Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Translator: Penny
Episode 42: Yoo Eunha [3]
Bang!
"Oh my God, how could it have gotten this bad...!"
Her entire body was covered in burn scars, as if she had been electrocuted.
I heard they don't torture prisoners...!
Her arms and legs were riddled with old fractures, the bones having broken and healed countless times.
It was as if she hadn't even been allowed to recover from her injuries. Blood seeped from her wounds, slowly staining the pristine white marble floor crimson. The shocking sight made my head spin.
These were injuries that required immediate hospitalization. Why had she rushed here instead?
No, if she dies like this, it'll be a disaster...!
Just imagining Yu Eun-ha dying here made my head swim.
The Emergency Pager I gave her back then...
Eve had given me a switch to use in emergencies.
Click
"Damn, am I too late...!"
As soon as I pressed the button, Yu Han-ra appeared, carrying a stack of healing potions as if she had anticipated this moment. Before I could even explain the situation, she scooped up Yu Eun-ha and carried her to a warmer place.
"I'm sorry, Se-a."
"No, your quick response is..."
"I should have broken every bone in her body to prevent her from reaching this place intact..."
"...Huh?"
Did I just hear something I shouldn't have?
"...Ah, that's...!"
"No, take your time and explain."
My reflection flickered in Yu Han-ra's panicked eyes.
The sigil that appeared when I activated the Demonic Eye of Suggestion was visible in Han-ra's pupils, reflecting back into my own eyes.
"Tell me everything slowly and clearly. What happened to Eun-ha while I was here?"
After that, the news Yu Han-ra shared was...
"That's what happened..."
"...Huh."
It was quite shocking.
"So... under the guise of testing whether they could protect me, the esteemed members of the Golden Guild actually beat her under the name of 'training'? And Chairwoman Eve Meitner was the most enthusiastic?"
"Umm... yes. Miss Eun-ha even asked for help with the training herself, and the Guild members who usually thought highly of Se-a had heard the full story from the Guild Master..."
"So, they had active A-Rank Heroes unilaterally beat up a Cadet?"
"I... I'll fix it."
Is she out of her mind?
Didn't she swear there would be no more torture?
I grabbed my phone irritably.
Any more variables would be a real problem.
["Oh, Se-a. Is something wrong...?"]
"Miss Eun-ha, did the Chairwoman do this to you?"
After explaining the situation to Eve over the phone...
["Se-a, there's a reason for all this..."]
"Chairwoman Eve Meitner, I'll take that as confirmation to keep the teleportation block activated at the safe house from now on."
["No, please, anything but that...!!"]
For the time being, it seemed the safe house would truly be mine alone.
"Miss Eun-ha, snap out of it."
First things first, I needed to get Yu Eun-ha into bed. I had no idea what had happened to her...
After escaping the seemingly endless torture, Yu Eun-ha awoke in an unfamiliar place.
"...Where am I?"
The space was chillingly cold.
- She's awake. What should we do?
- I don't know. Should we just knock her out again?
- Cutie told us never to touch her. What do we do? Is there anyone who can use Sleep Magic?
- There is. Cutie used it well at the safe house.
- Then we can't call her.
- Stop it. Are you seriously thinking of using a patient who needs absolute rest in bed right now?
Yu Eun-ha had no interest in who "Cutie" was.
"I couldn't... do anything."
The sheer disgust at her own actions drove Yu Eun-ha to the brink of self-strangulation, her body moving almost against her will.
Slap!
With a swift, forceful slap to her cheek, Yu Eun-ha barely managed to suppress the urge to harm herself.
"No, not yet... I still have things to do."
She continued muttering to herself, "Remember why you've regressed three times," oblivious to the murmurs of the people outside her window.
The scene from that day still played vividly in her mind.
With her younger sister on the verge of death, what kind of elder sister would stand by and do nothing?
The words of the person she admired most had come from the mouth of the one she hated most.
"Sister Seol-hwa..."
"Go, Miss Eun-ha. I'll do everything I can to stop Se-a."
Yu Eun-ha swallowed her tears, remembering her Eldest Sister, who had saved her from the rampaging monster only to have her entire body turn to stone and shatter into pieces.
Did my sister truly save me back then? Or was even that act just part of her performance?
"Se-a... Sister... sniffle."
She had never considered the possibility that this regression might be to a different world than the three she had experienced before. Or rather, she hadn't even entertained the thought.
After all, all three of her deaths had been orchestrated by Yun Se-a.
But during those three regressions, had everything remained exactly the same as before? No.
Blinded by vengeance, Yu Eun-ha had severed her reason at the mere trigger of finding a target for her hatred. She had brutally tortured and attempted to drown an innocent person who had done nothing wrong.
I must go to Yun Se-a right now, kneel before her, and beg for forgiveness. That was the only thought consuming Yu Eun-ha's mind.
"......"
The image remained vivid in her mind: her sister, shielding her from Azathoth's final strike, her body torn in half as she collapsed lifelessly.
Scratch, scratch
Oblivious to the patient gown staining crimson, Yu Eun-ha continued to claw at her neck, reliving that moment.
After Yun Se-a's body was pierced by Azathoth's Spear and torn in half, Eve Meitner arrived.
"Se-a! Medics, pour every potion we have into her! Save her at all costs!"
The healers and Supreme Potions barely managed to reattach her severed body, but...
"Why isn't she waking up? Her heartbeat, mana flow... everything seems normal!"
"Guild Master, the wound was too severe... the aftereffects are still too strong. We need to move her to a warm place and ensure absolute rest..."
Seeing Yun Se-a's unresponsive state, Eve, visibly panicked—a reaction she had never shown before the Regression—cast a memory-reading spell to uncover what had happened.
Yu Eun-ha was the sole survivor at the scene of the incident. Eve Meitner, intending to read her sister's memories, included Yu Eun-ha in her skill's scope.
Realizing it would be impossible to open every memory door, I quickly grasped Eve's intention to use our connection to rapidly locate the memory door related to the incident and cooperated.
Within that memory, I could sense that my actions would be fully exposed, but rational judgment was impossible at the time.
Moreover, I hoped to gain insight into Yun Se-a's memories as well.
As Eve's radiant magic flooded my vision with light, transporting us to the realm of memory doors, Yu Eun-ha was left speechless.
Yu Eun-ha had always believed Yun Se-a was a villain.
A psychopath who had murdered the people who were like her adoptive parents, and who, before the Regression, had taken the lives of both Yu Eun-ha and Seo Jian.
That was Yu Eun-ha's assessment of Yun Se-a.
But at that moment... when she saw that Yun Se-a's memory world, which she had assumed would be filled with only happy memories, consisted entirely of black and purple doors...
"W-why are they all black or purple...?"
Yu Eun-ha's world shattered completely.
Before the Regression, Eve had told her at the Academy that the black and purple doors contained memories so horrific that one wouldn't even want to recall them.
But why were Yun Se-a's memories—the daughter of Yun Seong-ho and his wife, who had always treated Yu Eun-ha kindly—filled only with black doors instead of doors containing happy memories?
Eve opened the black door and stepped through, saying, "You may return now." Yu Eun-ha was left alone in the space.
Black doors and purple doors were piled so high that she didn't know which memory to open first.
Then, by chance, Yu Eun-ha grabbed the handle of a purple door and was pulled inside.
The scene that swallowed Yu Eun-ha showed...
"Ugh... Uwaaaah...!!"
Yun Se-a, broken and ravaged by her own family through cruel experiments and torturous human trials.
Yu Eun-ha had never imagined Se-a carried such a past.
"I... I said those things without knowing...!"
A monster who devoured her parents, a psychopath hiding behind the mask of Student Council President, a killing fiend obsessed with murder.
These were the words Yun Se-a had uttered as she lay dying under torture.
The kind man she had considered a father figure was, in reality, a disgustingly evil psychopath obsessed with experiments. The motherly figure who had treated her with warmth had remained locked in her room, passively observing the situation.
Her most respected Eldest Sister, consumed by inferiority after losing love and attention, had driven her Sister to the brink of suicide and even tormented her.
The Demonic Eye, which Yun Se-a believed she had voluntarily implanted to gain the power of a Demon, was actually a demonic eye forcibly implanted by Yun Seong-ho.
Without even verifying the truth, Yun Se-a had been branded a villain from the start, simply because she had suddenly received news of the death of the demon who had been like a father to her.
"Aaaah, aaaaaah... AAAAAH!!"
Despite my resistance, memories from the Purple Door flashed by relentlessly.
Seven Demons suddenly appeared, Shena tearing my body to shreds as I screamed in agony... My body riddled with holes, wounded beyond counting.
A scene of suffering that would have driven an ordinary person mad... but the truly shocking part came next.
Even knowing the pain and danger, I willingly gouged out my own eye to save Eve, transplanting the eye I'd obtained from an unidentified Demonic Beast.
Yu Eun-ha watched these traumatic memories, reeling from the shock. But Yun Se-a's tragic and desperate past continued to unfold, as if this were only the beginning...
Beyond the Purple Door lay...
"Yu Hyeon, please... take care of Eun-ha. Though we're not... cough! blood-related... she's my only sister..."
It was the figure of her "Sister," who had intercepted a terrifyingly dark and profound attack aimed at Seo Jian, collapsing weakly to the ground as her life flickered out.
Just like when she had shielded Yu Eun-ha from Azathoth's Spear and fallen.
"Aaaah... Uwaaaaaaaah!"
And before Yu Eun-ha, who had been forcibly ejected from the door...
"...You'd better forget about going back peacefully."
Eve Meitner, consumed by rage, unleashed her blazing thunder upon Yu Eun-ha.