There’s a Monster Inside Me Chapter 1

There’s a Monster Inside Me

Chapter 1

I stared ahead.

The pitch-black smoke rose high like a mountain, and the crimson flames were fierce enough to swallow even millennia-old ice.

That was the king of endless hell!

The ruler of the underworld had appeared in the mortal realm, and no one could stand against him.

Rivers, streams, and even the sea dried up. The earth split open, and plagues spread.

Humans never realized that everything that had happened over the past several years was a sign of the hell god’s appearance.

To think that I, who had lived half my life as a fugitive, would become the last survivor.

If I had known the end would be like this, I wouldn’t have anxiously clung to life for so long.

“I want to eat. I want to eat. Hehehe, if only I could take just one bite…”

I hear the voice of the food spirit demon.

Even facing destruction before my eyes, the creature inside my body wouldn’t give up its appetite.

It was the one who transformed me into a fugitive, and also the reason I had survived until now.

To think I would be with this thing until the last moment of my life!

“I want to eat. Just one bite…”

It’s a crazy thought.

Before taking one bite, I would be consumed by the hell demon’s flames.

KUWAAANG!

The massive hammer wielded by the ruler of endless hell swept across my vision.

The smell of burning flesh was my own.

Black smoke tore my lips, creating a bright red smile.

Damn, what a horrific expression!

A mountain-like fist fell toward my head.

…This is the end!

KWAAANG!

The sound of impact with the ground was unbearably tragic.

In the final moment, I planted my foot and leaped. My tenacious lifeline struggled desperately to the end.

In the black smoke, a red mouth opened askew.

Was it mocking me?

It had seen countless people running away, but it couldn’t have imagined a crazy human charging toward the hell demon.

“HEHEHEHE, let’s eaaaaaat!”

An excited voice echoed in my stomach.

TOONG!

The food spirit demon burst out from between the undulating flesh of my stomach.

“CRUNCH, CRUNCH!”

Is it possible to bite through pitch-black smoke?

However, the demon, crazed for food, finally bit greedily into the black smoke.

“KUEOEOERK…!”

Even the strongest god ruling hell let out a painful groan as its body was devoured.

“No! The years… the time…!”

Thunder-like wailing struck my ears.

Even in that moment, the sounds of biting, crunching and gnawing never ceased.

***

I fell into an abyss without a single ray of light. It was like becoming a spinning top that never stopped.

The overwhelming dizziness prevented me from even thinking about opening my eyes. Only the sounds I heard were all I could sense.

“KEEACK… GURURURUK…”

Since becoming one with the food spirit demon, I had never heard such labored chewing and swallowing sounds.

“KAAK, PTUEIT!”

I had also never seen it spit out what it was eating.

When the food spirit demon retched, my body, which had been crumpled and dried up, fell with a thud. As if I had been eaten and spat out.

What on earth had happened?

I tried my hardest to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

“Hey. Wake up. Hey!”

Someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me. My bobbing head straightened only after receiving a slap across the face.

“…?”

“Are you awake?”

Through my fluttering eyes, there was a hazy light.

WHIK!

At the sound of wind being cut, my instincts moved first.

THUD!

I firmly grabbed something flying toward my cheek.

“Oh!”

With a sigh of surprise, my vision cleared.

The first thing I saw was the blue sky.

It was completely different from the world full of hellfire and black smoke.

A person’s face appeared in my hazy vision.

Startled by the unfamiliar black eyes meeting mine, I jumped up like a frog.

All people had died… there were no living people to be found, all roasted by the crimson hellfire.

What is happening?

In front of me stood a middle-aged priest wearing a white silk crane robe, with a bewildered expression.

I recognized that face.

He was the one who had sent me, an orphan boy from a rural village, to the Thousand-Year School.

The priest cleared his throat as he shook off his wrist that I had grabbed.

“You have divine power. What is your name?”

My hazy childhood memories from the distant past. This is clearly from when I was twelve years old.

“Hey, boy. What is your name?”

I moved my lips to answer the priest who asked again.

“…Maru…”

In a world filled only with crimson flames and smoke, where opening my mouth would burn my throat and even breathing was difficult… strangely, I could speak.

I felt my body.

The countless wounds that had been torn and burst were gone. The calluses like a turtle’s shell and the hard muscles had vanished.

Only thin, fragile flesh remained.

“Maru? Do you have a family name?”

“Sea… Badamaru.”

“Badamaru…”

The priest wrote the name in the register. The moment I saw him wielding the brush, the vague boundary between dream and reality collapsed completely.

I jumped up and snatched the paper. In the process, the last character spilled outside the register.

The character the priest was writing was Ha(下), a mark given to those with spiritual power but unremarkable divine power.

“Hey! Have you lost your mind?”

The priest’s face turned red and blue after having his register snatched.

“Maru, are you alright?”

An old man with a beard stuck out his face abruptly.

“Maru, you fool! Get a hold of yourself! You have divine power… such a great blessing…!”

His wrinkled hands grasped mine firmly.

“Master…!”

My throat choked up. My heart felt like it would burst, but my throat was completely blocked and no sound would come out.

Ah, you’re alive! How…?

“No, has your mind gone somewhere because you’re too happy, or what?”

I could also see the face of a girl whose eyes were full of worry even though her mouth was scolding.

“Y-Yeolmae!”

I grabbed Yeolmae’s shoulders. The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly as if my rough grip hurt.

“Why… Why are you acting like this, Brother?”

As an orphan from birth, my only family was the Master and Yeolmae.

The kind-hearted Master, unable to contain his overflowing compassion, willingly took me in despite my uselessness.

Even when I was driven out of the Thousand-Year school and became a fugitive, these two never abandoned me.

“Are you crazy? Why are you acting so weird? Come to your senses, Brother!”

Despite her harsh words, I found myself smiling.

When I was young, I used to be hurt by that kind of talk. But now I know better.

Under a grandfather who only knew how to give to others, Yeolmae developed a rough manner of speaking to protect herself. But her heart is as tender and warm as the Master’s.

That was a truth I realized belatedly after becoming a fugitive.

Yeolmae looked at me with confused eyes.

Ah, you’re alive. Everyone is alive… The Master and Yeolmae are still alive, not dead!

A large teardrop fell to the ground.

Yeolmae, who had been looking at me with a puzzled expression, became flustered and didn’t know what to do. Her small hand repeatedly touched my forehead.

“Why are you acting like this? Are you sick? Are you joking?”

Despite my tears spreading, a smile leaked from the corners of my mouth.

“Haha, I see. I get it. That guy… that crazy demon finally swallowed it!”

Now I had a sense of what the food spirit demon had swallowed.

“Heh… Heheheh… That guy, that crazy guy…”

I recalled the desperate scream of the King of Endless Hell that echoed in the final moment.

“No! The years… the time…!”

Everything became clear as if struck by thunder and lightning.

The damn food spirit demon bit the god of the endless hell!

 In the end, it devoured time from the flesh of the Demon King itself!

“AHAHA…”

The food spirit demon that was tearing and eating the Demon King’s flesh had spit out what it couldn’t fully swallow, my world after the age of twelve!

I couldn’t stop laughing, whether from relief or joy, I wasn’t sure.

***

Once I was alone in the room, I hurriedly pulled up my plain cotton jacket.

My skinny stomach was fully exposed.

Around my navel, extending to my lower abdomen and solar plexus, there was a hideous mark. There was a drawing there as if my skin had been dyed with black ink.

The long, ripped mouth centered on my navel with sharp, pointed teeth was grotesque.

A demon face that should only be decorating brick eaves was stuck to my stomach, proving that the events of the past years were not a dream.

“Hey, food spirit demon. Hey…”

I tapped my stomach, but it didn’t move at all.

Could it be dead?

No, that’s impossible. If that were the case, the pattern would have disappeared too.

It must still be somewhere. Perhaps it’s recovering its strength while laying low.

“Hey, stop playing around and come out.”

I pinched my dry stomach hard.

Still, it didn’t answer.

Although I felt frustrated not knowing what was happening, I decided not to be hasty.

Time was flowing even without its presence. If I wasted time like this, the world would once again head toward destruction.

I wouldn’t mind dying right away, but the lives of those dear to me were too precious to lose, enough to make me weep tears of blood.

The Master, Yeolmae, and the Thousand-Year school that became my spiritual home.

I will never again watch them disappear, engulfed in flames.

I thought about what I could do immediately with this insignificant body.

The answer came to me before long.

‘I must gather divine power!’

My innate divine power is terrible. But as a result of being obsessed with survival as a fugitive for a long time, I learned how to accumulate divine power.

The experience of desperately hanging on was about to shine.

In the early dawn, I came out to the wooden floor and sat cross-legged.

I heightened my senses and felt for my lower abdomen. I could feel a fragile and weak divine power.

Ha, was my innate divine power always this insignificant?

While I was with the food spirit demon, my divine power became formidable. That’s why I had forgotten the past.

This is how it originally was.

This is the pitiful talent I possessed.

Somehow it felt like the distant past.

It was in a moment when my life was in danger that I realized everything revealed in all directions had divine power dwelling in it.

Even without being born with the grace of heaven, I came to know that divine spirit dwells in the universe.

After realizing that, I took in the principle contained in every tree and blade of grass.

So for me, the world was like a bottomless jar.

Small pieces of divine power that wandered the mountains and rivers gathered in my lower abdomen like faint starlight.

I settled only those that were pure and clear, and scattered the rest generously.

If I prioritize quantity over quality when gathering haphazardly, refining it later becomes a major task.

Because when impure things enter, they rather eat away at the pure energy, I knew well that even when my heart is urgent, walking the right path is the correct thing to do.

After quite some time passed like that, I opened my eyes.

When I started meditation, the sky was dark, but somehow the outlines of mountains and trees had become clear.

Ah, such a peaceful world! 

That fact made my heart swell with emotion as if realizing it anew.

Between the pillars, Yeolmae’s head peeked out and then disappeared.

She seemed to be pacing anxiously, not knowing what to do about my unusual behavior.

Since her expression was full of concern, I deliberately gave her a gentle smile.

“I think he’s gone crazy…”

“Ahem.”

Through my wide-open senses, I could clearly hear Yeolmae’s muttering. I cleared my throat and pretended not to hear.

From between the pillars where Yeolmae was standing, an acorn-shaped wooden bowl was slowly extended.

A cup of rippling water.

It was obvious that Yeolmae, having discovered her brother up early in the dawn, had brought a cup of clear water and was contemplating how to offer it.

Originally, during meditation to gather divine power, one doesn’t feel hunger or thirst at all. It’s the same even after fasting for three or four days straight.

Although I wasn’t thirsty, I gratefully accepted the water bowl that Yeolmae offered.

“Thank you, Yeolmae.”

What I swallowed in one breath wasn’t just water but feelings. It was sweet affection.

Behind the pillar, Yeolmae’s black, round eyes grew even larger.

Both saying thank you and readily accepting kindness must be different from my past behavior.

The corners of Yeolmae’s mouth twitched awkwardly as she took back the empty bowl.

***

After breakfast, I put on straw shoes and went outside.

Having completed all twelve books taught at the school, I had nothing else to do until the day I would go to the Thousand-Year school.

“Master, I think I’ll go to the mountain for a while.”

The door of the school room flung open.

“Yes, getting some fresh air would be good.”

The old me would have holed up indoors, refusing to step outside.

The only thing I was good at was reading and copying books, and using that as an excuse, I would stay put for days on end.

The Master’s eyes curved gently at the thought that someone like me would voluntarily go out for fresh air.

***

I walked along the street.

My hair, tightly tied in a ponytail, swayed from side to side.

The smoke rising in puffs from each chimney made my heart feel sweet.

This place is peaceful.

There are no assassins chasing me.

Ah… this is what the world was like!

I closed my eyes. 

Instead of the scent of death, the smell of rice and grilling fish was delicious.

The small but simple fragrance of life couldn’t be more pleasant.

“Hey, looks like someone’s in a good mood?”

“They say even a loser like you has divine power, huh?”

Even the approaching rascals were welcome.

Ilpae, Ipae, Sampae… their names flashed through my mind instantly.

“Oh? Did you just smile? You crazy bastard!”

I must have unknowingly raised my lips.

“Hey, are you happy? Reading only books and now going to the Thousand-Year school, Are you happy?, you bastard!”

At this age, I was the neighborhood punching bag.

Loitering good-for-nothings would find any excuse to torment me when they saw me. That’s why I tried not to go out whenever possible.

SWOOSH!

Ilpae’s fist approached my face.

In my previous life, that fist broke my nose. The crooked bridge of my nose started from not receiving proper treatment at that time.

I slowly extended my hand.

THUD!

I caught the flying fist.

As I caught the whirling fist without blinking, Ilpae’s pupils expanded to the size of basins.