The Cursed King

Chapter 1 - Petrichor

NEW YORK, 2045

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"Crazy! It says here that the billionaire is associated with an organ trafficking scandal on the black market. According to the news, he got a fresh heart for his transplant yesterday from a victim of human trafficking in Asia."

"It is so awful. They said he's already had multiple organ transplants throughout the years to stay alive."

"He's almost a century old, but still trying to stay alive and in power."

"It feels like if a person has a lot of money, he can even ward off death."

"Ahhh .. it's so nice to be rich. They can do anything with their money. That's right. Rich people can get plastic surgery to keep them looking young, and if their organs are damaged or failed, they could just replace them with organs from the black market."

"Yeah, also, with technological advances that they can buy with money, they can live young for hundreds of years."

"Uff.. so lucky!"

The two women kept chatting enthusiastically about some ultra-wealthy man they read about in the news today.

It was a lazy Saturday and not many people came to the cafe. So, most of the tables were empty.

Their voices were the only things that rang in the cafe, except for the occasional coffee maker when the barista made coffee for guests.

A handsome man wearing dark sunglasses, who was sitting in a corner of the cafe, reading a book, glanced at the source of the noise and took a deep breath.

Loriel, the man's name, was starting to get annoyed, that he felt the desire to pull his neck-length black hair.

That corner was his regular spot whenever he came to this cafe to leisurely enjoy his book and tea, and he had been having peace before the two ladies came and started gossiping loudly.

Actually, the women's voices were not super loud but the man had a very sharp sense of hearing.

Also, usually there were many other guests here who could all cover each other's sounds. However, today, there were only these two ladies and they happened to talk about the same boring nonsense over and over again. It got tiring fast.

He frowned, and the calm expression on his face turned dark when he heard the enthusiasm in their voices as they debated how much money did the billionaire pay for the organ, and how nice it was to be rich because they could extend their life span and live longer.

In fact, maybe in the future, rich people could live forever if they could keep changing their bodies and organs. People were already thinking in that direction and so many books and movies were written about the subject.

Surely, one day, people could finally live forever. How nice it would be!

Loriel pressed his temple in annoyance.

Those fools don't know that living forever is bad, he thought.

He had lived for fifteen centuries, looking like a young man as he was now, and he couldn't see where was the fun of it.

In fact, if he could be honest ... he actually wanted to die.

The sound of their chattering was getting louder and more excited, making Loriel increasingly more annoyed.

Finally, his patience ran out.

The man put down his book on the table and looked out the window to his left.

Ah ... it hadn't rained in a long time, he thought as he saw how sunny it was outside.

He glanced at the two women who were still engrossed in gossiping about the various celebrities and rich people they read on the internet and giggled every now and then while they were gossiping.