Prologue

A/N: This story is crossposted on AO3 with the same name, or if you are unable to find it, just search for my user name Ageeh_Leemen.


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Choi Jung Soo let out a sad sigh.




He knew dying on the battlefield while hunting monsters was inevitable. Yet he thought he was strong, and thought that he was strong enough not to die this early.
 


Well, he had hoped for too much anyways.
 


A battlefield is still a battlefield.




Their team did not expect an unranked monster to suddenly show up while on the mission.




Choi Jung Soo is betting all his toenails that there's a punk that would blame himself for being incompetent enough not to predict something like this, but would of course, as usual, show how apathetic he was to the point that others would mistake it for not caring enough for his team, but would undoubtedly bury himself in paperwork to compensate.




That punk was specifically his dongsaeng. Kim Rok Soo.




And on seeing his dongsaeng's face, having an emotion that he did not know he would see in Kim Rok Soo's face, he had felt sad yet fulfilled at the same time.




He knew, he heard it from the 'God Of Death' itself that he wasn't supposed to die, yet he didn't care.




Giving up his life for his dongsaeng was worth it. Yes, he had left Kim Rok Soo sad and maybe full of regrets and self-blaming, but he was joyed knowing that Kim Rok Soo can evade death for him.




Choi Jung Soo knew that punk well enough that he would do his best to survive in their place.




And he knew well enough that even though Kim Rok Soo looked cold and emotionless, he knew that he'd grieve about him, Team Leader Lee Soo Hyuk, along with all their team that died because of that unranked monster.




What's important was that Kim Rok Soo was alive and had the records of that monster so others could have the chance to survive if ever they encounter it.




Choi Jung Soo just hoped that Kim Rok Soo would not blame himself and take care of himself more in the future.




Choi Jung Soo sighed once again. His gaze traveled around what was inside the range of his sight.




He had welcomed death once he had heard that Kim Rok Soo was supposed to die but he did not know what comes after it.




Would his existence disappear completely?




Would it be like in those biblical books that said he'd either go to hell or heaven?




Or would it be like in those horror movies where his soul would wander around since he had regrets before he died?




He had maybe expected one of those.




Yes.




But what he did not expect is that the afterlife would look monochrome and look something similar to a wide room with large wooden walls, door and floor.




Where am I? Was what he wanted to ask but a sound that came close to a gurgle and blubber of "Geh babu?"  was all he had managed to say.




His eyes widened.




Why did his voice become higher? In the first place, why can't he control his other body parts? All he had managed to do was to change from laying on his back and flip to laying on his stomach. Was this, was this what the afterlife was supposed to be like?


 
I


t felt weird and things.


Then suddenly, the gigantic door that he had been staring at for almost thirty minutes opened.




Everything in this place he was it seemed to be gigantic along with the intimidatingly high ceiling.




He had expected some sort of god or some angel to tell him where he'd go.




And he hoped, fingers crossed, that it was not hell.




He stared at the girl who entered the room, she looks like she was in her teens, roughly seventeen or eighteen, her facial features looked nothing Asian-like but instead had more of a western one with her droopy round eyes, pointed nose, and bow lips.




Since his eyes were not working well, and everything he saw was in monochrome, he could not tell what exactly was the girl's hair color, eye color, and skin color was but he had seen a lot of black and white filters on pictures back when the internet was still booming and knew her hair color was not black.




Blonde, maybe? He's not quite sure. It looked more of a light gray to him anyway.




But the girl was good-looking, that's for sure.




Choi Jung Soo watched the girl look at him and soften her gaze as she smiled. Choi Jung Soo can't understand why he felt warm under the gaze.




So maybe she really is an angel of sorts?




"Hello my little Curtin, you managed to roll over huh?" The girl clearly cooed. But Choi Jung Soo did not understand what language she had just used to talk to him.




"Ah, bububa." Choi Jung Soo tried to say that "I can't understand what you're saying miss." but had then again failed. He doesn't know why and he's embarrassed that he can't even talk well to converse with the girl.




He looked down at his tiny hands.




Wait, tiny?




He blinked owlishly before trying to wriggle his fingers, which admittedly took a lot of effort, and confirmed that these chubby tiny hands were his.




Why were his hands so tiny?




"Yes, yes. Are you hungry little one? You seemed to have awoken from your nap while your twin is still asleep." The girl talked again as she walked closer and had lifted him off of –was he lying inside a crib the whole time?!– the crib.




"Gah?!" He had said out of shock.




Okay, Choi Jung Soo wasn't as intelligent as his dongsaeng Kim Rok Soo but he still had enough brain cells to roughly guess what his current predicament was.




"Hmm, Curtin, are you okay?" He ignored the girl as he settled on her arms comfortably.




Wow.




Just, wow.




Did that 'God Of Death' really put his soul inside a baby?




"Maybe you're really hungry." Said the girl which he still couldn't understand by the way.




Choi Jung Soo felt his tiny baby eyeballs almost jump out of his socket, before crying out of shock and a little mix of baby instinct, when he saw that the girl was lifting her shirt up. He all but screeched.

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