“Ah, Master…….”
The man kneeling before me called out to me in an ecstatic voice and rubbed his cheek against my foot. It could be a humiliating position, but this was his submission and love offered to me.
Every time he kissed the top of my foot and kissed my ankle, his ash-gray hair, like burnt embers, tickled me. When I giggled and laughed, he smiled even more gently.
“Master, please stop reading and play with me.”
Then he glared at the reader in my hand as if it were a traitor.
This thing, alien due to its modern design, was an object I had created with my ability <Glutton>. Inside the thin panel, all of the guild’s information was connected, and even a king of a nation would kneel for the contents within.
“Hekkarkel, are you that bored?”
The dark-skinned man. He, whose two pupils held a dark green shade, drooped his eyebrows as if hurt by my words.
“Of course. Kel is bored.”
His coquettish way of speaking could be said to be quite unsuitable for a man who was 2 meters tall. But to my eyes at least, far from being unsuitable, it felt adorable. It could be called rose-colored glasses, but it was because I remembered when he wasn’t this big.
Sharing childhood memories worked quite specially for me.
At his gaze, I pretended to be defeated and deactivated the Glutton. The reader I had been holding disappeared like smoke.
“Here. Come over here.”
As if he had been waiting, he sprang up from his seat and embraced me in his arms, immediately flicking his tongue against my nape. Being a combination of various reptile species, he could display the characteristics of various species. Unlike when he was young and still inexperienced, now that he was a full-grown adult, he handled those characteristics with ease.
Usually he was exactly like an ordinary person, but when he revealed those characteristics, his body would mutate. The forked tongue now flicking was one of them. It was a waste to use a snake’s excellent sense of smell just to smell my skin.
“Haah…….”
When I let out a heated, intoxicated sigh, his two green-shaded pupils, which had lifted slightly, appeared dyed with pleasure. Seeing those sharp pupils close to those of a beast made goosebumps rise along my spine. The shivering sensation that arose was a symptom based not on fear but on pleasure.
However, at this moment when the fire should have blazed up, I suddenly recalled the past.
“Haha…… Kel…….”
When I languidly embraced him and whispered, Hekkarkel asked with a puzzled look.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, just……. Suddenly I’m feeling emotional.”
Hekkarkel, who kisses my feet without hesitation. My lizard, cold to everything except me. My lover who would do anything for me.
Looking at his green-shaded pupils filled with affection that would never waver, I sank deeper into the past. Into that foolish past when I was unstable and couldn’t remember anything…….
## Chapter 1: About J (1)
[Cataclysm: A word used metaphorically to refer to a great revolution occurring in nature or society.]
This grandiose word would be hard for an ordinary person to experience. How could someone living day after day in similar routines get caught up in such a great event?
But right now, I was experiencing that word with my entire body. For the first time in my life, I physically experienced that when a person is too flustered, they lose their words.
“……What is this.”
A narrow room where light barely entered and mold had grown in various places. It was a completely unfamiliar place with no memory of it. In this narrow room of unknown identity, children so thin their ribs were visible were sleeping curled up.
No matter how painfully I wracked my brain, I didn’t know this place. I swore to heaven, I was far removed from places like this. To understand the situation, I traced back my last memory.
The roadside where telephone poles occasionally lit the way. Because I had worked overtime, I remembered that everything around was dark and my back hurt. It was chronic back pain. The road trudging home was the same as usual. There was nothing particularly special about it.
But soon a bright light that seemed to illuminate everything around came rushing in…… and that light covered me terrifyingly fast. I squeezed my eyes shut as if feeling again the intense pain of my entire body being torn into a thousand, ten thousand pieces.
Right. I was hit by a truck and died.
Grasping reality, I broke out in cold sweat and looked down at my hands. The scrawny hands were clearly a child’s hands no matter who looked at them. It seemed that truck wasn’t an ordinary truck but a reincarnation truck.
A reincarnation truck from when? Those don’t even appear much these days…….
“Ah, then is this possession that I only read about in books!”
I sprang up from my seat without realizing it. If it had been reincarnation, I would at least have memories of living in this body, but right now I had absolutely no such memories. It seemed certain to be possession.
In a situation of cataclysmic proportions, what I felt was not fear but joy and happiness.
I felt the gazes of the surrounding children gathering at my bizarre behavior, but that wasn’t the problem right now. Like a crazy person, I touched and prodded my body. It was to roughly assess my physical condition.
I had thought this when I saw the scrawny hands, but it didn’t seem to be a healthy state. I wish it had been a healthy body. Whatever work you do, your body is your wealth.
“A mirror. I need to find a mirror…….”
I was curious about the face I had possessed, and a mirror was absolutely necessary to clearly confirm that I had possessed a different body.
Even if there isn’t one in this room, there should be one in the bathroom. Bathrooms without mirrors are rare.
“Huh?”
However, the door that seemed to lead outside was firmly shut. For a moment, not understanding the situation, I rattled the door several times trying to open it, but it only made unpleasant sounds and wouldn’t open.
Am I…… locked in?
How long had I been standing dazed in front of the door in this unbelievable situation? Thumping footsteps came from beyond the door. That sound approached from far away and stopped right in front of the door. Only then did I tense up and listen intently outside the door.
Bang! At the strong impact that shook the door, I, who had been holding the doorknob, plopped down on the spot.
“Shut up! Why are you making such a racket!”
The hoarse man’s voice was irritated. Bang! Bang! As if unable to contain his anger, the man kicked the door several more times. He seemed unaware that he himself was louder.
My heart pounded at the suddenly unfolding violent situation. As I held my breath without making a peep, the man soon moved away with noisy footsteps. The children sent sharp looks at me, displeased that I had created the noisy situation.
It was my first day of possession.
* * *
“My lord, mercy…… please show mercy.”
A small child begging in an alley with mud smeared on their face. That was me.
If I was going to possess someone, I should have possessed a character living a better life, but unluckily I had possessed a beggar boy used to make money. At first, I was reluctant to beg, but after a few days, I became somewhat accustomed to this work.
“Tsk tsk, how pitiful.”
A man passed me by with a pitying look.
What, give me money instead of pity. Such looks were no help at all. Because I wasn’t just a beggar but belonged to a begging organization. If I didn’t meet my quota, I’d be lucky if I wasn’t kicked around, let alone getting food or anything else.
In the grim reality, I let out a deep sigh and fell into thought.
Possession stories were a time-honored popular subject in genre fiction. Being a popular subject was consistent with possession-themed works pouring out like bamboo shoots after rain. I really liked that genre of fiction. The problem was that I couldn’t figure out the identity of the novel I had currently possessed at all.
“What on earth is the identity of this novel……. What novel could it be.”
The reason I couldn’t recall it was simple. I had read too many novels. Because I devoured as many as five novels in a day, I couldn’t possibly identify the work. Unless there was some other outstanding characteristic, there was nothing that came to mind just from being possessed and the current situation.
Also, that wasn’t the only problem. There was another fundamental problem.
“What on earth is my name?”
I couldn’t remember at all what my original name was before possession. I couldn’t even remember my face. I could understand not having the memories of this possessed body. It was common for there to be no memories of the possessed subject. But it was strange not to remember my original body.
What I remembered was that I had been in my early thirties. That I was an office worker. That I was hit by a truck and died. Trivial common knowledge of the modern world. And about the thousands of novels I had read as a hobby.
“Ugh…….”
For the past few days, I had been trying to get used to begging while simultaneously trying to recall my real name. No, not just my name, but I tried to recall more memories from before possession. Things like family or friends.
But I couldn’t recall anything, nor could I figure out anything about this novel. It wasn’t as if this body had suddenly dropped from the sky, so it was a bit strange that I couldn’t remember this much.
If I thought carefully, at least one or two of the body’s memories should come to mind…….
Possession stories have as many different protagonists as there are in number. The type that possesses the original protagonist. The type that possesses the villain. The type that possesses an extra, and so on. Because of that, unless a unique incident occurred, I wouldn’t even be able to figure out who the protagonist of this novel was.
But inwardly, I was convinced that the person I had possessed was an extra. Not only was there no way someone like me would possess a main character, but no matter how I looked at it, the owner of this body didn’t have the makings of a main character. I, who had read countless novels, guaranteed it.
It was while I was lost in such thoughts.
“Jack! You useless bastard! Didn’t you earn anything today either?!”
