Kill Your X Chapter 56

‘You must swallow it whole without ever chewing. That is, if you wish to eat a fresh soul again.’

The Demon King tossed the soul to the dog and turned his back. Whoosh! The dog leaped high from his spot and snatched the reward.

In Hell, the Demon King’s word was absolute. It was a pity, but as he was about to gulp down the soul in one bite, it suddenly began to thrash inside his mouth. The soul resisted being swallowed so fiercely that the dog, without thinking, chomped down on it.

Then, a new world he had never seen before unfolded.

The soul was as vivid and beautiful as if it were crafted from all the rainbows that had ever graced the world. Sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes—the joys, sorrows, and passions of life—were richly contained within it like juices. Reluctant to let it slide down his throat, the dog smacked his lips over and over again.

The dog could not forget that taste for a long time. Desperate to have it just one more time, he guarded Hell more diligently than ever before. He wagged his tail to welcome newly arrived souls and chased down escaping ones to the very end. Despite his efforts, for a while, the dog’s main fare consisted of dry, brittle soul fragments.

Slowly, the dog understood why the Demon King had told him to swallow the reward in one go. He had never placed much meaning on food before, but after tasting heavenly flavor, everything else felt bland. It was agony to pick up and eat the dried soul fragments just to somehow stay alive.

‘Here, I shall reward you again. You haven’t forgotten how to eat it, have you?’

Then one day, the Demon King once again gave him a fresh soul as a reward. The dog held the soul in his mouth, and as soon as the Demon King entered Hell, he bit down to taste the juices.

But the dog was bewildered. It wasn’t the taste he had been anticipating.

It was definitely a fresh soul, but he couldn’t feel the ecstasy he had experienced the first time.

Even after that, the Demon King occasionally bestowed rewards, and each time, the dog secretly savored the souls. He didn’t give up hope, even though it never met his expectations.

It wasn’t long after that he felt something was wrong with his body.

The souls that arrived in Hell came in all shapes and sizes. Some were relatively calm, having accepted their fate, while others threw a fit. No matter how much they screamed that this couldn’t be, that they weren’t the ones who should be in Hell, once they arrived, their fate would not change.

No matter how good the intention, if a person committed a sin as a result, they came to Hell. That was the way of this world.

‘Please, please send me back. How is it a sin for me to do the same to the bastard who killed my wife? My children are still young. How are they supposed to live in this harsh world without a mother or a father….’

Seeing the soul who had just arrived in Hell sobbing, the dog felt a heart-wrenching pain for the first time in his life. He had lived as if devoid of emotion until now, but strangely, he felt pity for this soul he had just met. On the outside, he was still the same indifferent and merciless dog of the Demon King, but his inner self was treading a distinctly different path.

While he was feeling that something was wrong with him, an incident finally occurred.

The dog let a soul who had squeezed through the gates of Hell escape right before his eyes. He chased after it belatedly and caught it, but if he had been a moment slower, a catastrophe that would have shattered the balance of life and death would have occurred. The dog was deeply shocked by his first mistake.

The Demon King, who came out after hearing the commotion outside, approached the dog. Seeing the dog cowering in a corner, trembling with instinctual fear, the Demon King’s lips curved into a high smile. From the confident, direct gaze, the dog realized the Demon King had long been aware of his transgressions.

‘So, which soul was the most delicious?’

It was a question that required no thought. Of course, it was the first soul the dog had tasted. It was an ecstatic flavor that made him regret for a long time not having chewed on it longer to savor its juices.

The Demon King continued, a smile on his lips.

‘You disloyal dog. I shall punish you. You will surely pay the price for disobeying the command of the Demon King, the god who governs Hell.’

The dog lowered his posture as much as possible and awaited the punishment he would have to bear.

‘You will temporarily shed your status as the gatekeeper dog and go to the human world. The essence of a soul belonging to Hell remains, so you will still possess three lives.’

The absolute being’s voice echoed throughout Hell. The sound of souls wailing from within the gates of Hell faintly seeped out.

‘Although you chewed and swallowed it, the pitiful soul has fortunately nested in your heart. Its form is not complete, but this is enough for it to live its next life, however short it may be.’

As the Demon King lowered his hand, black smoke rose, and in its place, a large scythe appeared. It was the Demon King’s privilege, the scythe of death that could pierce through any form of life.

‘Go and retrieve the soul you swallowed.’

The scythe aimed squarely at the dog’s heart. The command to bring a soul to Hell was a command to kill.

The Demon King raised the scythe high and then plunged it slightly off-center into the dog’s heart. The dog collapsed with a thud, unable to even scream. Then, the soul that had resided in his heart rose as a faint smoke. Watching the soul escape Hell on the wind, the Demon King muttered. In a voice filled with great amusement.

‘Have you ever heard? They say the most delicious food in all of Heaven and Hell is the soul of a loved one.’

The dog shed tears of blood. The trembling in his large body gradually subsided.

‘The soul you so greedily devoured was none other than your past lover. How was it, was not the soul, frozen in a state of loving you to death, so very sweet?’

The Demon King personally closed the dog’s eyelids. The dog’s body began to slowly dissipate.

‘Retrieve him in that exact state and bring him to me. Prove once again that you are a being truly befitting of Hell.’

Your lover, who endured countless punishments in the fires of Hell with the sole determination to meet you again.

After dreaming a dream darker than Hell, the dog gained a new life. It was a chance that might have come after a few years, a few decades, or perhaps even a few hundred years.

✽✽✽

The child’s mother was a shaman.

As soon as she saw the child who came into the world, the mother knew. Her baby was far from being an ordinary person.

Though it was a rare occurrence, there were times when beings other than humans gained life. Nevertheless, the aura the child exuded made the mother deny the child she had borne from her own womb.

‘I have no idea what its true identity is. What’s certain is that it’s a spirit belonging to purgatory.’

Something that should not have been born as a human had gained a physical body. In any case, beings like this were bound to naturally return to the place they originally belonged.

Therefore, the mother believed the child would not live long. Other shamans who came to hear the news thought the same.

But the child survived for a long time. Even after his biological father, who had infiltrated an organization, was discovered to be a police officer and killed, and even after his remaining mother was silenced and passed away.

A member of the Kumto gang, who had come to the house to erase any remaining traces of the crime, found the child. The child stared blankly at the adult man several times his size with dead eyes.

‘Did Detective Shim have a kid? I thought he wasn’t even married. He was undercover in the organization for years, would he have taken the risk of having a child?’

‘We can just ask him directly. Hey, hey, kid. Do you even know what happened to your mom and dad to be here?’

The skinny, grimy child answered. His voice was small but clear.

‘They died.’

His nonchalant attitude was unsettling in a way. It might have been just the shock of losing his parents, but the child was so unchildlike that it was inherently off-putting.

Either raise him a bit more and sell his organs, or sell him as a slave to another country. The Kumto gang members, having roughly grasped the situation, initially considered heinous methods of disposal befitting their level. As long as he had a nose, eyes, mouth, arms, and legs, a human was bound to be useful.

‘But the more I think about it, it is a bit strange. Detective Shim, that guy, I didn’t think he was irresponsible enough not to even register his own child’s birth, even if it was an out-of-wedlock child.’

‘I know, right. Did he get a bad feeling because the child was a shaman’s? There must be a reason the kid took his mom’s last name despite having a perfectly fine father.’

While they were discussing where the child would stay, the news reached the Kumto gang’s boss, Si Seunghwan. He had his subordinate bring the child before him.

‘A child with no birth registration?’

‘Yes, boss.’

The child was only seven years old, the same age as Si Seunghwan’s only son. He was quite pretty, but his transcendent gaze was peculiar.