Chapter-4 Wicked Thoughts.

He needed a great deal of money for the treatment of his sick son. It was far more than his meager salary could bear. What could a bakery worker do to support his family? For him, joining the army had been the only option.

This deadly war, which had been continuing for twenty years takes the lives of a group of people, on the other side it becomes the livelihood of people like me. Hah... what an irony...

There is no doubt that Aligalerio is a very powerful nation. Likewise, there is no certainty that my country, Yugiya, will win. Even so, the fact that we managed to conquer five provinces is itself a great achievement.

The captain often says that it was bought with blood. But for what is all this? Whose blood is it that they are sacrificing?

Tens of thousands of people have died in this devastating war. Some have lost their homes, others have lost their families, and many are struggling just to feed themselves. Both nations have suffered enormous losses.

The truth is that war is not meant to gain something — it is meant to lose something.

Otherwise, what is this war between friendly nations even for?

When the people beside me are shot and fall, I often think about the families waiting for them back home. What if it had been me who died...?"

His eyes widened. Filled with fear, he quickly closed them. A shiver ran through his entire body.

"My son would die with no one to look after him. My wife would become a widow..."

Sorrow carved a fresh stream of tears down his cheeks.

Wiping his eyes, he continued walking and thought about his wife. Her sad face had often caused him pain.

"What an unfortunate man I am..."

Then he thought of the woman who had married him. After our marriage, we lived happily despite my meager income. One night I told her that her smile was equal to a thousand moons.

She was very beautiful, like an angel. She had taken away all my sorrows. The happiness I felt when I learned that a child was going to be born.....Ah, in that moment I thought there was no one in this world happier than me. I was that happy.

When I held my child for the first time, when I saw his face, I cried with happiness. Later, those tears turned into tears of sorrow.

It started with a small fever, and then one illness became many. Someone at the hospital had made a mistake.

His veins tightened. His heartbeat rose beyond control. He burned in the depths of hatred.

Suddenly, that face filled with helplessness.

What could I do? File a case? Argue with them? I had no money. What little I had was not even enough for the medicines. More than that, I felt that a country standing at the peak of a war would not even consider my small problem worthy of attention.

Through a reused syringe, my son had contracted an incurable disease called AIDS.

In hospitals crowded with soldiers, there was no way of knowing from whose body that syringe had been used.

The very moment I learned this, I was shattered. After that, I never saw a smile on her face again.

Oh God, how cursed I am.

This war helped me in many ways. When the bakery became overwhelmed with work, I hoped I would finally earn the money I needed. But with Aligalerio's first counterattack, the very foundations of Yugiya were shaken. In that storm, even my life was swept away.

Yet the river called life, which seemed ready to dry up, cursed me once again and allowed me to live.

At that time, death itself would have been a blessing for me.

(The bakery was near a Yugiyan military base.)

To compensate for the military losses suffered by the nation, the government declared that all citizens of the country (men, and if necessary, women as well) must perform ten years of compulsory military service.But before those ten years of service are completed, many people die. Somehow, I too survived this long.

I came into this because of my family, because of money. But there are also those who do this work with no other choice, those who are forced into it. They are part of this as well. I think they are killed more quickly because they are forced to do a job they do not want to do.

This life has taught me many things. As life flowed from hardship to pain, from pain to sorrow, and from sorrow to hatred, my mind became deeply twisted.

Those eyes, clouded by lust, filled up. As he walked from the cover of darkness toward the light, a new light rose within him and battled against the darkness, finally overcoming it.

"No... I won't do this. It will be enough if this cursed war just ends."

Thinking that he only had two more months left to complete his ten years, he felt relieved.

Suddenly, in the light pouring from the lantern, his face became filled with terror. His eyes widened. Unable to breathe, he froze at what he saw.

A headless body!!

With a shock, he realized it was his friend.

"Enemies!!"

Immediately he walked toward the body. It looked as though the head had been torn off. Moving his feet faster, he pulled the gun from his waist and approached the doorway.

Standing to one side of the open door, he sharpened his hearing. Tightening his grip on the gun, he listened.

Nothing could be heard from inside.

Suddenly, extending his gun forward, he leaped in front of the doorway.

The light of the burning torch hanging inside the room.

In the light, he saw it.

His eyes widened as much as they possibly could. His throat went dry. His legs froze. Fear filled him completely, pouring out as sweat through every tiny pore of his body.

He could not believe his own eyes.

Never in his life had he seen something so horrifying.

In the dim light, in the middle of a pool of blood, someone was eating a corpse. One body had already been half-eaten. Another was still being devoured.

"Ahhh..."

"Isn't that the woman we brought here...?"

Her face, soaked in blood, filled him with terror. Her breasts had been torn away. Through her split-open abdomen, loops of intestines spilled out onto the floor. Blood continued to flow from her lifeless body.

While feeding on her thigh, the cannibal's eyes moved toward the doorway.

Satisfied with his meal, chewing the flesh he had bitten off with a blood-dripping mouth, the cannibal slowly stood up.

"My heart is going to burst..." the soldier thought.

It felt as if all the strength in his body had drained away.

"I don't want to die..."

Throwing away the gun in his hand, gathering every bit of courage he had left, he turned and ran for his life.

With all his strength.

With the speed of a horse.

Tears and fluids streamed from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

A terror he had never experienced before overwhelmed him completely.

Without looking back, he ran as fast as he could...

Cursing his own legs and even his own mind for not moving faster, he suddenly stopped.

He could not move.

He remained standing there.

He could not stop the trembling in his legs. His entire body had gone numb.

He could only turn his body. 

The cannibal walked past the soldier's side without even turning to look at him and continued forward.

After walking a short distance, he stopped.

Then, tilting his head slightly toward the back, he took a small knife that was in his hand and threw it into the soldier's head, embedding it there.

After that, the figure disappeared into the darkness...