Chapter 0

Descending the slope leading to the swamp, I could hear the sound of water.

Looking up, a pale blue miasma danced and flickered between the trees.

— An anomaly in the space was occurring. Small ghostly aberrations were being summoned.

I walked downstream.

Soon, I found something that resembled it.

In a season about to welcome midsummer, the vegetation unnaturally withered at a certain point, and carcasses of insects and fish floated by the waterside.

Death was clearly delineating a circle around the center of the river.

It resembled a mystery circle.

Only here did all life cease.

Nearby lay the body of a human, dressed like a thief, frozen in the heat, his face twisted in terror within the circle of death.

This is it. There’s no mistake—

I stepped into the river and reached the center of the circle of death, plunging my hand into the water.

Something brushed against my fingertips. I grasped it and pulled it up.

Heat drained from my palm, and in an instant, my fingers felt as if they had been frozen.

It was a small stone statue, fitting in my hand.

Worn smooth by weathering, its contours were hardly discernible.

Yet, it was shaped like a human.

“It’s been a long time. This isn’t just a hundred or two hundred years.”

I muttered and retraced my steps.

On the other side of the forest, a restless young man awaited. As soon as he saw me, he rushed over, but I gestured for him to stop.

We then approached a small shrine nearby.

It was a modest shrine.

Standing only as high as an adult’s waist, it resembled a box that could be cradled in one’s arms.

The shrine was silent, yet its aura was dark and foreboding.

I raised the stone statue I had just retrieved and took a step closer.

The stone pavement trembled beneath my feet.

— A shiver ran through me.

Small black “shadows” crawled out from behind the shrine.

Slithering, they approached, dragging themselves, lost.

They were the spirits of the dead.

Souls that no longer possessed bodies in this world.

“Eeeek!?” the young man screamed.

I spoke, slightly irritated.

“Calm down. Be quiet. They are your kin, after all. They might even be relatives.”

“No way. This can’t be happening.”

“Look closely; they’re small children. They’re all tiny shadows, right? Why not pray for them a little?”

“…”

“It’s sad, you know. They didn’t choose this form.”

I opened my “Inventory” and took out a bottle filled with potent holy oil. I poured it over my head.

The Inventory was visible only to me. The young man was surprised when the bottle suddenly appeared in my hand, but when I said, “It’s a secret magic,” he seemed to understand.

Holding the statue, I approached the shrine. More black spirits of children bubbled up from the surroundings.

Countless eyes opened in the pitch darkness, pleading with me.

The stone statue trembled in my hand.

Resonating—this was likely a “mother.”

For a long time, it had embraced and comforted them in place of their real mother.

In a nearby village, there was a peculiar custom of burying miscarried or prematurely deceased children in a separate location in the forest rather than the communal graveyard.

Thus, this statue was for the souls of water children—

Or perhaps for those who died before reaching the age of three.

I sat before the shrine.

Gently and respectfully, I placed the taken statue inside the shrine, which had been ravaged by thieves.

Then, I began to reconstruct the magic circle that had been broken during the theft.

I rearranged the scattered stones of the talisman inside the shrine back to their original configuration.

Click.

Click.

The sound of stones echoed through the dark forest.

However, the magic circle would not be identical to the original. Otherwise, it would merely confine them again, just as before.

I had to “end” them…

Around me, the black shadows of the children whispered and gathered, swelling and beginning to swirl.

Seeing me, an outsider tampering with the shrine without following the proper ritual, they seemed to misunderstand me as the rogue thief who had stolen the statue.

They tangled around me, desperately trying to overcome the barrier of holy oil and devour me.

Without the holy oil, they would have swallowed me and possessed me.

But perhaps realizing their futility, the attacks stopped, and voices began to reach my ears.

— The cries of children…

I could do nothing for them.

All I could do was to bring an end to their suffering.

As a small consolation, I began to hum a lullaby.

That was all I could do for them.

The magic circle was complete. I placed the final stone of the talisman and took a pen to draw lines connecting them.

The magic activated.

At the same time, the black shadows—the spirits of countless water children—jumped into the circle.

They must have been satisfied to reclaim their “mother”…

Before my eyes, a light twinkled—it was a gap intentionally created in the magic circle.

I inserted my finger and twisted.

In an instant, the old magic circle collapsed in catastrophic imbalance.

It burst apart… the shrine trembled, and light shot up into the sky. The freshly arranged talisman stones crumbled, losing their power.

A strong sensation of levitation emanated from the area. The souls erupted toward the sky.

The spirits of the children who had been trapped in the old prison were released, and the black shadows became translucent, dissolving into the air.

Finally, I heard a child’s voice.

A voice that sounded like laughter, as if they were clinging to their parents.

— Before me, the shrine now held no presence.

In my hand, where I had inserted my finger, a white fragment remained.

It resembled marble. It was the energy source for the magic circle.

This was what I needed… I tossed the fragment into my Inventory.

The miasma cleared, and sunlight streamed through the trees. With the shrine behind me, I began to walk away. In the distance, I could hear birds chirping.

The man who had been watching from behind approached and said.

“Is it… over?”

“Yeah. It’s all over. The spirits of the children will no longer appear in the village.”

“I see! That’s great.”

The young man beamed.

“I’m relieved. We were really troubled! They possessed our livestock, and the crops rotted before they could bear fruit. In the end, they even tried to lure the village children to join them.

Those child spirits were so creepy! They were eerie and grotesque. You must think so too, don’t you, sir?”

“…Maybe.”

For you, perhaps.

The man didn’t notice my cold gaze.

For those “children,” it must have been an incredibly selfish and outrageous statement.

“It’s an old shrine, but why in the world did they build a grave for kids in the middle of the forest back then? I don’t understand anything about it.”

A man who knows nothing babbles.

Here’s the explanation:

Evil spirits that carry disease and calamity have a tendency to prefer devouring the souls of children.

Thus,

“We deliberately place the souls of children who died young in lands unprotected by ancestral spirits, offering them as sacrifices.

We bind them with magic so they can’t escape; whether they are eaten or torn apart, they are regenerated again and again through magical power.

As long as the evil spirits feast on the souls of the dead children, the living will remain unburdened by curses and free from suffering.”

…That was the mechanism behind it.

In other words, they were disposable pawns for sacrifice.

What a revolting way to ensure safety. It was a despicable measure that could be called “effective utilization of stillborns.”

Long ago, the village probably struck a deal with some magician and created this magical circle.

I, a drifter, might have no right or duty to question the villagers of that time.

However, the man in front of me was the current village chief.

He should have been in a position to know everything. Over the long passage of time, the villagers forgot the rituals and neglected their duties as gatekeepers.

Those children were only searching for the statue of their stolen mother.

Inviting other children to join was merely a selfish delusion born from fear. They had attempted to convey the message of the anomaly that arose at the shrine to their kin.

The damage to livestock and crops was not caused by those children. It was the evil spirit that attacked them, losing its prey, which brought disaster to the nearby village.

All of it was the result of ignorance, negligence, misunderstanding, and arrogance.

This man had not asked about what the shrine and magic were, nor had I taught him. I had no desire to do so.

There was no obligation to assist any further in the one-sided exploitation of the dead.

I had no intention of leaving the spirits of the children who had been used as substitutes and imprisoned for hundreds of years as they were.

Those children had protected the village and must have already suffered enough.

More than anything, I needed that piece of white stone.

This village was said to be a rich place without disease. That name would likely no longer be spoken of.

From now on, it would pay the same price as other villages in this world—

By losing those who would suffer in their stead.

“Here’s the promised payment. I’ve prepared ten silver coins.”

“Ah, I’ll accept it.”

I received the bag of coins from the man and tossed it into my inventory.

To him, it probably appeared like a magic trick; he blinked in surprise at the bag that vanished in an instant, but I turned my back without saying a word.

The job was done. I had done what I was told.

I was no longer involved.

I quickly left the scene.

“Hey, thank you. I’m grateful on behalf of my son. His illness will surely get better from now on. Truly, thank you!”

—While feigning as much indifference as possible to his voice.

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Since I came to this world, a long time has passed.

Whether it was a transfer to another world or something else,

I was the victim of this absurd event.

A lot has happened, but in my case, I wasn’t happy at all in the end. All the fun I had has faded away with time, leaving behind loneliness, emptiness, and guilt.

…Three hundred years.

It had already been three hundred years.

And I had been continuously gathering the white fragments that resembled marble for my efforts to return to my original world.

Collecting those white stone fragments.

That was my duty. The reason for my existence here.

No one would come to pick me up. It meant I still hadn’t gathered enough. My duty was not yet fulfilled.

But there was also no certainty that I could truly return…

To be honest, I no longer wished for it. I probably had no right to desire it.

This world is “the world where God has died.”

In this world, divine salvation does not exist.

Perhaps salvation was death.

And that salvation was impossibly distant from me now.

…How many years has it really been? I dig up old memories.

Like unearthing an ancient grave—