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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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It was an ordinary day.
I’d simply met up with a friend, recently discharged from the military, had a few too many drinks, and gone back to my studio apartment to sleep.
Of course, getting out of overtime at my company, which was practically a sweatshop, hadn’t been easy.
Anyway, after all that drinking, I stumbled back to my place and lay down… only to find myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.
No, calling it a ceiling was a stretch. There were no lights, just what looked like moss-covered stone bricks.
“What the… where am I…?”
????
That wasn’t my voice.
My deep, heavy voice was gone, replaced by a delicate, almost beautiful tone.
“Oh… shit… no way.”
There was no way a cliché like reincarnation to another world could happen to me.
Thinking that, I looked down.
My thick, large hands were gone, replaced by small, white hands that looked like they belonged to a jade statue.
At this point, I had to accept it. This wasn’t my body.
The children lying next to me began to stir and wake up.
They all looked bewildered, and some even started crying. None of them seemed to understand the situation.
Then, an iron door creaked open, and a rather large man entered.
To summarize, he told us we’d been chosen as assassins for the kingdom and that from now on, this was our path.
Naturally, we had no right to refuse.
We all became assassins.
Maybe it was because I was a 21st-century human, but this whole thing felt incredibly repulsive.
Not only did the idea of taking another sentient being’s life disgust me, but the necessity of torture and the expectation of suicide if our identities were compromised didn’t sit well with me either.
As familiar faces disappeared one by one, and news of their deaths reached me, I barely managed to suppress the nausea.
Of course, some tried to escape.
They were all caught and torn apart as an example.
I desperately wanted to run, too, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to live.
No matter how ill-suited I was for this life, this was the only way to survive.
And so, the child who was seven grew into a 23-year-old assassin, only to meet his end.
Cause of death? Betrayal.
Of course, I couldn’t even dream of a clean death.
They meticulously and slowly tore me apart, searching for information.
Naturally…
I didn’t talk.
I ended up like this because of betrayal, so why would I betray anyone else? I was going to die anyway. Screw them.
The last thing I saw?
My own intestines being pulled from my stomach.
‘Well, I can brag about having a shitty life,’ I thought absurdly as my eyes closed.
And then I was reborn.
In a completely different time, in a completely different world.
“Fuck…”
The curse slipped out involuntarily. The reincarnation itself wasn’t surprising, having already experienced it once. But the clothes I – or rather, this body’s owner – was wearing were nothing more than filthy rags.
“This time, I’m a slave…?”
At this point, I started resenting whatever god existed. Was having drinks with my friend who’d just finished his military service such a crime? Was it wrong that I ate both chicken legs from the order I placed?
Suppressing a bitter laugh, I listened to the approaching footsteps.
A fierce-looking man suddenly barged in, pointed at me, and barked,
“Hey, you! Muck out the stables. Get your ass out here and clean it up.”
He looked younger than me, and the casual disrespect made me bristle. But then I remembered this wasn’t my body and obediently headed to the stables.
The information I gleaned while working was surprisingly useful.
First, I was sold as a slave to a notoriously cruel nobleman.
Second, slaves here were treated worse than livestock.
These two facts alone painted a clear picture of my situation.
I was literally treated worse than a dog.
There was no such thing as wages. I was beaten daily by the nobleman and my food was often stolen by the stronger slaves.
Even when I got sick, I received no medicine, not even folk remedies. Such things were a luxury for a slave.
That hellish existence gradually became my daily life, and I adapted.
Or rather, I became numb.
My body, covered in scars, was a horrifying sight even to me. And since there were plenty of slaves who worked better than I did, I was eventually thrown out into the winter streets to freeze to death.
Part of me couldn’t help but feel relieved that this shitty life was ending. A 21st-century man, born into a world where human rights were guaranteed, reduced to something less than a dog… I wouldn’t have lasted this long, wouldn’t have held on without the resilience I gained from my previous life as an assassin.
Ignoring the snow piling up on my body, I closed my eyes.
But this damned god wouldn’t let me die in peace.
I was reborn again, but my life continued to be utterly shitty.
Like the life of a scientist captured by a criminal organization, tortured into surrendering his technology, and ultimately executed alongside them.
Every life I was reborn into was lacking, miserable, and no matter how hard I tried, I suffered and died, only to be reborn into another painful existence.
And so, I reached my seventh…? reincarnation.
?? Something felt strange.
“Waaah!!!!”
“Congratulations! It’s a beautiful baby boy!”
In my seven reincarnations, I had never started as a newborn.
And I’d never had a family.
That’s why I’d never had hope, never fought against my predetermined fate.
But why? What was different this time?
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