Start.
Start.
'Ah... fuck, this hurts.'
Death—something I'd seen countless times, something I'd dealt to others—I was now experiencing it firsthand.
As my consciousness faded, what they call a life review flashed rapidly through my mind.
Memento Mori. I thought about my death, thought about the day I would die, and lived desperately.
No parents, no family, no money—I lived to prove my existence before the world erased me.
'Memento Mori.' Now, with the end in sight, a desperate voice reaches me.
"Boss... you have to survive...!!"
A man looking at my face, choking back tears.
A face I'd seen so often. No, someone I considered one of my few family members.
Park Gi...
His desperate voice began pulling me—who had been sinking deep beneath the surface—back out into the world.
Liquid filled my throat, the suffocating pressure making me cough it up. It wasn't saliva. It was thick with blood.
Staring at the red fluid pouring from my mouth, my mind began grasping reality more and more.
My brain started to understand the situation around me, but the more I grasped reality, the more I couldn't help but laugh...
So I just laughed.
"Ha-ha... fuck... you think I can... survive this?"
I'd lived my whole life this way, so even at the end, I could only spit curses at them.
Hearing my curses, my subordinates' faces brightened, maybe thinking I was still holding on. But they didn't get as far as celebrating what my words meant.
"".....""
Park Gi looked at me, wiping away tears, and said.
"Carry the Big Boss on your back."
"Yes, sir."
I spoke quietly to the subordinate trying to lift me onto his back.
"Let go."
"But..!"
When I held out my hand, Park Gi, realizing what I wanted, pulled a cigarette from his pocket.
"Park Gi."
"Yes..."
I slumped down to the floor and put the cigarette between my lips. Park Gi lit it with trembling hands.
These men, who wouldn't shed a single tear even if their own family died, now had tears welling in their eyes as they looked at my stinking self.
Five men standing before me, choking up.
The kids I'd raised. The ones who considered me family—and I considered them family too.
"Fucking hurts..."
"".....""
Remembering the memories filled with these men, with the smell of blood and sweat, I looked at the cigarette burning away.
Burning up in a short moment, making a harsh stench, harmful, sometimes driving people to death... a cigarette...
I felt it overlapping with my own life.
"Cough... still, it's refreshing..."
As I stared at the cigarette, smirking, one of Park Gi's men spoke.
"The motherfucking bastards are already here. Boss!!!"
Park Gi, standing in front of me in his suit, drew a dagger at his subordinate's words.
"Boss, get out of here."
"You fucking... kid... still... cough... I raised you well, at least..."
The vibration through the steel floor plates told me a significant number of people were approaching down the corridor.
"Park Gi."
"Yes..."
"Get out while you're still in one piece."
"Even if you kill me, even if you die, I can't go anywhere leaving your body behind."
"You little shit, fine, just die then, you dumbass..."
The vibration in the floor plates began to grow louder.
"Jae-hyeong."
Lee Jae-hyeong, raised alongside Park Gi. I'd picked him up when he was wandering the streets.
Given the situation, Jae-hyeong answered without his usual grumbling.
"Yes."
I grabbed Jae-hyeong by the scruff of his neck and yanked him forcefully toward me.
"You... want to live, don't you? I understand... your heart... cough... Take Park Gi and... run."
Jae-hyeong silently stared at me with serious eyes, then burst out laughing.
"Ha-ha-ha... we've lived together for twenty years... and you still don't get it..."
"....."
"I'm hurt, goddammit! Every time it's about loyalty, it's always Park Gi!? Goddammit, Boss, you know what...?"
I looked at Jae-hyeong as he grabbed my shoulder.
"I can't go anywhere leaving your body behind either."
"You idiots... cough... just all of you die... thick-skulled bastards."
At my words, everyone stared straight ahead with grim expressions.
On the other side of the dark corridor, the dogs of S Company who'd been chasing us began to appear.
A knife fight began without a word. The cigarette that had been between my fingers burned down until nothing but ash remained.
Park Gi collapsed in front of me, a hole punched through his chest.
"To the very end... I'll follow you."
A man with his head covered in tattoos shoved Park Gi aside with his foot.
Jae-hyeong, his face caved in, leaned against the wall and murmured.
"S... sur... survive..."
Around me, dozens of corpses piled up, courtesy of my subordinates.
"Whoa... shit... I heard the guy was surrounded by monsters."
A man emerged from behind, pushing aside the heavily tattooed man's head.
"But Kang Han-seong... I guess you die too, huh?"
A large man, holding his knife clumsily, brought it to the position of my heart.
"Whoa, how many people died just to kill you? This is ridiculous."
He seemed like he held a fairly important role, but his face wasn't one I recognized.
"Say something~ Monster of Taebaek."
I quoted a line from a movie I'd once enjoyed.
"Who the hell are you.."
A silence fell over the room at the voice that brought fried dumplings to mind.
"....."
Just as the man tried to drive the knife into my chest, I twisted his wrist and seized the blade in an instant.
And following the tendons up his wrist, I severed every last one.
Maybe a second had passed. Watching his arm get shredded, the man belatedly screamed.
"Gyaaaaaah!!!"
The man tried to pull his arm back from my grip. I drove the knife between his two eyes staring down at me.
I pulled the man's collapsing body and used the momentum to rise to my feet.
The people flinched the moment I stood up.
"Haa..."
Dozens of men charged at me simultaneously without a word, but it didn't take long for the emotion called 'fear' to bloom in their pupils.
Only a few people were left standing among dozens of corpses.
Holes were punched all over my body. The thought occurred to me that I was seeing my body in third person.
"I'll give you credit. So now please, just die!!!"
The blade came down toward my head. I tried to dodge it naturally, but 'my body' had already slipped beyond my control.
A 15-centimeter kitchen knife lodged in my shoulder, but I felt nothing at all.
The moment the man pulled the knife from my shoulder and kicked 'my body,' 'I' began plummeting toward the floor.
...I don't remember clearly.
Just that my head hurt like it had been crushed, that my entire body—which had been burning hot—was cold.
And that it stung all over, like the wind was blowing against flayed skin.
That was everything I felt and remembered.
Voices choked with tears—and the voice of a man who had just been told the woman he loved was dead.
When my eyes opened, I couldn't grasp the situation.
A man who looked like a giant was looking down at me, wiping away tears.
And I quickly realized the man wasn't a giant—it was that I was a newborn baby.
'What... what the hell is this situation?'
A woman spoke, watching the crying man carefully.
"The princess is truly beautiful..."
'.....?'
I didn't believe in reincarnation, past lives, regression, or any of that crap. Because there was never enough time just to focus on the present right in front of me.
I'll admit it. I'll admit that such a thing exists. Since it exists, since people believe in it, I figure that's why there's a word for it.
God, Buddha? I don't believe in them, but I figure they exist.
And me, who up until now had only focused on the present right in front of me—I won't dismiss this reincarnation laid before me as mere fantasy.
'But... a princess, they said... fuck, this is bullshit.'
I wanted to turn my head and check whether that impressive thing was still there, but doing so with this muscleless body was a serious problem.
'No, right? I'm a prince, right? Fucking say something!!! You goddamn bastards!!!'
"Waaaaaaaah..!"