“To the Kind Recipient of this Letter:

This is a plea from an intern under the Time Travel Department for assistance.

After graduating from university, I joined the Time Travel Department, a subsidiary of the Temporal Management Department, on ■■, ■■, ■■. Following a period of training, I am honored to have become an intern at the Department.

My ID badge number is temporarily set as ■■■■■, with a confidentiality level of D. It’s a rather ominous letter, but our instructors advised us not to confuse it with the levels of the neighboring SCP Foundation. Here at the Time Travel Department, D-level confidentiality personnel are not mere cannon fodder; we are regular interns who have signed contracts.

I firmly support the assertions of our seniors at the Time Travel Department. How could such a reputable institution deceive us? It is said that the compensation for termination is a four-courtyard residence within the Second Ring Road of Beijing? But that’s getting off topic.

Theoretically, there are tens of thousands of interns like me, with only a one percent conversion rate to full employment, meaning only one out of a hundred may qualify. I am confident in my ability to qualify because I ranked first in this cohort of a thousand trainees and was specifically requested by superiors. If I can’t make it, it will be even harder for others. Moreover, the Time Travel Department offers excellent benefits for newcomers, allowing the use of auxiliary functions during tasks.

The auxiliary functions are very convenient; I used them during training and achieved high scores ten times over. The auxiliary system is implanted in the interns’ mental consciousness, with functions including comprehensive maps, script downloads, automatic dialogue generation, real-time monitoring, and reporting. Our primary service targets at the Time Travel Department are time travelers, and where there are time travelers, there are inevitably chaotic worlds. The interns’ task is usually to stabilize the narrative worlds under the jurisdiction of the Time Travel Department.”

“Speaking of which, I’m sure readers understand now. I participated in the first task as an intern, a crucial task that determines future assignments.

My first task was to enter the anime section of “Dororo” world, portraying the male protagonist, Hyakki. Truth be told, I’ve heard of this world. During my time in the main world, I’ve heard about this heartbreaking manga. Later, I heard it was adapted into an anime. However, I usually steer clear of such genres, so my knowledge only extends to a quick search on who Dororo is and who the male protagonist is on Baidu.

But it’s okay. I’ve downloaded the script for “Dororo,” and the method of time travel is the most reliable: infant transmigration. What interns need to do is to proceed cautiously, not rush. I have enough time during infancy to go through the script, utilize my academic writing skills, and come up with a hundred ways to act.

Just as I and other interns were ready, an unexpected event occurred.

The higher department of the Time Travel Department, the legendary Temporal Management Department, sent personnel to inspect. Perhaps to showcase the excellence of the interns, or maybe they were confident in us (?). The leaders of the Time Travel Department decided to deactivate the interns’ auxiliary functions, allowing us to directly enter the plot world! The task of maintaining the plot remains the same, the roles we play remain the same, the only change is the loss of auxiliary functions.

As you can see, my intern’s auxiliary function was deactivated, and I hadn’t finished reading the script. I admit this is a major mistake on my part. I shouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake. Fortunately, I glanced over it roughly. Hyakki’s plot task is to defeat monsters, level up, and embark on a journey with the female lead Dororo. As long as the mainline of defeating demons doesn’t deviate, the world’s will would naturally push me to interact with those people. It’s okay to deviate from some sideline plots…

Maybe, perhaps, it’s okay. The degree of freedom has actually increased. The problem lies solely with the character of Hyakki. Yes, I drew the second-worst lot in the task. Originally, I was going to play this out properly, who would’ve thought this character would instantly become the scariest task of this assignment.

Hyakki’s backstory involves being sacrificed to demons by his biological father before birth. The demons granted the father’s wish for prosperity, resulting in Hyakki losing his body.

Yes, you read that right. I lost twelve organs after birth. Blind eyes, deaf ears, ruined face, missing spine, lost limbs, leaving only a bald head and body, with an organ proving I’m male, without undergoing direct gender reassignment.

Luckily, demons don’t eat male ■■, and luckily, I’m the anime version, not the manga version. It’s said that the manga version loses forty-eight organs. Would someone still be considered human living like that? Perhaps that’s the visage of an ancient god, breaking the limit of human appearance?”

“So… being abandoned by parents, just surviving is already difficult, so how am I supposed to fulfill the plot?

How do I find the female lead, Dororo? How do I distinguish who is who?

Forgive my bluntness, I don’t mean to insult the Western pantheon, but this isn’t just a nightmare start, it’s clearly like being sent to hell and then asked to climb back to heaven positively!

After successfully reincarnating, I tried to use the function to send letters countless times, but received no response. I don’t know which gentleman, lady, or unknown entity this letter will reach… but please, in appreciation for enriching your post-dinner conversations with my experiences, forward this letter to the department of the Time Travel Department.

Grateful beyond words!

A true name kept confidential by contract, ██ Intern – Hyakki.”

In the unknown void,

It seemed a mysterious entity finished reading, then chuckled before casually moving the letter to the trash.

“The Time Travel Department, that trashy department, still has believers? Ridiculous.”

…

Fourteen years later.

By the riverbank, there was a boy with his hair tied back, fishing in the water. With a sword in his hand, he pierced the fish swimming by, then reached out and caught a crab crawling on the sand.

His face showed no expression, delicate and beautiful, as if he were a lifeless puppet.

The next moment,

As the crab struggled fiercely, it clamped onto the tip of his nose with its pincers, refusing to let go no matter how hard he pulled. His “gaze” slowly turned to the crab, indifferent, feeling neither pain nor any excess emotion.

Because… this face was just a mask sculpted by someone.

Then, the young man effortlessly crushed the pincers and carried his catch of the day back to shore.

Living together with him, Jukai finished his carving work, a smile gracing his weathered face. He picked up two “prosthetic legs” resembling human legs and walked over. “Hyakki, try these new legs. Last time, you had some difficulty chasing fast-moving animals. I’ve rebuilt two new legs for you. You won’t have to worry about them getting soaked and needing to dry out anymore.”

The youth named “Hyakki” showed no reaction. His gray-brown pupils were vacant, unable to reflect any light from the outside world. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and lacked the pain that humans should feel. It wasn’t until Jukai took away the food from his hands that he slowly understood the other’s rough intentions and walked indifferently into the house.

He sat on the mat, his face youthful. Before long, the prosthetic feet attached to his thighs were removed. Without them, he was left with only the upper half of his body, including his buttocks, wrapped in layers of white cloth strips, with drab clothes worn on his slender frame.

Jukai had long grown accustomed to such cruel sights, yet a sigh still escaped his lips.

“Hyakki…”

His foster son had transformed human life into another form.

In this era of war and disaster, there were many unfortunate people, but none with experiences comparable to Hyakki’s. On the day he found Hyakki, it was his own moment of despair, when he attempted suicide. Yet, he saw a wooden basin floating down the river, witnessed the abandoned infant in swaddling clothes, and his heart’s softest part was touched, unable to resist the urge to cry out.

An adult with hands and feet longs for death, while an infant with nothing yearns to live.

He couldn’t easily give up his life anymore.

At least until Hyakki grew up and became an adult, he couldn’t die. He had to teach this child how to survive and achieve unimaginable miracles… He believed this resilient and intelligent child could do it.

Noticing the faint pinches on Hyakki’s nose, Jukai chuckled. “Caught by a crab again.”

He went back to fetch the newly prepared mask, pristine in its box. Each mask was meticulously crafted based on Hyakki’s flawed features, carefully carved to match the face he had lost—this was a beautiful face, with slender eyebrows, thick eyelashes, a straight nose, lips neither too thin nor too thick, giving a serene and comfortable feeling.

“I’ll put this on you. This is your fourteen-year-old face.”

Jukai removed Hyakki’s original mask, calmly observing the startling face underneath. For someone of his age, beauty wasn’t very important; who would disdain their child’s appearance?

Besides… Hyakki wasn’t “ugly”.

Once the new mask was in place, he looked at Hyakki with satisfaction, as if witnessing a child growing another year older.

“Hyakki, this is fourteen.”

He held the young man’s right hand, also a prosthetic, and slid it on the ground, teaching him how to write “fourteen”. Every year, at this time, he would teach him how to write his age, afraid that he wouldn’t grasp the concept of “years”.

Hyakki remained expressionless as Jukai guided his fingers to write. After writing three times, the young man withdrew his fingers.

This indicated that he had learned.

Jukai praised, “Hyakki, you have a natural talent for learning.”

Hyakki remained silent.

Jukai didn’t mind, or perhaps this was the normal state of affairs. He led Hyakki outside, using fire to grill raw food, teaching the young man, who preferred to eat fish and crab directly, how to master the art of eating.

In reality, Hyakki was capable of all these tasks; he just found starting a fire too bothersome.

His body was exceptionally healthy, influenced by the power of the demon. Not only was his physical condition superior to that of humans, common poisons couldn’t harm him either. However, the debt of gratitude to his foster father couldn’t be explained in just a few words. He would secretly eat food when his foster father wasn’t paying attention, but in front of him, he would obediently eat cooked food.

Taste was a good thing, but unfortunately, he had no tongue.

Hyakki and Jukai sat by the fire. What made their camping better was that they had cushions. After grilling the fish, Jukai handed the skewers to Hyakki, who moved his mask slightly to begin eating.

The mask couldn’t move its mouth.

Jukai sat across from him, looking at his mask with a hint of distress. “I can’t find suitable materials. If your mouth could move, perhaps you wouldn’t need to take off the mask…”

These words were still meaningless to Hyakki, who couldn’t hear any sound.

Through the mask, he “saw” a white flame.

That was Jukai’s life flame.

Behind the mask, unknown to Jukai, Hyakki’s soul also gained a sense of security. If there was anyone in this world Hyakki could trust, it would surely…

Whoever it was, it must be Jukai, who had raised him.

Such assigned tasks were unreliable. The superiors were all about flattery, an organization that deceived and exploited its employees, Hyakki could no longer trust the Time Travel Department. He knew one policy for interns: death meant real death. With recruitment being easy, the Time Travel Department wouldn’t waste extra effort on an intern.

After losing the auxiliary functions, his treatment was no different from that of the original characters. Perhaps the advantage was—having knowledge from his past life? Knowing how to write Japanese?

Thinking like this, time travelers didn’t have it so bad after all.

“…”

Hyakki swallowed the fish in his mouth, chewing it as if it were wax, imagining that the ones he was consuming were from the Time Travel Department.

After finishing his meal, he focused on digestion. His nonexistent gaze wandered elsewhere, “seeing” many life forces in his “field of vision”—plants, animals… with only Jukai as the sole human presence.

Through the original work’s Wikipedia, he knew that white life flames represented good people, while red ones represented evil entities. A slightly red glow indicated having killed or being in contact with evil entities. This knowledge reduced the damage he suffered in the early stages. Unmoved by not seeing evil entities, Hyakki’s aura naturally attracted them, encountering evil entities was commonplace for him since childhood.

What’s called evil entities, to this time traveler, are no different from Japanese yokai, and they’re even easier to deal with than yokai.

The premise is—assuming he’s playing the role of an Onmyoji.

Hyakki quietly reminisced about the Onmyoji character he used during training. With a wave of his folding fan, the hundred demons emerged. Dealing with these evil entities, who needed to consume humans for sustenance, was as easy as dealing with those in the neighboring “Demon Slayer” series. Unfortunately, “Dororo” was set in an alternate Japan’s Warring States period, where there were no real Onmyoji, only a group of people with special abilities who would kill evil entities within their self-defense limits, except when they were broke.

Wait, were these memories in his mind real? Or were they just fantasies conjured up after he traveled through time? Why hadn’t he seen a single person from the Time Travel Department in fourteen years?

No, was he really a time traveler?

Or perhaps an evil entity had created an illusion, altering his memories?

Under the “mandatory silence” of severe disabilities, Hyakki had been withdrawn for fourteen years, occasionally opening his mental theater to enrich his time traveler’s spirit. He couldn’t even distinguish the reasons that kept him going. It was all a vast emptiness. Was it the salary? The status of a regular employee? The modern lifestyle? Or perhaps… just the human desire to keep living?

It was probably the latter…

People live to pursue a better life; they are unwilling to simply die.

Even if there’s just a glimmer of hope, they hope to play their part successfully, complete their tasks, and finally be retrieved by the Time Travel Department, receiving a passing evaluation. Whether or not they become regular employees doesn’t matter anymore.

Truly, it doesn’t matter after experiencing such a life.

Hyakki’s face lifted slightly, “observing” a bird flying across the sky. The feeble flame of life flew off into the distance, not knowing when it would be extinguished, yet seeming much freer than humans…

What color is the sky? It seems blue, but even that color is almost forgotten.

He can only see a few colors with his mind’s eye: darkness, white light, red evil light, with only a few inanimate objects appearing green, like the samurai sword his foster father installed for him.

Thanks to the evil entities that have long wanted to consume him, the red color triggers his reflex to wield his sword.

Hyakki’s thoughts drift toward an unknown direction, until a human’s white flame of life appears before him, gently touching his head along with the flame that appears from his hand.

He makes his own response.

――Even in the most desperate moments of life, one never gives up hope and continues to face each day with optimism.

In the fleeting moment when the evil entity ambushed them while they rested, Hyakki pulled his arm downward! His right forearm detached, revealing a sharp long sword embedded at the elbow.

He didn’t retreat but instead advanced, wielding his sword, dealing death.

The wretched screams of the evil creature pierced Shoumaru’s ears, sharp and piercing, like nails scratching against gravel, as a large amount of blood splattered onto both of them.

Shou was accustomed to it and went to wipe the blood off Hyakki’s face. “You’ve grown stronger,” he remarked.

As Hyakki grew older, more evil entities were drawn to him. Simultaneously, his ability to slay these creatures grew stronger. He went from being Hyakki’s protector to becoming somewhat of a burden.

Hyakki couldn’t fathom Jukai’s thoughts. He firmly remembered that he was a character from an animated series and should start venturing out on his own around the age of sixteen, where he would encounter the future female lead, Dororo. Before that, he never imagined Jukai would leave him or that he would venture out early to become a legendary swordsman.

For instance, grinding his combat power to maximum level in the beginner’s village?

Not a bad goal.

Hyakki pressed forward in this direction, thinking of his predecessors: a sage who lost all sensation of pain, taste, smell, and emotion; a super high school-level hope who was deprived of all memories and emotions; a cultivator who was frozen in black ice, unable to move for decades yet persisted in seeking enlightenment. He wasn’t the only one disabled; some became disabled, while others ascended to greatness!

Shou watched as Hyakki, who was going out again to hunt evil creatures for practice, his face showing a hint of contemplation.

“It seems I need to prepare more weapons for Hyakki,” he said thoughtfully.

He felt a sense of relief.

With Hyakki’s formidable strength, whether he was present or not, evil creatures and demons could not easily harm him. Moreover, those humans with malicious intentions couldn’t approach Hyakki, who could discern good from evil.

Returning to the house, Jukai picked up a book that had been sitting idle for a long time, feeling troubled.

“Why isn’t Hyakki willing to learn ventriloquism?”

—Because that’s a comic book setting.

Following the anime setting, Hyakki, who had lost his desire for communication for over a decade, remained expressionless. When he was younger, he couldn’t learn it, and by the time he could, his only companion was Shou.

If he doesn’t learn, he won’t be able to deliver lines. But what if he learns and still can’t speak them?

Let him be a determined male lead.

Curse the members of the Time Travel Department again, curse you all to encounter Tindalos’s Hounds during your travels!

The curse seemed to have targeted the wrong person.

After some time, Hyakki encountered a new life flame on his way to hunt evil creatures.

The soul of the other party could be described as… a colorful white.

Once again.

A colorful white.

Hyakki, who hadn’t seen such rich colors in a long time, was stunned. Unable to discern good from evil, he hesitated and forgot to reject the other person’s approach. With a bewildered feeling, he realized that the other person had taken his hand.

The time traveler excitedly grasped Hyakki’s hand, unconcerned whether it was a prosthetic.

She spoke to herself, “Hyakki, I’ll take you to other worlds to heal your body, corrupted by the power of demons!”

Then.

Hyakki’s figure appeared in another world, Yokohama, Japan, his mind blank, unaware of where he was or what colossal upheaval had just occurred. At his feet lay a time traveler, her face mangled by Tindalos’s Hounds. As he reached out to touch her, he found her soul dissipating into light.

Time travelers usually buy insurance; if they die, they can return, but the Time Travel Department exacts a corresponding price.

“May your soul find peace,” Hyakki murmured softly, half kneeling.

Regardless, this was someone who died for him. Regardless of gender, their soul should be virtuous, shouldn’t it?

After the horrific scene devoid of corpses, the young man, accustomed to slaughter and death, stood up. His black hair, tied with a cord, swayed gently in the sea breeze of the new world.

Then, he was shocked to his core—

So many, so many human souls!!!

Usually, a village had only a few hundred people, but the scope he “saw” was no less than a thousand.

[“Have I entered an ancient city?”]

Hyakki fell into deeper confusion, his thoughts confined to the world of “Dororo.” Was the script about to begin without his knowledge? Was the world consciousness actively pushing him into the plot?

So, should he start searching for Dororo? Or should he begin hunting demons?

Kill the demons!

By killing all the demons, he could reclaim the missing parts of his body and find out who the female protagonist was.

After careful consideration, Hyakki, the top student of the training class and the most hopeful intern at the Time Travel Department, took firm steps towards the unknown, firmly believing that he must grit his teeth and finish the script.

And the direction he headed—

Surprisingly, it was Yokohama’s bustling Leibo Street, the most chaotic place for human souls.

There, Hyakki saw a soul unlike humans, its core filled with rich black-red flames of life. Strangely, surrounding this typical “chaotic evil” life flame were soft, pale-red flames.

【Gradient colors, huh?】

He didn’t cease his combat actions upon seeing it; instead, he gripped the sword at his waist and began to fight.

Luckily, he brought a sword with him this time, as his foster father had instructed.

In the territory of Leibo Street, “King of Sheep” Nakahara Zhong, as usual, was dressed in a hoodie, his hair hidden under the hood. He walked quietly and conspicuously through the chaotic alleys. Suddenly provoked by outsiders, he found himself facing a sword aimed at his head. Angered, Nakahara Zhong shattered the opponent’s sword with gravity, but the opponent managed to evade his kick and leaped ten meters away.

“You little brat, why did you suddenly attack me?!”

If the opponent hadn’t looked relatively young, Nakahara Zhong would have acted more forcefully.

The “poor” teenager with patched clothes on the opposite side hung his head, his bangs covering half of his eye. He swung both arms out of their sheaths, revealing a portion of the sword hidden inside, much to Nakahara Zhong’s astonishment.

Hyakki’s mask-like face showed no emotion, as if saying,

【Let’s fight.】

In Hyakki’s era, battling demons required giving it your all, and fighting against gods… meant fighting to the death.

His life blossomed in the pursuit of vanquishing the gods.