I was waiting for someone to mention this?!?! I wonder what happened to him that would make him hate humans so much
That’s the most we see of this character. I saw a theory that 020 is also 704 since life is all eternal so this is maybe not his first time being a reaper. I don’t really know what to make of it besides Geumsun being traumatized by someone who wanted to kill him apparently.
The marking on the wrist says 黒闇 presumably short for 黒闇地獄 (Hell of Darkness) one of the worst hells in Korean Buddhism.
What’s on 704’s neck is 震卯 though which according to this 10 kings of hell map ( https://wx2.sinaimg.cn/mw690/3bbb9668gy1gqh9xi1wtvj20mo0lu75p.jpg) specifies his territory (East) rather than the official hell name.
So it’s possible 020 is a sinner in hell and not a reaper. No idea though. We saw Chungin and 944 appear as background characters 5 chapters before they were introduced so I’m sure we’ll find out someday.
So I have this mini theory derived from what you wrote.
020 was probably the reaper whom Geumsun loved. And 020 falling in love with Geumsun lead to other emotions, which hindered their work and caused them to get banished to hell. Or there could be some other sin which they committed too.
020 themself did not traumatize Geumsun, but the entire episode of losing 020 traumatized him, hence the strangulation metaphor.
And according to your point which said that life is eternal, 020 was born again as a human after many many years and committed a crime (as a human) and became a reaper again under the number 704.
This could be why there is such a huge gap between their serial numbers. And could also be the reason why Yama told Geumsun to not put any of his reapers in danger, since Yama lost a reaper before too because of him.
This is just something I came up with suddenly so there may be a lot of holes(￣∇￣")
So while re reading that chapter I noticed that in Geumsun’s monologue while talking to Yama in the past, there were hands which were strangling Geumsun’s neck and they had the number 020 written which would be a Reaper’s hand.
Does anyone know something more about this?