The Blackened Extra's Vengeful Resolve
The predawn air of the northern forest was so bitingly cold it seemed to pierce straight into the lungs. In the dim twilight before the sun had fully risen, the only sound breaking the silence was the murmur of the stream flowing beside the campsite. Hans crouched by the water, plunging his hands into the icy current.
“Hss…” The chill bit at his fingertips like knives. His nerves had gone numb, and every swollen, reddened knuckle throbbed, yet he didn’t stop. He scrubbed the greasy dishes the older men had left after last night’s drinking with a rough sponge coated in sand. Scritch. Scritch. The harsh sound of scouring cut through the forest’s quiet like a vow of determination.
His movements were mechanical. As he watched the grease wash away, Hans tried to scrub the humiliating memories of the previous night along with it. ‘Easy men aren’t any fun.’ Cecilia’s cold voice echoed in his ears like a hallucination. The sound of his pride being trampled rang out. He clenched his teeth and rinsed the bowl. Cold droplets splashed across his face, but he didn’t bother wiping them away.
Then, the crunch of footsteps approached from behind.
“Hey, kid. You’re up early. Already awake?” It was Kane. He scratched at his messy hair and approached awkwardly. Unlike his usual sly demeanor, he was clearly gauging the mood. Kane felt a pang of guilt. Last night, he had pretended to sleep while listening to everything that happened under the blanket in vivid detail—the sound of his disciple slipping her hand into Hans’s pants and stroking him, Hans’s panting confession, and finally the sound of Cecilia kicking him away. He had filled the boy’s head with talk of being a perfect groom, only for Hans to end up wounded.
“……” Hans kept scrubbing without answering. His back looked smaller than usual. Kane cleared his throat and crouched beside him.
“Look, uh… don’t take it too hard. She’s not the only woman in the world. The world’s wide and full of pretty girls. A guy like you wouldn’t lose out in the looks department anywhere…”
It was meant to be comfort, but Hans’s hands suddenly froze mid-rinse. He slowly turned his head and looked up at Kane. Kane flinched. He had expected Hans’s eyes to be wet with tears. But Hans’s gaze was dry. No—clearer and fiercer than before. There wasn’t a single tear track. Only a sharp, icy resolve gleamed in them.
“I’m not heartbroken,” Hans said, his voice low and steady. “If anything, it’s woken me up. I didn’t know my place.”
“Huh?” Kane blinked in surprise.
Hans shot to his feet. He wiped his wet hands on his pants and stared straight at Kane.
“I want to become stronger, Brother. No—Master.” Hans’s eyes burned with intensity. “Please train me hard. I’ll do the laundry, the cooking, carry the baggage—anything. In return… please make me into a real man.”
Kane was impressed by the look in Hans’s eyes. ‘Whoa, look at this kid. He’s going to channel the pain of rejection into training?’ He interpreted Hans’s determination as noble, pure-hearted resolve—the desire to become a man worthy of the woman he loved so he could challenge her again. What a commendable fellow. A smile spread across Kane’s face.
“Good! That’s the spirit a man should have! I’ll take full responsibility and turn you into a monster! I’ll remake you right down to the bone!”
Kane slapped Hans’s shoulder heartily. But Hans’s true thoughts were light-years away from Kane’s assumptions.
‘Just wait. You think I’m pathetic because I’m stuck out here struggling?’ Hans ground his teeth inwardly. ‘The moment I get back to Ludel, there are women who’ll throw themselves at me… Ugh, well… Miss Masa, Miss Eila… they’re all a bit scary, but still! I’ve got places to go!’
Cecilia’s arrogant gaze. The corner of her mouth that had curled in mockery when she called him an easy man.
‘Am I crazy enough to pine after that ice witch? I’ll build up my strength, return in glory, and make her regret kicking me away so hard she’ll beat the ground in despair.’
Hans imagined it. The day he appeared as the continent’s greatest hero, Cecilia clutching desperately at his pants leg.
“Hans! I was wrong! Please take me back!”
And he would look down at her coldly and say,
“Step aside. Easy women aren’t any fun.”
It sent a thrill through him. Just the fantasy flooded him with dopamine.
‘Even if she begs later, I absolutely won’t accept her. Not a single drop.’
The blackened extra’s pathetic yet realistic and fiercely powerful desire for revenge.
“Let’s go, Master.”
Hans gathered the dishes and strode back toward the campsite with purpose.
At the same time, in the forest near Ludel village.
The ruins of an abandoned temple, long forgotten, now buzzed with strange vitality. Bang! Bang! Bang! The sounds of hammering and sawing echoed through the woods. The weed-choked courtyard had been cleared, and the collapsed stone pillars were slowly being restored to their places. It looked like any other construction site—full of the smell of sweat and dust—but the air here carried a peculiar mix of excitement and bashfulness.
“Whoa, careful there! I’ll carry that!”
“Priestess, please don’t get your hands dirty!”
Brawny male laborers shouted competitively as they hauled heavy materials. Their eyes kept drifting toward the women in white clerical robes: Heretic Inquisitor Lucia, her assistant Chloe, and the other priestesses.
After Lucia’s assignment to Ludel was confirmed, the male holy knights and priests from the same temple had practically shoved their applications at her. But Lucia had mercilessly tossed every single one into the trash.
“Not needed. I won’t stand for filthy males sniffing around a sacred place.”
She had coolly allocated the budget instead. A clean contract with a professional construction firm. Professionals who worked without complaint as long as they were paid were far preferable. The workers who had been hired quickly realized they had struck gold. They had expected a grim worksite, but their supervisor turned out to be the peerless beauty Lucia and her charming priestesses.
“Here, have some water.”
When Chloe smiled sweetly and offered a cup, one of the laborers teared up with emotion.
“Th-thank you! You’re like an angel!”
He took a sip and, as if energized, began carrying bricks twice as fast.
Lucia watched the scene with her arms crossed, a satisfied smile on her lips.
‘Money really is the best. Getting rid of all those disgusting pushy men and hiring professionals was the right call.’
The work was progressing quickly. And they followed orders well. She stepped inside the nearly completed temple. The hole in the ceiling had been repaired, and new tiles covered the floor. Her gaze settled on the central altar—the sacred place where Hans had laid her and Karen down and purified them with his mouth.
Lucia approached slowly and ran her hand across the altar. The cold touch of marble. Yet in her memory, the altar had been hot and slick.
“At this pace… we’ll finish a full week ahead of schedule.”
She looked around the temple and noted an empty room in the corner that could serve as an office.
“If I put a bed in that room… it would be perfect. A structure where nothing can be seen or heard from outside.”
It was far too closed-off and secretive for an inquisitor’s office. She imagined it—summoning Hans here, locking the door, and receiving purification from him all day long.
In a forest clearing thick with the stench of blood.
“Greee…” The last orc let out a death rattle and collapsed. The B-rank subjugation request had ended anticlimactically. For Kane and the older men, this was little more than a morning stroll. Hans, serving as both porter and apprentice archer, had done his part in silence and was now quietly retrieving arrows.
During a brief rest, Kane called Cecilia aside. Beneath the shade of a tree, the two faced each other. Kane glanced nervously toward Hans, who was busy skinning an orc in the distance.
“Cecilia. You saw it earlier, right? That kid Hans—his eyes have changed.”
Kane brought it up carefully.
“He might not be to your taste right now, but he’s a raw gem. I’ll train him properly this time, so when you have your next leave, maybe give him another—”
“Master.” Cecilia cut him off. She wiped the orc blood from her sword with a cloth and looked at Kane with a resolute expression. “My heart hasn’t changed. There is no man in this world who can surpass you, Master.”
“No, what I’m saying is… I’m getting old now… and the age difference between us…”
“I’ve already decided.” Cecilia’s cheeks flushed a soft pink. The face that had always resembled a cold ice witch now bloomed with the blush of a dreaming girl. Holding her bloodied sword, she clasped her hands together with an ecstatic expression.
“I have only one dream. To marry you, Master… and give birth to five children who look just like you.”
“Hiiik?!” Kane recoiled in horror. Goosebumps erupted across his skin. Cold sweat trickled down his spine.
“F-five?”
“Yes. I hope the first is a son. I want to teach him your swordsmanship… The second a daughter who takes after me…”
Cecilia was lost in her own fantasy, looking utterly blissful.
“For the third, maybe I’ll teach magic? Ah, but if they take after you, Master, they probably won’t have any talent for it. Hehe.”
Kane couldn’t close his mouth. ‘Crazy woman… She’s actually insane.’ No matter that she was his disciple, this was too much. The age gap alone was criminal. Enough time had passed to change the mountains and rivers twice over. This wasn’t romance—it was a felony. What was he supposed to do with a girl who was practically his daughter? Words like ‘prison,’ ‘iron bars,’ and ‘social burial’ floated through Kane’s mind.
‘I have to survive.’
His survival instinct screamed in alarm. If things continued like this, it wouldn’t just be his nose in a noose—his entire life would be over. Kane clenched his fists tightly.
‘That kid… I have to raise Hans no matter what. As fast as possible.’
Only when that boy grew enough to catch Cecilia’s eye could he escape this hellish bondage. By any means necessary. Kane’s eyes grew grim. It was the moment he resolved to increase the intensity of Hans’s training tenfold—no, a hundredfold. That boy was his only escape route.
Deep in the untouched forest near Ludel village.
A slender silhouette sat atop the branch of a massive ancient tree. Pointed ears, golden hair, and mysterious green eyes. It was the elf Serena. She swung her legs idly as she gazed down at the forest.
“Haa…” A deep sigh broke the woodland silence. Her worries weren’t about forest contamination or monster incursions. It was that her people’s ‘seed’ had run dry.
“They’re all married. Damn it.”
It wasn’t that there were no male elves in this forest. But all the young, capable ones already had partners. As a noble elf, she couldn’t commit adultery. On top of that, every child born recently had been a daughter. At this rate, their lineage would be cut off within a hundred years.
“In the end… I suppose I’ll have to accept a human’s seed.”
Serena muttered gravely. Even a half-elf would allow them to continue their bloodline. The noble duty of species preservation weighed heavily on her shoulders.
“But I can’t accept just anyone.”
She began counting conditions on her fingers.
“First, he has to be good with a bow. He needs to understand elven pride. And… he has to be pure-hearted. I absolutely hate that greedy nature humans have. Also, he must love nature…”
So far, it sounded reasonable. But her eyes gradually began to sparkle with desire.
“And if possible… he should be over 180 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders, and skin better than mine…”
She swallowed hard.
“Ah, voice is important too. It has to be an attractive, deep baritone. When he whispers in my ear, it needs to send a proper shiver through me.”
Species preservation? What a joke. In truth, she was a hopeless pervert using the threat of extinction as an excuse to hunt for a handsome man.
“And at night… he has to be like a beast.”
Serena twisted her body restlessly. She had heard that human men’s sex lives were different from elves’. Rough, hot, and full of stamina.
“Isn’t there anyone… a perfect human male who can satisfy my strict conditions—or rather, the sacred duty of our species?”