Chapter 1: Doll Acquisition

Fwoosh.

Flames surged over the rooftops, turning the village into ashes.

The screams of the living and the smell of burning corpses prickled my senses, sending shivers down my spine.

Where this place was, and why I was here. I didn’t know either. I was definitely sleeping in my bed. But when I opened my eyes, I was in a different place, and everything around me was burning.

It seemed I couldn’t even make a sound out of sheer absurdity, but then I realized my throat was almost completely dry.

To grasp the situation, I steadied my breath and carefully looked around.

The fire was still consuming the village, and furthermore, the villagers were being engulfed in flames.

A natural fire? No. This was… yes. An artificially created fire.

A village that looked like something you’d find in the countryside.

My guess was that bandits had started this mess to plunder the village.
Surely the villagers wouldn’t be crazy enough to set their own place on fire.

Thinking that far, I took a deep breath.

I wasn’t particularly smart to begin with, so I didn’t know exactly how to handle this, but I knew I had to run first.

However.

‘?’

My body wouldn’t move. No matter how hard I tried to put strength into my body and move, it wouldn’t budge an inch.

In that moment, I knew instinctively.

That my current body was crippled.

Once I realized it, trying to exert force and move felt like a foolish idea. This body barely had any muscle to speak of. It was stick-thin, as if suffering from malnutrition.

I quickly assessed my body’s condition and faced reality.

A burning village.

The flames were growing stronger, not far from where I was.

I needed to move. But how?

In my current state, even getting up seemed difficult, yet I had to escape this place, avoiding those flames…?

“Ha.”

If they were going to possess me into someone, couldn’t they have done it properly?

I was going to die right after being possessed.

It felt unfair. Suddenly possessed while sleeping, only to die. My life felt truly tragic.

“Am I going to die…?”

I didn’t want to die. It was too unfair to die like this.

I’m scared. It’s terrifying to experience death without even living through my vibrant twenties.

Fwoosh.

The fire, now truly close, warmed my body.

The house in front of me was burning, and it looked like the flames would leap over the crumbling wall and reach me. In fact, they were slowly advancing.

Resigned, I closed my eyes. Since it had come to this, maybe after dying, I could become a ghost and haunt the bastard who possessed me.

Though I didn’t know if I’d even become a ghost.

Closing my eyes tightly, I waited for the flames to engulf me, but for some reason, my skin didn’t start to burn.

It felt as if someone was blocking the way in front of me.

Was my thinking slowing down because I feared the moment of death? Or did I feel this way because I had already burned to death?

Either way wasn’t pleasant. Death was the same outcome.

But even after several minutes passed without any pain, I started to wonder.

Didn’t they say cremation was the most painful way to die?

The question grew bigger. The heat from the flames that were right in front of me moments ago had vanished, and only the cooled air stimulated my lungs.

It wasn’t that I felt cool because I was dead. My heart was still beating. Faintly, though.

Then, did the fire really go out…? Even though it hadn’t rained?

I cautiously opened my eyes and checked the village that had been burning just moments ago.

What met my eyes were the remnants of houses smoldering with black smoke and corpses burned beyond recognition.

“Ugh…”

Seeing them made me nauseous.

It wasn’t my first time seeing a corpse. I had seen a few at funerals.

But this was different. Horribly burned bodies littered the streets like that.

Wouldn’t anyone who could think calmly after seeing that be the strange one?

“Hoo-euk.”

My stomach still hadn’t settled. This was definitely not a scene a normal person’s mind could withstand.

About ten minutes passed like that, and I barely managed to regain my composure and assess the situation.

What entered my field of vision were burned corpses and houses.

And a blonde girl with short hair, who hadn’t been there before, floating in the sky.

Despite the gloomy sky filled with smoke, her presence seemed to brighten the surroundings.

The girl, wearing what looked like a uniform, looked down at the village from the sky, and then her eyes met mine.
The moment our eyes met. An inexplicable fear gripped my body.

An instinct told me not to move, restraining me. Not that I could move anyway in my current condition.

Following my instinct, I stayed quiet, and the girl floating in the sky slowly descended towards me.

Could she be coming to kill me? A strange anxiety arose, but I tried to ignore it.

Eventually, the girl landed right where I was.

“……”

“……”

Our eyes met, and a brief silence flowed between us.

Emotionless eyes stared at me.

Lifeless eyes, uninterested in anything. Yes, describing them as dead eyes felt right.

Then, the girl spoke.

“A survivor…”

Her tone was also chillingly devoid of emotion. As if looking not at a person, but an object placed before her.

But was it my imagination? A small light flickered in her eyes before quickly disappearing.

After that single phrase, silence fell again, deepening my anxiety.

What if this girl was the one who burned down the village? What if she put out the fire just to check for survivors?

Will I die?

Fear blanked my mind. The only words I managed to utter were.

“Save, me…”

Tears flowed. I’m scared. I’m terrified. The resolve to die I had earlier had long since cooled after missing the chance to die.

Missed opportunities don’t come again.

“……”

The girl just kept watching me cry.

And this time, I clearly saw the small flicker I’d noticed earlier.

It was… yes. Kinship. That was it. The girl looking down at me felt sorry for me.

I was certain of it.

It seemed, at least for now, she wouldn’t kill me.

Then, the girl who had been just watching spoke again.

“Name.”

Name…?

“……”

“…Name.”

As I remained silent, I avoided the girl’s gaze as she asked again.

I wondered why she was suddenly asking, but in this situation, I had to follow her words for now. I couldn’t even move properly; resisting might lead to something terrible.

First, I had to answer her question.

“Sia… is my name.”

My name. Kim Sia. It felt strange, being a gender-neutral name.

“Sia…”

She repeated my name, memorizing it. Again, her eyes flickered, showing emotion. Though it vanished quickly.

My tears had stopped earlier. I was still scared, but better than before.

“Did you survive alone?”

Her quiet murmur confused me. Was it a rhetorical question or a real one?

Probably the latter. From my brief observation, she didn’t seem like someone who spoke unnecessarily.

“I, don’t know.”

A scraping sound came from my cracked throat. My throat wasn’t in good condition to continue speaking. Not just my throat, my whole body was a mess. A body that couldn’t even beat up a child.

She observed me carefully, then reached out her hand. At that sight, tension rose again, and I reflexively closed my eyes.

However, contrary to my tension, I felt no touch on my body. Peeking slightly, I saw her hand paused in mid-air, lost.

As I blankly watched it, she withdrew her hand and moved closer to me.

Then, she bent her knees to meet my eye level as I sat.

Soon, she spoke.

“Shall I help you?”

Her eyes were indifferent, but I could detect a faint hint of goodwill.

I had no choice. If I refused here, she would either leave or kill me.

If she left, I would die. Unable to move, I’d starve to death.

Eventually, I had to nod.

“Alright… but you don’t look like you can move in that body.”

For some reason, she asked with a slightly expectant tone.

“May I carry you?”

Blink. Blink.

I blinked several times, not understanding.

Carry…? Don’t people usually say piggyback or hold in their arms?

I nodded anyway.

I didn’t want to speak anymore, fearing blood would come out of my throat.

Soon, she wrapped her hand around my waist and lifted my arm onto her shoulder.
As if slinging luggage over her shoulder.

I was flustered, but I had no strength, and protesting was pointless, so I just gave up.

While she carried me slung over her shoulder, I quickly thought about the current situation.

One, I don’t know what this world is. Whether it’s a novel, a game, or something else. It’s definitely possession, but it’s hard to figure anything out right away.

Two, whatever this is, the woman carrying me now is a main character or someone of equivalent importance.

How many people could extinguish a fire engulfing an entire village?

Three, if I follow this woman, it seems there will at least be a way to live.

She said she’d help me, so she probably won’t kill me once we get there.

As I was thinking and racking my brain, I heard someone’s voice.

“Lady Lilac. The number of Majin nearby was 13. We captured 11, but 2 escaped using a previous scroll.”

An old man in a suit, appearing out of nowhere, bowed respectfully before the woman.

The woman, no, Lilac, spoke even more coldly than when she talked to me.

“Capture them.”

“As you command.”

After saying that, the old man vanished in an instant.

Along with the smell of blood that had been present until just now.

Lilac, who had briefly stopped walking, started moving again and soon said.

“Difficult.”

What…?