"Haha~"
A pathetic laugh escaped my lips.
Even in this vision, my parents were absolute garbage just as I remembered.
Looking at her coldly, I asked, "You want to ruin me that badly? You want to inform the Awakeners Association? Why do you think I would let you live long enough to do that?"
Hearing the seriousness in my voice, the woman didn't flinch at all.
Instead, she laughed menacingly while clutching her broken leg, then spat straight at my face.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER I LIVE OR DIE ANYMORE! I'D RATHER DIE THAN LIVE AS A GROTESQUE! EVEN IF I DIE, SOMEONE WILL REPORT IT! NO ONE CAN ESCAPE THE AWAKENERS ASSOCIATION! ALL I WANT RIGHT NOW IS TO SEE YOU LIVE TO-"
Slap.
I couldn't bear to hear her disgusting rambling anymore.
I slapped her hard enough to knock her unconscious.
She was still alive.
I wanted to kill her right then but I held myself back and looked around.
"This is weird… Why does this feel way too real?!"
First the pain.
Then the details of this so-called home that I barely remembered.
The way the man and woman reacted, everything felt too real.
I walked over to the woman and took her phone.
With a single press of the button, the screen lit up, showing the time and date:
6:30 PM — 12th day of Autumn, After-Calamity Year 212.
I was born in the year 199. That meant I was 13 years old.
I had awakened at sixteen, not now.
The smell of fresh blood in the hall, the faint sound of breathing from the unconscious woman, everything told me this was real.
I walked to the mirror beside the couple's bed.
The reflection staring back at me was of a boy with pitch-black hair and dark brown skin.
His hair was a mess, and his cheeks were sunken from severe malnutrition.
"This is… me… my younger self…" I muttered in disbelief.
"What the hell is going on?"
I could feel everything vividly, even the hunger gnawing at my stomach.
Bewildered, I went to the kitchen and found some chapati and potato curry.
I took a plate, placed half the chapati and some potato curry on it, washed my hands, and sat on the floor to eat.
As I took my first bite, the chapati was far from soft, it was hard and lacked any real wheat flavor.
But the warm, savory spices of the potato curry made it slightly better.
The potatoes were cooked enough to be soft.
"At least this woman knows how to cook something edible…" I muttered quietly as I ate.
When I finished, another system notification echoed in my mind.
[Ding! Host #120548 has obtained the qualification to challenge the World Tower and inventory. Would you like to challenge immediately? Yes / No]
"First, all my senses returned… and now this?"
Every newly awakened individual received the qualification to climb the World Tower and challenge monsters to level up.
This message was exactly the same as the one I received when I first awakened.
"Am I really back in my childhood?"
"How?"
"Did those gods decide to play with my life again?"
I shook my head at my own thoughts.
There was no way those gods would waste time messing with me again.
They hadn't even known I was listening to their voices in that empty space.
Or maybe they did, but I simply wasn't worth their attention.
Either way, this had nothing to do with the gods, then how? Questions lingered in my mind, one after another, without any answers.
This was far beyond my understanding.
Still, I felt genuinely happy and strongly hoped that this was real, that I had truly been given another chance to live.
If it was true, I could live a completely different life from before.
I had already killed the man who sold me to the underworld, so there was no longer any connection to those bastards.
I could now focus entirely on increasing my strength.
Returning to the hall once more, still filled with the smell of blood, I looked around and muttered,
"If this is real, then I really messed up a bit. I need to leave before the agents of the Association arrive."
Just as that woman said, no one could escape the Awakeners Association and that was indeed true.
I knew very well the true capabilities of the Association more than anyone.
Now that the Gaya System had acknowledged me as an awakener, my real-time data would have been updated along with my current location.
Someone from the Association would definitely come to check on me.
The problem was that I had killed someone.
If they found me here right now, it would be extremely difficult to escape from their clutches.
"I need to get strong enough to gain leverage over how I'll be treated…"
With that determination, I looked at the woman lying unconscious on the floor.
"Should I kill her too? I've already killed her husband, becoming a murderer. Killing her as well wouldn't make much of a difference."
I pondered it.
Killing one or two would result in the same sentence in court.
But then I remembered what she had said, that she would rather die than live as a disabled person.
I was certain she had no savings or money to restore her leg.
"Nah. I'll let her live the rest of her life with a broken leg…"
Ignoring her, I went to collect the clothes that had been thrown into the basement, just as I remembered.
I spoke aloud, "Open inventory…"
Another panel suddenly appeared in front of me.
It was a six cubic meter storage space, meant to store necessary supplies before entering a dungeon.
Every awakener possessed this independent spatial storage granted by the Gaya System.
I took a set of clothes and placed it at the top of the inventory screen.
It vanished instantly.
One by one, I stored another eight sets of clothes and two sets of towels.
Then I returned to the kitchen, took boxes and plastic bottles, filled them with food and water, and stored those as well.
After storing everything, only two cubic meters of space had been used, leaving four cubic meters empty.
Then I looked at the dead body lying in the hall. As the thick smell of blood filled the air, a sudden idea came to mind.
I went over and stored the dead body into the inventory as well.
Two more cubic meters were filled, leaving the remaining two untouched.
"Now it's time to return to where I truly belong…"
Looking at the main screen asking whether I wanted to challenge the World Tower immediately, I selected Yes without hesitation.
In an instant, blinding light completely enveloped me.
I felt as if I were being pulled upward inside the light itself, and soon my vision blurred.