Madness
The duel was nearing its end. The sky hung heavy and overcast, every sound around them bleak and desolate. Martial artists wearing cauldron-lid helmets soared through the air as countless battles raged on. And in one corner of that chaotic battlefield stood a single, petite woman.
She gripped a pair of swords in her hands, their blades stained with blood as if she had just finished carving through something. Her small frame barely reached 140 centimeters. It was hard to imagine that such a delicate, almost weightless-looking body could possibly attack anyone. In fact, the very thought felt too miserable to even entertain.
Most people who saw her would probably think the same.
“Grrrrr…!”
And the fact that this was reality only made it all the more tragic.
She looked around with a deeply bewildered expression, as if something were chasing her. Interestingly enough, a group of goblins had her surrounded.
“H-hiiiik!!!”
They drooled greedily, their eyes holding just a sliver of reason. Cruel creatures. They looked her up and down, then began to cackle as if they found the situation amusing.
If things continued like this, only horror awaited her. She could beg for mercy, plead to be spared, but that wasn’t exactly a realistic option. After all, she was the one who had recklessly charged into their nest in the first place. The chances of receiving any mercy were practically zero.
That was why it seemed inevitable—her fate.
Kim Yuju’s life, following in the footsteps of Kim Yujae, looked like it would end right here.
“Ice Bolt.”
Except… she wasn’t alone.
A murky icicle, far from clear, pierced straight into a goblin’s forehead.
“Grk? Kraaagh!”
The same happened to the others. Icicles flew in from somewhere unknown, embedding themselves one by one into their bodies. The goblins panicked at the unidentified enemy’s attack. The merciless level of the magic seemed to signal only two choices: surrender or death.
If they wanted to live, they should have run. But if they were capable of that kind of judgment, they wouldn’t be called monsters.
Instead of making a survival-based decision, the goblins followed their instincts and tried to attack Kim Yuju in front of them.
“Whiteout.”
Naturally, that didn’t go well.
The idea of dragging companions down to hell with them was shattered the moment the flash of light robbed them of their sight.
Kim Yuju survived that way.
It was almost embarrassingly anticlimactic for a hunter. Some might say she should feel ashamed, but Kim Yuju felt not even a shred of embarrassment.
After all, it was something her girlfriend… or whatever you could call her, had taken care of.
“Ahem, hmm-hmm! It really is efficient to have someone act as bait and lure the monsters over!”
Kim Yuju, who had been gripped by fear just moments ago, spoke those words while looking up at the rooftop of the building next door.
There stood a woman with her pink-dyed hair let down, her naturally brown locks now visible, her expression dark and gloomy.
“…Yeah.”
It was a listless, almost powerless reply.
Lim Hana’s hands trembled as she lowered them, then climbed down the ladder to the ground. Kim Yuju trotted over and praised her again, saying she had been amazing. But unfortunately, Lim Hana had no particular thoughts on the matter.
She didn’t even try to distinguish whether she had done well, done poorly, or if any of this was even right. It was as if her will had hit rock bottom, like one side of her soul was broken. If the human brain could be considered the soul, then that was undoubtedly the case.
Seeing her condition, Kim Yuju pulled a piece of candy from her pocket and offered it.
“I don’t want it.”
Lim Hana swatted it away with a flick of her hand. The candy rolled across the floor, and Kim Yuju picked it up again and put it back in her pocket. It was something that would normally make someone angry, but by now it had become a familiar sight, so Kim Yuju simply let it slide.
Afterward, the two of them looted some items from the goblin corpses, cut off their ears as proof of the hunt, and then quietly slipped into a nearby house. It was lunchtime, so they wanted to eat.
“Ah, I’ll prepare lunch!”
“…”
With Kim Yuju taking charge of the preparations, Lim Hana was left with nothing to do. She soon dragged her weary feet toward the window. For a while, she simply stood there, thinking of nothing.
Then, when the rain began to fall, something slowly came to mind.
“What should I do now…”
It was a statement heavy with many meanings. It could have been as simple as participating in the hunting competition, or as complicated as encompassing her entire life. In other words, it was regret. A lament for the past that had crushed even her will.
After that incident, she had wanted to ignore it all and live on, but she simply couldn’t. The emotion called conscience that had taken root in one corner of her heart was weighing her down more and more each day.
Moreover, conscience didn’t just prick at her. Whenever she struggled to adapt to reality, it was her conscience that showed her the judgment that overturned everything. As a result, Lim Hana’s mind was filled with endless madness and torment.
Her decisions flipped countless times in a single day, her emotions exploding and surging wildly. And what poured fuel on the fire were the arbitrarily recorded memories, her severely degraded mental faculties, and the reality she now faced.
Especially the last one—the reality itself where nonsense voices rang in her ears—was terrifying.
‘What do you think was the reason you made that choice? Just for fun? Or was it an escape from everyday life?’
‘It wasn’t even your true will anyway, so why are you so afraid? That event simply happened, and you had no choice in the matter.’
‘Besides, even though you liked him, you didn’t like him to an extreme degree, so why feel guilty? Don’t tell me you’re trying to become a law-abiding citizen now?’
‘Even if you regret it, what’s done is done. No matter how vivid and intense those memories are, it’s better for your mental health to just forget as much as possible and move on.’
She was so terrified that at some point she began hearing auditory hallucinations, and every time she slept, she suffered nightmares. The cleverly affirming hallucinations and nightmares drove a person insane.
‘You idiot. Do you really think that just because you say it? Can you truly believe it?’
‘You must continue to be afraid. The victim is still alive and well—how can you casually affirm it? What if something happens later?’
‘Just because you didn’t like him to an extreme degree doesn’t erase your sin. So when exactly are you going to apologize to the person you liked?’
‘On the contrary, it means it was something worth regretting. How could you possibly just forget what you did to someone who helped you so much since you were little?’
“Huu…”
And the moment she affirmed those words, the sarcasm that followed drove her even more insane. It felt like she was endlessly being reminded of the sins she had committed against someone. It was to the point where she wondered if it had really been that serious a matter—and even that doubt was met with mocking hallucinations.
“Maybe I should just kill myself…”
To anyone listening, it was the kind of statement that would provoke them to taunt, “Then just die already.” Still, for her, who had barely escaped the grip of Gwangjeungcho, thinking about suicide wasn’t all that strange.
But death could never be an escape from life. Leaving the world without resolving anything would be a complete loss for her. She didn’t want to do that.
Besides, there was still one thing that held her back.
‘Suicide sounds great~ No more worrying about life, no more feeling sorry, how nice~’
‘But here’s the thing. If you kill yourself, what do you think that wicked platinum-blonde pointy-eared bitch will do to Sian?’
‘She’ll probably drag him around however she likes and do all sorts of weird things to him, right? There are already so many rumors about what a terrible woman she is—don’t you think she’ll drag Sian down into the abyss?’
Many of her thoughts were distorted and changed, but this one belief remained firm. Cheon Mari was a woman who should not be by Kang Sian’s side. No, it wasn’t even a matter of being by his side—her very existence was the problem.
Looking only at the relatively consistent memories from her elementary school days, she had always been a villain.
"Hey, you blue-green-eyed son of a bitch!"
"You fucking bastard. Hey, follow me to the back alley after school."
"You son of a bitch! You’re the one who tanked my account down to Iron 4 last time!"
"Ha, living like this is such a pain in the ass. Today I’m just gonna go to your house and roll around."
"Young Master Kang Sian~ Carry me home, won’t you~"
Although she herself was someone who should feel guilt toward him, Cheon Mari should feel guilt on a far greater scale. Yet without knowing any of that, she acted shamelessly, hypocritically, and wickedly—
‘Who knows? Maybe the two of them promised to spend their lives together as lovers?’
‘No way.’
‘Or maybe they’ve already done all those kinds of things?’
‘That can’t be.’
“No.”
‘Are you sure it’s not? Do you really think so? Even though you know those two are always together?’
“…”
Maybe that was exactly why. If that were the case, because of the villain pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, she might never be able to receive forgiveness no matter how much she apologized.
Her hands began to tremble violently. Her breathing grew increasingly ragged.
‘Then, should we just let it be?’
‘Th-that’s…’
‘Besides, if you drag the person you need to apologize to out of hell, wouldn’t that itself be atonement and an apology?’
The hallucination wasn’t entirely wrong. It was somewhat reasonable, but the problem was that Lim Hana didn’t have the ability to do any of that.
“I can’t…”
Even just looking at her magical abilities and intelligence, the aftereffects of Gwangjeungcho had been devastating. The reality was that she couldn’t even resist, let alone win. Moreover, Cheon Mari was hardly an ordinary human. As long as the law existed, she probably wouldn’t act too aggressively, but she could still cause her some harm.
She had asked the hallucination for an escape, but all that returned was silence. In the end, everything was nothing more than the false delusion and madness of the weak.
“Hana~ It’s all done~”
The only thing she could do was despair. She had neither the method nor the courage to overcome the gloomy future that lay ahead. Lim Hana left her spot with heavy, powerless steps.
“%$#$@$@!!!”
A situation of unparalleled humiliation. The Sword Expert, wrapped tightly in duct tape, thrashed about violently. He moved with fierce intensity, tried to use his magic power, and struggled to let out something resembling a scream. His display of the will to survive was desperate in every way.
It was enough to make one feel pity. Naturally, it was also the kind of excessively oppressive sight that might make someone want to release him.
“This guy’s squawking sounds excellent. When we get back, I’ll secretly take him, feed him a TS Potion, and turn him into a VTuber.”
“You crazy villainess.”
Of course, not everyone thought that way, so it was all pointless.