"W-Where am I?"
Sael asked the eternal darkness that was encompassing him. All the pain he had felt up to that point vanished all of a sudden. He felt great peace within the darkness, like a comforting blanket on a cold, snowy night.
"Am-Am I dead?! Again!" he asked again to no one.
"You are not. You came here for a greater purpose. And experience death my own domain."
A mysterious voice spoke from the darkness. Its voice was like that of a middle-aged man.
"Who are you?" he asked with great calmness.
With his question, the darkness shifted. Now he could see shadows. Great and ancient shadows. It was pure darkness all around him, but the shadows appeared to be even darker. Darker than the endless darkness itself. And there were thousands of them.
One of them spoke, its voice like a young girl.
"You have experienced death without giving it your soul."
Then another spoke, a voice like an old, scowling man.
"You have proven yourself worthy of my great blessing."
"Blessing?!" Sael thought to himself, but his voice slipped out, echoing like in a doorless, empty room.
"Yes, from now on you are my third slave."
As the third voice, like that of a young woman spoke, the darkness shifted again. It transformed into lustreless chains, binding his neck and limbs with great pressure.
"Save our world, and we will save yours," a shadow with the voice of a grandmother spoke.
"You can leave now, my dear slave. But we will meet again," said a shadow with a commanding voice like a king. And the darkness vanished.
And just like that, Sael was a slave once more.
***
[You have used your extra life]
[Regeneration in progress]
The runes appeared in front of his golden, glowing eyes.
'Am I really alive? And what's up with that damn dream… It was too scary for a child's heart.'
As he regained his senses, a life-taking sensation of extreme burning engulfed his tiny body.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" he screamed.
He felt as if every cell of his body was in flames. Everything except his left leg, for some reason. And that was the only spot he focused on to survive this incomprehensible pain.
It was said in his previous world that the pain of burning to death was the greatest pain. If the same applied to this cursed world, then he was feeling it now.
Soon the night turned to day, and the pain slowly vanished but it still left behind a never-ending sensation and extreme weakness.
Now that the pain was gone, Sael was able to notice something he had ignored because of his mind-devouring agony.
He was moving. No, he was being carried by someone, walking through the deathly jungle.
He finally opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings. He was hanging upside down. He could see the moving ground, although his vision was still blurry from the pain. It looked like the man or woman was carrying him like a bag of potatoes over their shoulder. His belly hurt from the constant pressure of their shoulder bone.
But regardless of who it was, they were huge. Although Sael was no expert in height measurement, he could tell that his generous saviour was at least twice as tall as his body in his previous life and at least three times his current body, maybe more. It was safe to say the man or woman was at least eight to ten feet tall.
And that thought scared him a little.
He appreciated the help, but maybe a bit more gentleness would be nice. At that moment, a thought crossed his mind.
'Wait… are they even helping me? What if they're kidnappers? Will they sell me to another slave caravan? No… what if…' He gulped a mouthful of saliva. 'Wh-What if cannibalism exists in this world?'
He gulped again and tried to look back at what he now began to think of as a creature.
He saw a hand holding him to keep him from falling. The hand was pale, like that of a vampire, and thin. So thin there was no muscle left. Although perhaps there had never been any muscle to begin with. The hand was purely made of dried skin stretched over rotting bone. It was a hand like something you'd see in a horror show. A mummy's hand.
Sweat flowed endlessly as Sael realised his saviour, no, his captor was a monster, carrying him like fresh meat from the market.
'How sad… my third death, and I'm going to die as rations for some monster family.'
At that moment, realisation hit him.
'Isn't this going to be my fourth death?! Didn't I die by being eaten by that monster?! How?! How am I even alive?!'
He panicked, trying to free himself from whatever it was. He struggled and tried to jump off the creature.
"Stop flapping like a fish already."
The creature frowned, its voice echoing in Sael's ears.
It was not inhuman like one might expect from such a being. In fact, the voice was human. More human than anything he had heard in his life. Both lives, actually.
Then he looked at its face. And his breath hitched.
The face was covered under a dark hood. It stared at him with hollow, ivory eyes.
But it was not those hopeless eyes that drew him in. Nor was it the pale, ghostly face beneath the hood that scared him.
It was the horns, the most terrifying part of its being.
Its horns twisted and curled, sprouting from the sides of its forehead, moving toward the back of its head, then rising again like a crown belonging not to a king, but a prince.
The black horns reminded him of the mountain goats that once existed in his previous world. He had only seen pictures of such marvellous creatures. But in the past, such horns were often symbolic of devils. And that was the feeling he got from this man.
As he observed, his pronoun for it shifted from "It" to "Him."
At that moment, memories gave birth to more memories. In an instant, memories that had never existed before took shape. Not his own, but those belonging to the boy whose body sheltered his soul.
"Ar-Are you a B-Blasphemer?"
***
Memories floated, and Sael felt as if he was sinking down into the depths of a dark ocean. Its black water showed him the memories as if he were a specter, watching the kid's past from the front seat.
He was almost teleported to a playground. Trees all around, something he, as a nobody in a world where all trees were dead, had never witnessed before. It was the beauty of nature. Because of the chaos, he had never had the chance to see it before, but now Sael was mesmerized by the greenery.
Then the loud and annoying voices of children playing echoed, disrupting his peaceful mood.
The group of children were playing a game called "Build the Stone Tower," where a tower made from stones was destroyed and scattered, and the player had to rebuild it before the girls finished singing their song.
This time, a boy with ember-red hair was building the tower, and three girls clapped and sang:
"Round and round, don't make a sound,
The horned man walks through the town.
Step too loud, he'll hear your feet,
And carry you down the shadow street.
Blasphemer's eyes, black as tar,
See you hiding, near or far.
Hands like branches, cold and long,
Grab you if you hum this song.
Run away, don't let him near,
He feeds on laughter, joy, and fear.
The giant man with twisted grin,
Collects the naughty ones for sin.
Horns that scrape the moonlit sky,
Teeth that grin when children cry.
Once he comes, you can't get free…
Count to twelve, he's here for thee."
At that moment, stories the boy had heard from his mother on nights he refused to sleep came to him. She would tell him monster tales to make him fall asleep. Among those stories, there was one he feared the most.
The story of the Blasphemer.
***
"Ar-Are you a B-Blasphemer?"
Sael's voice shook, his ears refusing to hear a positive answer, but his heart knew it was all over.
"Blasphemer… yes, humans do refer to us as such. But… but I am not sure what blasphemy we have committed. Do you know, boy?" he said in his indifferent, human-like voice.
At this point, Sael just wanted to shut his mouth and let the creature decide his fate. But his mouth moved on its own, as if he were a puppet at the will of a puppeteer.
"Th-They say you burned the forest of the fairies to ashes. You broke the holy law of the thirteen kingdoms' borders. Y-You betrayed the gods and aided the demons. And… and created the calamity that hunted the world."
He spoke without pause. He didn't even know the words he was saying. The language was unknown to him. Yet he spoke as if he had been speaking it all his life. As if the mouth was his, but the master of those words was someone else.
"Yes… yes, you are right. We did break the secret law dividing the original thirteen. We did betray the gods. Yes, we are the villains of countless children's stories. But if we are vile and filthy… then what are you?"
He looked at the red-haired boy with his hollow ivory eyes and sneered.
"Do you think I won't recognize that stench? I don't see those dark cursed chains around your soul. You call us monsters then what about you? Your fate is even worse than ours. You pathetic slave to the thirteen."
'Slave to the thirteen!?'
Like always, he didn't understand most of it. But the last sentence left a mark on him.
The Blasphemer stopped in front of a small hill. A muddy, uneven road could be seen in the distance. Then he grabbed Sael by the hair and tossed him from the hill. As he did, he opened his mouth and spoke once more.
"The next time we meet, you will be forced to kill me. And I will be forced to save myself by killing you. So I hope we never meet again. And I hope you live a miserable life… you filthy slave."