The Stupid Devil’s Slave’s Travelogue

Chapter 2: Metamorphosis 1

How would you begin if you were to be reincarnated?

Would it be like in any other fantasy novel, where you remember your past life from infancy?

Learning to read from a young age, picking up skills early.

Whatever the case, I thought I’d be at least one step ahead of others.

But it was different from what I expected.

“Instead, I was one step behind everyone else.”

Fragments of past memories, which had been surfacing sporadically, became complete just a week ago.

While the memories were returning, I was completely out of it.

I tried to teach my mother the Korean alphabet.

I cursed at my father, confusing him with a friend from Earth.

Fortunately, my parents seemed to regard it as a childish prank.

─A week ago.

As if waking up from a dream, I became aware that I was me.

I was a thirteen-year-old, close to fourteen, and the son of a hunter living deep in the mountains.

My father hunted animals, skinned, and butchered them.

My mother processed the by-products to make oil, leather, soap, candles, glue, and sold them in town.

I would occasionally help my mother with her crafts.

Judging by the position of the risen sun, I tried to estimate the time.

“Around 10 a.m., maybe?”

I was getting quite accustomed to the local life.

At this time, my father would usually stop by the cabin, but due to heavy rain a few days ago, he was out repairing the traps he had set in the mountains.

Living in the mountains meant we rarely had visitors, and with no compulsory education, there was nothing to learn. As long as you kept up with your chores, no one would interfere—perfect freedom that was almost unsettling.

Thud─

I lay down on the wooden bed covered with animal skins and took a deep breath.

The subtle pine resin scent of the cabin that I had known for thirteen years, and the sweet fragrance of the forest seeping in through the window.

It was delightful.

For thirteen years, the loud-voiced birds sweetly screamed sex, and the crickets in the small garden behind the house were calling for sex as well.

Either way, it was delightful.

How about the wooden bed, which I had slept on for thirteen years, covered only with animal skins?

It was hard, but it had its own charm.

It was because the consciousness at the helm was not “Lian” but “Jeon Si-hyeon.”

Lian hated studying.

He stubbornly refused when his mother tried to teach him how to read and write.

Thanks to that, I couldn’t even write my own name.

As a Korean, the disgrace of being illiterate was unbearable.

Even so, I had no face to ask my parents for help.

The moment my consciousness switched.

─From that moment, I was Jeon Si-hyeon, a 28-year-old man who had ripped out his parents’ hearts.

My mother was a year older than me, and my father was two years older.

Bluntly, they were close in age, and in Korean terms, they were like a newlywed couple.

And to think that I was conceived by such a couple, practically my peers, and was leeching off them?

My memories jumbled, and when I thought of my parents here, they overlapped with my parents from Earth.

When that happened, my heart felt like it was being torn apart with guilt.

Moreover, there were ethical problems.

The Devil had told me that “attraction” was a kind of safety tether and a spiritual connection that binds us to people from our past lives.

And I had barged in and severed that connection.

As a result, the “real” Lian, who was originally linked from a previous life, was flung somewhere else.

“It’s not always best to just let things slide.”

Think about it.

If I revealed my identity, what would my parents think of me?

At first, they’d think it was a joke. Then, when it seemed credible, they’d grow serious and eventually kick me out.

If they accepted me?

The disappointment they would feel, the memories that could never be restored—even if they accepted me, things could never go back to the way they were.

─In the end, there would be nothing but ruin.

So, I quickly reached a conclusion.

“Sometimes, it’s better not to know.”

There was another reason to keep my mouth shut.

I had a younger brother, Damien, who was a year younger than me, and a six-year-old sister named Stella. They too would be scrutinized with suspicious eyes.

“What if things went wrong?”

They might think I was possessed by something.

And in that case, the only place they’d turn to would be religion.

─I was an outsider, an anomaly.

The Devil had warned me never to be seen by those things called Angels.

Moreover, unlike in Korea, death was light and familiar in this place.

An era of having many children was paradoxically the time when the most children died.

People under thirty with five children.

That alone said it all.

I remembered the two children who did not survive their first year and returned to the earth.

If something went horribly wrong, my parents might not just give up on me, but on the innocent children as well.

“I absolutely can’t let that happen.”

This was by no means an exaggeration.

Even between parents and spouses, people never fully understand each other in their lifetime.

Besides, the two of them were still young enough to start over.

That didn’t mean sweeping things under the rug would turn the wound into pus.

I couldn’t bear it.

Even now, my heart was wracked with guilt.

There was only one solution.

“I need to become independent as quickly as possible, no matter what it takes.”

Having made up my mind, I buried my face in the bed and closed my eyes.

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“Lian? Are you still sleeping?”

“Yes?! No… I just woke up.”

“…Damn it.”

Every time I heard my mother’s voice, it felt like I was hearing my mom’s voice from Earth. It was like waking up from a terrible nightmare, yet it was also a voice that constantly reminded me that this was reality.

“You should eat before you go back to sleep.”

The smell of burning firewood and the savory aroma of meat grilled over charcoal stoked my hunger. The scent of herbal oil was incredibly fragrant.

I sluggishly got up.

The view outside was already dim, but the stove was lit, so the inside of the house wasn’t too dark.

The cool breeze from outside mixed with the warm stove fire, reminding me of spring temperatures, and it felt nice. My mother was stirring something on a fixed cooking station above the stove.

My mother’s brown hair reflected the firelight, making it look a coppery red.

My father was perched on a chair, sipping fruit wine and staring at my mother. Or more precisely, at her rear. His gaze looked as if my siblings might pop out any second.

“Lian, what were you doing today?”

“Just sleeping and wandering around here and there.”

“Big brother was just sleeping again today.”

Damien, sulking, shot me a sidelong glare as he answered.

“Oh no, I’ve been caught.”

Feeling embarrassed, I gave a sheepish smile.

Trying to act at least a little like a child. Pretending not to know, pretending it’s hard.

It’s becoming second nature to me now.

My father, who had been admiring my mother’s back, turned his gaze toward me.

“Are you bored? When I was your age, I went all around these mountains─”

“Going around like that, you got lost for two days, and the whole village was in an uproar looking for you. People searched far and wide, only to find you crying under a tree just ten minutes from the village. Your dad.”

My father, embarrassed, shook his head and pouted.

“I was ten years old. Who would be able to find their way if they were suddenly dropped into a place they didn’t know?”

“I found it.”

“How did you?”

Damien’s eyes sparkled.

To this, my mother turned her head and shrugged.

“If you don’t lose your direction by following the constellations, using Diana’s small moon as a guide───”

My father’s face twisted into a smirk.

“That doesn’t count! You learned that from my father later, didn’t you? If I’d known that back then, of course, I wouldn’t have gotten lost.”

“Strange~? I remembered it ever since I learned it.”

This place had two moons.

One was significantly smaller compared to the original moon.

My father fell silent and rested his chin on his hand.

He glanced at me, his intentions all too obvious.

Considering that both of them were in their late twenties to early thirties, it seemed they probably got married in their high school years. From the occasional snippets of conversation I overheard, it seemed like they had been friends since childhood.

“Now that’s a match made in heaven.”

I tidied the bedding and put on slippers made of indoor leather, similar to Korean house slippers. I shook out my hair, which was damp and matted with sweat, and scratched my back, which was itching from lying on the wooden bed, as I sat on the edge of the bed.

Crack!

The sound of the firewood splitting loudly filled the room.

“…Lian, has something been bothering you lately?”

“The problem started fourteen years ago.”

My father’s gaze, unaware of that fact, remained serious.

Black hair, dark blue eyes, and sun-kissed skin that was a healthy tan.

Even considering my short stature, my father was a large man. Big and muscular; to put it nicely, he

looked like a general. To put it bluntly, he looked like a goblin.

Despite his appearance, his eyes were full of worry. My mother’s humming while she prepared dinner had stopped.

─Everyone was waiting for my answer.

…Seems I have no talent for acting.

Up until a week ago, Lian was a child who would follow the two of them everywhere and run around.

Before my memories returned, I had mindlessly spoken to them in casual language and spouted nonsense, but I didn’t hole up and sleep all day like this.

“I feel like I’m not doing anything.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I need an excuse.”

I couldn’t fake illness.

In a place without hospitals, getting sick was a shortcut to death or permanent disability. How could I make it sound like a child’s complaint? After a brief thought, I opened my mouth.

“I mean… Mom is good at cooking, and Dad is good at hunting, right? But I can’t do anything. I just wish I could do something, anything. …Not just shelling beans at home.”

As soon as I said it, I realized a part of my true feelings had slipped out.

It was a delusion.

A fantasy where I could say, “Thank you for raising me,” and compensate them with a fortune, parting ways with everyone happy.

Of course, in true fantasy style, the way to make money was like a lottery ticket.

A moment of silence followed. My father’s eyes soon softened.

“Heheh…!”

His laughter poked at me.

After chugging his fruit wine, my father got up from the chair, sat beside me, and wrapped his “monkey arm” around my shoulders.

Tightly─!

“Guh─?!”

“You were groaning so much; I thought you were sick.”

He only wrapped his arm around me, but my bones felt like they were creaking. Since hunting was his job, and he used a very heavy bow, his muscles were incredibly firm.

The so-called monkey arm, the symbol of an archer, was longer and thicker than the opposite arm by the size of a hand.

When I was out of it, I’d seen that arm and blurted out things like, “Your biceps are insane!” Had it not been in Korean, I would’ve been punched.

Just then, my mother took the meat she had been stir-frying with vegetables and fruit out of the pot and poured soup from a smaller pot.

“Ow, it hurts! Seriously! You smell like alcohol───!!!”

I pushed my father away with all my might, ran away, and helped prepare the meal, stealing glances at my parents’ expressions.

I couldn’t tell what was in their hearts, but at least for now, they seemed at ease.

At first, I just didn’t want to disappoint them.

That’s why I started pretending to be a child, and now, I felt like I was actually becoming a child. It was a horrifying feeling.

It was like a newly discharged soldier instinctively saying, “I didn’t hear that properly,” a lingering reflex of that kind.

“Honey. Did you sell all the bear sinew?”

“I sold one, but the other didn’t sell.”

“Idiots. Do they know how hard it is to hunt bears, and they don’t buy it?”

My father grinned, rummaging through my mother’s basket, and pulled out a long bear sinew.

“Lian, fetch the dagger from under Dad’s bed.”

“Yes.”

I set the bread from the straw basket on the table and pulled a hunting knife that was as sharp as a scalpel from the hunting tools under the bed.

Taking the knife, my father measured the length of my arm span with his hands, measured the sinew’s length, and then cut it immediately.

“People can do anything if they learn. I was the same. It’s only natural that you can’t do anything right now, so don’t be too discouraged.”

I didn’t respond to my father’s words and sat at the table, spearing the stir-fried meat with a fork.

“Let’s eat together.”

“Yeah, so selfish.”

It was all just an act to look like a child.

My mother patted my head and sat beside me, and Damien teased me.

My father placed the knife and sinew back under the bed and sat across from me.

His expression, as he stared at me with a grin, made me uneasy.

“Today, we thank the gracious Maal for giving us our daily bread.

And we thank his faithful thirteen servants for their loyalty.

Please grant my whiny son the strength to eat this food and live long without illness.

And especially, I ask you to grant Lian, who loves snacks, the grace to eat his boiled vegetables today and be freed from constipation.”

The unexpectedly heavy love made my skin crawl.

“Did you go through my toilet?”

Parental love is apparently something like that.

Looking at me, my father chuckled and finished his prayer.

At the same time, my mother’s palm smacked my father’s back.

Whack─!!!

The sound was incredibly refreshing.

“Guh-?!”

“Do you want to talk about poop before eating?!”

“Dad, that’s gross.”

Stella mumbled and laughed.

“Really, there’s nothing you won’t say in front of the kids.”

“Still, I learned this from a reliable place.”

The meal began with my father’s whining.

I skewered large chunks of vegetables and meat with my fork and stuffed them into my mouth.

Delicious.

Though it had a gamey smell without spices, the stir-fried vegetables and herbs masked some of the fishy and gamey taste.

I broke some bread just before it hardened and soaked it in the cheese soup.

The sticky cheese clung to my mouth, filling it with a pungent flavor, and the softened bread melded with it.

There were many dishes like boiled greens with sauce or root vegetable dishes.

“Eat your vegetables too! Stella, you too!”

“Nooo─!”

Damien seemed displeased that the root vegetables he’d dug up were being avoided, watching our reactions. I had no choice but to eat some.

Unlike Korean greens, there was no salt in it at all, so it wasn’t salty. As I ate, a faint flavor unique to each type of vegetable and a mild sweetness spread in my mouth.

Originally, these greens didn’t taste like this.

“Did they mix honey?”

Beekeeping wasn’t developed here.

Since there were no city nobles, it was an expensive rarity.

Merchants would fight to buy it, as it was considered a luxury item.

“Mom, where did you get the honey?”

Seeing my father’s sly smile, it was clear he had harvested it himself.

“I found a hive while climbing the mountain, so I took it.”

My father shrugged proudly. Southern bees were poisonous, so unless you were an expert, you’d usually just pass by if you saw one.

“Eat too much, and your teeth will rot, so let’s have it in moderation, okay? Half of it will be sold.”

It was a day I never thought I’d dislike my mother’s gentle admonishments. Ah, she caught my eye.

“What’s good for you is bitter, and what’s bad is sweet.”

Mother’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if she’d read my expression.

It felt strange.

I’d heard those words countless times from my real mother too.

“Because it’ll rot your teeth.”

Words that were nostalgic yet familiar.

“Yes.”

But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

Here, the only place to find a distinct sweetness was in honey.

Even the fruits in this world weren’t that sweet.

It made me realize once again how impressive selective breeding was.

The meal continued, but the food didn’t seem to run out anytime soon.

Without a fridge, there were limited ingredients that had to be consumed.

And selling the ingredients cheaply would only tighten our own livelihood.

Even though I ate until I was about to burst today, there was still food left over.

“Thank you for the meal.” “I’m fuull···!”

Damien and Stella were already sprawled out on the bed, paying the price for overeating. They’d probably be asleep within ten minutes.

I looked at the leftover food.

Cooked food emitted an exotic and sweet aroma that was irresistible to animals in the mountains. That’s why leftovers would be discarded far away.

However, my father would always take the dishes and place them on a wooden board outside.

It was the same today.

After the meal, my father collected the soup bowls, poured the soup into one bowl, put the meat in another, and went outside.

“Why does Dad put the leftovers outside?”

“Those are offerings to the mountain lord.”

My mother said with a smile.

“A mountain lord?”

Was it some kind of belief in a mountain spirit or folklore?

“Is there a lord of the mountain? Isn’t the lord the one who owns the land?”

My mother slightly raised the corners of her lips and looked down at me.

“The true lord of the mountain is different. They’re beings who can easily subdue wolves, are big, and strong. And they like to bully little kids like you.”

The way she jokingly tried to scare me was cute.

Yet it felt precious and hit close to my heart.

“They sound awful.”

“But if you offer food like this, they sometimes bring good things in return.”

“Really? Good things?”

“They bring tree root fungus and herbs that grow underground, and sometimes raw hides, although they were in bad shape.”

My mother said with a shrug.

They brought things? Were these beings real and not just legends?

“Why don’t they live in the village and eat with us at dinner? Or couldn’t they just eat together?”

“The mountain lord isn’t human.”

“Then, are they monsters?”

My mother’s lips curled up a little more as she looked

down at me.

“They’re not monsters either.”

“They’re beastfolk.”

My father had returned, holding a stick. My mother glared at him, but he pretended not to notice and looked away.

He then sat on the bed, placed a cloth on the floor, and began carving the stick on top of it. Although his head was lowered, I could see it.

My father’s satisfied grin at his little act of revenge.

“A beastfolk who rules over an entire mountain. The literal lord of the mountain. Lian, you’ve never seen another race, have you?”

Another race?

“Another race? What’s that?”

“Even a day or two in the city, and you’d see reptilians, goblins, and dwarves. They’re that common.”

“What do they look like?”

“Well, they’re a mix of animals and humans…”

The words that followed from my father were a shocking revelation.

I’d heard the term “goblin” before.

And the image matched what I knew.

Green skin, long nose and ears, small stature, and they moved in groups.

The crucial thing was that the pronunciation was “Goblin.”

“Why are they called goblins?”

Beyond that, there were also elves, kobolds, lamias, nagas, centaurs—many types of beastfolk. These were all names I’d heard at least once.

One or two might be a coincidence, but all of them?

That the mythical creatures of Earth all existed here meant that someone with connections to Earth was here.

“Am I not the only one who made a deal with the Devil?”

Maybe this could be a clue to finding a way back to Earth.

My heart pounded violently.

My father, meanwhile, was already wrapping a cloth around the handle of the bow, shaping it.

“There’s no need to be overly scared. They’re people too.”

“What’s there to be scared of? I’m not scared at all.”

Rather, I was intrigued.

My father only smiled without saying anything.

He seemed to be misunderstanding.

The new history of this world, as I heard it, was like an exciting tale.

Stories about the Grand Barrier, the conflicts and wars between beastfolk, the cold war, the land where snow never melts, burning deserts, the Empire, the magical neutral state of Horus, dragons, sea gods, and more.

Of course, it was thanks to my father’s skillful storytelling that he managed to make it all so interesting.

“If this world were different, maybe my father would’ve made a great teacher.”

As I continued exchanging light questions and jokes about world history with my father, the night deepened.