nowhere, Vita?
From within the boy’s face—covered in blood and dirt—emerged a pair of strikingly vivid purple eyes that stared straight at me. They were one of those colorful irises I’d seen on the street earlier, the kind that could never exist on Earth.
At those words casually tossed my way, my mind spun rapidly.
Vita. That was clearly the name of this tiny body.
It seemed the original owner of this body and this tough, bread-stealing boy—who was apparently some kind of Jean Valjean—were already acquainted.