The Price of Kindness
The next morning, at the exact same time as always, Dohyung descended into the Basement.
"Good morning, Master!"
As soon as Dohyung stepped into the room, Eunji led the chorus, with Zia and Jiseon chiming in right on cue. They greeted him in unison, immediately dropping to the floor in Position One.
After a few moments, a strange tension filled the air. Lately, Dohyung would receive their morning greeting and immediately order them to stand without much fuss. Today, however, he simply stood there in absolute silence after they finished speaking.
Anxiety began to gnaw at the three girls, but they dared not break Position One. They had to remain perfectly still. After all, their Master had not yet given them permission to rise.
Last night, Dohyung had run into Min-ah—a reunion he had never anticipated. Had she been living a normal, happy life, he might have dismissed it as a mere twist of fate and moved on. But Min-ah's condition was far from normal.
The horrific burn scars marring her skin, her trembling body racked with anxiety, her hollow cheeks suggesting she barely ate... She had changed so drastically from the girl he once knew. If those changes had been the marks of a prosperous life, he would have been glad. Instead, they were signs of ruin, and a deep, aching worry for Min-ah had taken root in his chest.
Normally, I would be starting another game to torment these bitches...
But Min-ah's shattered face kept flickering before his eyes, making it impossible to focus.
"Whew... You may stand."
When Dohyung's command finally came, the three girls scrambled to their feet.
They immediately sensed that something was off. Usually, Dohyung would wear a sadistic, playful smirk as he contemplated how to torture them next. Today, his mind seemed entirely elsewhere, consumed by some distant thought. This departure from his usual routine only amplified their terror.
"Today... we're taking a break."
"What?"
"I'm giving you free time. Just rest for the day."
Dohyung delivered the words flatly and turned on his heel, leaving the Basement.
The girls could only blink in sheer bewilderment. They had no way of knowing what had prompted this sudden shift in their captor. While they were relieved to escape another day of agonizing punishment, a creeping dread whispered that something major was happening beyond their sight. Still, with no power to change their circumstances, they tried their best to push the anxiety aside.
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"This is bad..." Dohyung muttered to himself as he walked back to his room.
Min-ah's scarred, trembling figure haunted his thoughts. He had sworn to live solely for vengeance; he had never imagined he would care about anyone else again. Collapsing onto his bed, he stared at the ceiling.
"What on earth happened to her?"
Ten years had passed since he was dragged to the other world. What had transpired in Min-ah's life during that decade? After agonizing over it, Dohyung finally resolved to investigate her past.
At first, he hesitated. Min-ah hadn't reached out to him, so was it right to pry into her history? If she chose not to contact him, perhaps their bond was truly dead, and he should just focus on his revenge. Yet, he found himself utterly unable to concentrate on his vengeance because of her. It was astonishing; he had thought his mind was entirely consumed by hatred, leaving room for nothing else.
For now, he decided not to force a meeting. Whether they met again was for Min-ah to decide, and he would respect her boundaries. Instead of asking her directly, he would uncover her past through external records.
Dohyung left his house and headed to his old high school—a place he had sworn never to set foot in again. Slipping past the security cameras and staff using cognitive-interference magic, he infiltrated the administration office to look up Min-ah's records. He knew she had transferred, but he had never known where.
Thanks to his magic, the teachers working in the office remained completely oblivious as he stood right beside them, rifling through files and searching their computers. Eventually, he found the name of the school she had transferred to.
"Hanjin... High School?"
The name sounded vaguely familiar. Tilting his head, Dohyung made his way toward Hanjin High.
Hanjin High... Hanjin High... Where have I heard that before? Why does that name ring a bell?
He searched his memories as he walked. He couldn't place it even as he arrived at the school gates, but the moment he stepped onto the campus, the realization hit him like a physical blow.
"Ah... so that's why."
The reason he remembered Hanjin High was simple: it was an elite private school funded by Eunji's family conglomerate. He recalled Eunji bragging about the school to her lackeys while tormenting him in the past.
But that made Min-ah's transfer make even less sense. Hanjin High was a prestigious academy, far out of reach for an ordinary student from a regular school. How had she managed to transfer there? A cold dread began to pool in his stomach. Dohyung slipped inside the school building, using the same magic to dig into her records.
"What? This is..."
As he scanned Min-ah's student file, he froze. There was a record stating she had dropped out during her sophomore year. Her freshman records showed she had been a model student, maintaining excellent grades even after transferring. For her to suddenly drop out made no sense. Naturally, the official record only stated she had left of her own volition, offering no details about the underlying cause.
"What the hell happened...? I have no choice. I'll have to dig deeper."
Dohyung looked up the teachers who had been her homeroom instructors during her freshman and sophomore years. Fortunately, both were still employed at the school. He wanted to drag them out of their classrooms immediately, but to avoid making a scene, he waited patiently until the school day ended.
At five o'clock, the two teachers packed up and headed to the parking lot. As they got into their respective cars, Dohyung conjured a magical clone to tail one while he followed the other. Using his magic, he briefly knocked them unconscious inside their vehicles and began to read their memories.
The memories confirmed his worst fears. Min-ah had been subjected to the exact same hell he had endured: school violence. To think that the only person who had ever reached out to help him had been broken by the very same cruelty... Dohyung clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, blood nearly seeping from his palms.
He wanted to find the ringleaders right this second. He wanted to tear them limb from limb. He focused on the faces from the teacher's memories—the girls who had surrounded Min-ah behind the school, and the girl who had snickered at her bandaged face in the classroom.
I'll start with her. Pulling that thread will lead me to the rest of them.
Dohyung cross-referenced the girl's face with the student records to find her name. Once he had her name and face, locating her current address was trivial using his Search and Teleportation magic.
When he arrived, he found her living a cozy, domestic life, laughing and playing with her young child. A wave of pure, unadulterated disgust washed over him. The sight of monsters who had inflicted irreversible trauma on others living happy, peaceful lives made his stomach churn. He instantly cast a spell to put the family to sleep, stepped into the house, and began reading the woman's memories.
"Ha... of course."
He had harbored a microscopic hope that he might have been mistaken, but the truth was undeniable. Min-ah had been brutally bullied by this woman and her clique. The torment had begun the very moment their sophomore year started.
But why? Why target Min-ah when she was doing so well...?
As he delved deeper into the woman's mind, a figure materialized in her memories—someone he knew all too well.
Han... Eunji!!!
He had uncovered a memory of this woman and her accomplices meeting with Eunji. The conversation that unfolded within the memory was sickening.
In the memory, the woman and the other girls burst into cruel, mocking laughter at Eunji's words.
Dohyung could barely contain his rage. Min-ah had only... she had only stepped forward to defend him when he was being tortured. And for that single act of kindness, Eunji had orchestrated this nightmare. He wanted to slaughter them all—Eunji, who had conceived this sickening plot, and the worthless bitches who had carried it out.
He had believed his mother was the only innocent person who had suffered because of him. He was already holding these three girls captive, torturing them to avenge his late mother... but to realize that Min-ah had also been dragged into this hell because of him made his mind feel like it was going to explode.
He wanted to blow this woman's head off right then and there. But he forced himself to draw back and return home. He needed to find out exactly how many of these bitches had laid their hands on Min-ah.