Chapter 0
A crow cawed loudly.
The cawing sound echoed through the forest, which cast eerie shadows and prevented even a sliver of moonlight from entering.
The ground was black and dark.
Below the damp earth, various decaying matter left behind black stains.
A cart was crossing through the forest where the stench pooled on the ground, touching ankles like fog.
Laborers who were deaf and had shortened tongues that prevented them from speaking wandered as they pulled and pushed the cart.
What they barely managed to reach through the hazy vision was a small clearing without trees, and in the center of that clearing, a damp pit.
"......"
One of the laborers nodded.
With strange sounds—oomph, heave-ho!—the cart tilted, and the bodies it carried spilled into the pit. Thud, thud, thump.
The sound of weighty bodies landing was heard four times.
People piled on top of people, and more people fell on top of them.
But there were no screams. No pleas for help either.
The laborers, without even looking into the pit, hastily gathered the cart and left. All that remained was the pit and the bodies that had fallen onto the decaying corpses.
Not long after the laborers departed, someone appeared.
He had been hiding in the darkness, and now he peered into the pit while tightly embracing something.
Despite the unpleasant and terrible smell that wafted up, his expression remained unchanged.
Into the pit filled with nothing but death and decay, a living person threw himself.
As soon as his feet touched the bottom after climbing down the steep walls of the pit with nimble movements that belied his size, he felt like making the sign of the cross. But he couldn't because of the bundle in his arms.
Instead, he recited prayers in his mind, desperately hoping that today's deeds would not condemn him to hellfire.
Blessed one, let your seven sons look down upon us.
He placed what he had been holding onto the ground. A bundle wrapped in a dark blanket squirmed.
From within, a white hand, arm, and leg emerged, breaking free from the tightly wrapped blanket.
Legs that staggered like those of a newborn stood on the ground. The young man crawled towards the fresh smell of flesh amidst the stench.
Beneath their abdomen lay sin and wickedness.
Carved into their bodies are the secrets that humans shun and deny.
The white hand caught its prey.
It was a pretty woman with a broken neck. She still looked alive, her face filled with vivid anger.
Looking up at the pitch-black sky, she seemed to be cursing a god somewhere up there.
The young man nuzzled her a few times, like a newborn beast.
"Mother."
I've come, Mother. I, your good child, have come. I've come to keep my promise. I always listen well, don't I? I'm a good child, aren't I? Father, grandfather, grandmother, they're all here, aren't they?
Despite his whispered mumblings, the woman remained motionless.
But that seemed to be enough.
He kissed the bloodstained, pale corpse's forehead.
The young man leaned against the cold body of the woman who had stiffened with her eyes half-open, as if expecting her to rise and praise him.
Ah, I'll do it. I'll accomplish everything as you told me to!
The man standing at the edge of the pit knelt on one knee and clasped his hands together. He could not bear to witness with his own eyes the sin he was about to commit. His clasped hands trembled faintly.
Oh, seven sons beyond the heavens.
Please forgive the sins I have committed, and with stern mercy and love, save those who have lost their way...
In the middle of the hushed black forest,
From the top of a tower made of the most wretched bodies,
The sound of satisfied laughter came from a being that belonged neither to earth nor to heaven.