Chapter 1: A New Life
A teen lay on the bed of an unfamiliar hospital, the sterile white walls stretching endlessly around him. Screams echoed through the corridors — some human, some unidentifiable — a chaotic symphony that clawed at his mind. Every voice, every shriek, felt like a thousand needles pricking his skull, and yet he remained still, numb, as though the world itself was trying to annoy him into madness.
He pushed himself upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, his jacket hanging loosely over his shoulders. Outside, the streets were swallowed by freezing cold, the air sharp and biting.
"Patient 32, where are you going?"
The teen turned slowly, staring into the nurse's eyes, calm and unflinching.
"I'm going to take a walk."
The nurse murmured into her phone, her voice low, almost mechanical.
"Patient 32 — Orimo Kuzan — is going for a walk outside. Permission granted."
He stepped out into the chill. Snowflakes swirled lazily in the streetlight, turning the concrete into a ghostly canvas. Each breath he exhaled came out in clouds, dissipating into the freezing air.
Ahead, a boy — the same age as him — blocked the path, his silhouette rigid and unyielding.
"What's wrong with you?" Orimo asked, his voice steady, almost bored.
The boy grinned, and something about it made Orimo's chest tighten.
"I'm an assassin."
Orimo didn't flinch. He ran backward — slow, measured, like a man walking into fate itself. The assassin didn't move, didn't blink.
"You can't run, dumbass."
A beat of silence — then: BOOM! BOOM!
A bullet pierced Orimo's chest. Time seemed to slow. He felt the warmth of blood, the cold shock of inevitability, the sharp sting of finality.
"I… was bound to die sooner or later anyway," he murmured.
His vision dimmed, the sounds of the world fading. Pain dissolved into nothingness. His body lay motionless on the frozen street.
Then, abruptly, warmth.
Orimo's eyes snapped open to sunlight — not the harsh hospital fluorescent kind, but soft, golden, bathing everything in a tranquil glow. Birds chirped in the distance. The air smelled sweet, alive, and completely unfamiliar.
He sat up, dazed, his chest completely whole, no wound, no pain. The freezing cold was gone. Instead, a gentle breeze brushed against his skin, carrying the faint scent of grass and flowers.
"What…?" Orimo whispered, his voice trembling, caught between disbelief and awe.
Before him lay a small village, sunlight glinting off its wooden roofs, smoke curling gently from chimneys. The streets were quiet, the kind of quiet that felt alive, not empty. And as he looked down at himself, his hands — clean, unbloodied — he noticed a faint mark glowing on his chest, subtle, almost imperceptible, like a symbol he didn't recognize.
The world felt… different. Alive. Waiting.
Orimo Irum, formerly Patient 32, had no idea that this was only the beginning of his new life.