Ch. 2 Murim Psychopath Chapter 2

Chapter 2: No. 3789028376

To Belteruk’s eyes, the soul of a human was nothing more than a silver tether.

Outside the sleek, obsidian curve of the virtual reality helmet, that thread dangled, a frayed, luminous wick swaying in a draft only the dead could feel. Usually, when the thread snapped, the soul followed it out like a fish on a line. But this soul was different.

That was because the soul of number 3789028376 was currently inside virtual reality, enjoying a game. This was precisely why Grim Reapers could know that souls were inside virtual reality without even needing to connect themselves.

VR was a particular brand of headache for the Reapers of the Underworld. When a human died while synchronized, their consciousness often refused to recognize its own expiration. They remained trapped in the server, ghosts in the machine, rampaging through lines of code while their physical bodies rotted in the real world. In such cases, a Reaper had no choice but to sit and wait for the soul to "log off."

However, an eccentric grim reaper like Belteruk did not have much dissatisfaction with this. That was because what he had in abundance was time, and all of that time was connected to the horror called boredom. Virtual reality itself was a bit of a nuisance to Belteruk, but in some ways, he was rather grateful for it. After all, it allowed him to kill at least a tiny portion of the tedious and endlessly long time given to him.

With a click of bone on metal, Belteruk sheathed his scythe. He began to drift through the apartment, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings. It wasn't curiosity; after tens of millions of years, curiosity was a dead nerve. It was simply a reflex, a habit of observing the cages humans built for themselves before he escorted them to the next one.

The room was a testament to the man’s psyche.

It was sparse. A desk, a bookshelf with spines aligned to the millimeter, and a bed with hospital-corner precision. Even the trash can was empty, its plastic liner smoothed down without a single wrinkle. The VR capsule sat in the center of the room, sterile and white, housing the body of No. 3789028376. There wasn't a speck of dust, not a stray hair, not a single smudge on the glass.

Germophobia.

No. 3789028376 seemed to be a perfectionist who did not allow even the smallest speck of dust into his space. Belteruk had seen many such people, but cases this severe were rare.

Obsessive germophobia? Or else…….

Belteruk’s penetrating eyes swept beyond the room to examine even the living room and the bathroom. Just like this room, it was difficult to find even a tiny speck of dust. However, this was not what Belteruk had been expecting.

Sniff, sniff.

What stimulated his senses was not his eyes, but his nose. He caught a familiar yet peculiar smell from somewhere. Extremely acrid, yet a unique scent that pleased the noses of grim reapers. It was the smell of blood and rotting corpses. It was so faint that even a grim reaper like him could hardly notice it. Only now, with his concentration focused, could he properly sense it. That was probably why he had not noticed it when he first entered the villa.

Belteruk’s nose flared. He was tracking the source of the smell. The odor was rising from below. He lowered his head downward.

His gaze passed through the fifth-floor floor, the fourth-floor floor, the third-floor floor, the second-floor floor, and the first-floor floor, yet he could not find the source of the smell. Belteruk’s pitch-black eyes turned white. It was a phenomenon that appeared when he pushed his penetrating eyes to their limit.

He saw that there was a secret space underground.

Hm!?

There were no corpses there either. His vision moved further downward. Only after passing through three more such secret spaces was he finally able to find the source of the smell. He thought that this customer truly was a meticulous fellow.

“Kekeke.”

Belteruk muttered in a low voice. The reason was that the owner of soul number 3789028376 was a human who created work for grim reapers. He did not know what his profession was, but his ‘hobby’ seemed deeply connected to the work of grim reapers.

Inside an array of industrial freezers lay a harvest. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of men, frozen in orderly rows. Some were frosted over with age; others were so fresh that the heat hadn't fully left their marrow.

Earth, situated in the 111th dimensional plane, had always been a planet defined by a certain visceral cruelty. Recently, it had become more distant from the immediate reach of the Reapers, but its essence remained unchanged. Before the development of modern science, scenes like this were commonplace across the globe. During times of war, far greater atrocities were the norm.

So to Grim Reaper Belteruk, such things were nothing unusual. The true point of interest lay elsewhere.

Corpses carried the color of the killer’s soul and their killing intent. Even if the corpse was already an empty vessel devoid of a soul.

Yet, from the bodies in that subterranean locker, Belteruk felt only purity. There was not a single trace of traditional killing intent to be found.

Pure murderous madness. Wouldn’t that be the right way to put it?

A soul with such distinct sensibilities was a rare find in the 111th dimension, a plane now obsessed with concepts like human rights and civilization. They existed, but they were shadows of a bygone era. A thin smile curled the corners of Belteruk’s lips.

“A pure murderer starved for blood. In the language of this Earth, I believe they call it a psychopath.”

This was Belteruk’s definitive assessment of soul No. 3789028376. Given this level of depravity, the man would likely never taste freedom again once he reached the Eight Hells. He would rot in those depths for ten million years of purification. If he was particularly unfortunate, his soul might even be annihilated before his sentence was served.

Of course, it was of no concern to the Reaper.

Having satisfied his fleeting curiosity, Belteruk lost all interest in the man. Whether No. 3789028376 was the most prolific killer in universal history mattered little. A Reaper’s duty ended at the gates of the Underworld. Whether King Yeomra shredded the soul or erased it from existence was outside his jurisdiction.

It was just as Belteruk was about to scratch his eyes with his scythe again out of boredom.

The shrill sound of the grim reaper terminal rang out with a *beep-bee-beep*. It was a warning alarm. It meant that the time to collect the soul had arrived, so he should hurry up and do his job.

Belteruk thought little of it since he had already finished his work and was merely waiting, but just to be sure, he took out the Grim Reaper Register and opened it. As he had earlier, he yawned while checking the soul number of the target to be collected.

3789028376.

It matched.

“No problem.”

Just as he was feeling relieved.

“Hm!? What is this……?”

He discovered a problem! And a fatal one at that!

The dimensional plane listed beneath the soul number was not 111. It was 112. This man was not the soul intended for harvest; he was merely a double from the wrong reality.

Something impossible had occurred.

In the world of mortals, it was a clerical error. In the world of Reapers, such mistakes were precursors to annihilation. If this news reached King Yeomra, it was the end. The ten million years of torment in the Eight Hells he had just envisioned for the killer would become his own reality.

Belteruk’s mind spun rapidly. He had carried out grim reaper duties for tens of millions of years. Not once had he ever made a mistake. Having been overly confident in that, today’s incident had finally exploded in his face.

I can’t lose everything I’ve endured for tens of millions of years and now because of this single error…! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it……! Ah!

At some point, as he repeated the word *damn it* countless times in his mind.

‘That incident’ which had shaken the Underworld hundreds of millions of years ago came to mind.

Soul grafting.

A grotesque incident committed by a deranged grim reaper who tried to create soul Siamese twins artificially.

That grim reaper had experimented to see whether it was possible to put two souls into a single body. The method was very simple: take a severed soul thread, attach it to the thread of another living soul, and solder them together. This was an unforgivable crime that blatantly violated grim reaper service regulations.

A grim reaper’s actions were each and every one connected to the order of the dimensional planes. And since he had done such a thing to a soul that was supposed to be alive, his ending was obvious. In the end, that grim reaper was discovered and annihilated.

Because a Reaper’s actions were woven into the very order of the dimensions, interfering with a living soul carried the ultimate price. The perpetrator had been caught and annihilated. The results of the experiment, whether it succeeded or failed, had been buried under a gag order by King Yeomra.

One thing, however.

Among grim reapers themselves, the opinion that it might be possible generally carried more weight. After all, there were grim reapers who would bring up this story whenever they were bored.

Indeed.

Is it possible?

What would happen if he tried it right now?

In his sight, the soul thread dangling outside the virtual reality capsule swayed limply. There was still time. Number 3789028376 had not logged out yet.

If that soul were to log out in this situation?

Belteruk would be annihilated. But if he attempted soul grafting, there might be a chance to cover up his mistake. If he grafted the 111th dimensional plane’s soul number 3789028376 onto the body of the 112th dimensional plane’s soul number 3789028376, who was originally supposed to die, and then severed only the thread of the 112th dimensional plane’s soul and guided it to the Underworld, then all dimensional planes would proceed exactly as originally planned! If it worked out like this, no one would ever know about his mistake!

Although a soul from the 111th dimensional plane would end up going to the 112th dimensional plane, the total amount of souls in the Underworld would still be preserved. That alone was enough for Belteruk to feel reassured.

His decision was instantaneous. Belteruk seized the end of the 111th dimension's soul thread. Without hesitation, he opened his terminal.

Beep-bee-beep-.

The display flickered to Dimension 112. With a sharp vibration, Belteruk vanished from the room.

It was the moment when soul grafting was realized for the first time in hundreds of millions of years.