“Pathetic.”

With a face swollen from sleep and hair like a lion’s mane, the middle-aged woman threw open her door and marched toward the neighbor’s house.

The chill of the night air slowed her heated steps slightly.

She tightened her grip on the club, an inexplicable sense of dread creeping over her.

Should she just go back home?

The heavy clouds obscured the moonlight, making everything feel ominous.

But before she knew it, she was already standing at the neighbor’s door.

“No turning back now.”

She spat into her palm and adjusted her grip on the club, raising a fist to knock on the door—only to freeze.

The door was slightly ajar.

No one left their doors open at this hour in the back alleys.

A strong sense of foreboding gripped her by the nape.

For the first time, she regretted stepping out of her house, whispering to herself—

‘I should go back. I need to go back…’

A shiver ran down her spine as she instinctively began to step backward, withdrawing the club.

“Kyaaaah!”

“Hahahahahaha! Haha! This is it! This is it! Ha, haha. Ha…”

The familiar screams of the neighbor’s woman rang out, followed by the familiar but somehow off-kilter voice of that no-good bastard.

Then, a bizarre silence fell.

A voice seeped out from within, one that she could barely recognize as human.

“I told you I was right, huh? I was right. I was right—grrgrrrgrk, grrgrrrgrk!”

Was that even a human voice?

A cold dread seeped into her as she lost her grip on the club.

Clatter, thud!

If it was a coincidence, it was a cruel one—the spiked club struck the slightly open door, making an unbearably loud noise.

Another silence.

For the first time, she wished she could hear those wretched screams again.

Maybe then, her frozen body would finally move.

But her wish came too late.

The door, which she had desperately hoped would stay shut, swung wide open.

At the same moment, the neighbor’s woman bolted out, with something lunging after her from behind.

Crack.

“Kyaaaah!”

The sound of something breaking accompanied her scream.

The middle-aged woman remained frozen, unable to move.

“Help…”

Thud!

The neighbor’s woman, reaching out toward her in desperation, collapsed before she could even close her eyes.

Splish.

Something stepped into a puddle, emerging from the darkness behind her.

A… person?

Would it have been different if she had seen it in broad daylight? The clothes it wore, the hair that had begun to fall out in patches, and the overall facial features were unmistakably those of the deadbeat neighbor. 

And yet, the reason it felt so unfamiliar was probably…

“Guuuuuuh.” 

Slash! The middle-aged woman opened her mouth, but only empty air escaped. The fool, who could barely hold a knife properly, had just slit her throat with a blunt-edged machete. 

In the now silent dawn, where there were no longer any screams or cries, only the eerie sounds of tearing, breaking, and ripping echoed for a long time.

“Krrr…” 

Who knows how much time had passed? The thing, having toyed with two innocent people as it pleased, tried to rise. But before it could take three steps, its knees gave out, and it crumpled forward. It flailed, splattering blood everywhere, but soon even that movement ceased.

Two days later, a man who occasionally did business with the middle-aged woman arrived at the scene and discovered the gruesome aftermath. He covered his nose and scratched his head.

“Again with this mess? Ha… Something really big is going down.”

Standing in the congealed, dark red pool of blood, the man looked down at the mummified corpse, dried up as if all its fluids had been drained, and the two brutally torn-apart bodies sprawled about three steps away. Then, he moved on.

***

The empire’s back alleys were teeming with all sorts of criminals, but among them were those who, despite not being criminals, had made their homes in such rough places. 

Whatever their pasts and circumstances, this man had no grand backstory—he simply settled in the back alleys and, before long, established himself as a figure of immense influence.

An informant. There were countless people in the back alleys who dealt in information, but only one was referred to simply as ‘the informant,’ without any embellishment. Yet, even among those who knew of his presence in the underworld, few knew his real name. 

Even those who worked closely with him were unaware of it, so further explanation was unnecessary.

A man everyone knew, but no one really knew.

Curiously, while his name remained a mystery, the fact that he was a ‘magician’ was widely rumored. However, that information was of little use. In this era, ‘magicians’ could no longer perform the kind of real ‘magic’ one would read about in novels or legends. There were a few who could still use magic, but even among them, no one knew who they were or what kind of magic they could wield.

And so, beyond carrying a slightly exaggerated reputation for knowing everything from the empire to the entire continent, no real information ever circulated about the informant.

Now, just a few hours ago, this very informant, Arian, had come face to face with the man who had first discovered the gruesome scene during a business visit.

“Hm. This gives me a bad feeling.”

“Right? No matter what happened, this is definitely serious. People die all the time, but this one is too strange to just brush off.”

The man unconsciously shivered as he spoke. He had committed a few plausible crimes himself and drifted into the empire’s back alleys, where he now worked under the informant, taking on various jobs for more stable earnings rather than engaging in reckless crime. 

He had seen and experienced all sorts of things in the underworld, enough to boast about in a drunken stupor.

And yet, even he had turned pale at the sheer bizarreness of this case.

“A corpse that looked like all its fluids had been drained?”

“Yes! And now that I’ve seen it up close, I’m sure of it—it’s not human anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

Arian’s eyebrows shot up, and the man flinched but did not take back his words.

“The completely dried-up body—it was human, but at the same time, it wasn’t.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to spout nonsense?”

“I’m serious! Anyone who saw it would think the same thing!”

Seeing the man’s genuinely distressed reaction, Arian waved a hand dismissively.

“Tell me in more detail.”

“It’s like… it was human, but after transforming into that thing, it became something else entirely.”

The man, tilting his head as if struggling to explain himself, jumped at Arian’s next words.

“We need to bring that body here.”

“Me?”

The man took two full steps backward, as if to refuse outright, but Arian sneered.

“Hire someone if you have to. I hear the tavern owner is already out for your blood over your unpaid tab.”

“Damn it.”

Trapped in the inescapable web of financial debt, the man cursed and scratched his head furiously.

“By the way, was it the drug this time?”

“Oh, right. The guy who lived in that house got his hands on it.”

Arian clicked his tongue and adjusted his glasses.

At some point, a suspicious drug had begun circulating in the back alleys. That in itself wasn’t unusual—drugs had always been a part of life there.

But this one was different from any other drug that had ever made the rounds.

At first, it was said to be highly effective for insomnia, and people started using it one by one. It worked—remarkably so. Soon, word spread that those who took it slept like the dead, and its popularity grew.

Would it have been different if I had seen it in broad daylight? The clothes it wore, the hair that had begun to fall out in patches, and the overall facial features were unmistakably those of the deadbeat neighbor. And yet, the reason it felt so unfamiliar was probably…

“Guuuuuuh.” Slash! The middle-aged woman opened her mouth, but only empty air escaped. The fool, who could barely hold a knife properly, had just slit her throat with a blunt-edged machete. In the now silent dawn, where there were no longer any screams or cries, only the eerie sounds of tearing, breaking, and ripping echoed for a long time.

“Krrr…” Who knows how much time had passed? The thing, having toyed with two innocent people as it pleased, tried to rise. But before it could take three steps, its knees gave out, and it crumpled forward. It flailed, splattering blood everywhere, but soon even that movement ceased.

Two days later, a man who occasionally did business with the middle-aged woman arrived at the scene and discovered the gruesome aftermath. He covered his nose and scratched his head.

“Again with this mess? Ha… Something really big is going down.”

Standing in the congealed, dark red pool of blood, the man looked down at the mummified corpse, dried up as if all its fluids had been drained, and the two brutally torn-apart bodies sprawled about three steps away. Then, he moved on.