That's When My Life Went Off the Rails
That's When My Life Went Off the Rails
My cause of death was simple.
A building collapse. I had been gaming at home when the entire studio apartment building I lived in came crashing down.
The rent hadn't even been that cheap, so I never imagined the construction had been that shoddy. I wanted to sue the contractor responsible for that substandard work, but that was never going to happen.
Before that could even be an option, my head got crushed like tofu.
[GAME OVER!]
With the monitor flickering before my eyes, that was the end of me.
But apparently, that was not the end of me.
"Agh!"
"Ohh, are you okay, Yor?"
I reincarnated in some weird medieval era.
A fantasy world of swords and sorcery, and I was an orphan at a children's home, named Yor.
But aside from that, this world had another peculiar quirk.
"Ugh... yeah, I'm fine."
"You have to be careful. You're a boy; you can't just go charging in recklessly like that."
It was a chastity-reversed world, where the notions of men and women were flipped.
Here, it was mostly women who did the heavy lifting, and mostly women who rose to high-ranking positions in society.
"Ahaha, yeah..."
That didn't mean men had been reduced to beings who did nothing but wash dishes at home, but a great many things had definitely changed.
From the feel of it, the notion of chastity had obviously flipped as well.
It was a world that felt profoundly alien, but it was not especially uncomfortable.
The stifling atmosphere of the children's home was a bit suffocating, true, but at least the people were kind. Even though I had no friend I truly connected with deep down, I got along reasonably well with everyone.
If that business hadn't erupted when I was ten, I would have led a perfectly ordinary life.
The moment my whole life turned upside down was my tenth birthday, on June 6th. In this place, when you turned ten, you were subjected to a peculiar examination.
Namely, they hammered a child's body with Holy Power to check for abnormalities. Every person in this world had a chance, upon turning ten, of manifesting a noxious trait called 'Demon's Blood.'
"Wait, that mark is...?"
"Ah, a demon. A demon!"
And this time, the lucky winner was me.
The moment they infused me with Holy Power, a dark-red tattoo surfaced on my right collarbone.
An utterly ominous demon's horn. Proof that I was born with Demon's Blood. Thinking back on it, the setup sounded like something I'd heard of somewhere.
Not just because it felt like a cliché, but because among the games I'd played, there really had been one with that kind of setting.
[Demon's Saga]
It was the game I'd been playing in my previous life before I died. An online RPG where the goal was to slay demons scattered across the land.
'Oh, you son of a...'
I hadn't realized it because of the disorienting gender reversal, but as it turned out, I'd landed in a world exactly like Demon's Saga.
Demon's Blood, seriously. A setting that reeked of middle-schooler cringe, but because of that single cringe-worthy setting, my life plummeted straight into the abyss.
"Dammit, to think we'd been raising a child of a demon!"
"Seize him at once! We don't know when he might run wild!"
"I'm sorry, Yor. But there's nothing to be done..."
A Demon-Blood Manifestor was, by their very existence, no different from a dangerous radical. Because there was no telling when or where they might lose their reason and rampage.
What was more, a Demon-Blood Manifestor was a living weapon in their own right, requiring special caution.
The people of this medieval world tried to resolve the matter in a convenient and barbaric way.
"Send him to the execution block at once!"
"Purify that wicked blood!"
Namely, executing a ten-year-old child.
If you ignored the ethical issues, it was a truly convenient method for easily eliminating a potential threat.
Thanks to that, I ended up locked away in the Empire's dark underground prison.
Along with the unfortunate fact that I was to be executed before long.
On my way to the prison, I saw countless gazes.
Citizens staring at me with revulsion in their eyes, knights with expressions of annoyance. Here and there, there were a few sympathetic looks, but those were a small minority.
Not a single person tried to deny my death.
... However, there were two things they didn't know.
First, the gaps between the iron bars were wide enough that I could just barely slip through.
Second, my blood's manifestation had already progressed quite significantly.
It seemed that when Demon's Blood manifested, basic physical abilities increased, including regeneration and muscle strength.
The chains binding my wrists and ankles, I was able to snap after a few attempts. Of course, during the process, my wrists and palms got flayed and then regenerated, repeating several times... but that was, in the end, a minor issue.
A pittance of a price compared to the value of my life.
Anyway, after that, I ran.
Evading the guards on watch, avoiding the citizens who reviled me, fleeing the Empire that wanted me dead.
During my escape, a wanted order was issued, and whispers about me reached my ears. I even spotted search parties armed with swords and bows.
But as I ran on in a frenzy, I found myself beyond the Empire's borders before I knew it. Before me stretched a vast plain without a single person in sight.
Having escaped the immediate threat, a surge of sorrow abruptly welled up inside me.
'... Why.'
Why did I have to suffer like this?
What sin had I committed to be hunted down this far?
No, was there even a sin in the first place?
There was.
Being born with Demon's Blood was the sin.
By their logic, I had been a sinner from the moment I was born, and when I turned ten, my criminal record came to light.
And this sin was a capital crime recognized across the entire world. Punishable by death.
"Hic... sniff..."
Tears welled up from sorrow, but I couldn't stop my feet. If I stayed here, the pursuit team would catch up and haul me away.
'I want to live.'
I wanted to live. Even though the situation was hopeless, I wanted to live.
As I walked endlessly, I questioned myself.
'Where should I go?'
The Empire was out of the question, obviously. I'd be executed the moment I arrived.
Other kingdoms were also impossible. Nor could I live quietly in some remote village.
That horn mark on my collarbone would follow me like a brand. It was obvious I'd be found out immediately, captured by knights, and then executed.
Which meant that living anywhere civilization existed was impossible for me.
In that case, where.
Where should I go?
"Ah."
After walking for a long time in that manner, a forest suddenly came into view ahead. It was no ordinary forest.
A forbidden zone teeming with beasts and monsters corrupted by Demonic Energy. In the game, this area likely served as a high-level hunting ground.
The paths were so tangled that it was a place no one ever visited, and for that very reason, it was the perfect space for me.
I'd heard the monsters appearing at the entrance were weak, so I could probably manage to hide and survive somehow.
Having walked and thought for so long, hunger gnawed at me. I craved something sweet.
I wanted the strawberry-jam-filled pastries they used to sell near the children's home.
Of course, there was no way to eat one now. And probably, there wouldn't be, for the rest of my life.
Swallowing the tears that kept streaming out, I stepped into the forest...
*
...A long, long time had passed since then.
"Dammit, no matter what I do, I can't get the gamey smell out of this venison."
Despite plenty of hardship early on, this forest was surprisingly livable.
No matter how winding the paths were, they became familiar to the eye once you lived here long enough, and I managed to secure my macronutrients on time, even if the fare was crude.
Drinking water sources like lakes were decently spaced out here and there, and if I looked carefully, I could find suitable spots to sleep, too.
My biggest worry had been the monsters, but even those proved manageable. More precisely, I became able to manage them.
Though it had plunged my life into the depths, the Demon's Blood boasted considerable power.
It didn't just provide simple physical enhancements; it also gifted me all sorts of unusual abilities.
By now, I was a bizarre human capable of freely manipulating and solidifying my own blood. Barring a handful of monstrous creatures lurking deep within the forest, I essentially had no opponents here.
Every month, whenever Berserk A and B erupted, I did get a bit suicidal, but surprisingly, Demon's Blood was something you could control.
In short, it was livable.
There were a few discomforts, but nothing that greatly hindered my survival.
Thanks to that, I had been stubbornly dragging this tenacious life forward for a twelfth year now.
Right? Every day spent alone in this forest had made my sense of dates a bit hazy, though.
"... Still, it's edible, I guess."
The biggest discomfort was loneliness.
Crackle—Crackle—
The campfire I'd lit to roast the meat brightly illuminated the interior of the cave.
Inside this cramped cave, I could sometimes feel a bone-chilling sense of isolation.
People often call humans social animals.
A person does not exist purely as an individual, but continually affirms their own existence through others.
The desire to interact with others is inscribed not in reason, but at the genetic level.
Yet here I was, with twelve long years gone by without any real conversation with another person. All the while, the loneliness had swelled like a snowball, tormenting me from time to time.
Come to think of it, this is a fucking gender-reversed world, so how come I don't seem to be reaping a single benefit from it?
Not that I can just randomly strike up a conversation with anyone who shows up here...
Once again today, I muttered a wish with no chance of coming true.
"... I want to make a friend, too."
Only an empty echo returned.
*
[Open Beta Service Has Ended!]
[Otherworlders will now be visiting!]
[You have acquired the trait 'Player's Eye'!]
"... Huh?"
A few days after that, a strange system window popped up before my eyes.