Chapter Text
In the pale light of dawn, the unusually clear surroundings stood in contrast to the dystopian façade of the city — a cluster of crimson and gray buildings, their windows tinted yellow or pink, typical colors of the Ring of Pride.
There’s something peculiar about Hell: its contradictory sense of aesthetics and beauty in urban sprawl.
Each region of Hell has its own identity, and the visual design of these places reflects the colorful diversity of the Abyss — from the sparse, melancholic islands of the Ring of Sloth to the unpleasant, industrialized streets of the Ring of Greed.
Hell is a very colorful place — if one can even call it that — and every time Remi thought about it, it stirred in him a revulsion that felt completely justified. Perhaps it was the most inappropriately honest euphemism one could assign… despite its contradiction.
Beyond the vast array of species inhabiting the districts that make up each ring, some regions have a more consolidated ethnic presence than others, shaped by the sin they represent and are condemned to embody.
Because that’s what demons are: entities that enact evil and corruption. Their very existence defines them. Their purpose is limited to a karmic echo of human sin.
Their profiles are merely remnants of that origin, regardless of the roles they embody.
An imp will always remain at the bottom — its impulsiveness is the expression of its deepest regret, and so it is condemned to precarity.
A succubus reflects the hollow degeneration of pleasure, for its very conception is rooted in perversion.
The anthropomorphic amphibious sharks are the ruthless personification of greed — and of the power awakened by the very idea of it.
A hellhound is nothing but the hunger of enslaved misery, driven by condemned instincts.
That’s why they are like canine beasts — born to serve the interests of others.
So, why is Remi different?
Is it a system flaw that he feels this way? A factory defect from those who created his kind? Is he the only one?
Why does everyone pretend to feel nothing, when that’s clearly a lie?
That’s where the joke begins — the one that lost its meaning long ago.
Are demons monsters because they choose to be? Or because they were condemned to be?
Because something as human as evil also reflects the heart of a monster that — whether it wants to or not — is bound to its own essence.
And pain is part of that.
Deep down, we can’t hide it. Because it’s inevitable.
The Second Circle of Hell doesn’t stray far from that truth.
It has no peculiarity beyond precarity itself — but that’s something that abounds everywhere.
The visually “attractive” cities of this spiritual plane are nothing more than polished façades meant to flaunt a utopia that doesn’t exist.
The Ring of Sloth and its healthcare system serve as a cruel reminder of how rotten this post-mortem realm truly is.
It’s like playing with a child — promising candy if he behaves, knowing full well he’ll never get it, no matter how hard he tries.
So what’s the point, then?
Remi pondered it day and night — if Hell even allows for deep nighttime ruminations.
Is it really worth going on?
Even though his entire being longs to move forward, to find purpose…
Why can’t he?
Why doesn’t he give up?
What does it even mean to be like water in a place suffering from a chronic, metaphorical drought — like the very jaws of the Devil?
Where water exists but is tainted by the filth that breeds it.
Where alcohol is the raw material of a twisted parody of pleasure that replaces genuine need.
What did Lara really teach him?
He never fully understood.
What he learned from her was, in essence, practical and martial.
But from his perspective… it meant everything.
It was the courage that allowed him to rise above his caste.
Until the end.
Since the day he found that strange book in the junkyard, Remi’s mind hasn’t stopped spinning — like an indescribable vortex of emotions gnawing and testing him from the inside.
Almost as if its contents were an extension of everything Lara once taught him… but more.
As if it existed to give form to that incandescent longing to belong — ignited by the lingering memory of what she was.
Remi still doesn’t understand what it all means.
But there’s something strange within it.
A boundless nature that clashes with everything he thought Hell was.
Because…
To act is to fail.
He who does not act, does not fall.
The wise man clings to nothing.
He who clings, loses.
He who owns nothing, has nothing to lose.
He who does not fight, is not wounded.
That is why the wise remain.
Like water: shapeless, ownerless, unfailing.
When Remi read those words for the first time, he didn’t know what to think.
But he felt a deep connection to that shadow still cast over his past — a shadow that quietly haunts him still.
“Maybe that’s why Lara told me the strongest isn’t the one who strikes first, but the one who doesn’t need to strike to endure.
There’s no form more solid than one that refuses to define itself.
No wisdom deeper than the one that stops imposing.
And if I stop trying to carry the world… maybe I’ll finally walk through it.”
Maybe that was the root of it all.
But Remi still clings to it.
Because he still doesn’t believe it — no matter how hard he tries.
Because he still longs for something he lost.
And that longing drags him down.
And even so… none of it makes sense.
Remi should be dead.
His very existence is an anomaly in this Hell.
Most hellhounds are euthanized when they turn eighteen.
If they’re lucky, a few escape.
But none survive for long. They all die within days.
Remi rarely found work.
He was usually seen like a ghost — an anomaly, almost mythological.
Demons took advantage of that, and it always ended badly. Always.
And yet… Remi always made it out unscathed.
That, by infernal standards, should be considered dangerous.
Because the system’s projection onto hellhounds is clear:
They must be nothing.
Hellhounds are the embodiment of nothingness within chaos.
They are worth nothing.
So something still doesn’t add up:
— “The warrior who does not fight is invincible.
Water doesn’t strike, but it erodes stone… So, what am I?”
— “In Hell, he who adapts survives.
But he who flows… disappears.”
So where does that leave Remi?
It was ridiculous to even think about.
But what other option did he have?
If he could die and end it all, he would’ve done it long ago.
But that idea was just as ridiculous.
He might ascend… or worse — become part of an even more twisted deformation of the Abyss.
Something even more agonizingly vociferous.
Simply existing in this excuse of a plane, after life…
For him, it’s no different than being dead.
IMP City was no different.
Its dystopian presence reflected the rotting garbage of what it meant to live here — a bloated overcrowding of misery, inhabited by thousands of demons of all kinds.
No different from the rest of the circles in this ring.
For a moment, as Remi kept whistling a melancholic tune through the unusually empty streets, he noticed how desolate the morning felt.
Despite the emotional storm inside him, Remi was calm.
But also uneasy.
Because, for the first time… Hell gave him a sliver of peace.
A lucid breath — almost dreamlike.
In Pentagram City, rest was a luxury.
Every street, every alley was a constant threat.
Remi had to develop military-grade awareness of his sleep — he couldn’t let his guard down, not even for a second.
Sleeping in hotels was a titanic challenge.
The lustful, incessant moans from neighboring rooms kept him awake without mercy.
It was just another symptom of the never-ending degeneration that defined life here.
Sex isn’t pleasure.
For filthy sinners — and maybe for most hellborns — it’s a twisted projection of pain, a desperate paraphilia.
It’s neither freedom nor joy: it’s escape.
A cowardly carnal escape that justifies making others suffer…
Or running from one’s own suffering.
Because this environment demands it.
Every time Remi thought about it, it filled him with dread.
An almost unbearable disgust.
That rotten mindset of the inhabitants of this wretched plane — that’s what fed his nightmares.
And those nightmares… brought back his past.
The marks that hide his shadow are unforgettable.
And even though the city seemed silent, asleep…
Remi knew this tranquility wouldn’t last long.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
.
Walking through streets vandalized with graffiti, filth, and trash scattered across cracked asphalt, the flickering streetlamps struggled beneath Hell’s purple dawn. Nothing unusual in a dystopia pretending to have order when it truly lacks any.
Suddenly, Remi senses movement around him. In front of the run-down buildings and crumbling apartments, an old CRT television tumbles from above, headed straight for him.
Thanks to his supernatural reflexes—worthy of a trained hellhound—Remi catches the falling object with surgical precision, using his inhuman speed and strength before it can crush him.
A raspy voice shouts from a high floor:
—“FUCKING IDIOT, STOP WHISTLING LIKE A DAMN WHORE!”
Despite the sudden outburst, Remi isn’t fazed. After all, silence comes at a high price.
Unfazed, he sets the television down by a nearby dumpster and continues on his way into the unknown.
—“Hmph... fucking moron,” he mutters.
That simple act reminds him once again of where he is. This is just the beginning. Hell will never stop being a poorly planned concrete jungle—a battlefield where you can be ambushed and caught off guard at any moment.
Its image of stability is a trap. For every moment of peace, you’re already losing. Everything is a deceptive state hinting at corruption, functioning as an illusory order that arbitrarily benefits only the Seven Sins and Hell’s royalty.
Despite appearances, there are no rights here, no luxuries. Food, services, and everything considered a necessity is corrupted. It’s as if the only viable logic for common folk is theft or labor exploitation, all serving the upper caste.
To survive here, one must accept the grotesque irony: Hell is a hellish parody of the worst human evils institutionalized into a system. A mockery that laughs in your face.
What the fuck is the point of therapy in Hell, if this place is a living allusion to madness itself?
A medical system that lies about diseases like Hellbies, just to justify mandatory checkups every five years—only to humiliate hellhounds further and remind them what miserable beasts they supposedly are.
Rehabilitation to save us from addictions they themselves promote? Don’t make me laugh.
Lost in these thoughts, Remi senses something approaching.
A bottle flies through the air like an improvised projectile. Remi doesn’t even blink. In a swift motion, he draws his nunchaku and delivers a clean sideways strike. The glass shatters in a shower of shards, spinning in slow motion under the purple dawn light. The weapon returns to his belt as if it never left.
Silence again.
Peace is now just a momentary illusion, and Remi knows this well. After all, what did he expect? In Hell, peace exists only to make you believe everything is fine... until something—anything—happens. And that’s the unbearable part: chaos isn’t constant. It’s intermittent, unpredictable.
Remi doesn’t see it, but he feels it. The air grows dense. The alleys begin to watch him.
Whispers. Faint voices rising from the shadows. Shapes. Eyes in the distance. The street itself seems to awaken with a perverse, natural malice. Scrutinizing. Judging. Evil lurks, and horror creeps in with the rawness of silence. Then, footsteps.
—“Heh... hehe... heh... look what we have here...” a filthy voice echoes. “A tourist with a mutt face... delicious... haha...”
A haggard-looking imp shouts perversely, sporting a scraggly, unkempt beard. His long horns and tattered clothes match the usual squalor of this miserable corner of Hell.
—“That coat looks pricey, y’know...? And those toys of yours, huh? Hehe... I know some very... special folks who’d pay a lot for that kinda stuff... for very degenerate fantasies, if you catch my drift...”
Remi doesn’t answer.
He simply adjusts the knot on his scarf. The wind ruffles his shiny bluish-gray fur with white highlights as the breeze brushes his bare, scarred torso. His hardened eyes—with reddish sclera and sharp white irises—hold a hidden ferocity rarely seen in one of his kind.
They don’t reflect savagery. They reflect strict, calculated scrutiny. A gaze worthy of the most ruthless assassin.
His expression says it all:
He’s not in the mood.
As the tension builds, a group begins to appear around him, encircling Remi in a forceful yet sinister manner. Eyes from the shadows. Footsteps in the gloom. As if the neighborhood itself were closing in.
—“A hellhound...?” one sneers. “What a rare sight... Where’s your owner, huh? Did the little doggy get lost...?”
Another imp speaks—decrepit, skin covered in white marks, pale scars, and poorly healed burns. His twisted horns frame a black-and-white mane, matted and likely unfamiliar with water. He holds a worn-out metal bat. His jacket is torn, typical of lowlifes—though in this world, that word means nothing. Everyone’s a criminal in this tasteless joke called Hell.
—“A bastard like you is rare at this hour! Most of your kind are at home... being cum bags for their owners or guarding convenience stores... or doing some other shit job funded by pompous rich pricks.”
This time, the speaker is a sinner demon. Decrepit, cadaveric in appearance: green-gray skin, sunken eyes, an upper jaw full of crooked fangs dripping thick saliva as he speaks. He wears dirty, hole-ridden leather rags. In his hairy hands, he clutches a rusty Swiss knife.
—“Your pretty skin will fetch a fine price among the elites. HAHAHAHAHA...”
Another imp bursts out laughing—even more deformed than the others. His body is grotesque: thin and stretched like a badly made doll, limbs twisted like knotted rags. His right eye is lazy; the left, half-sewn, blinks in an irregular, disturbing way. His jagged teeth and a collar made of fangs and bones of unclear origin give him an almost spectral aura. He moves while panting, with manic laughter giving him away. His hook-shaped fingers are stained with dried blood, and every gesture drips with madness.
—“I call dibs on the first round! Gonna tear that hairy ass apart with my irresistible cock~ rghhh... Once we break his legs... I wanna hear him scream~”
A pathetic amphibious sinner moans, fat-bodied, with a sagging belly. His skin is scaly, greasy, and riddled with yellowish pus and ulcerated acne. He wears nothing but a sleeveless shirt stained with bodily fluids. His underwear hides nothing. The worst part is: he doesn’t care. He’s utterly lost in his perversion.
—“Wait up, Kyle, slow down. Leave some for later. We all want this moron for different reasons.”
Now the voice is deep, more controlled. The speaker is an anthropomorphic shark demon, clearly the leader. His blue-green scales are covered in cuts and old scars. He wears no shirt, just worn-out jeans. On his fists: metal knuckle dusters with spikes.
—“Y’know, your presence reminds me of a rumor floating around... about a stray hellhound with no master, leaving destruction wherever he goes, then vanishing like a fuckin’ ghost. You don’t seem like just any mutt. So don’t expect us to underestimate you. Usually, your kind gets eliminated before turning eighteen... or thrown out and dead within two days in this goddamn hellhole. If the rumors are true... a lotta bastards would love to have your head.”
At this point, disappointment washes over Remi’s face. A melancholic and sorrowful look replaces what was once his merciless glare. How much longer will this go on...? Why does violence chase him wherever he goes? He’s used to it... but for how much longer can he endure?
Remi tilts his head to one side, unfazed. He sighs softly, almost resigned. As if the weight of the world is more exhausting than the danger at hand.
He glances at the ground briefly. Then raises his gaze, firm, ready for anything. He lets go of the strap of his bag, which falls to the ground with a dull thud.
He makes a provocative, deadpan gesture—an unspoken invitation to end this quickly.
—“YOU COCKY LITTLE SHIT! DON’T THINK YOU’RE HOT SHIT!”
The imp with the bat is the first to charge, shouting gutturally. Remi sidesteps the swing, intercepts the imp’s arm with his left forearm. His right forms a closed fist: strikes the sternum, pivots on his axis, shifts the angle, and lands a solid elbow to the back of the imp’s neck. The imp collapses unconscious before the bat even hits the ground.
The body drops like a rag doll as the circle tightens.
The cadaveric sinner lunges with the knife. Remi, firm yet relaxed, blocks with explosive precision: grabs the wrist, twists the arm sharply. The bone cracks audibly. Then a side kick to the chest slams the attacker against the wall, where he collapses, gasping.
Two imps move in together, while the amphibian—coward—trembles on the edge, paralyzed. The deranged imp with the fang necklace leaps, claws out, laughing like a true maniac.
Remi ducks and spins. Sweeps his leg to trip the imp. In the same movement, he presses a hand to the ground, gains momentum, and launches an upward kick into the second imp’s face.
His skull cracks. One horn shatters to pieces. He collapses with a crash, unconscious.
Before the imp knocked down by the sweep can get up, Remi stomps his head with force, using his paws. His claws rake across the demon’s face. Before he can retaliate with hook-like fingers, Remi, moving with monstrous speed, redirects the imp’s entire body like a projectile, hurling him into the shark demon charging with fists ready.
The imp’s face tears open as he’s hurled through the air. Eyes, cheekbones, and nose ripped apart, blood and organs swirling in the infernal wind. A grotesque and surgically brutal scene.
—“GAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAA! FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!!!”
The shark demon takes the full blow. Falls with the disfigured imp, who writhes, whimpering, hands clinging to his mangled face.
But the leader isn’t down.
He shoves the broken body aside. Stands up, spitting blood.
—“FUCKING BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU!”
He lunges, throwing a flurry of sloppy punches: jabs, hooks, desperate swings. All miss. Spectacularly.
Remi is water. Impenetrable. Fluid. Unyielding. You can't hit what has no form. You can't defeat what doesn't resist.
—“DIE, DIE, FUCKING DIE ALREADY!”
The shark demon screams, unhinged. Remi catches one of his arms and holds it firm. He stares at him dead-on, like one would a spoiled child. As if the fear didn’t come from pain... but from having no escape.
Remi lifts his hand slowly in front of him and makes a humiliating gesture: he raises his index finger and wags it side to side.
—“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk...”
A cold, inevitable, final gesture. Remi rarely boasts. But sometimes, he allows it. Not out of arrogance... but to make clear what violence truly causes. What it means to try taming water with clumsy fists.
The shark freezes. Finally, he understands.
He has no chance. No strength. Nothing.
He’s finished.
Then, without a word, Remi drives a sharp punch into his ribs. A crack.
He shifts stance: one, two, three. Solar plexus. Jaw. Then a direct front kick to the knee.
It snaps in two.
The shark demon falls like a wounded animal, choking on his own blood. Vomits. Writhes. Unconscious. Utterly defeated.
In the distance, Remi spots the missing sinner. Trembling. Frozen. No guts to face him. Never had.
Remi can’t help the boundless rage he feels just looking at him. His presence alone reminds him of everything he hates about Hell. Everything that scarred him. Everything that still hurts.
The most disgusting thing in Hell isn’t the strong... it’s the cowards. The ones who do horrible things from the shadows. The ones who hurt without thinking. The ones who leave eternal scars... and then beg for mercy.
This one... this one just disgusts him.
—“Whose ass were you gonna tear open...?”
The sinner—that slimy, amphibious abomination—turns and, in a pathetic move, snatches Remi’s bag. He runs. Like a rat.
Remi, annoyed, doesn’t think twice. Draws his revolver from his cargo pants. Doesn’t use it often: bullets are expensive. But he always carries it. Because not having a ranged weapon in Hell... is the same as being dead.
He aims. Shoots.
The round blows the degenerate’s leg off. A spray of dark blood stains the street. The amphibian crashes down, squealing like the filthy pig he is.
Remi approaches. Step by step. Unhurried. While the creature writhes on the ground, pleading, rolling in his own stench.
When he reaches him, he stomps the open wound hard. The sinner’s scream sounds like a soul being torn apart.
—“M-MERCY... Please... mercy...”
Remi looks down at him. Cold. Tired. Empty.
—“Mercy...? No. You don’t need mercy. Your kind doesn’t ask for it... When their prey screams, they don’t stop. When they rip and tear, they don’t hesitate. This is Hell. And mercy... isn’t for types like you.”
Remi doesn’t need to know more. He sees it in his eyes. He knows. He knows everything that creature has done.
Would he have shown mercy if the situation were reversed? If Remi were the victim...? No. And that’s enough.
Maybe it’s hypocritical. But in this world... everyone is.
Sinners don’t die. They carry their filth to the end. And when they fall... another head grows to take their place.
But this one—this one won’t scream again.
Remi raises his hand. Tegatana. And with his demonic claws, brutally decapitates the degenerate.
The blood splashes everything. The walls. The ground. The remains of the fight. As if the city itself were bleeding for what it allows to happen.
Did he deserve it...? Was it necessary...? Was it fair...?
The answer is simple:
Hell isn’t fair.
Maybe the others deserved to suffer too. But this one awakened something deeper. A memory. A wound. A grudge that never healed.
Cowardice. Perversion. Impunity.
These are the demons he hates most.
Remi approaches and calmly picks up the strap of his bag from the ground.
—"I didn’t start this..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
As Remi continued his journey through Hell’s dystopian streets, after the violent encounter with those idiots, he no longer knew what to expect.
His life could well be summed up as one of those arcade cabinet games still surviving in night bars—where the hero faces an entire neighborhood of corrupt criminals, beats them down… and they drop consumables or money as a reward.
In his world, that meant just enough resources to survive another day in this rotten place.
As ridiculous as it may sound, yes: in Hell there are arcades, movies, television, and social media…
But they've been so distorted they feel like bad parodies of themselves.
Remi doubts the difference between those versions and their Earthly originals is much.
He assumes they’ve been twisted to fit this plane’s morbid, degenerate humor.
And then the question arises:
How much of what Lara taught him—her fighting method and martial philosophy—really came from Earth?
Because nothing he’s seen here resembles it.
Yet for her, it was her daily engine: her drive to go on even when the future was an open wound.
Is Earth truly different from here…?
Or is Hell just a metaphysical, perverse reflection of all human evil and distortion born there?
That’s why magic in this place, like the overlords, is deeply tied to corruption and occultism.
Hell rewards with power those who, in life, were actual despots.
They’re the ones who ascend: not just sinners, but influential criminals, monsters with history.
The more he thinks, the more confused Remi feels.
But one thing is clear:
The only real magic here… is the magic that evil projects and sustains.
Nothing grows except hate.
Nothing multiplies except greed.
Nothing here nurtures purity or generosity.
—"All this shit is making me thirsty…"
Remi retrieves a canteen from his bag and takes a sip. The liquid is thick, sour, stolen from some careless idiot in a bar.
Think it was water?
Ha. How funny.
In Hell, alcohol is easier to find than water.
Drinkable water is wealth’s reserve.
Contaminated water is the norm.
Hell is so stingy that it’ll sell you used toilet water—or a succubus’s bathtubwater—at luxury prices.
Beer is absurdly practical.
To Remi, it tastes like piss mixed with cum, but it’s better than nothing.
Suddenly… a primal instinct:
Danger.
—"OH LOOK! ALCOHOL! HAHAHAHA!"
A deranged imp lunges at him like a roided-up chihuahua.
Without thinking, Remi delivers a dry hook.
CRACK! The imp flies several meters, smashing into a graffiti-covered mailbox.
—"Fucking junkie…"
Nothing new.
Most demons live for instant gratification. Desperation turns them into libido-and-hunger zombies. Any stimulus can make them explode. They’re go-to killers with the judgment of a drunk mosquito.
And as if that weren’t enough…
BANG!
A gunshot whistles through the air. The bullet grazes just in front of his face.
Remi stops. Blinks. Looks ahead.
—"That fucker just shot at me…?"
Without hesitation, he draws his revolver and blows the imp’s head off—the ordinary-looking one who dared aim at him.
Chaos. Noise. Blood.
Just another day in his life.
There’s always a brief calm… until the absurd misery of this place reminds you where you are.
Hell’s people don’t think. Or think badly and little.
And those who pretend clarity… are the most dangerous.
Because one day they look at you… the next they stab you in the back.
After that, Remi turns a corner and finds a totally vandalized plaza.
An open space sunken among broken concrete and structures that looked spat out from a ruined factory.
An artificial clearing surrounded by buildings with empty-socket windows, covered in graffiti of insults, absurd exclamations, and every kind of visual paraphernalia.
The streetlamps flicker with a persistent hum, bathing the area in dirty red light—you can't tell if it's dawn… or a weak attempt at artificial sunlight in this infernal dystopia.
In the center, a corroded statue of an imp crucified upside-down.
A sign beneath reads:
“Christ on a Stick.”
Remi no longer knew what to think. He wasn’t even surprised.
Here, religion and belief are crass jokes. After all…
what’s there to believe in when you’re already dead?
He passes a rusty bench, still stained with dried blood.
An old demon sleeps there, covered in a blanket made of plastic bags and scraps of hide.
How long until someone ambushes that poor devil…?
It didn’t take long.
Two bulky imps with bats and makeshift weapons approach in a challenging tone:
—"What the hell are you doing here, huh? This is our fucking turf. Can’t you read? Didn’t you see the sign? Private property, you piece of trash!"
The old demon sits up, visibly irritated.
—"Private property…? That shit graffiti?
—he spits disdainfully—
I'll teach you how to read."
Without hesitation, he draws two rusted revolvers from under his blanket. And fires.
—"Whateyou—?!"
"BANG! BANG! BANG!"
Remi simply shrugs and keeps walking.
He doesn’t pause to watch. The outcome is left to the imagination.
Around them, street vendors multiply—demons offering dubious “services.”
A succubus in a filthy school uniform—a cruel parody of education that only serves the nobility—sells “succubus water” for 30 luci-bucks with a free blowjob discount.
A few meters away, an imp sells expired churros shaped like penises beside a broken arcade machine that still reads:
“INSERT LUCI-BUCKS TO PLAY.”
Not far off, an insectoid sinner and another imp appear out of nowhere and assault the churro stand, knocking it over and stealing as many twisted pastries as they can.
—"I wouldn’t be that desperate for those either…"
Remi can’t help the thought. The stench assaults him: old dampness, heated metal, fermented bodily fluids.
As a hellhound, his sense of smell multiplies everything by three.
He walks slowly. Not from fatigue.
From contempt.
It was as if the city was trying to impress him with its own decay.
But he no longer cared. Nothing impressed him.
And as if fate heard him…
Something caught his attention.
A vibration in the air. A sense out of place.
As if, for once, something wanted to answer him.
In the distance, he spots a newspaper page stuck to an old lamp-post—absurdly held by a nail-studded gum wad.
The wind flutters it, as if its words were begging for attention.
He didn’t know what precisely drew him in:
That it was perfectly placed, as if it never wanted to fall?
Or that it was a newspaper—an almost extinct medium, even by Hell’s standards, where prints are only used for bonfires… or to wipe a bum?
He wasn’t sure. He only knew it didn’t belong there.
And that was enough to make him approach.
Maybe there’d be gossip, old news…
or at least some idiocy to mock for a while.
At first glance, the paper had little of interest—but then, this ad flickered and caught his eye:
---
TIRED OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE?
Of starving and living in shit
all fucking day?
**JOIN I.M.P.!!!**
KILLERS and OPERATIVES wanted
with BALLS and TRUE GUTS.
Wanna kill someone who screwed you in life?
*CALL NOW → 6XXX‑6XXX‑6*
We’re going to Earth to lick their asses.
---
For a moment, Remi thought it was another tasteless joke—something that, from his perspective, fit perfectly with Hell’s irreverent nature.
But something didn’t add up. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Not just because of the ironic name or the redundant acronym…
But because the message’s offer fit too chillingly with how tired Remi was of breathing another day in this goddamn embarrassment of an “afterlife world.”
Even if the service looked no different from any shitty mercenary gig…
there was that one line that froze him:
—"These guys are going… to Earth?"
It shouldn’t have surprised him that much. Succubi, demons from the Ring of Envy… many have “permits”—as ironic as that word is—to go to Earth to sow suffering and corruption.
And yet… it was abhorrent.
To know that this plane’s disease spreads over there.
That sin and spiritual rot cross planes like one crosses a street.
It explained many things.
Why there are so many sinners here.
Why the Overlords are so connected to the foundations of sin.
A corruption so ancient Remi couldn’t explain it.
And if someone did, he’d have more questions than answers.
This world shouldn’t exist.
Its conception is a mistake.
And yet, it’s here.
But the most absurd thing is…
How real is that line between Earth and Hell?
Remi’s never been to Earth.
But he knows—he feels—that everything that lets him fight each day, everything that sustains him… comes from there.
Lara’s strength came from there.
Her heart. Even if she, like him, was just a remnant of sin.
Why does he have this desire to know Earth?
Could it be that, without realizing, he senses something?
That between this horror and the other side lies a thin line?
That suffering, morality, values… spring from the same source?
Remi is a monster.
But also a scar of the human soul.
An eternal dissonance.
And if the source is over there…
isn’t it worth trying to cross that line?
"You look at it and don’t see it,
Its name is Colorless.
You hear it and don’t hear it,
Its name is Soundless.
You touch it and don’t touch it,
Its name is Incorporeal."
The great sound is barely heard.
The great form has no shape.
There is no logic.
No meaning.
So... what is there…?
Remi doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand.
His demonic brain twists trying to grasp it.
In a world where God seems to exist—
but only to mock you,
where evil is rewarded and justice is fable…
what remains to discover?
Why is the company called I.M.P.?
A stupid pun.
A mockery of itself.
So absurd… maybe that’s why it works.
—"Would it be hypocritical if I applied...?"
Of course it would.
It’s stupid.
Remi’s never been a hired goon or assassin. He’s always stuck to shady jobs: cheap labor, ad‑hoc security. And he usually never lasted long—always leaving destruction behind due to his intolerance of oppressors… or the presence of those who couldn’t bear his free and ownerless existence.
And though that gave him a bad name… nobody really cares.
No one even registers that he’s wrecked elite-funded equipment.
He worked as a bar bouncer through the night… and left without trouble, though never without a scrap that ended with infrastructure in ruins.
And yet, the mafia‑system doesn’t record him.
Remi roams on. And though a few recognize him, it may—or may not—catch up with him, depending on the day… or his luck.
Since he takes odd jobs, the Seven Sins don’t bother investing resources to hunt him.
He’s no real threat to the order. Not a figure. Not anybody.
He’s a drifter with no direction.
Very different from Lara.
She, though she had no reason to stay put, stayed because she had something to stay for. A cause. A purpose.
Remi, on the other hand, has none.
—"Because since you’re gone… nothing has real meaning anymore."
And even so… he keeps going.
—"At least this ad is more honest than anything else around…
Why not give it a shot?"
That a bunch of imps might go to Earth—when their kind is supposedly forbidden—disturbs him.
But it also intrigues him.
It feels like a new opportunity. Or so it seems.
And yet… he’s already seen too many examples of how the word opportunity becomes another trap.
He knows that if he works for them…
if he just exists in this world…
it's a contradiction.
But what isn’t, down here?
Like everything in Hell…
what’s the use in escaping it?
Why not… just accept it?