<strong>The slum – 4</strong>


    A day and a half had passed, Renee had still not returned.


    Vera continued to breathe as if he would copse at any moment, and stared nkly at the ceiling.


    ‘… gone?’


    Did she leave. Such a thought came to his mind.


    His dazed mind came up with such an idea.


    Isn’t it like that? It has been almost half a month. She hasn’t been able to even properly eat one meal a day, and she has been taking care of himself in her weak body, so it was about time to get tired of it.


    For a moment Vera let out augh at the thought that came to mind, and felt suffocated at the chest pain that followed with every breath.


    Now I felt it for sure. The remaining spark of my life was disappearing.


    Now this damn life was about toe to an end.


    Once again, a smile appeared on Vera’s lips.


    The damn wretch at the bottom of the slums, the slum’s butcher, the empire’s savage hound, and the tumor of the continent finally died.


    The sinner, who would be at the bottom of hell, was dying alone in a corner of this filthy slum.


    Isn’t it the best news among all good news that the entire continent should be delighted about?


    Vera, who had beenughing for a long time at those thoughts, felt hisughter stop at a certain point.


    It didn’t happen because he wanted it.


    It was because there was a person who came to his mind.


    An ugly woman with all her skin scarred from the burns, covered in filth. She came to his mind.


    I remembered a woman who turned his stomach over with every word she said.


    A woman who seemed to be the embodiment of the word nobility, a woman who made him feel for the first time the feeling of regret, came to his mind, the very same woman who showed kindness even to an evil being such as myself .


    Even at this very moment, he was disparaging her, but Vera knew.


    That, even if he knew her only for a short period of time, the woman he had seen wasn’t a person who would ever give up on him.


    She probably didn’t run away. If she was going to run away, she would have run away long ago because she couldn’t stand hunger.


    Vera knew better than anyone how painful hunger was.


    So, he also knew how difficult it was to fight hunger during those 15 days.


    He couldn’t believe that a woman who had endured such hardships would have run away for that reason now.


    ‘… She must have died.’


    She was a woman who didn’t listen to even a word of warning, so she must have died after being caught by a scavenger. The corpse lying somewhere in the slum.


    Vera, who was looking at the ceiling with hazy eyes, clenched his teeth as he thought of Renee’s corpse lying in muddy water and was suddenly filled with emotion.


    It was an unknown feeling.


    It was a feeling he had never felt in his life.


    He knew a lot of simr emotions, but he just couldn’t think of a word to describe this feeling.


    It resembled regret, and it resembledpassion at the same time. It took the form of guilt, but it could not be called as such .


    It seemed like it could be expressed as fear, but rather than such an overwhelming feeling, it felt more like a small ember that spread faintly.


    It was a feeling of gratitude with some guilt mixed in.


    Vera felt his body tremble at this emotion that made his insides turn inside out.


    It was such aplex feeling. It was a feeling that tightened his stomach and made him feel more stuffy than the chest pain that had tormented him so far.


    So, Vera twisted his whole body and tried to move his body that had not moved at all.


    “Heh heh… !”


    As he moved his fingertips, the pain spread throughout his body from there. Then, as he moved his arm, he could feel the blood seeping from within.


    However, he couldn’t stop.


    Because of this dizzy feeling that made me want to vomit, he couldn’t afford to worry about the pain in his body.


    He raised his upper body.


    “Cough… !”


    Blood gushed out of his mouth.


    The body copsed, producing a ‘thump’ sound.


    In the meantime, Vera raised his head up and looked at the half-open door of the shack.


    Arms outstretched. He touched the ground with his arms, and started to move by crawling while shivering.


    He crawled, looking so miserable that he couldn’t even bear to look at himself.


    Leaving the door, going through muddy water, He crawled for a long time, not even knowing where he was going.


    The blood that had been gushing out of his mouth flowed back up and came out through his nostrils.


    Every time he stretched out his arms, He felt a crushing pain all over his body.


    Nevertheless, He still couldn’t stop.


    It was because of this strange suffocation that tightened his stomach.


    Vera crawled aimlessly as if he was a madman, and found a figure lying in a corner of the slum, covered with muddy water.


    Vera knew at once who that person was.


    It was Renee.


    Her skin scarred from burn marks, her white hair stained with muddy water, and the lightless blue pupils exposed under her half-closed eyelids, were telling him.


    The whole area was drenched in ck and gloomy colors.


    It was the color of the dead. It was the same color as those dying in the slum. It was a gloomy color that always came to mind when the hardened blood and muddy water mixed together.


    Seeing these colors spread around her, Vera stopped.


    He had been crawling for a long time so when he stopped, he looked like a mess.


    On top of the strange emotion that has been tormenting him for a while, one emotion is added.


    The emotion that came to mind this time was one that Vera knew for sure.


    It was a feeling that dominated his entire childhood, so he couldn’t be ignorant of it.


    Despair.


    That was the emotion that came to mind.


    He didn’t know why he had such feelings.


    He could only instinctively realize that the emotion that came to his mind was taking the form of despair.


    Vera looked at Rene’s corpse for a long time with a face covered in blood and filth, then crawled towards her very slowly.


    He crawled the distance, barely reachable.


    After burning through thest ember of his life, barely managing to crawl there, Vera looked at Renee with the face of a man who was about to die.


    Somehow, even though she must have died so painfully, she had a peaceful face.


    “… You look ugly.”


    They were words mixed with sassiness and shortness of breath


    Having said that, Vera looked at her face for a moment and continued.


    “What did I say, I told you that you would die.”


    I tried to smile, but I didn’t even have the strength to raise the corners of my lips.


    My eyelids were heavy. I couldn’t breathe.


    Vera felt that the end was reallying, and looked at Renee’s face.


    She was truly a selfish woman.


    After you made me break my vow to bear all of my karma and die wretchedly alone, you’re sleeping while making such a peaceful face.


    I still didn’t get to know the identity of this heartbreaking feeling, but you fell asleep without teaching it to me.


    My whole body has lost its strength. That thought sank as heavy as cotton soaked in water.


    While Vera was looking at Renee with his half-closed eyes, without realizing it, he pursed his lips and uttered these words.


    “… Do you know this?”


    Talking to a corpse was a really funny thing to do, but Vera didn’t stop talking even though he was thinking this.


    “I have a really great talent. With this talent, a good for nothing scum was able to be the most evil person on the continent.”


    Vera gathered all the strength that had been left in his body until then, and finally grabbed her hand, which was ced in the muddy water.


    There was a tattoo in the shape of 8 strokes of curves intertwined to form a circle under Vera’s sleeves and forearms.


    “Stigma, you say. I have one as well .”


    Vera said so and giggled. This is because it was funny that he was divulging his secrets that he had not told anyone in his life.


    “The God of oath. That is my stigma. With this stigma, I can confer weight on my words.”


    I don’t know why. Just one day, a stigma suddenly appeared on my forearm.


    Because the stigma was a known miracle that the gods bestowed upon their most cherished servant, Vera wondered why the stigma appeared on him.


    It was a natural thought . He didn’t believe in God, nor did he want to represent God’s will.


    So, Vera used this stigma simply for his own greed.


    “… If I make an oath and pay a price for it, I get that much power.”


    With this skill, with this miracle, he was able to hold half of the continent.


    He was able to put all the shadows on this continent under his feet.


    “Of course there are penalties. If I don’t keep my oath, in addition to what I paid for, my soul will be ripped apart by the amount of strength I gained.”


    There was only one time when I did not keep my vow.


    Vera still remembered the pain of that moment clearly.


    It’s like his existence was being torn into pieces, and it’s a pain that makes cold sweat flow through your body just by thinking about it.


    That moment was more painful than everything he had ever experienced in my life and he feared it more than anything.


    The pain thates when you break the oath was that kind of pain.


    So, I will never break my oath again. I promised so


    “… But, because of you, I broke my oath again.”


    Because of you, I broke the oath I made for the rest of my life, that I would never feel regret, that I would be willing to bear the punishment for all the sins I hadmitted in my life.


    After meeting you, I regretted my life because of your light.


    Now my whole soul will be wiped out. Will there be only a little speck of dust remaining? Even if you don’t know, it’s certain it will be difficult for him to remain in existence.


    With such thoughts in mind, Vera looked at Renee nkly and reflected on the past 15 days or so of time he spent with her.


    Those times felt so close to infinite yet passed by so quickly.


    If I had to pick one of the most miserable moments of my life, those moments would be number one. However, ironically, those moments are also the ones he cherished the most.


    Vera savored the thoughts passing through his head, looking at Renee with a vision blurred to the point where he couldn’t even properly distinguish the shape of an object.


    Slowly, his lips moved involuntarily as he spoke.


    “… I have lived for myself my entire life. However.”


    It wasn’t an identalnguage. It was just this unfamiliar feeling that made me say that.


    That’s what I wanted to say to her, who made the feelings of ‘regret’ sprout inside of him.


    “If there is a next life, if my soul still remains… .”


    That, you were the one who changed me.


    “…I don’t mind living for you then. When I’m with you, I feel like I can live a life without regrets.”


    By your side, even this evil being would dare to live what could be called life.


    Saying so, Vera used his stigma for thest time of his life.


    “Yeah, that would be nice. It won’t be much, but… I will use all of my remaining soul in this oath.”


    The stigma burned with gold.


    Now, you just need to engrave the oath on this stigma.


    Vera, as always, engraved an oath on the golden stigma.


    “If I’m allowed to live another life, that life…, I’ll live for you. I swear.”


    I will put you in the most honorable position, and live my life standing by your side to protect you.


    I engraved such an oath into my soul.


    The oath was engraved, and the body reverberated. I felt a burning sensation in my soul.


    It was a feeling that was infinitely close to pure abstraction, but it was a feeling very familiar to Vera, who had been using stigma throughout his life.


    Vera slowly closed his eyes only after confirming that the stigma had been activated.


    So, as he was thinking, I’m going to die atst.’


    Tick-.


    In Vera’s ear, the sound of the clock was heard.