The sky resembled the cross-section of rotting, festering meat.
Rain poured down through the low-hanging dark clouds, unpleasantly soaking my entire body.
'If you stay out in the rain too long with nothing on, you'll catch a cold.'
A place where such universal and obvious common sense did not apply.
I had fallen into such a world.
The situation unfolding before my eyes was no different.
Instead of wetting the parched earth, the rain mixed with the filth and the stench of blood layered on the ground, creating a sticky, nauseating mire.
Above that squelching mud, a chilling metallic sound rang out sharply.
Shing—
"Please, just the child… spare him…!! Keuk!!"
A woman's scream tore through the sound of the rain and pierced my eardrums.
With half my face buried in the mud, I stared indifferently at that horrific sight.
The woman who gave birth to me.
She was gripping the rusty blade that had pierced through her chest with both hands, clutching it as if to crush it.
Behind her back stood a man giggling like a beast, revealing yellowed teeth.
Schluck—
The blade twisted through muscle as it was pulled out.
Losing the strength to support herself, the woman's body collapsed futilely to the ground.
"Da, Danel…. Mom is… sor… ry…."
Splash—
Watching the filthy rainwater cover her cooling face, I felt a strange sense of disconnection.
'Ah….'
My mind was cold beyond measure.
If you asked me if I was sad.
Well.
Yes, it is sad.
There was certainly a throbbing pain in a corner of my heart.
But tears did not come.
Because I was not a person of this world.
To a stranger who had lived as a young man in his twenties in a land like heaven called the Republic of Korea, this barbaric and primitive medieval landscape still felt like a third-rate movie lacking reality.
When I opened my eyes again after experiencing the absurd miracle of reincarnation, the first thing I faced was a terrible reality where death might have been preferable.
A thatched house swarming with rats.
A slum where you had to fight neighbors with knives over a single rotten potato.
Terrible poverty, which one could escape in 21st-century Korea just by working part-time at a convenience store, was daily life here.
Nevertheless, the parents here were good people.
Though they were ignoramuses who didn't know a single letter and were dirt poor, they were people who would split half a potato meant for their own mouths to give to me.
But even while calling them 'Mom and Dad,' I could never sincerely consider them my parents.
It was because the modern ego inside me defined them as strangers and drew a line.
They gave me the name 'Danel.'
A name embodying the wish to survive any adversity and hardship without dying, like the darnel (poisonous ryegrass) that grows tenaciously even in barren land.
In Korean terms, a weed.
Right, 'Kim Weed' would be about it.
God, how wretched.
To save a weed like me, they willingly threw their bodies before the blades of bandits and became fertilizer.
"Is it a son? The brat has some fierce eyes."
The bandit who took my parents' lives approached.
A disgusting aura, a mix of unwashed stench and sour liquor, radiated from the bastard's body.
It's raining this hard, so how bad does he smell usually?
It was enough to make me think that.
He lightly touched the bloody blade to my cheek.
Along with the cold touch of metal, the metallic scent of blood stung the tip of my nose.
I stared straight at him.
"Don't feel too unfair. I'm actually your savior. What's the point of rolling around in a shit bucket like this? If you want to change your fortune, it's faster to die quickly and be reborn as a noble's kid."
"Kukukuku, that's true."
"Kuhaha, right, Boss? See, I'm a sage. Is a sage anything special?"
Life is truly shitty.
I barely managed to reincarnate and come back to life, only to be about to have my throat slit by 'Bandit 1,' not even the boss.
The bastard swung his sword indifferently, as if annoyed.
However.
Whoosh—
The bastard looked down at me with surprised eyes.
"What the, this brat… dodged?"
My eyes were strange.
I'm not talking about something like a status window.
Such a thing didn't exist in the first place.
However, whether it was a perk of reincarnation or a talent of this body, I saw and read much more than others.
The timing when the bandit's finger muscles twisted minutely.
The direction of the water droplets flowing over the rain-soaked blade.
And even the afterimage of the trajectory he would swing toward my neck.
When I concentrated, it felt as if the world was split into tens of thousands of frames.
But just because I could read it didn't mean I could defeat him.
My body was nothing more than a six-year-old child, skinny to the bone from malnutrition.
My time of death was merely delayed by a few seconds.
"What are you doing, you bastard? Hurry up and finish it so we can go."
"Ah… Yes! Understood, Boss!!"
The bandit raised his sword high again with an annoyed face.
Looking up at the blade, I did not close my eyes even as raindrops hit my retinas.
Until the very last moment, I engraved the trajectory of that ignorant blade slicing through the air into my eyes.
My last thought before death was surprisingly calm.
'Tsk, I can't dodge this time.'
Even if it was a clumsy strike from 'Bandit 1,' the brute strength of a fully grown adult male was not something my pathetic body could avoid.
It was then.
'What? What is that?'
A silver flash rushing through the pouring rain.
I instinctively twisted my body.
Thwack―! Thud—!
The sound of tearing air that pierced through the rain hit my eardrums.
"Keuhuk?!"
An arrow was lodged precisely in the shoulder of the bandit standing in front of me.
Clang—
The bastard's sword lost its power and fell to the ground.
Reflexively, I picked up the sword stuck in the muddy water.
It was heavier than I thought. But not so heavy that I couldn't lift it.
And.
Puk—!
Without hesitation, I pierced the neck of Bandit 1, who had lost his stance.
"Gurgle… You little… son of a…."
My first murder.
"Hah, hah!"
The bandit's body, unable to even scream, collapsed on top of me.
Hot, thick blood completely covered my face.
Before the thought of it being disgusting, what crossed my mind first was,
The fact that this corpse was a good meat shield to block arrows.
The bandits instantly became chaotic.
"Damn it!! It's an ambush! Arrows!"
"W-Where! Which bastard! Cowardly! Don't hide, come out!!"
The scene of the bandits' one-sided slaughter instantly turned into pandemonium.
Arrows flew continuously from the darkness of the forest, piercing the chests and necks of the bandits with precision.
Thwack—
Another blind arrow struck the back of 'Bandit 1' whom I was covering myself with.
It was worth covering myself with the smelly guy like a blanket.
It was different from the disorderly arrows of the bandits.
Attacks with restrained killing intent, extremely efficient and mechanical.
Soon, a group of people emerged from the forest.
Men wearing rough leather cloaks over iron scale armor.
They were not as flashy as knights, nor as disciplined as a regular army, but an overwhelming aura poured from them, on a different dimension from the mountain bandits.
The smell that only those who wander the battlefield and mix their rice with blood can possess.
It was the thick scent of mercenaries.
The man standing at their forefront walked over slowly with a giant two-handed axe resting on his shoulder.
He was a man with a bear-like build, a thick scar roughly traversing his left eye area amidst a bushy beard.
"Tsk, we're already late. It would have been better if we could have saved the village too."
"Still, the request is complete, Captain. That bald bastard over there is the bandit leader."
"Right, clean them all up. Good work, everyone."
He tapped the corpses scattered around with his foot and let out a short sigh.
Then, his eyes met mine, sitting covered in mud beneath a corpse.
He seemed to notice that I had already been hiding under that corpse, watching the situation.
"Then… what should we do with this one…."
He approached me.
A giant shadow covered me.
I did not run away.
No, there was no reason to run away.
He is different from 'Bandit 1' whom I just killed.
The probability of me escaping the range of that axe was, unequivocally, zero.
"You, what is your name?"
The man's voice was rough and low, like cracked rocks colliding.
"…Danel."
"How old are you."
"Five."
I lied by one year on purpose.
The younger you are, the higher the probability of being spared.
My voice was small enough to be buried by the sound of the rain, but there was no trembling.
The man raised one eyebrow as if intrigued.
"I am Barkas."
A brief silence passed.
Barkas scratched the back of his head vigorously, then asked carefully, unlike his appearance.
"Parents?"
"Over there."
I pointed with the tip of my chin to the woman's corpse and the man's headless corpse a little distance away.
The mercenaries standing behind Barkas whispered in low voices.
"What the, that kid? His mom and dad ended up like that, but he doesn't bat an eye. He's not even crying?"
"Quiet, everyone. He's a child who lost his parents right before his eyes. It could be because the shock is too great."
"...."
Barkas pointed with his chin at the corpse I was using as a shield.
"That, did you kill him?"
Nod—
"Hah… this is really… I don't know if that guy who got stabbed and died by a five-year-old is a retard, or if this kid is special…."
Barkas was silent for a moment, then tossed a word at me.
"Want to come along?"
At that, one of the men who appeared to be a subordinate behind him shouted in fright.
"Captain!! You know our situation clearly, and you're going to take in another one!!"
"I didn't ask you, Spio."
"Hah… You think a mercenary corps runs on charity."
Paying no mind to the complaint of the man named Spio, and without avoiding Barkas's eyes, I nodded.
Barkas looked at me blankly, then slowly bent his knees to meet my eye level.
"Kid. No, did you say Danel?"
"Yes."
"That's one hell of a name. The toughest guy even among weeds. Mercenary work is dangerous. Do you know that?"
I didn't bother to answer.
I didn't have a choice anyway.
He sheathed the axe he had extended onto his back and held out a large hand instead.
"If you roll under me, I'll make sure you don't go hungry. In return, I don't go easy on you because you're young. You'll have to earn your keep."
His offer wasn't something like salvation.
It wasn't a future where a warm home and soft bread were guaranteed either.
It was an invitation to a hell full of blood and corpses, and a life as a consumable that could die namelessly after rolling around the battlefield for a lifetime.
But I did not hesitate.
Rather than dying alone in the mud as a weed, it was far better to become a poisonous herb that bites off someone's throat.
"That…."
I pointed at Barkas's axe with my finger.
"Hm? What. You mean this axe?"
I nodded.
"Teach me how to fight."
"...Kuk. This is a funny guy."
When I said that, Barkas checked his comrades' expressions as if he found it absurd.
"Anyone here who killed a person at five years old?"
The comrades shrugged their shoulders as if astounded.
"And a guy who followed a mercenary corps on his own feet and tried to learn how to fight?"
Barkas suddenly burst into hearty laughter.
"Puhahahaha!! You're a real piece of work! Good!! I'll teach you! No! If you want to survive, you'll have to learn even if you hate it!"
Grab— Whoosh—
"I'll help you this time. This is also a debt."
I was hoisted onto Barkas's giant shoulder like a piece of luggage.
It was his rough consideration, realizing at once that it was hard for me to walk.
As the altitude increased, the tragic state of the village came into view at a glance.
Burning houses, corpses of parents abandoned by the roadside, and the indifferent rain pouring over them.
I captured that scene in my eyes until the very end.
Modern morality?
Human sorrow?
Such things had long been washed away along with six years of terrible poverty.
Poverty is scarier than this violence.
Have you ever seen parents swallowing their saliva while looking at their child?
That was truly an experience I never wanted to go through again.
Anyway, I am now a mercenary.
A darnel that will take root first in this barren battlefield, survive tenaciously until the end, and eventually bloom a flower of blood.
Watching the receding village, I made a vow once again.
I suspect this place is a Dark Fantasy.
Such a hell where disgusting words like love and salvation have long disappeared, mixed into the fishy smell of blood.
'...Surviving comes first for now.'
To live is an instinct.
I decided to faithfully follow that instinct first.