Swish, swish—scritch, scritch, scritch—
The sound of a stiff bamboo broom sweeping across stone floors echoes through the hall.
It is the sound of the brooms held by Gozu and Mezu, the automated wardens who handle the cleaning of the Nether King Palace.
The strangely rhythmic sound feels almost like falling rain. If you listen closely, it doesn't take long before you find yourself nodding off.
They say the sound of rain is great for insomnia. Thanks to that, I've spent most of my free time lately just rotting away in sleep.
I've managed to kill 10,000 years that way. Just 10,000 more, and I'll finally hit the start of the original story.
Haha. Lying around doing nothing truly is the best.
F*ck. Why does time move so goddamn slow?
"Uugh... aaargh... euehh..."
I rolled around the floor making bizarre, beast-like noises until a sudden wave of post-sloth clarity hit me, leaving me limp and staring at the ceiling.
One of the Ten Kings once told me that if I was just going to sleep all day, I should find something to do. But honestly, if there were actually work for me to do, would I be lying here like a slug?
I put in a lot of effort managing the fields of Equinox Flowers near the Sanzu River before they sprouted, but once they bloomed, they started growing on their own, using the corpses of sinners as fertilizer. Now they don't need any maintenance at all, leaving me with zero responsibilities.
The Pure Spirit Hall is in a similar state.
They say people are buried under the flowers of Hell... that's why they grow so well.
Since I really had nothing better to do, I tried sitting in on the Ten Kings' trials just to watch the proceedings, and it was actually quite entertaining for a while.
The sheer number of lunatics in this world is staggering. From the guy who murdered someone for revenge and claimed he had no regrets despite falling to Hell, to various other dramas—it was like watching a nonstop marathon of trashy morning soaps.
But even that gets old after a while.
Of course, every now and then, a case comes along with a twist so cliché-breaking or an impact so hard that it's difficult to forget.
For example... yeah, the Vengeance of the Pit Vipers case.
* * *
In the Hell of Poisonous Snakes, overseen by King Byeon-seong, where vipers swarm in writhing masses.
A new sinner arrived.
The charge was murder.
There wasn't much to investigate; the trial was over in an instant.
Then came the moment for the sinner's final defense.
"My lover... he cheated on me!! So, *hic*... I just took my revenge!! How could he do that to me...!"
Hmm. He saw his partner cheating and couldn't take it, so he killed the guy.
I get it. In the past, I used to get really invested in these stories, huffing and puffing about what a bastard the victim was.
But now? If they're dead, they probably deserved it. I just brush it off.
It's all so stale.
"The sin of murder is deep and heavy. If it was for the sake of justified revenge, there is room for consideration... however, that does not make the sin of taking a life any lighter."
King Byeon-seong, who handles violent crimes, trailed off as he scratched his head while looking into the Mirror of Karma.
Wait, what's he seeing to make him act like that?
"Hey, what is it?"
"See for yourself, my lord."
I usually try to avoid interfering in trials, but seeing King Byeon-seong react that way piqued my curiosity. When I asked, he gave me a sour look and showed me the Johari.
A man was laughing and drinking tea with another woman before spending a passionate night together. The man currently on trial was hiding in the shadows, gnashing his teeth.
What's wrong with this? It's just the same old scene of a murder following a discovery of infidelity. It's everywhere.
Just as I thought that, the scene of the man stabbing the other man played out.
"So? What about it?"
"The 'lover' the sinner is talking about is that man who was stabbed."
I froze mid-breath and stared at King Byeon-seong.
The King simply closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.
Looking back at the Mirror of Karma, I gave a nonchalant shrug.
"Well, that can happen."
I don't particularly care about someone's sexual orientation. Not my business. As long as they aren't hurting me, they can love whoever they want.
Besides, I see this kind of stuff all the time when I visit King Song-je's Cold Hells. I'm used to it.
I mean, there was that one serial rapist who specifically targeted 57 different men. This is nothing.
"T-then...!"
"That doesn't mean the murder is justified."
I was originally going to suggest a reduced sentence, but since he showed zero remorse, I told the King to throw the book at him—maximum penalty.
A sin cannot be justified. A sinner who feels no regret and refuses to reflect deserves no mercy.
And so, the sinner was dropped into the deepest pits of the Hell of Poisonous Snakes.
* * *
The next unforgettable case was the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
It wasn't that the case itself was impactful, but the sinner's age was so young that it stuck with me.
I think he was... yeah, twelve years old.
He kept deceiving people with lies, so when the wild beasts actually appeared, no one believed him. As a result, all those people were mauled to death, which is how he ended up in Hell.
It was such an impressionable incident that I remember it as the "Shepherd Boy Trial."
But again... you see it once or twice, and your threshold for shock goes up. Eventually, even stuff like that feels like nothing.
Repeated stimulation numbs a person. You reach a point where you can guess exactly what story is coming next.
For instance, if a horror movie shows a character alone, centering the shot on them while leaving a dark space in the background, what do the viewers think?
Exactly. They think, 'Ah, something's about to pop out of that darkness—a ghost, a monster, or a killer.'
A person's life is similar when viewed from a distance. If you just watch, you can predict it all.
"Sigh..."
I used to wonder why the minds of long-lived beings always seem to go a bit haywire, and now I know why. This is it.
Everything you do feels like déjà vu. Everything you see, everything you hear—it's all déjà vu.
Having lived for so long and experienced so many similar things, I'm starting to get confused whether I'm living in the present or just reminiscing about the past.
"Isn't there anything with a bit of impact..."
As I was rolling around the floor with those thoughts, the Gozu cleaning the Nether King Palace approached me.
I stayed lying down, wondering what it was doing, and then the Gozu pushed me aside with its broom.
"..."
The hell?
No, seriously, what was that?
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
Did this bastard just classify me as trash?
I blinked, unable to process the situation for a moment. But as I slowly started to get up, the sweeping Gozu flinched, trembled, and immediately turned its back to clean somewhere else.
"...Fine, f*ck it. I'm going. I'll go do something, okay?"
Letting out a massive yawn, I walked out of the Nether King Palace, greeted by the same old landscape of Hell.
I'm sick of this... ugh... I sighed and was scratching my head when a single Hell Butterfly came fluttering toward me.
Hell Butterflies are the carrier pigeons sent by the Ten Kings since they can't move during a trial.
If it's coming to me, it means someone has something to say while they're on the bench. I wonder who sent it.
I extended my index finger, and the Hell Butterfly landed on it.
As its wings beat softly, Jomon's voice echoed out.
[Try going outside for once.]
After delivering that single sentence, the Hell Butterfly dispersed into Spiritual Particles and vanished.
...Are you shitting me? He sent a Hell Butterfly just to say that?
First the Gozu, now this guy. It's not like I've been slacking for thousands of years. I finished everything I needed to do, and just because I roll around for a measly 10,000 years, people start treating me like garbage.
"That's just cold, seriously."
I was scratching my head and letting out a deep sigh when another Hell Butterfly flew toward me.
Assuming it was more of the same, I gave a reluctant finger. The butterfly landed.
[Soul Society is under invasion. It appears they are targeting the Royal Guard's realm.]
"...Pfft—!? *Cough*, *hack*! Ack!!"
F*ck, it went down the wrong pipe...!
I coughed until my face turned red, and as the butterfly vanished, I replayed what I had just heard in my mind.
"Soul Society is being invaded?"
I said I wanted something with impact, but I didn't mean something this big.
I scoured my memories to see if such an event occurred in the original story, but nothing came to mind.
Aside from the Quincy invasion a thousand years ago and the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, there shouldn't be anything else, right?
Then who the hell is invading Soul Society right now...?
"First, let's just go."
Better to move than to think.
With that thought, I opened the Hell Gate, and as I stepped out, I saw something moving in the far distance.
It was a presence so massive it felt like my sense of perspective was broken.
If it wasn't for the fact that it was trudging forward, I would have mistaken it for a snow-covered mountain.
"That..."
The silhouette was quite familiar.
No, it wasn't just familiar—it was something I knew very well.
The Primordial Hollow. The first Hollow to ever be born into this world, and the first being to ever touch and end the life of another.
The being I had left alone and run away from because I didn't want to get involved.
"The Great Hollow."
Had it been bulking up its body in Hueco Mundo, hiding from the Soul King's gaze?
Just how many lives had it devoured? Its mere existence was causing the Three Worlds to creak and groan with instability.
If not for the Soul King acting as the wedge and the Six Realms of Reincarnation in Hell, the Three Worlds would have collapsed long ago.
"Shit, no wonder they called me."
Scowling deeply, I flew in a straight line toward the Hollow visible in the distance.
If I let this drag on, it's going to get ugly. I'm ending this fast.
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