Chapter 3
“Is it you? Are you Ruby?”
Meow?
Even dogs aren’t disturbed while eating. Yet here was a cat, suddenly hit with a personal question in the middle of its meal, tilting its head in bafflement.
Or… not?
A sigh of disappointment slipped out.
“Ruby, you promised you’d come back.”
My hand, by habit, brushed beneath my neck. I pretended as if to touch a necklace, but there was nothing there.
‘Maybe Ruby isn’t coming back because I lost her necklace.’
A green-eyed cheese tabby.
Ruby was my cat, my princess, and my only family.
No one is born without parents. Everyone is born to someone. But some are born without a family.
I was abandoned on the street and grew up in an orphanage. At eighteen, I was practically pushed out, with nowhere to go. All I had was the five million won the government gave as settlement money for self-reliance.
Not even enough for a decent studio apartment’s rent.
College was out of the question—I immediately plunged into part-time jobs. Working two or three shifts at once, I scraped and saved until, after a year, I managed to escape the suffocating life of a goshiwon.
It was around the time I moved into my semi-basement room that I met Ruby, as if by fate.
“Ugh, that thieving cat!”
Snarling and hissing in the grip of the corner-shop grandmother, a scrawny cheese tabby dangled by the scruff of its neck.
“Someone shoved it in a box and dumped it by that utility pole a few months ago. I swear, this cat’s got nine lives—it won’t die, and lately it keeps ripping open garbage bags. It’s a nuisance.”
“Give her to me. I’ll take care of her.”
I had never raised a pet, and my living was already tight. Reason said no, but my heart had already decided.
Because I saw myself in that cat.
An abandoned orphan, like me.
Living off scraps, just as I once scavenged discarded junk from the street to furnish my life.
Her wary nature, born of being hurt by people, was far too much like my own.
“Ruby.”
Hiss.
At first Ruby distrusted me too…
“Ruby.”
Meooow.
But as time passed, she became the gentle lap-cat who only trusted me.
And so, the tiny heart-shaped speck inside her emerald eyes became a secret only I knew—something visible only because she let me close.
When I came home from work, there was someone waiting by the door, scolding me for being late. There was someone whose picky taste I catered to, someone I nursed through nights of sickness.
For the first time, I had something called a family.
But maybe happiness was a garment that didn’t fit me. In the fifth winter we spent together, Ruby left for the stars where cats go.
I had carried a heavy cat to the vet and returned with nothing but a light urn of ashes. That day, I clutched Ruby’s beloved teddy bear and wept.
I thought of nothing but what I had failed at. That I was clumsy at first. That I had been gone too often, working. That I hadn’t bought her enough, hadn’t done enough.
Why did I have to be the one to take her in, only for her to suffer and leave early?
That day, regret carried me into a restless sleep.
But at dawn, I awoke with a strange feeling.
“Huh… what’s going on?”
Does misfortune have the power to call forth more misfortune? That very night, the water pipes burst in the upstairs apartment. By the time I woke, water had already seeped into the floor of my semi-basement home.
“My Ruby! No, please—”
Ruby’s urn nearly got submerged.
It wasn’t the ruined furniture—bought with what little money I had—that crushed me most. What truly terrified and broke me was nearly losing Ruby’s final trace.
What use was there in clutching her ashes when I didn’t even have a proper home?
The next day, I let Ruby go.
“Goodbye, Ruby. Thank you.”
I scattered her remains in a forest, telling her to run free. But the forest was ringed by towering apartment buildings, and my eyes fell on them.
A cat born in one of those homes would surely have a better life than with me.
“Ruby, in your next life, may you be born in a place like that.”
Not with someone poor like me, living in a sunless semi-basement.
“I… I’ll never…”
I’ll never raise another cat again.
A life that starts alone is easier to accept. Humans cannot yearn for what they’ve never known. But a life that was shared, only to return to loneliness—that pain, I finally learned.
That night, I must have cried myself to sleep on the warped, bubbling linoleum floor.
Meow.
I woke to Ruby’s cry. Ruby, healthy and whole, was looking down at me.
“…Ruby?”
“It’s me, sis.”
But her cry sounded like words. Surely, it was just a dream.
“You know, I’m actually a cat who has lived nine lives.”
I’d heard the saying before—that cats have nine lives. Just a made-up story. So even as Ruby spoke, I thought it was false.
“I was always hated and abandoned, never making it past one year. But this time—I lived long, and I lived happily. It was the first time.”
“…Really?”
“So you’re my first and last family.”
Ruby was saying the words I had always longed to hear. That’s why I believed it was a dream.
“Because you gave me so much love, I can now be reborn however I want. And someday, I’ll come back to you.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hm! Until then, don’t cry. I’ll leave you a present.”
A present?
The moment I tried to ask, a flash of light burst before my eyes. When I opened them again, all I saw was the dim room—and an empty, lonely cat tower standing there.
Still, that dream became a great comfort and strength. Even if I didn’t truly believe Ruby’s promise, I wanted to be fooled.
‘Then, until Ruby finds her way back to me, I’ll work hard and become rich. My Ruby deserves to be born into a good home in her next life.’
So I threw myself into part-time jobs again, while preparing for the civil service exam in spare moments.
Then one night, during a late shift at the convenience store—
“Ugh, I’m so sleepy.”
Nodding off, I ended up drawing three worms across my practice workbook. That night there were no customers, no leftover coffee to drink.
Maybe I’d shake off the drowsiness by watching some funny clips online.
I unlocked my phone—only to see a notification pop up.
[Master! Ruby’s cat tower has broken down!]
It was an alert from the cat-raising game I had started after Ruby’s passing.
When I opened the game, the cat “Ruby” was sniffling in front of her broken cat tower. I rushed to fix it, but the repair cost was four gems. I had… zero.
“Poor owner in real life, poor owner in the game too.”
I tried watching an ad to get free gems, and wouldn’t you know—it gave exactly four.
‘City of Eden?’
I only meant to let the ad play in the background while I killed some time, but then I saw the big bold text below:
[Install City of Eden and clear the first mission to receive 30 gems!]
“What, seriously? A cat wheel!”
Thirty gems was enough to buy a cat wheel. I could never get one in real life—the apartment was too small. But at least in the game, I wanted Ruby to run to her heart’s content.
“Ruby, in your next life I’ll get you a real cat wheel.”
I pressed the install button, lifting the round bead pendant hanging from my neck as if swearing an oath.
The truth was, I hadn’t completely let Ruby go. I’d kept a little of her ashes, made into a gem so I could take her with me even until my own death.
Since I could choose the color, I had it crafted in emerald, just like her eyes. Not a pure emerald green, but flecked with white—one of which formed a tiny heart. Just like Ruby.
[Installation of City of Eden is complete.]
I tapped the notification and the game opened. After a few company logos flashed by, the start screen appeared, drawn in a retro style that felt oddly familiar.
I hadn’t played it before, but I’d seen it plenty. A gaming channel I followed had uploaded tons of PC gameplay videos last year.
“So now there’s a mobile version, huh.”
People called it City of Hell because of the difficulty, but it was Game of the Year, and insanely popular, so that made sense.
The setting was a grim, gray city plagued with endless crime: Eden City.
Skyscrapers, a statue of a goddess, mafiosos in fedoras firing tommy guns—it was clearly modeled after old New York.
[Choose your faction.]
The screen went black when I pressed Start, and a message appeared.
[Follower of Evil]
[Guardian of Good]
In this game, players took the role of villain or hero, struggling against sabotage from the other side while completing their missions.
Without hesitation, I chose Follower of Evil.
And the reason was…
***
