Handpump!!!
[X] Begin
[B] Quit to Desktop
The cursor lingers uncertainly.
New Game [X]
Proceed [Y]
Settings [A]
Quit to Opening Menu [B]
The Curser pulses, falls, and hits the menu with a soft ripple.
[New Game Chosen]
Main Story [X]
Summoning [Y]
Events [A]
Back to Menu [B]
[Main Story Selected]
[Chapter 1: Prophet of Uncertainty]
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"In the world, every person is born with destiny.
God's final plan.
They run from it, curse it, manipulate fate itself, simply accept it.
It was truth that everything was already determined.
Ultimately, God's grace would be the judge when the time comes and the sky shatters.
Hell is not a place of ice and fire.
It's a land without God."
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The air is thick with activity in Seoul Airport, a steel and glass hive where multilingual announcements ring over the noise. Suitcases zip past on highly buffed surfaces that reflect white light. The scent of coffee, jet fuel, and perfume wafts between bodies that stream in haste.
Behind a large window with a view of the runways, a boy stands apart from the crowd of passengers. His jacket is unzipped on his lanky body, his black hair against the dark background of moving crowds. He has his hands in his pockets, his eyes scanning faces, not searching for someone but taking it all in—the anxious parent pushing kids, the exhausted businessman slumped over phones, the studious seriousness of students clutching passports to their chests.
The city waits beyond, its skyline pressing through the smog like a forest of steel. Bridges stretch across the Han like glowing veins, neon flickers against the dusk, and the restless pulse of Seoul hums even here, inside the sealed, bright walls of the airport.
"So much for a flight," he moaned, clutching his abdomen, his face twisted in pain. "Fuck bencho!" His voice caught between a laugh and a groan as he leaned painfully against the reception counter for support. With one trembling hand, he thrust forward the travel document—passport, ticket, whatever the protocols demanded—toward the impassive receptionist.
The young woman blinked in shock at the abrupt blast. Her hair was tied back neatly, uniform sharp and crisp, a professional veneer that cracked ever so slightly at the sight of his white, contorted face. She leaned forward, her voice soft but insistent.
"Gwanchanha-yo? Gwaenchanh-seyo?"
(How do you do? Are you okay?)
She was met with the boy's tight, dazed stare, his furrowed eyebrows as if her concern was another puzzle. She remembered—he didn't speak Korean. A flicker of alarm crossed her face before she shifted, her words quick but contained as she changed into English.
"Sir, are you sick? Do I call for a doctor?"
The boy attempted to calm his breathing, beads of sweat beginning at his temples, his fists curled around the counter so hard that the veins in the back of his hand bulged like ropes. His silence was prolonged, his pride fighting the pain in his stomach. The whine of the airport passed by, unmindful, but for an instant the world had been reduced to the boy, the receptionist, and the burden of his struggle.
"He's brown… how in the world did he get diarrhea of all the people who got on that plane? Must be low-level jeet," a Korean man complained under his breath, loudly enough for the wrong ears to hear.
The boy's ear went rigid, his jaw snapping shut over the searing cramp curling his belly. His head swung slowly, his eyes constricting, not in complete understanding of the words but in awareness of their bite.
"Heard that, Mr. Yamada," he shot back, his tone half-bitten through pain.
The man blinked in astonishment for a moment before he laughed. "Yamada is a Japanese name."
His lips curled, a forced smile appearing on his scowl. "Sirf name hi hai… baaki dikhte saare same hi hai."
[Only the name, the rest all look the same.]
The jab lingered, like smoke that would not dissipate. The receptionist's mask quivered for an instant—her lips parted, as if to say something, but she checked herself, restrained by the proprieties of professionalism. The terminal surrounding them appeared to incline; a businessman scrolling his phone stopped dead, his eyes flicking upward; a mother drew in her child, muttering something as not to shatter the tableau. The fluorescent tubes hummed, and the undertone of languages in the distance had a faint tinge of tension.
"Go shit on the street, Ranjeet," the Korean man growled, doubling his bet, his voice dripping with contempt. He leaned back against his rolling suitcase, smiling as if anticipating laughter to hold him up. There came none—only silence, the sort that seemed more powerful than sound.
The boy—Rudra—raised his head, gaze fastening on the man. Pain flashed in his belly, but pride flared higher, holding his gaze fast. He did not say anything yet, merely regarded him in a manner that caused the man to move half a step back, pained at being examined so openly.
[X] "I should just checkout"
[Y] "Akhrut pai choot [Kick him in balls]"
[B] "Let's talk about 4B movement"
[A] "Vese vo comfort girls? [ask about Jap atrocities]"
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[X is chosen]
"I should just check out," Rudra growled under his breath, his voice softer now, easy but with an undercurrent of raw control. He stood by the counter again, not about to waste his strength on someone who didn't even warrant it. His hand was shaking as he produced his document, but whether from the ache in his stomach or the suppressed anger, it was impossible to discern.
He's petty enough to mention Unit 731. But his stomach had been twisting itself in knots already, and his pride was a gossamer thread he didn't feel like snapping here, in this antiseptic room of witnesses.
Thanks," he snarled, forcing courtesy past gritted teeth as the receptionist allowed her gaze to drop to his passport.
Her eyebrows went up half a fraction. The name was concise and harsh. Just Rudra. But it was the line below that she picked up on. Age: 15. Her eyes snapped back to him again. Tall, broad-shouldered, with an aura too thick for a boy. For a moment, she nearly caught herself asking herself how he even possessed this passport in the first place—then she was cut short, lips clenching into a subdued "ah." She knew better than to ask more.
She nodded, voice relaxing. "Would you like to see a doctor, sir?"
Rudra shifted, hand against his belly. A smile crept up to his lips, thin but keen, his means of holding the world back from seeing just how much it seared within.
"The matter of fact is," he began, his tone flip, almost arrogant, "I don't get no diarrhea. I'm just sensitive to. too much shaking. The plane was flying through some rotten weather." He snorted delicately, a sound stuck halfway between apology and boasting. "It's a phase. Temporary one. But thanks."
His smile barely touched his eyes, a faint breakthrough of the sun through a storm cloud. He grasped his bag, the strap over his shoulder, the weight pulling at him but not unbalancing him. He nodded toward the receptionist's direction, and he turned from the counter, the shiny floor glinting in reflection of his fading back. The insult still stung, but Rudra continued, back ramrod-straight with the pain, in defiance of the stranger's insult to his withdrawal. The thrum of Seoul clamped in around him again, faceless and stormy, but to him every step was a decision, graven out in opposition to the weight of all that had been written upon him.
But when Rudra turned around, some eyes had already seen the glint of his passport. Not the blue that every traveler clutched like a lifeline, but the harder, darker one with the insignia. Military connection. It had an authority that wasn't in the possession of a fifteen-year-old boy.
The receptionist's gaze lingered a fraction of a second longer on the paper even after he tucked it away in his pocket. A furrow was traced between her brows. She whispered softly, leaning ever so slightly towards a companion attendant standing behind the counter beside her, talking quickly and biting in her own language.
"Indo gunggun eseo bonnaen geo-ya? Mwot ttaemune?"
(The Indian millitary sent him here? For what?)
The terminal hummed with antiseptic activity—announcements, squeaking of luggage wheels, the faraway hiss of coffee machines—but Rudra's focus contracted to himself. The bag hung heavily on his shoulder, his breathing was panting, and his stomach still contracted from the flight. He moved with a stubborn kind of steadiness, though the pressure of the receptionist's lingering gaze still rested on his back.
{"Tum bohot bori cheez bolne waale the, hai na"?}
["You were going to say something prejudiced, weren't you?"]
The voice enveloped his mind like incense, unmistakable and mocking. Bhairava.
"Mere pait ki gand maari padi thi, Bhairav," Rudra snarled, running a hand through his black hair, the strands clinging in jagged clumps. His ahoge stubbornly sprang back, refusing to be subdued, and he flicked it again with exact annoyance.
["Yeah, but my stomach was fucked at the time, Bhairava."]
A wet, sour note hit his nose. He stopped dead, sniffed again—beneath his arms, across his shirt—and his belly churned for an all-new reason. His scent was on it. Sweat, pasty and sour after sitting for hours in the plane's air recycling system. His face twisted with disgust. He tore open his bag with mad urgency, dumping out a rumpled can of deodorant. The hiss hung in the air, chemical and bitter, invading the airport's scented polish.
"Maderchod, am I the only one in the world with a sweat problem?" He spat, his voice heard loudly enough to turn heads, frustration seeping through his composure.
["Motherfucker, am I the only one in the world with a sweat problem?"]
The spray misted onto him, adhering to his shirt and his skin, the acrid bitterness stinging his throat. Passersby who went on slowed, some wrinkling up their noses, others casting sideways glances—disapproval, amusement, discomfort. Rudra cut them all down, every flicker of feeling a pang in his chest. He sprayed harder, faster, as if he could drown not only the smell but their thoughts too.
Sustaining the stereotype, dear,"
Bhairava's voice teased, low and chuckling in his ear.
Rudra's jaw tensed, black hair falling over his face as he growled, "Sybau, Bhairava." The voice was slightly rough but hollow, his anger a sheath over churning shame.
He stood, heaving, can of deodorant trembling in his hand. The air in his vicinity scorched with the pungency of chemicals, his body sticky where sweat and spray had mixed. He hated it—the feeling, the smell, the eyes. He hated the way his own body betrayed him. And still as he slung the bag further along his shoulder and strode on ahead, his steps were heavy but unbroken, as a man determined to walk through fire even though it was burning him raw.
(Author's Note:
'Rudra has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is most apparent in his fixation with cleanliness, particularly with his own sweat.". In addition to that, he also has difficulty with Vestibular Hypersensitivity / Motion Sickness Disorder otherwise known medically as Vestibular Dysfunction or Visually Induced Motion Sickness. What that means is that excessive plane turbulence, or really bright flickering lights in environments such as in nightclubs or in neon-saturated neighborhoods, can cause intense nausea and disorientation. That's why the flight was painful to him, and why Seoul's neon-drenched streets—glowing, buzzing, and thumping with incessant light—are also haunting him as he makes his way through the city's brightest section'.).
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"Holy shit, a Saar!!!"
The voice broke from a boy's throat, perhaps twelve, perhaps younger, the sort of kid whose eyes already seemed too wired by unmonitored internet, whose tongue bore all the wrong expressions he shouldn't even have yet. He yelled at Rudra as he got off the bus, half hoping the tall stranger would wince or sneer or yell back. But instead Rudra just smiled, bent down, his shadow engulfing the boy's sneakers.
"Ask your mommy," Rudra whispered, breath like a blade slipping under the ribs, "why exactly you've got so much Japanese DNA running in your blood."
The boy blinked. He didn't even understand the venom in the words. He only froze. Rudra straightened, face calm, though inside Bhairava was already spitting disgust.
{"Insaan kitna gandmara ho sakta hai…"}
["How petty a fifteen-year-old can be?"]
The inner voice scorned him, sharp, heavy with disappointment.
{"He's a child, Rudra. You don't have to make fun of atrocities his people endured".}
Rudra sighed, crooked smile quivering on his lips. "Right. But I'm an asshole."
And then the world leaned. Not forward, nor sideways—but all ways at once, creasing into that strange dilation known only to his body. Time broke like glass. Sound was smothered. His chest heaved as if something struggled to rip itself from his lungs. The ahoge atop his head quivered furiously, antennae to the storm of unseen signals rippling on the air. His left eye burned and changed—gold surging the iris like molten metal.
"Shit," he growled, eyes snapping back to the boy. The same boy, but. not. There was a presence about him that was not his—darkened, weighted, as though some ghost moth had alighted upon his shoulders, drunken on rot. A darkness no one else could see. And above it all, a truck roared down the road, blind, unknowing, its horn lost in the prolonged molasses of slowing time.
Rudra clenched his teeth.
{Ek Rusalka Butterfly…}
["A Rusalka Butterfly?"] Bhairava's voice shook through the cold moment, half astonished, half caution.
Time curdled like water in Rudra's bloodstream, syrupy and thick, each sound drawing out into something unfamiliar and wrong. His ahoge shook as if it were an antenna picking up buzz from some dimension not supposed to be breathed, and the gold flash in his left eye cut the world into too much reality. The child's aura, that grease stain of darkness swirling out from the butterfly, appeared to respire with hunger. The truck's headlights descended, ringed in that unnatural slow-motion smear.
{"Get him before he gets isekai'd. I swear, Rudra, I'd hate to see some middle-school kid arrive in another world with an elf harem."}
Bhairava's voice snapped like a whip, a combination of mocking and threatening, but Rudra sensed the disinterest running through the words. It wasn't the boy. It was Rudra again making a choice. Whether he'd be savior or bastard.
The decision spread across his head like an ancient RPG display.
[X] – Save the boy
[Y] – Shout at him to clear his head
[B] – Do nothing and hold out for 'I got reincarnated into another world because a petty jeet didn't saved me from a fucking truck when I was getting seduced by evil butterfly thing' light novel to come out (Sloth Ending)
[A] – Play Despacito
His lips curled in a scowl. "We already have enough transmigration slop in the market."
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[X] was selected.