Chapter 159: As a Demon
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 159: As a Demon
[I'll be waiting.]
She was flustered at first, but of course, she couldn't help but be happy. It was the first time she had ever received such kindness. Besides her nanny, no one had ever wanted her like this.
Jang Ye Ri slowly placed a hand on her chest and fell into thought. It felt as if someone was striking her heart from the inside. It was a strange sensation. It was, of course, the first time a single phrase had made her heart pound like this.
‘So this is love.’
Even though she had no concept of such a thing, the thought suddenly crossed her mind. It hadn't been long since she'd actually seen his face. After meeting him that day, they had only communicated through their rings. All she had done was smile while gathering information about him.
And yet, she had fallen in love. It wasn't because he was a demon, nor was it because he had done so much for her. She didn't know the reason. She had fallen in love before she even realized it.
She knew she wasn't worthy, but she couldn't help the desire that began to sprout within her.
She decided that when this was all over, she would confess her past wrongs. If he still accepted her after she confessed how vile, despicable, and filthy she was, then she, too, would take one step closer to him. That was her resolve.
Jang Ye Ri shook her head and walked slowly through the castle. The bloodstained halls and the sticky floor were unpleasant, but they were also quite familiar.
To Jang Ye Ri, who had been born in this prison-like castle and raised in its repulsive walls, the sight was not so strange. She knew almost everything about this vile fortress.
The rooms where the slaves lived, and the room where she had lived. The rooms where guests were invited for ‘business.’ The rooms where hideous massacres had taken place.
As Jang Ye Ri walked slowly through the castle's various corridors, she began to recall her past, one memory at a time.
Unlike humans, who often couldn't recall their early years with clarity, Jang Ye Ri remembered her childhood perfectly. That was why, despite having seen her mother's face only a few times, she remembered it so clearly. At first, she wasn't even acknowledged as part of her father's family.
Unlike the other slaves and Green Skins, she lived within the castle instead of in a prison, but she was often summoned by mages for their experiments. Naturally, it didn't take long for her to realize she was different from other humans.
Unlike the humans around her, strange horns grew from her head, and she thought her eyes looked more like those of a beast than a person.
During the experiments, she would occasionally cross paths with her father, but he never once gave her a second glance. Her brother, Jang Gi Hoo, would stare at her with a strange look in his eyes, but as a child, she didn't understand what it meant.
By the time the mages' experiments were nearly finished, she had learned to speak the human language, eat human food, and live like a human. At times, a primal instinct would boil within her, but she hated looking different from others, so she suppressed those strange urges as much as she could.
Her time with her mother was incredibly short, and they never had a chance to speak. Her mother was always locked in a room with iron bars.
She would always stare blankly at a single spot, and even when she looked at Ye Ri, there was no reaction.
Sometimes, she would call out, “Mom,” but of course, no answer ever came. The young demi-humans in the other rooms always seemed terrified, and the adults in another room were in a similar state to her mother.
The one thing she remembered with certainty, however, was that the young demi-humans always looked at her with eyes full of hatred.
‘Why is Mother always so vacant? Why do I live with a nanny, in a different place from her?’
Such questions never left her mind. Her nanny always loved her, but there was a void that could not be filled. Sometimes she wanted to run and play, but her nanny always told her to be quiet, so she was. She tried her best not to stand out.
But unlike others, her body matured with each passing day, and for the young Jang Ye Ri, this was an immense source of stress.
About six months later, her mother regained some of her senses. Before she could form proper words, all she did was stammer and mumble to herself, but even that made Jang Ye Ri happy. When the guards were watching, she would sometimes gently touch her mother's hand, but her mother paid her no special attention. Her gaze wasn't warm, but incredibly cold. Nevertheless, for the young Jang Ye Ri, who had no one else to lean on, meeting her mother even once in a while was a pleasant occasion.
Jang Ye Ri continued to walk, lost in her past, until she stopped before a room in front of her.
‘I'll show you what your mother does. You may follow.’
It was because a filthy memory had surfaced.
She gathered magic in her hand and unleashed it, and with a deafening roar, an entire room was blown away. All she could see was the sky. Startled birds were flying away in a flock.
“Block them!!!”
“You bastards!”
“Don't let them in!”
From outside, the continuous clash of weapons could be heard. Those were the sounds of the people she was grateful for, the ones who had brought her this far, the ones who had believed in her despite her flaws. Jang Ye Ri glanced up at the sky again.
Seeing the sky opened up so wide from inside the castle felt strangely surreal.
Jang Ye Ri started walking again, her thoughts returning to the past.
In truth, after that incident, Jang Ye Ri began to intentionally avoid seeing her mother. Jang Gi Hoo would summon her whenever he had the chance, and this naturally led to a hatred for her mother. It was painful, disgusting, and nauseating.
Of course, she couldn't tell her nanny. Coming back to her room, retching and showering, became Jang Ye Ri's daily routine.
Naturally, there was no one to help her.
It felt like everything was her mother's fault. The fact that she grew so quickly, that she had horns on her head, that her eyes and skin were a different color from others, that her father wouldn't even look at her, that she was tormented and forced to do disgusting things every single day—it all seemed to be her mother's fault.
More time passed. After about three months of not visiting her mother, Jang Ye Ri went to see her again. Unlike before, when she had never looked back, her mother would sometimes meet her gaze, but at the time, Jang Ye Ri couldn't understand the look in her eyes.
From outside the iron bars, Jang Ye Ri screamed, randomly throwing stones and other objects at her mother. Unable to move properly, her mother simply stood there and took the blows from her child's small hands.
She couldn't remember what words she had spewed back then. Her mother, who couldn't speak the human tongue, would not have understood them anyway.
But the meaning must have been conveyed. Her mother's eyes were unmistakably cold. Her face, flushed as if in anger, was staring right at her.
She wasn't the only one who felt hatred. Her mother hated her, too.
The single phrase her mother spoke then, slowly opening her mouth, was still lodged deep in Jang Ye Ri's heart.
It was a single phrase that unleashed all the hatred in her heart.
‘Anai Totka.’
A few days later, her mother was dead.
Instead of shedding tears, Jang Ye Ri cut off her own horns and ran away. She ran from her mother, and she ran from the other demi-humans who were imprisoned. Her father was overjoyed, and Jang Ye Ri was accepted into the family. Her brother could no longer touch her, more people were assigned to care for her, and she no longer had to participate in any strange experiments.
At first, she was simply happy. But as she grew older and learned about many things, Jang Ye Ri began to understand their circumstances.
She had been such a fool.
If she had just thought a little harder, she would have realized that her mother hadn't wanted her either. She would have realized that her mother had been in a state where she couldn't resist. She would have realized that their situations were similar. Or perhaps, she had only pretended not to know. Did she really not know? Did the her of back then truly not understand their plight? She had replayed it in her mind countless times, but the answer was always no.
She had known. She had definitely known. She had just needed someone to blame.
Jang Ye Ri bit her lip as she continued to walk.
Guilt washed over her—guilt for not being able to send her mother off in any other way, and guilt for betraying her own people, cutting off her horns to save her own life and live in comfort.
When she finished her thoughts and blinked her eyes open, she saw guards staring at her with blank expressions. To be precise, they weren't the castle guards. They were her brother's private soldiers.
“Wh-what? Why is the young lady here…”
“Young lady? Fuck that! Didn't you hear the order to kill everyone?”
“Huh?”
Jang Ye Ri summoned the Reaper's Scythe and tore them limb from limb. It happened in an instant, so fast that the foolish soldiers in front of her didn't even realize what was happening.
“Worthless trash that doesn't deserve to live.”
Fountains of blood erupted from their bodies, and Jang Ye Ri walked through the spray.
‘Revenge.’
The thought that echoed endlessly in her mind was, of course, revenge. Revenge against the brother who had raped her, and revenge against the father who had killed her mother.
She had no idea how long she had waited for this day.
As she continued forward, she saw her brother's private soldiers clashing with her father's forces. Jang Ye Ri pushed her magic into the Reaper's Scythe and began to cut down everything in sight.
The heads of the fighting men were severed from their bodies all at once.
They all died without so much as a scream.
Jang Ye Ri smiled. She felt herself drawing closer, step by step, to her lifelong ambition.
Finally, she arrived at her father's room.
The room was magically soundproofed, so it was impossible to know what was happening inside. Nevertheless, Jang Ye Ri opened the door.
“What brings you here, my daughter?”
The sight that greeted her was a room stained with blood and corpses. In the center stood her father, clutching the throat of Kim Heeyoung, one of the powerful warriors who guarded the gates. The bodies were all burst open in places or had their limbs twisted at unnatural angles. These were all elites, clearly a different caliber from the ones she had dealt with outside. Moreover, Kim Heeyoung, dangling from Jang Gi Young's hand, was undoubtedly one of the strongest people in this city. She was not so weak as to be defeated so easily.
The old king had been hiding his true strength.
“Sp…spare…me…my…my king.”
“Wasn't your king this foolish boy?”
Jang Ye Ri shifted her gaze again. In the corner, she saw her brother, trembling, one of his arms completely crushed.
Jang Ye Ri didn't bother to speak. Instead, she slowly raised the large scythe with one hand. That would serve as her answer.
“You, of all people, should know that your father shows no mercy to his enemies. If you don't want to end up like your foolish brother, do not cross that threshold.”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
With the sound of something being crushed, Kim Heeyoung's body twisted completely. It was clearly a warning not to cross the door. Since childhood, her father had always been an object of fear. It was no different now; of course she was afraid.
Jang Ye Ri suddenly felt that this choice was similar to the one she had faced long ago, when she'd debated whether or not to cut off her horns. The choice was already made.
Jang Ye Ri slowly closed her eyes and, in her heart, uttered that single phrase of hatred once more.
‘Anai Totka.’
Strangely, her body felt a little more at ease. When she opened her eyes, what she saw was not her father, but a vile and corrupt monster.
Jang Ye Ri slowly took a step forward.
Not as a human, but as a demon.