I Became a Goblin Ancestor

(Please note that there may be some uncomfortable expressions, so please be cautious before reading. Of course, it’s not like scenes of bloodshed and violence.)

Slums.

The slums existing in the defense city were like a criminal state where every day was hell.

It might be different for named hunters of the underworld or those who had established themselves in organizations, but at least for those ordinarily sitting on the streets, it was like that.

If you turn your head for a moment, the money in your pocket disappears.

If you let your guard down, a limb flies off, and if you close your eyes in someone else’s territory, your head falls off.

In the end, the only place given to the losers and vagrants on the streets was the lawless area where organizations hadn’t settled.

As such, blood always flowed on the streets full of cigarette butts, dirty spit, and gum stains.

The blood never dried up because the stray dogs, driven out by the wolves called organizations, constantly bit at others to prolong their own lives.

Of course, in an environment where one couldn’t even properly take care of their own body, dozens of corpses rolled on the ground every day in the slums amidst the fights, and even those corpses would disappear without a trace by the next day.

Because this situation continued without missing a single day, the slums were not lacking to be called a hell on earth.

Therefore, the girl named Neon thought her situation was fortunate compared to others.

‘Because my father is the king of the slums…’

Neon’s father was the king of the organization called the head of the 8th district slums.

Neon was born under such a father, and unlike her chosen siblings, she was abandoned because she didn’t have an innate ability.

However, being abandoned didn’t mean she was thrown out onto the streets.

As she was still a child, Neon received the lowest position among the lowest positions in the organization, like her abandoned siblings.

And Neon was satisfied with just that.

‘I had a place to rest.’

It was a position where even other low-ranking members looked down on and beat her, but at least there was a place for Neon to sleep in the old warehouse.

‘And I didn’t have to starve to death…’

Moreover, if she took the beatings obediently and kept her mouth shut quietly, she could get a hard piece of bread and a cup of lukewarm water once every three days, so compared to those who couldn’t even find a place to sleep outside the building and starved to death, Neon herself was a child born with incredibly good luck.

Originally, if she had been born on the streets like other street children, she would have lost her life before even reaching 2 years old.

No, it wouldn’t have been strange if she had been thrown in a trash can right after birth.

However, just by being born under her father, she received a name that other vagrants didn’t have, and she was able to live properly until now, at the age of 15.

‘Was it really properly…?’

Although she was beaten every day and sometimes had to avoid knives when it got severe, she was alive in the end, so it wouldn’t be strange to say she was fine.

Yes, Neon herself had lived well as a proper and lucky child.

With such ‘self-brainwashing’, Neon had walked through 15 years as if tightrope walking.

Because in a world so cold and colorless, this was the only way Neon could endure.

Neon always muttered that one line and kept it close to her heart.

And it was when Neon turned 16 that her brain, which had been bowing down, steeped in fatigue and pain, finally came to its senses.

…
……
………

‘I don’t want this anymore.’

The slums were truly a cruel place.

If it were completely cut off from the outside world, it might be different, but the hopeful stories of the outside world heard from around finally awakened Neon’s dying spirit.

Stories of the outside world flowed in from the old radio in the warehouse, from the old TV displayed on the street.

Neon, who always listened to those stories with one ear and let them go out the other, thought carelessly one day.

And once that one thought leaked out through a small gap, the emotions and wishes that had been left to rot burst out like a flood in an instant.

‘I don’t want to live so unhappily anymore…!!’

She didn’t want to suffer from others. She wanted to eat her fill every day. She wanted to sleep in a soft bed and also wanted to go to school where children her age were said to go.

What had she learned living on this floor?

Only how to endure pain, how to endure hunger, and how to brainwash herself.

Nothing but negative educations, none of which were proper.
It meant that only dark underworld experiences that a normal child should never learn had accumulated in Neon herself.

Therefore, Neon couldn’t suppress the longing for the outside world that had started to rise, and the moment she made up her mind, Neon sprang out of the warehouse where she had been crouching.

‘I don’t want to stay in this hell anymore…!’

There was no guarantee that she could get out of these terrible slums.

And even if she got out of here, the possibility that she could survive was also slim.

But nevertheless, Neon ran towards the secret passage she had seen and learned countless times over the years, avoiding the vagrants rushing at her from around.

‘I’m hungry… thirsty…’

The more she ran, the more she felt her strength draining with her stomach hurting and her mouth drying up.

All she had eaten was a piece of bread she had saved two days ago, and all she had drunk was the fishy-smelling rainwater she had drunk in the warehouse today.

However, if she stopped in this area belonging to another organization, her life would fly away in less than a few minutes.

Therefore, even though her legs were getting slower and slower, Neon gritted her teeth and kept moving her running feet.

‘I will definitely take revenge…!!!’

She hates one man.

She hates the son of a bitch of a father who brought her into this world and then threw her to the bottom of the organization because she had no talent.

She will definitely make that dirty and filthy face hit the ground with her own hands.

Although it was a lofty goal beyond just getting out of the slums alive for her current self, she would not lose this hatred… this desire for revenge until she finally reached that goal.

Neon made such a resolution and finally arrived at the wall of the slums, squeezing her body into a small hole drilled there.

‘It hurts… it smells…!’

She could vividly feel rat corpses being crushed in her hand and disgusting sewage sticking to her hands.

Was it because it was a narrow and old hole? The terribly foul stench pierced Neon’s nose severely.

However, the thought that the dreamed-of outside world was just beyond this hole made even that stench fragrant.

And after crawling like that for a few minutes, feeling her bruised body aching.

Finally, without getting caught by anyone, Neon came out on the opposite side of the wall’s hole and could see the scene of a dilapidated alley spread out before her.

‘This is…’

It was an alley that someone who didn’t know might mistake for still being in the slums at a glance, but Neon could tell.

‘Outside…!’

The fact that this alley was definitely not an alley in the slums.

The smell of hardened blood was fishy and the filth on the ground smelled musty similarly, but the hell-like atmosphere unique to the slums did not exist here.

And decisively.

‘I can see light…’

The brilliant sunlight visible outside the not-so-long alley.

Unlike the sunlight in the slums tainted with cigarette smoke, Neon smiled brightly at the sunlight of the outside world that felt even refreshing.

She had really gotten out.

Although she had worried about ten thousand things while running, in the end, she had been able to come out safely like this.

She was worried about how to live from now on, but for now, let’s feel the true outside scenery with her whole body.

Muttering like that inwardly, Neon took a step forward with her feet that had stopped in emotion.

Thud—!

‘Huh…?’

The moment she took a step, Neon burst out in question at her body falling forward, unable to keep balance.

Why had she suddenly collapsed?

Neon tried to get up again playfully with a self-deprecating smile, but as if telling her not to ignore reality, not even a bit of strength entered her body that was making gurgling sounds.

The only parts she could move were at most her right arm stretched forward and her two feet face down.

Other parts only emitted weak trembles, with truly not even a little strength entering them.

‘Wait a minute…’

This shouldn’t be happening. She had just gotten out of the slums, how could this be happening to her who hadn’t even seen the proper outside scenery yet?

Neon threw those words with a smile to a god she didn’t even believe in, but of course, reality didn’t change.

Inside the dilapidated alley, Neon was lying face down, and about 10m ahead of her.

There existed the true outside that Neon had been longing for until now.

However, at the end of the infinite distance of 10m that she could never reach.

If only she could get there somehow.

If only someone could help her.

“Ple…ase…! He…lp… Cough! Me…!!”

Even when she tried to shout by peeling apart her lips that were stuck as if glued with bond, only a desperate cry burst out from her throat cracked from not drinking water.

A crawling cry that even a passing rat might have heard.

No, at the cry that even that rat would have scoffed at, Neon felt tears flowing down her cheeks.

She tried to shout several more times to make a proper cry, but the result didn’t change.

Her cry didn’t even become a cry, and there was no one passing in front of the alley… no one discovering her.

But even so, because she couldn’t give up on that outside, Neon mustered all her strength and used her right arm that could still move to hit the ground and stand up, leaning her back against the alley wall.

If she could just move little by little like this and get out of the alley, wouldn’t at least one person discover her?

‘Please…’

Harboring such hope, Neon earnestly wished inwardly.

However, as if asking if she still hadn’t given up hope, as if to give even greater despair, when Neon tried to move by wiggling her feet.

—.

‘Ah, haha…’

Neon burst into tearful laughter at her body that couldn’t even twitch its toes anymore.

Laughter that burst inside because even that laughter couldn’t open her mouth.

Along with that laughter, her heart that had been beating slowly also felt like it was being torn to shreds.

She thought she had finally gotten out, but was she going to die without escaping from misfortune until the end?

She had finally grasped those emotions she had been turning away from for so long, those emotions full of ecstasy and hatred.

‘Please, someone…’

To reach out their hand so that she could live.

Neon sneered at herself for not being able to let go of hope even in this situation, but in the candle flame of consciousness that was going out, Neon’s heart was praying like that.

Her hands were already worn away, and she was praying desperately, pressing her head to the ground so much that she couldn’t even open her eyes properly.

But in the quiet stillness of the alley where no one came in the end, Neon slowly closed her eyes.

The powder of sleep being sprinkled irresistibly over her heavy eyelids.

And just before the wick turned to ash between the gradually melting candle wax.

The miracle she had so desperately wished for came to Neon.

“…Lucky… say… I… if, wear… not… here… you, …not…”

‘A voice…?’

With blurring vision and an unintelligible voice, she felt something moving beyond her eyelids approaching.

Then warmth touched her arm that had grown cold, and Neon felt her body being picked up by someone.

However, even opening her eyes to confirm this was not allowed for Neon now, and Neon could only let out a low murmur in her unconscious mind.

That it was warm, she said.

Because she could tell that the sunlight of the outside world she had longed for so much had reached her, even though she couldn’t hear or see it.

Neon’s heart, which had prayed so desperately, finally slowly fell into sleep.