The Hanging Youth

The Hanging Youth

What Han Dong did not know was this.

Even though they had successfully escaped back to the Holy City, the people in the carriage were not doing well.

During their escape, they had seen the monsters pursuing them up close... Even with Goggles on, strange dark patterns had appeared around their eyes.

They had no time to worry about the Corpse Bag. They sped toward the chapel for a week-long stress-relief program.

In a grim, damp alley.

A human head was slowly moving within it.

"The architecture leans toward nineteenth-century Europe, but the massive city walls over a hundred meters tall and the high-rise buildings inside the city don't fit that era.

"Besides, this world possesses magical forces and bizarre creatures I don't understand... which are likely important factors affecting the development of science."

What Han Dong had seen so far was only the tip of the iceberg in this world, perhaps even less... His deductions were not necessarily correct.

Still, these novel things excited Han Dong, even stirred a certain madness within him... He desperately wanted to understand this world and its scientific system.

"For now, I need to find an Ordinary Person's body and slowly learn from the bottom up... Of course, I should also look for a way to return to my original world."

In truth, aside from several unfinished National Natural Science Foundation projects, there was nothing in Han Dong's former world worth clinging to.

His parents had died during his childhood. Raised single-handedly by his grandfather, Han Dong had watched his grandfather pass away peacefully after he completed his doctoral defense.

Besides the research projects that required his day-and-night companionship, the social circle at the academy was too small for Han Dong to have a so-called lover.

He still remembered that the flowers filling his hospital room had all been sent by his students.

But he did not enjoy dealing with students. If the school had not forced the arrangement upon him, he would have spent all his teaching hours researching cytology.

With nothing tying him down, he had died under the torment of cancer.

When he confirmed that he had been reborn, Han Dong's first reaction was not to find a way back to his old world, but excitement at arriving in a new world filled with unknowns.

He wanted to explore. He wanted to research.

At present, he was near the city walls.

This was a residential district for commoners. To improve land utilization, apartment buildings capable of housing large numbers of residents had been packed tightly together. They were mainly built from red brick, with copper plating, vaulted roofs, and stained-glass windows mostly arranged in diamond patterns.

Thanks to the adhesive properties of the Mycelial Tendrils.

Han Dong's head could easily crawl across vertical walls, peering through windows to observe the rooms within.

After observing for some time, he noticed a major point of doubt.

"Strange... Why are most of them middle-aged or elderly people, or children under ten? There are hardly any young people at home."

"Could the young people all have been forcibly conscripted?

"Based on what I know so far, the humans living in the Holy City seem to be threatened by monsters and can only remain behind the walls...

"It's highly likely that young commoners are forcibly drafted, but what about wealthy families?"

Using the cover of night, Han Dong planned to move deeper into the city and seek a target among those lavishly decorated wealthy homes.

If he could take over a body and directly become the son of a rich family, he could avoid a great deal of trouble.

But there was a certain risk involved.

The soldiers he had encountered on the way back to the city had spotted Han Dong hiding in the grass at a glance while moving at high speed... If he encountered people like them again in the city, he might be discovered once more.

He had to find a body as quickly as possible.

Just as Han Dong left the alley and attempted a stealthy transfer, he suddenly noticed something.

Amid the tightly packed buildings, a patch of "extra" open ground had appeared due to a flaw in the design.

This vacant lot happened to lie behind the surrounding buildings. It could only be reached through filthy alleys between the buildings, where wastewater overflowed and Rats and Insects scurried about... Therefore, almost no one came here.

In the center of the weed-choked clearing stood a rather massive oak tree with countless branches.

Unfortunately.

One of the oak's thick branches happened to have a young man hanging from it.

Keeping to the shadows, Han Dong's head slowly moved beneath the corpse and inspected it from up close.

The young man no longer showed any Life Signs.

His fluffy brown hair framed a pair of "beautiful" sea-blue eyes, bloodshot and bulging from the agony of suffocation.

He wore a coarse, simple linen shirt and slightly oversized linen trousers.

His leather shoes were smeared with mud. One had fallen off as he wildly kicked in pain, leaving only one shoe on his foot.

Han Dong also noticed what seemed to be some kind of black bracelet around the young man's wrist.

"Between sixteen and twenty years old. There are no calluses on his hands, which at least means he likely never did physical labor... His yellowed, emaciated body was clearly caused by a lack of dietary amino acids... Did he come from a poor family that could not even meet its basic needs for food and warmth?

"Taking over a body like this may cause some trouble in the future.

"But this is also the safest choice."

Han Dong suddenly closed his eyes.

He analyzed all the information he had obtained so far, considering both fundamental interests and safety.

He finally made his decision.

In a world full of unknown dangers, caution was undoubtedly the best course of action.

This rebirth opportunity was far too precious. Besides, Han Dong had spent seven entire years in prison finding this one-of-a-kind head.

With his unfamiliarity with the Holy City and the fact that the guards' perception surpassed that of Ordinary People to a certain extent, it was not worth taking the risk.

"Based on the settings for Load Value, there should be some way to raise its upper limit.

"Then I can choose a better body.

"For now, temporarily borrowing this commoner's body may actually save me some trouble from possible exposure."

He climbed onto the corpse.

The instant his head touched the corpse's skin, just like what had happened in the prison, information concerning the body immediately surfaced in Han Dong's mind.

'Valen Nicholas. Dead. No illnesses. Physical condition below the average of an Ordinary Person. Begin takeover?'

Yes.

Their skin connected.

The tendrils growing from Han Dong's neck opening burrowed into every place on the young man's body that had a "hole," taking over the entire body.

Life Signs activated!

He removed the hemp rope from around his neck.

Thud!

His feet were only about a meter above the ground.

Yet landing from such a height threw Han Dong off balance, pitching him forward and nearly making him fall to the ground.

"This body's physical condition is terrible, isn't it?"

This body could not compare to the one he had used in prison... Han Dong still remembered the first "idiot" body he had taken over. Its punching speed and power had felt truly wonderful.

However.

This young man's punches were weak and limp. If he struck anything even slightly hard, he could very well break his entire arm.

"Beep beep beep..."

All of a sudden, the wind-up bracelet on his wrist gave off a faint vibration.

The precision wind-up timer displayed a set of numerical information.

"A One Hour Countdown?"

Han Dong's instincts told him that the young man's suicide might not have stemmed from his family or personal reasons, but from the bracelet's countdown.