Prologue
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Under the moonless sky shrouded with ominous clouds, the park in the city center fell into darkness, when the dimly lit street lamps suddenly lost their function.
Perhaps it was because of the unusual weather, an untimely winter torrential rain began to pour down around the park.
Shwaaa!!!!!
The ferocious raindrops fell onto the ground so heavily that nothing could be discerned even if it was an inch ahead.
However under the pouring rain, a man draped in all black stood like a ghost, unbothered by the raging weather.
“It’s all your father’s fault.”
The sound that slowly spewed out of the mouth of the man who stood there motionless sounded like the voice of a grim reaper.
Even though he had a human form, his sharp gaze lacked any humane warmth as it slowly turned towards the ground.
On the muddy floor of the park, there was a child, little ‘In-yeong’ who laid flat under the pouring rain, unconscious.
With his eyes closely shut, the child appeared like a corpse, but the subtle warmth in the cold air around the child, conveyed that he was still alive.
The man knew that the child was alive when he saw the unique energy floating in the child’s body, despite the struggles.
The grim reapers from the underworld must have been on their way to collect this soul.
There was no more time to waste.
Slowly, the man leaned over and placed his large hand on little Inyeong’s chest.
Shwaaaa!!!!
It seemed that the heavy downpour had suddenly gathered all the raindrops of the world in one place.
“This is only a mere price for not acknowledging the smallest request.”
For the first time, the man’s emotionless voice sounded as if it got tinted with fuming anger, and then all of a sudden, bizarre light began to flash from his deadly eyes.
In an instant, an aura like a black thread began to flow from the man’s large hand onto the child’s chest.
The black aura shrouded with dangerous energy quickly gathered into one mass, and fell straight down.
Tung!
With the sound of something popping, the child’s small body convulsed and at the same time, the faint sound of breathing disappeared.
The unique energy that wandered around the child’s body had vanished in a glimpse.
When the man reached out his hand and touched the child, the little body had already hardened to a degree that made it appear strangely frozen.
The man slowly lifted his hand from the child and stared intently into the dark air beyond the raging torrential rain, as he sensed the energy of the grim reapers nearby.
The man’s lips curled up in a bizarre way.
“Just wait. This is only the beginning.”
The man in black hesitated for a moment as he glanced at the lifeless body of the child who had stopped breathing once more.
He wanted to stay back and confirm that the child’s soul would disappear completely within a few minutes.
However, he realised that the unfamiliar energy which approached him was different from the energy of the underworld messengers.
All of a sudden, he started to feel the power of the dark energy floating in his body rapidly weakening.
The man stared at the child for one last time and quickly disappeared into the darkness without a sound.
Shwaaaa!!!!!
The sound of the rain grew louder than ever.
At that time, a girl about ten years old with long hair, ran down the muddy road alone without an umbrella, making a squeaking sound on the ground.
It was strange.
Even under the raging rain, the girl’s hair and clothes remained dry, as if the rain was avoiding the child or maybe she was avoiding the rain.
Surprisingly the rain did not fall near the girl, no matter where she moved.
The child was running, occasionally glancing behind her, as if she was being chased by someone.
“Oh my, is it really raining on a day like today?”
She turned her pretty eyes to look at the sky and a frustrated squeal left her mouth. She tried to run away as if she resented the heavy rain.
Suddenly, something caught the child’s leg.
“Ah”
The girl’s round eyes widened in shock, and in an instant, her small body fell over the mud.
“Thud”
Even though she fell with a pretty ferocious force, strangely it didn’t hurt her at all.
“Oh, it’s cold! Huh, what is this? It’s all wet!”
She complained while being oblivious to the fact that her protective shield was gone when the energy around her got disturbed by the fall.
In the very next moment, the child was hit by the strong rain. As a bonus, she was immediately covered with muddy water.
When the cold raindrops soaked her whole body and eventually touched her skin, the chilly sensation made the child unwittingly let out a grunt in irritation. Instinctively, she put her hands on the floor to get up.
“……?”
The feeling of the floor touching her hand felt strange, so she turned her gaze to the floor.
As soon as she realised what was supposed to be the muddy floor, her big eyes grew wide as if they were about to fall out. She immediately fell on her buttocks, startled.
“Aahhhh!”
A dead body.
The girl, who shuddered at the sight before her, moved away from it.
“Did….I kill a person?”
The little girl’s little face turned white as she recalled the moment when she was recklessly running.
It was her first trip into the human realm, and she was using divine power to avoid getting hit by the rain as she ran crazily around the park.
‘Humans are weak, even a slight kick might kill them.’ She mumbled, but when she thought about it more, it felt strange.
Is it possible for a human child to lie in the mud in the middle of the night?
“Strange. According to Master Hyeon-hak’s class about humans, he said that human children don’t wander around alone at night.”
Once a question began to arise, an even bigger question bit its tail and all of them started to juggle inside the little girl’s head.
Her doubts were serious enough to dispel the fear that she felt a moment ago
The girl carefully raised her body, and approached the corpse of the child on the floor. She courageously reached out her hand.
As soon as her fingers got in contact with the boy’s cold body, the teachings that she learned in class quickly flashed in her mind.
A human’s body hardens after a few hours after death.
The boy’s body that laid under her hand was already cold and hardened.
“Hey… It’s not like that.”
Letting out a small sigh calm, the girl looked straight into the face of the child lying flat.
His face was as white as snow, she had never seen something like that before and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
As she continued to look at him, it felt as if the boy’s eyes would open at any moment.
“He is so young.”
She mumbled blankly.All of a sudden, she noticed something strange. The girl looked around.
“Why isn’t uncle grim reaper coming?”
A human was dead, but there was no grim reaper to guide the soul to the underworld.
It was evident that the child’s body was lifeless, but it still had a soul.
“Strange.”
In fact, this was the first time she saw a body. No, it was the first time she witnessed death itself.
Is it because of that?
The more she looked at him, the more her head started spinning and her stomach churned for some reason.
Since the shield had been lifted, the heavy rain got into her eyes, causing them to hurt.
As she stood staring at the boy, the violent raindrops sounded like a person’s wailings.
The sorrow that lingered around her had turned to pain and it felt like someone was stabbing her heart with an icy dagger
“It hurts…… .”
The girl muttered under breath and extended her hand without even realizing what she was doing.
She gladly took the hand of the child, who had become cold and hard.
Shoot!!!!
Suddenly, a bright, transparent light began to emanate from the girl’s body, and quickly enveloped the lifeless body of the boy on the floor.
Under the pouring rain, the two of them were glowing white in the pitch black darkness.
It only lasted for a very short time, but a brilliantly bright radiance suddenly began to appear on the girl’s face as she held the boy’s hand, then she turned blue.
Soon after, a huge glow, different from the previous one erupted from the girl’s body, and a swarm of lights soared up into the sky, illuminating the darkness.
“Thud”
The girl, who had sent out a burst of light all at once, collapsed to the floor as the world fell into darkness once again.
Swooshhh!!!
“Joo Hee!!!!!”
A woman appeared out of nowhere, crying and she quickly lifted the little girl up from the ground.
The woman hastily inspected Joo Hee’s motionless body and figured out that the girl was in danger.
She must return and take immediate action.
If she delays for a moment, it would become a disaster.
However, when the woman saw the other child breathing and alive beside Joo Hee she couldn’t help but hesitate for a moment as she didn’t know what to do with him.
“My Lord, what about him?”
Considering the huge power that Joo Hee had just released earlier, it seemed that she got involved in the transfer of life to a human being.
It would be right to immediately take the boy’s life, considering the difficult things that would happen later.
But unfortunately it was not easy for her to take back the life that Joo Hee gave the boy.
More than anything else, the most urgent thing that needed immediate attention was Joo Hee’s deteriorating physical condition.
Swoosh!!!
The figure of the woman holding Joo Hee disappeared in an instant and strong rain that seemed to drown the world had finally diminished into a drizzle.
The drizzling raindrops fell as if caressing the cheeks of the child lying on the floor.
It was subtle, but the child was breathing.
His eyes were closed, but there was a slight warmth in his cold, hardened body as he laid alone on the muddy floor.
After a long time, there was an air of movement on the road next to the park and a car pulled over.
“I want to walk alone, don’t follow me.”
A middle-aged man in a black suit got out of the car and ordered the bodyguard who was holding the umbrella.
“It’s still raining, Chairman.”
“Yeah, it’s still raining.”
He looked at the black sky while smiling bitterly at the words of the bodyguard, as he failed to hide the gloomy glint in his eyes.
“But, if it isn’t on a day like today when I had to send off both my son and daughter at once, when will I ever see the rain again? It’s always an umbrella that I see whenever I look up.”
As the middle-aged man stuttered, the bodyguard folded his umbrella and quietly followed him.
The cold rain at the beginning of winter soaked the black mourning clothes of the middle-aged man who sent his son and daughter-in-law away.It gently washed away his silent tears.
When the middle-aged man got tripped and his body got swayed by something on the floor, the bodyguard stepped in front of his boss.
“Chairman, I think we would better go home now.”
The bodyguard looked around and suggested in a nervous voice.
“I guess I didn’t see anything in vain. Is he dead?”
Anyone who was lying motionless on the park floor in the cold winter rain on a dark night mnust have been abandoned, committed suicide, or most likely murdered.
However, the middle-aged man asked again as if he was not scared to confirm.
The bodyguard hesitated for a moment, then took a step forward and bent down to check the person who was lying on the floor.
“Why is there a child here….?”
The bodyguard muttered in surprise when he confirmed that the person lying in this place was not an adult, but a child who was only about 10 years old.
Even the clothes that the child was wearing were not modern, but something different.
With an upper garment that was long enough to reach past the knee, the boy was wearing something that looked like a robe from an ancient historical drama.
The bodyguard bent down and put his hand on the boy’s neck to check whether the child was alive or not.
“He is alive.”
He let out a startled voice without realizing it.
“Hoo..”
At the bodyguard’s words, the middle-aged man narrowed his eyes and took a closer look at the child.
“Let’s go to the hospital first.”
He knew that there wasn’t just one or two strange reasons related to the child being found in the park, but as soon as the middle-aged man gave out instructions, the bodyguard grabbed the child and quickly rushed to the car.
“This kid, what exactly happened to him on this rainy night?”
The middle-aged man wondered as he followed the bodyguard who carried the child.
It was only a while since he lost his son and daughter-in-law in an accident, and for the first time, the pain in his chest was relieved as they saved the unconscious boy.
Even after reaching the hospital, the child did not open his eyes for a long time.
Although the results of CT scans of the brain showed no abnormalities, the doctors told the old man to wait until the boy became conscious.
He even reported the child to the police on the day they arrived at the hospital, but no one showed up to take the boy home.
He was a child who merely looked ten years old.
Even though he was dressed weirdly as if he came out of a historical drama set, anyone could figure out that the boy grew up preciously in a nice household.
Of course, he expected there would be a missing person report, but it didn’t appear.
For almost a week, the old man would visit the hospital and watch the child, hoping that the person related to the boy would never appear.
Then one day, the child finally opened his eyes, but with no memory.
Even though he couldn’t even remember his name, the boy didn’t panic or cry as he stared at the old man with a blank face.
There were countless questions to ask, but the old man decided to stop seeking answers.
He decided to believe in the twinkling eyes that belonged to the boy and named the child ‘Shinwoo’ on a belief that it was a relationship that God gave him along with the rain.
The boy became Park Shin-woo, borrowing the old man’s last name and in return he gave the lonely man a reason to live again after losing his family.
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