After All This Time?
Yu Ina, Cheon Maru’s mother, once had a longtime friend.
Lee Hye-ryeong. A woman who was always confident and full of life, popular with everyone around her.
Unlike herself, she was loved by all, and Yu Ina had genuinely liked her for it.
That was why the two of them had never fought.
Not even when Lee Hye-ryeong began dating the person Yu Ina had secretly loved.
“What is this? You. Right now, this is…”
“Shut up. Shut up! Shut up!!!”
The Red Witch Lee Hye-ryeong screamed. In the eyes staring at Yu Ina there wasn’t the slightest trace of warmth one might expect from an old friend. Only pure hostility and murderous intent remained.
“It’s all because of you! If only you didn’t exist!!!”
Her red hair broke free of all control. The strands whipping through the air looked like flowing silk.
“He’s my man!! My love!!! I loved him first and I dated him first!!!”
Lee Hye-ryeong demanded her man back, but from Yu Ina’s perspective the claim was absurd.
“You should get your story straight. I was the one who loved him first. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“What does that have to do with me?! You butted in and ruined my love!!!”
Lee Hye-ryeong thrashed in madness. The unbearable truth was forced into her mind anyway.
“And you were the one who cheated first.”
“That was…! Just a momentary mistake!!”
“Does a moment last an entire year for you?”
Yu Ina, Lee Hye-ryeong, and Cheon Maru’s father, Cheon Seo-jun, had all attended the same university. While in school Yu Ina had fallen for Cheon Seo-jun, but after Lee Hye-ryeong’s confession he began dating her instead.
At the time Yu Ina had simply congratulated them. She felt a little envious, a little jealous, but Lee Hye-ryeong was her only true friend.
Then, after graduation, when each of them had started working, it happened one day.
At a company dinner, Lee Hye-ryeong ended up in bed with a boss who had been persistently hitting on her.
She had insisted on remaining pure until marriage and had never been intimate with Cheon Seo-jun, so the shock and humiliation were overwhelming. She raged at the boss and spiraled into anxiety.
Yet when he suggested they simply enjoy each other without the burden of a relationship, she accepted the ridiculous offer.
After three years of dating Cheon Seo-jun, she had grown bored and restless. The new stimulation felt welcome. Even though she knew it was wrong, she continued the affair.
She believed the kind, faithful Cheon Seo-jun would forgive her.
After a full year of the illicit relationship, she was finally caught.
“Do you even understand how much he suffered because of you?”
In the end, Lee Hye-ryeong’s choice had not been Cheon Seo-jun. She found her wealthy, experienced boss far more attractive.
The betrayed Cheon Seo-jun fell into despair, and that was when Yu Ina stepped forward. The love she had forced herself to abandon had returned as an opportunity, and this time she seized it without hesitation.
“He was the one you threw away first. I simply didn’t miss my chance.”
“Shut up… Shut up!!!”
“You said he’d forgive you anyway? Just what exactly is he to you?”
When the boss was ruined by charges of embezzlement and sexual harassment, her own life collapsed as well.
At work she was shunned as the accomplice of a perverted scumbag. Her friends abandoned her.
Looking back at her suddenly destroyed life, she searched for the reason. There was only one cause.
Choosing the boss over Cheon Seo-jun.
Only then did she realize no one else could compare to him.
The man who always put her first, who was diligent, gentle, and gave her peace—only he had been that person.
She tried to mend their relationship, but he was already dating Yu Ina.
“He always looked only at me!! He promised to love only me forever!!!”
Her hair whipped like flames. Control slipped further and further. Her magic began to resonate with her emotions.
Cheon Seo-jun no longer looked at her with that smile. The smile that had always been hers was now directed at Yu Ina.
Even as Yu Ina condemned her infidelity, he never defended her. Instead he watched her with wariness and disgust.
-After cheating on me, you want to start over now?
-Have you no shame at all?!
-Did you ever actually love Seo-jun?
Lee Hye-ryeong believed her lover had been stolen by her friend, never once reflecting on her own actions.
“Give him back!!! Give me back my love!!!!!”
While she rotted away clinging to the past, a chance suddenly appeared.
A-grade magic power. A talent specialized in curses.
She decided to use that power. She practiced by committing acts of terror, growing familiar with it. Then, using a grimoire she happened to receive from a man, she formed a plan.
If Yu Ina became just as filthy as she was, surely he would look at her again.
She believed whatever was convenient and acted however she pleased. Her mind was so broken she could no longer see the contradictions in her own logic.
“Die!!!!!”
The red strands surged toward Yu Ina. But Cheon Nuri blocked their path.
“Haa… Haa…”
For Cheon Nuri that last attack had been her limit. Modifying the technique for the first time had drained far too much magic power; almost nothing remained.
“Hey! Get out here already!”
“Then what? You want my brother to stop that bitch? You think he can?”
“Then you—watch out!!”
The red hair targeted Cheon Nuri’s exhausted back. She was in no condition to block it. Cheon Maru sprinted forward and managed to intercept the strike, but—
“What—Oppa!!!”
The hair wrapped around Cheon Maru’s petrified body and dragged him away.
“Haha. The bloodline of that damn woman. How utterly disgusting.”
“…Should you really be the one saying that? Ugh!”
“You’d better stay quiet. Unless you want to die immediately. Now. You should put your weapon down too.”
“I absolutely won’t—mmph!!”
Lee Hye-ryeong gagged Cheon Maru with a strand of hair and began threatening Cheon Nuri with the hostage.
“Ha… Damn it.”
Cheon Nuri finally lowered her ootachi. Then she too was bound by the writhing red strands.
“What a completely fucking useless bitch. Couldn’t do a thing while both her children were taken.”
“…”
“Let’s see how long that glare lasts. Hey! You two bastards, get out here!!”
The two men who had been trembling in the back stepped forward. They were the same two thugs who had approached Baek A-rang on the beach earlier that day.
“Do exactly what I told you. If you don’t want to die.”
“If… if we do as you say… you’ll really let us live…?”
“Hurry up and do it.”
“You have to… you absolutely have to spare us…”
“This bastard!!”
Lee Hye-ryeong’s emotions had reached their limit; she had no patience left. A portion of her hair burst one thug’s head open.
“You. Do exactly as I said. Right now.”
“Hiiik!! Yes, ma’am!!”
The surviving thug rushed toward Yu Ina in a panic.
“If the reason he won’t meet me again is because I’m dirty… then you just have to become dirty too. That way he’ll have no reason to choose you, right?”
With trembling hands the thug grabbed Yu Ina’s throat. His other hand began tearing at her one-piece swimsuit.
“You become the same as me… If we stand in the same position, I’ll definitely win!”
His mind had gone completely blank. He couldn’t even remove the swimsuit properly. There was no lust left in him—only the desperate will to survive. In the end he poured out his magic power and ripped the fabric apart by force.
“Mmph—!!”
“Mmph!!!”
Cheon Maru and Cheon Nuri struggled wildly. But their mother, Yu Ina, calmly reassured them.
“It’s all right. Close your eyes and hold on just a little longer. It’ll be over soon.”
“…Ha. Still pretending to be noble until the very end. Hey! Hurry up and do it already?!”
“Y-yes! Yes!! I-I’ll do it right away!!!”
The moment the thug finished ripping the swimsuit away and reached for Yu Ina’s chest—
A white line flashed past.
“…Huh? Aaaargh!!!”
The thug screamed as his arm was torn off, but no one spared him any attention.
A being who was salvation to some and a nightmare to others had arrived.
“…”
“Oh my. You’ve already come?”
Yu Ina met the gaze without flinching, though the slight tremble in her fingertips could not be hidden.
“…I’m sorry for being late. Please wait just a moment.”
Leaving her friend’s mother behind, Baek A-rang turned her eyes toward the witch.
“What… Baekwol?! Why is that thing here?! How did it get inside!!!”
Lee Hye-ryeong’s plan had been to use the thugs to defile Yu Ina. Only then, she believed, would he look at her again. She had never once imagined a monster like Baekwol would interfere. After all, Baekwol’s main area of activity was Seoul, not Busan. So why had Baekwol suddenly appeared here?
“When subduing a villain, the basic procedure is to first ask if they are willing to surrender.”
She tossed the severed arm she held onto the ground.
“That minimizes casualties. The human-rights busybodies make a fuss otherwise. Though almost no one actually accepts the offer.”
Though this space had clearly been created by Lee Hye-ryeong’s power, Baek A-rang dominated it with nothing but her presence. Even the master of the domain could not draw an easy breath.
“But that opportunity seems far too generous for you.”
Killing intent poured from her eyes. It was an expression the usually cold and composed Baekwol almost never showed.
“As of this moment, I am assuming command of this incident. Speaking in the name of the on-site commander—”
An existence the nation itself could not restrain had grown truly furious. She directed that fury at the witch before her.
“You will absolutely not survive this, you filthy witch.”
