This Isn’t an E*otic Game?

Life in Scrap Yard was monotonous.
Every morning, I was forced to wake up early, half-unwillingly.
Because of an alarm that wasn’t even set.

[The labor theorists are trying to overthrow the city!]
[Report! Only reporting can save the city!]
The loudspeaker blaring from the police was relentless, blasting through the streets every day, without fail.

The noise seemed to tear at my eardrums as I held my aching head, heading out to buy groceries.
“The workers’ paradise will come! You dogs of the factory owners!!”
“Catch this bastard!!”

To be more precise, I had to dodge the police chasing after a young labor theorist who was handing out pamphlets in the market, all while shopping. If I wasn’t careful, I might end up spilling the food I had just bought.
After eating a quick meal at home, I opened the newspaper.
I was hoping to find news about black magicians, or demon followers.

Of course, no such news appeared.
[The whereabouts of the ringleader of the labor theorists, Cal Renaro, remain unknown!]
[Let’s eradicate the cancerous laborism that’s corroding our society!!]

[A healthy society is created through thorough reports!]
The only news in the paper was about labor theorists.
How evil their claims were.

How they were ruining Scrap Yard’s factories and the city as a whole. These were the only types of stories.
It was starting to get frustrating.
This wasn’t a newspaper, it was more like propaganda.
After hastily cooking something to eat, I made sure to stay indoors, avoiding going out as much as possible.

The cold, empty bed.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the moments spent with Erfa, Iomene, and Almene, happily tangled together, living in bliss.
It made me feel a bit down.

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t sleep well.
“The labor theorists are the scourge of society!! They are a threat to the very existence of Scrap Yard!! They must be imprisoned!! MUST!! Only thorough reports can create a healthy society!!”
The constant broadcasts of the police outside kept me awake longer.

Eventually, I had to modify my hearing through body modification, purposely dulling my ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) senses, before I was finally able to fall asleep.
Once asleep, I had nightmares.
Dreams of going to hell.

Dreams of becoming a demon king and destroying the world.
Dreams of the women I loved falling into ruin because of me.
As a result, I often woke up in a panic, unable to sleep for long.

I cried frequently, sinking deeper into despair. Eventually, I lost my appetite, and soon I found myself avoiding trips to the market altogether.
I just wished that there would be news about the black magicians or some sign of them in the newspaper soon.
Or maybe, like before, I could dream of black magicians or demon followers trying to destroy the world again.

All I could think about was how I wanted to be cursed and die already.
Nearly a month passed in this depressive state.
One day.

“Hello? I’m the person from next door.”
A woman from next door came to visit.
When I opened the door, a skinny woman looked up at me.

“I’ve been hearing crying and loud sleep talking every morning for over a month. What kind of scream is that? Are you having nightmares?”
Her emotionless words made me smile bitterly.
The walls in this place were thin.

So, all kinds of sounds would leak through.
It seemed I had screamed a little while dreaming.
“I’m sorry. I’ll keep it down.”

As I tried to close the door after apologizing, the woman blocked it with her foot.
“You’ve been fired, haven’t you?”
“Excuse me?”

“I understand. I’ve heard it’s common for engineers to get fired. Here.”
She handed me a basket.
Looking inside, I saw several black loaves of bread.

“I wasn’t going to give it to you. Things are tight for us too, and we can’t really afford to help anyone else. But my husband insisted, saying we should share. Eat and get some strength. We don’t need money.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
She was being kind to me?

She thought I was a fired engineer, didn’t she?
I examined her carefully—her appearance, her clothes.
She didn’t seem like someone who could afford to give away food.

The bread in my hand wasn’t just bread—it was like sharing life with her, considering her situation.
Tears welled up in my eyes in that instant.
It was a small act of kindness, but it warmed my heart in a way I hadn’t expected.

I nodded, unable to hide my tears.
“Thank you. I’ll eat it.”
She smiled softly at me.

“I’m Anna, your neighbor. My husband Peter is also an engineer. Let’s try to keep going, even when things are tough. We’ve got to survive, right?”
After saying that, Anna waved and went back to her house.
I stood there for a while, holding the bread basket, crying silently.

It was such a simple comfort, yet it gave me the strength I desperately needed.
Yeah.
It was tough, but I was making the right choice.

I had to disappear for everyone’s sake.
I took a bite of the black bread Anna gave me.
It tasted dry, and the texture was incredibly hard, but that wasn’t what mattered.

What mattered was the heart behind it. And that warmth gave me a little healing, soothing my tired mind and body.
 
****

Since that day, I had often exchanged greetings with Peter and Anna's family when we ran into each other on the street.
“Are you going out again today?”
“Yes.”

Peter and Anna always seemed exhausted.
They left for work at what could only be called dawn, not morning, and came back close to midnight.
Every time I saw Anna, it was clear that her weight was dropping in real time, and Peter also looked like he was deteriorating as a person.

On top of that, whenever they lay down late at night to sleep, I could hear their family’s conversation drifting over the thin walls of the building.
The walls of the dormitory were shockingly thin, which led to this unintended eavesdropping.
“Jim, Amy. How was today?”

“We only did chimney cleaning for 9 hours today. At least they gave us food at the factory.”
“Good. You need to take care of your little sister. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”

Back when I didn’t know them, I would’ve thought of these conversations as noise and ignored them. But now that I knew them, I couldn’t help but overhear their various exchanges.
Like most of the workers here, Peter’s family was in a tough spot.
“My cough has been getting worse lately.”

“It’s still better than the other women at the factory. Don’t worry, Peter.”
Anna said she had started coughing more often after working in the textile factory. Some of the other female workers at the factory even spat up blood.
“The factory owner announced he’s cutting the technicians’ wages. He’s reducing them to 90 leons.”

“How are we supposed to live on that...?”
“They said if we refuse or go on strike, they’ll fire us and report us as labor extremists, sending us straight to prison. Once we’re in a labor camp, we’ll be ruined. There’s nothing we can do. We just have to accept it.”
“Damn those factory owners...!”

“Don’t say things like that, Anna. If the police hear you, they’ll arrest you for being a labor extremist.”
“Jim and Amy, just 3 and 5 years old, are working cleaning chimneys. How is it that things are still so bad...?”
“I’ll try harder. What else can I do?”

Peter’s eyesight was getting worse, and Anna’s cough wouldn’t stop.
And Jim and Amy, just three and five years old, were already working as chimney cleaners at their tender age.
It made me reflect on the meaning of the black bread they had given me.

In such a dire situation, instead of yelling at me for crying every night from the nightmares, they handed me bread.
Suddenly, the gold I had carefully hidden in the corner of my room came to mind.
I wondered if I could give them a little bit of money.

But then I quickly dismissed the thought.
This money was what I had received to live without interacting with people, not to save anyone’s life.
Thinking about the dangerous power within my soul, I knew I couldn’t waste the money carelessly.

They had helped me, but I couldn’t help them in return.
As I listened to Peter and Anna’s family talking, I could feel the growing guilt inside me.
Despite all of this, time moved forward with an almost brutal certainty.

In the meantime, I did everything I could to search for demon followers or dark magicians.
I tried to sleep as much as I could.
I kept hoping that my prophetic abilities might show me a vision about demon followers or dark magicians in my dreams.

Then, when I woke up, I would roam the damp back alleys looking for demon followers or dark magicians.
Of course, most of the time, it was a waste.
Instead of demon followers or dark magicians, I just ran into thugs.

“Do you know anything about dark magicians or demon followers?”
“No, nothing.”
And they, too, knew nothing about demon followers.

“Forget you ever met me. It’s an order.”
I would erase their memories and, with a heavy heart, leave the back alleys, repeating the same days over and over.
And that day, too, was just another ordinary day, one where I came back empty-handed from wandering the back alleys.

When I returned to my room, took a quick shower, and lay on the bed under the blanket, I felt something strange.
There was no sound coming from the next room.
Normally, I would hear the sounds of Jim and Amy, and Peter and Anna talking, or other noises of daily life, but the next room was eerily silent.

At first, I thought nothing of it for the first couple of days.
Everyone has their own circumstances, don’t they?
Maybe they had gone somewhere for a bit, or maybe they were too busy to return for a few days.

But by the third day...
“Clear out this place. All the furniture inside belongs to us, so pack it up and leave! Clean it out!!”
That day, while I was returning from another wasted trip to the back alley, I saw the landlord, who came once a month to collect the rent, forcing open the door to Peter and Anna’s room and hauling their belongings out.

That’s when I realized something was wrong.
“Wait a second! Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”
At my question, the landlord pointed toward Peter and Anna’s room with a curt gesture.

“They haven’t paid the rent. According to the contract, I have to dispose of all the items inside. I have to make up for the unpaid rent somehow.”
They didn’t pay the rent? Peter was a factory technician, and Anna and the kids worked hard every day... how could they not pay the rent?
“Where’s the landlord?”

“If I knew where the landlord was, do you think I’d be here hauling this stuff out? They disappeared somewhere, they’re gone! That’s why I’m doing this!!”
With an irritated voice, I rushed back to my room, took out some money, and hurried to the landlord.
“I’ll pay this month’s rent, so don’t touch their things.”

“That’s easier for me. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
After paying the rent for them, I quickly left the place.

Something was definitely wrong.
Peter, Anna, and Jim and Amy...
Where had they gone?

What was happening?
Before I knew it, I found myself running around Scrap Yard.
“Peter! Anna!! Jim!! Amy!!”

I ran through the city, frantically calling their names.
“Where are you!! Where are you!!”
Please let it just be nothing serious.

Maybe they had been working extra at the factory and would come back in three days.
Maybe they just forgot to pay the rent.
I kept praying in my head, running around the city like a madman for half the day.

By the time the sun had set, and the cold air and deep darkness had settled over the city...
I got both good and bad news.
The good news was that I had found the family.

The bad news was...
“Mom, I’m cold. I don’t want to go in here.”
“You have to go in. Jim. Just a little more, and you won’t feel pain anymore.”

“If we walk in here, we won’t feel any pain anymore. Amy. Jim.”
The four of them were walking towards the freezing cold river.
And in that moment, I immediately realized why they were doing this.

Peter’s right arm had been severed.
Jim and Amy had their eyes covered with bandages.
Anna was so emaciated that she was bleeding from her mouth.

These were all symptoms commonly seen in industrial accidents in Scrap Yard.
They were injuries workers usually sustained in the factory.