Pain!
Excruciating pain!
Amidst the storm, in a dark chamber on the lowest deck of a ship.
Shi Ming was curled up in a dark corner. An intense, throbbing pain shot from his right arm to his head, causing him to tremble uncontrollably. A viscous liquid flowed down his arm, dripping onto the filthy wooden planks below.
Blood...
The air, already thick with the stench of rot and mold, now carried the fresh, coppery tang of blood.
He snapped to his senses!
'Something's wrong!'
'Didn't I die? How am I still conscious?'
He opened his eyes. In the dim light, he could vaguely make out that his right hand was covered in sticky blood. Lying before him was the corpse of a middle-aged man.
???
He had killed someone.
Yes, he had killed someone.
He remembered it clearly. He was an elite operative on a top-secret mission, "Escort: Eye of the Divine," when he killed one of the enemy's Mercenaries. The man had tried to snatch the antique he was carrying—a mysterious, blood-patterned pendant.
So how had that enemy's corpse turned into this atrophied, frail-looking middle-aged man?
'Besides, didn't I die in a massive explosion?'
'My body should have been incinerated. How am I perfectly fine?'
'And this place... the salty smell of the sea, the sound of waves, the constant, violent rocking?'
'On a ship?'
His head felt like it was about to split open.
Memories flooded back like a tidal wave.
...
Shi Ming stared at the corpse of the middle-aged man.
He had been reborn.
He had killed the man before him.
To be precise, the body's original owner had killed him.
This was the slave hold of a ship. The vessel had been caught in a fierce storm at sea, leaving them without any source of food for ten days. The last rations had been distributed five days prior, when the ship's captain gave each slave two hard, dry steamed buns. Since then, their daily sustenance had been a single bottle of salty water mixed with a tiny amount of nutrients to keep them alive.
With no food for days, the twenty-odd slaves trapped here were all gaunt with hunger,
like livestock awaiting slaughter.
The body's previous owner had accidentally revealed his hoarded food to another slave. The other man had flown into a rage and tried to steal it. In the ensuing struggle, both of them had died...
And that was when he had transmigrated, taking over this body to be reborn.
The bad news, however, was that the original owner was the killer, making him the scapegoat. And the iron-clad rule on this ship was: murderers must die!
Especially slaves.
His gaze swept across the room. In the putrid darkness of the hold, slaves lay about like inanimate objects. Some whimpered incessantly, while others had already begun to silently decay, their corpses emitting a foul stench.
If his transmigration hadn't reset the body's condition, he'd probably be in the same state as the rest of them.
He felt his pocket. Inside was half a steamed bun.
This was the half-eaten bun the body's previous owner would rather die than surrender.
The bun had already grown moldy in the damp air, but it was still life-saving. In this dark hold, someone starved to death almost every day. It wasn't much food, but it was incredibly precious.
Shi Ming carefully tucked the bun away.
He didn't want to die. Not again.
Even if he'd been saddled with a murder charge the moment he was reborn.
Besides, this world was completely screwed up—
According to the previous owner's memories, this world had been transformed into a global ocean after a massive Celestial Calamity. Humanity survived by drifting on "Drifting Arks." With the collapse of the old order, the world had devolved into a primitive society ruled by the law of the jungle. The strong controlled the resources vital to life, while the weak became "human stock"—a status even lower than that of a slave.
The Drifting Ark he was on was currently battling the storm with all its might. The crew hadn't received any food supplies for ten days; they could neither fish nor produce anything.
The people in this dark hold had been starving for five days, barely different from walking corpses.
In this crisis, the ship's food supply was dwindling with every meal. Naturally, the slaves were the last priority.
When things got truly desperate, it wasn't out of the question that they themselves would become food.
One should never underestimate a creature's will to survive.
As someone who had already died once—a man who had left his home, witnessed countless struggles for life on the battlefield and on missions, only to die filled with regret—Shi Ming's desire to survive this time around was absolute!
'I will not die so easily!'
'Even if death is inevitable, I'll fight until my last breath!'
He looked at the corpse, his mind racing.
For now, he wouldn't starve to death.
But the ship's rule was that murderers must die.
'I have to find a way out of this!'
Fortunately, his Physical Strength had been reset to its peak, and he still had the half-eaten bun from the previous owner.
...
...
...
An unknown amount of time passed.
The lone, energy-saving lightbulb in the hold flickered on. From outside came the CLANKING and GRINDING of machinery, along with the faint sound of human voices.
"This damned storm finally stopped. Go check on the consumables, see how many are left. Make sure they haven't all croaked..."
A stir went through the dark hold.
Those who were still alive instinctively raised their heads, their numb eyes, now filled with desperate longing, fixed on the single door.
CREAK— The groan of decaying wood was followed by a rush of fresh air into the hold, which had not seen the light of day for a long, long time.
...
"Captain, in Hold 403, we started with 20 slaves, 11 remain. Six of them appear to have starved to death, and three died from infighting. One of those was killed about an hour ago. The deceased's eyes were gouged out, and the cause of death was asphyxiation."
A man in a blood-stained combat suit reported to his superior.
The "Captain" was the leader of the Exploration Team. On this post-apocalyptic Drifting Ark, beyond the conventional roles of Captain, First Mate, Second Mate, and Chief Engineer, the most vital component was the Exploration Team.
Their duty was to scout for and secure resources, maintain internal security, and defend against external threats.
"Oh? An hour ago? They've been starving for this long and still have the energy to fight amongst themselves?"
"We've been out there, fighting the storm on empty stomachs, and these slaves still have the energy for infighting? Looks like the food rations for the slaves are still too generous."
Under the yellow light, the Exploration Team Captain's eyes fell on Shi Ming, who was closest to the body, and on the large crimson stains covering his right hand and arm.
"You're the one who killed him?"
"You're done for."
The Captain's sharp gaze fell on him, as if he were already looking at a corpse. He strode over to Shi Ming and yanked him up. Shi Ming deliberately didn't resist, taking a solid punch to the gut.
"Hah, you've still got some fight in you."
The Exploration Team Captain snorted.
The impact of a fist on a healthy person felt completely different from one on a person with no strength to resist.
"Killing someone just like that? What do you think this place is?"
A tide of fists and feet rained down on him, but none of it was fatal. It wasn't that the Captain was holding back, but that he didn't dare overstep his authority. Even someone like him was, in a way, just another kind of slave. He had no right to decide matters of life and death without permission.
"This is a Drifting Ark, a sanctuary protecting human civilization, not some animal society where the strong devour the weak! Even if he was just a slave, it wasn't your place to kill him.
"Number 3, take him to the Ship's Captain to be dealt with!
"Take those corpses away, too! The fishing has been poor, and we're low on food. We can use the bodies for chum.
"The rest of you, one steamed bun and one bottle of water each."