A Vow of Vengeance for Mina
Tracking down the girls who had bullied Mina, with Eunji at the center of it all, was child's play for Dohyung. All he had to do was use his magic to read their memories and locate their addresses. He discovered that the ringleader was the very first girl whose mind he had probed, and that three others had actively participated in tormenting Mina alongside her.
As he sifted through the details of their cruelty, Dohyung found it nearly impossible to suppress his rising fury. It had started small—hiding her belongings, shoving her in the hallways as they walked past—before escalating into something far more sinister. It was a mirror image of what Dohyung himself had endured. Physical violence, punches and kicks, became a daily routine. They would douse her with filthy water when she was trapped in a bathroom stall, and eventually, they turned the entire school against her, ensuring she was completely ostracized. No one was left to stand by her side.
Yet, Dohyung couldn't help but feel a profound sense of admiration for Mina. Even in the face of such relentless, absurd cruelty, she had never forgotten how to smile brightly. She had stood her ground, fiercely defying her tormentors and shouting back at them. Unlike him, who had suffered in absolute, pathetic silence, Mina had fought back instantly, driven by her own sheer willpower. She had done what he could never bring himself to do.
But she was hopelessly outnumbered. The more she resisted, the more relentlessly they hounded her. Though he had not yet read Mina's own mind, Dohyung assumed she must have told herself to just hold on until graduation. She probably believed that once high school was over, she would never have to see those wretched girls again. But...
As time went on, Eunji herself joined the pack of wolves tormenting Mina. In the memory of the girl Dohyung had interrogated, Eunji had said:
"I was laying low for a bit because it would've been a pain if that fat pig's dead body turned up after he went missing. But since there's still no sign of a corpse, I guess it's time to have some fun again. Should I go play with the little toy I sent over there?"
With Dohyung gone, Eunji had looked for a new target to satisfy her sadistic urges, and her mind had drifted back to Mina, whom she had essentially banished to Hanjin High School.
"Sigh... That fucking bitch..."
Dohyung had never intended to forgive Eunji, but learning the truth about Mina made her crimes utterly unforgivable. The sole reason Mina's life had been dragged through hell was because she had tried to help him—a noble act that Eunji had found deeply offensive. It all stemmed from such a petty, malicious whim.
He couldn't help but think that if he hadn't been summoned to the other world, if he had stayed and continued to bear the brunt of Eunji's abuse, Mina might have been spared from the worst of it.
His mother, too, had lost her life, wandering the streets in a desperate search for him after he vanished to Adria. Dohyung laid the blame for her death squarely at the feet of Jia, Jiseon, Taehyun, and Eunji, fueling his burning desire for vengeance. He had believed his mother was the only direct casualty of his tragic fate...
He had never imagined that Mina's life would also be ruined because of him.
"If they had stopped at just bullying her at school... No, that wouldn't have been okay either, but at least it would have been better than this..."
The scar on Mina's face. Sifting through the memories, he discovered that this, too, was a wound inflicted by Eunji and the other girls. As the horrific details of how it happened unfolded in his mind, Dohyung let out a hollow, trembling sigh.
It had happened at Mina's own home. Annoyed by Mina's constant defiance, Eunji and her lackeys had turned on the gas stove and dragged Mina's head toward the open flame. They threatened to set her hair on fire if she didn't start obeying them.
Reading the girls' shallow minds, they hadn't actually intended to burn her; they only wanted to terrify her into submission. But as Mina thrashed and struggled desperately to escape, the girls holding her lost their footing and let go. In that split second, the fire caught her hair. The horrific scar on her face was the permanent mark left by those flames.
After that, Mina had been absent from school for a long time. She must have been confined to a hospital bed, recovering from the severe burns.
"Eunji... you tried to sweep it under the rug with money back then, too..."
Naturally, Mina's parents had been horrified by their daughter's condition and rushed to the school. Just as she had done with Dohyung's family, Eunji offered a massive sum of money to settle the matter quietly. But Mina's parents were different from Dohyung's father. They refused to touch a single cent of her dirty money and declared they would expose the truth to the public.
If only Eunji had been ruined then. But considering how comfortably she had been living up until Dohyung kidnapped her, the public exposure her parents threatened had clearly been smothered. He couldn't piece together the exact details just from the other girls' memories.
However, from the fragments of conversations they recalled, Eunji had bragged about bribing judges, prosecutors, and lawyers to tilt the scales of justice in her favor. She had deployed journalists to bury the story under a barrage of sensational distractions, and she had pressured business associates to strangle the factory run by Mina's father. It was a relentless, crushing display of financial tyranny.
And then, using the excuse that Mina was still being "rebellious," they had tortured her by searing her arms and legs with a scorching hair straightener. Mina had endured and endured, but eventually, she dropped out of high school. While transferring to another school might have been an option, her body and mind were so utterly shattered that she couldn't even bring herself to think of it.
In the memories of those girls, the image of Mina transitioned from a bright, energetic girl to a broken soul. The final memory they had of her was her slumped, lifeless figure trudging out of the school gates with her head hung low, never to return.
To uncover the finer details, he would have to probe Eunji's mind directly, but Dohyung decided against it.
Is there even a need to read it? It's already a fact that she ruined Mina's life. And besides...
Dohyung pictured Mina's suffering as he recalled the memories he had just witnessed. If he delved into Eunji's mind, he would undoubtedly see Mina screaming and weeping in even greater agony. He couldn't bear to look at those scenes anymore.
It was painful enough witnessing Mina through the eyes of her minor tormentors. If he saw what lay inside the mind of Eunji—the root of all this evil—his rage would consume him. He might lose control and blow Eunji's head off right then and there.
Having uncovered the horrific truth in a single day, Dohyung lay down on his bed. With the clock ticking toward the dead of night, his mind swirled with the weight of these unbelievable revelations.
He had lived solely to exact vengeance on the four pieces of trash who had made his life a living hell. He had never dreamed that Mina would be caught in the crossfire of his tragedy.
He also had to decide what to do with the other girls who had tortured Mina. Running over to slaughter them right now would be easy. But death was too merciful. Seeing them live happy, carefree lives after destroying someone else's was the height of disgust.
And so, Dohyung decided to break one of his solemn vows—the oath to use his magic solely for his own revenge.