Police lights spun in the darkness, staining the damp alley walls with flashes of blue and red. Jack was dragging the corpse with cold detachment, pulling it behind him as if hauling a heavy sack of garbage. The blood left a winding trail on the pavement, a caricature of a death march.
"Stop! Police!"
A shout from the end of the alley. Jack didn't look back. Instead, he dropped the corpse and broke into a run. His feet hit the asphalt with a mechanical rhythm. Years on the run had taught him that hesitation was death, and thought a luxury he couldn't afford.
He heard the sirens closing in, their searchlight beams chasing his shadow on the walls. He vaulted over a dumpster, cutting sharply into a busy street. The oncoming truck didn't see him, or didn't have time to stop.
The impact was loud, thunderous. He felt his body airborne for a moment, then a collision of force that reshaped his world of bone, blood, and flesh.
Then, darkness.
His first sensations: tightness. Tightness everywhere. Small lungs gasping, a heart beating at a frantic pace, weak muscles that bore no resemblance to anything from his old body.
He opened his eyes.
A plain, white ceiling. Faint daylight crept from behind a curtain. He raised his hand—a small, soft hand, without scars, without that dark spot on the index finger where the knife had once stuck.
Not my body.
The thought shot through his consciousness like a bullet. He sat up suddenly, his head spinning. He looked at his body: a cotton nightshirt, the body of a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen.
A fit of coughing shook him—a weak, childish cough. And images flooded in.
Not his images. Not his memories.
A boy. His name, Min. A pale face, wide eyes holding a constant terror. A classroom, laughter, shoves in the hallway. Food poured over his books. Whispers of insults behind his back, turning into shouts. Messages on a phone, comments on pictures. A stomach ache every morning before school. A long silence at home, avoiding glances from busy parents. Then... a rope. A chair. Darkness.
The pain was real, raw, choking Jack's new chest. A deep sigh wanted to escape as a scream, but came out as a stifled moan.
"Min? Are you awake?"
A woman entered the room—his mother. Her eyes were red, weariness coating her face. But her gaze... held something else. A weariness of a different kind. The exhaustion of a recurring problem.
"Ah... yes." Jack tried to speak, and his voice came out thin, strange.
"Good. It's over now, right?" she said, her voice flat. "No more of this drama. The school called. They said you can go back after a week. Try... try to be stronger this time."
She didn't ask how he felt. Didn't touch him. Just left a water bottle on the nightstand and walked out.
Jack sat there, the borrowed memories clashing with his ironclad consciousness. Min's emotions—despair, loneliness, helplessness—were like filthy water drowning him. But at the bottom of that swamp, a hard core remained. Jack. The killer. Who didn't fear, didn't tremble.
He got out of bed, staggered towards the mirror above the dresser.
The face he saw was a shock. Wide eyes filled with deep-rooted terror, strands of black hair falling over a pale forehead, a frail body barely filling the nightshirt. It was the face of a victim. The face of prey.
Jack's new lips—Min's lips—curved into a smile. It was strange, distorted, like an unfamiliar weapon in a child's hand.
At that moment, he heard a voice. Not an external voice, but a metallic tone, devoid of emotion, pulsing directly inside his skull:
[System: "Vengeance of the Living" Activated]
[User: Min Hyeon-seong (Jack)]
[Status: Reanimation Complete. Memory Integration: 73%]
[Primary Objective: Achieve Justice for "Min Hyeon-seong"]
[List of Culprits Loading...]
A translucent blue screen, like a visual hallucination, appeared before his eyes. On it, a list of names.
Park Ji-hoon — Bully leader. Primary cause.
Choi Seong-min — First follower. The enforcer.
Lee Min-ji — Social bully. Spread rumors.
Mr. Kim — Homeroom teacher. Willful negligence.
The Parents — Emotional neglect.
Under each name, a percentage: "Degree of Culpability." Next to Park Ji-hoon: 89%.
[Instructions: Use your skills. Punish the guilty. Torment before death is necessary to purify the host's soul. Failure or refusal will result in gradual loss of consciousness, resurgence of the host's despair, and possible annihilation.]
Jack looked at the mirror again. The look of terror in Min's eyes was still there, but now, behind it, something new burned. A coldness. Focus. An almost technical curiosity.
He raised his small hand before his face. His grip was weak. But his knowledge... his knowledge was intact. How to move silently. How to find the fatal point. How to disappear.
The smile on the child's lips widened.
"Well then," he whispered in Min's thin voice, but with Jack's flat, deadly tone. "Let's play."
[First Task Created: Surveil Primary Target. Gather Information. Do not attract attention.]
[Initial Reward Granted: Minor Neuromuscular Coordination Enhancement.]
A faint electric tingling spread through Jack/Min's tendons. When he closed his eyes, he saw movement paths, distance calculations, the weak points in his room as if they were blueprints.
He opened his eyes. The look of terror in the mirror had faded, replaced by a cold, assessing gaze. He looked at the water bottle on the nightstand. Picked it up. Weighed it in his palm. Then, with one swift motion, he tossed it towards the wastebasket in the corner. It went in directly, without touching the edges.
It was a child's playful motion. But the precision was that of an assassin.
Jack walked to the window, opened the curtain a crack. The outside world was ordinary, sunny. A world of school, homework, parents. A world that had tortured Min to death.
And now, this world contained a predator in its prey's body.
[The List of Culprits awaits. Justice awaits.]
Jack was waiting too. Not as a victim, but as a hunter. And in the child's brain, the wheels of the first revenge plan began to turn quietly, driven by a strange system, lethal skills, and a legacy of unbearable pain.
This is much better than dragging corpses in alleyways, he thought, flexing his small hand, contemplating the power—and the weakness—that Min's body had granted him.
The hunt would begin soon.