Chapter 5
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: I Am Papa
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I am Papa.
Descendant of the 32nd generation of Goryeo's Greatest Swordsman, Cheok Jun-kyeong.
Cheok Yunhwa might look like she came from a glamorous martial arts family, but in reality, she was born into a branch line.
She opened up to me about it.
From the moment she was born, the "mission" thrust upon her as a child was to live as a tool serving the direct line of the family.
Beneath the honorable shell of being a family designated as a human cultural asset, Yunhwa had endured a hellish upbringing.
"Sleep was about three hours a day. The rest was spent in underground training halls that never saw sunlight... fighting for our lives against other kids."
"...And you started that at just five years old?"
"Back then, I thought it was normal."
The word "training" she used held no meaning of discipline or education.
It was the kind of abuse typically described by survivors of wartime PTSD.
Constant sleep deprivation, physical violence, emotional neglect. And mock battles aimed solely at survival.
There was no consent, no safety measures.
It was brutal "real combat" premised on bones breaking and flesh tearing.
And if something broke or got wrecked in the process, that was fine.
The family had the best healers on hand, after all.
Once healed, it was back to the same training, repeated over and over.
And amid that mad baptism, Yunhwa was "stronger" than the others.
That was her mistake.
"Even after twenty years, that day is still vivid. I was ten, and I wanted to show my parents how strong I'd become. I just wanted... to hear some praise, even once."
She overwhelmed even the direct line heir in the training hall.
The greatest achievement a ten-year-old could pull off.
But what came back wasn't celebration or praise.
"...My parents' faces were twisted in rage."
A branch family kid who beat the direct line.
Her very existence was branded as the family's shame.
That night, she was exposed to violence no human could endure.
Bleeding all over, she had to withstand her mother's kicks, while her father stared blankly out the window, muttering, "I shouldn't have had you."
And it didn't end there.
"That day, for the 'sin' of a branch line beating the direct line... I was nearly executed by the family."
"Executed? In the 21st century?"
I couldn't even continue speaking.
In psychiatric consultations, you sometimes encounter expressions you can't even imagine.
But when it's not a delusional narrative but a real-life account, that's an entirely different level of issue.
She used the term "dismemberment execution."
A method classified as one of the most brutal punishments even in the Joseon era.
A public execution where the limbs are torn apart.
They were going to inflict that on a ten-year-old child.
"...But I escaped. In front of the direct line kid I'd defeated, as my mother grabbed my hair and dragged me... I rebelled for the first time and cut off her arm."
Then she ran frantically and threw herself off a cliff at the edge of the family estate.
Desperate to live or die.
What saved her then was pure instinctual survival drive, betrayal, and the will to "not die."
"And time passed... until I became a hunter who could solo a 50-floor dungeon."
"Ah, you mean the incident from 15 years ago..."
"Yes. The event where I first revealed my name to the world. The Cheok family's direct line were barely C-rank back then. So I thought, with this level of power, no one would dare try to kill me anymore."
"So... you went back?"
"Yes. No matter what, they were still my only family."
She paused, avoiding my gaze in a way unlike her usual resolute demeanor, and quietly shut her mouth.
As her counselor, I immediately understood what that silence meant.
"But... it didn't end well."
"Right. I... went there that day wanting to forgive them. But instead, that day I killed my parents with my own hands."
"......!"
It was a suffocating statement.
"The family thought I'd come for revenge... The moment I opened the door, they charged at me after consuming artifacts. Dangerous substances that temporarily explode your abilities beyond normal limits. But as a side effect, you have to brace for self-destruction."
"And your parents... were in that group?"
"Yes. The branch kids I'd trained with, my parents who abandoned me—all of them. But at that moment... I didn't do anything. They'd already collapsed from the artifact overload before I even reached them. It was all over by the time I got there."
She couldn't continue.
Her slightly pursed lips trembled, tears welling up in her eyes.
I instinctively read her reaction.
This was a classic PTSD response. An automatic defense mechanism triggered by recalling traumatic memories.
And layered on top: deep guilt.
In my mind, I carefully recalled the diagnosis.
'Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).'
With compulsive flashbacks and self-deprecation stemming from affection deprivation.
...Textbook case.
But one question lingered unresolved in a corner of my mind.
"You were only 15 at the time, right? And now you're 30."
"Yes, that's correct."
Yunhwa nodded.
Fifteen years ago. She lost her parents and completely severed ties with the family.
But afterward, she wasn't rejected or isolated.
Instead, after changing her name and returning, her skills earned her recognition as the "official successor to Cheok Jun-kyeong" and "Korea's one and only S-Rank Hunter."
So the symptoms she was experiencing now.
The extreme physical reaction that kept her from even drawing her sword might not solely stem from that incident 15 years ago.
And Cheok Yunhwa seemed to realize that doubt in me as well.
"The me back then... wasn't as calm as I am now. I was young and full of vigor. To forget the incident, I blackmailed the head of the Cheok family to settle it, then dove straight into dungeons."
"...Into dungeons?"
"Yes. One year, three years, five... I practically lived in them. Fighting cleared my mind. Or maybe... I just wanted to die."
Yunhwa gave a wry smile and shook her head.
"Fighting and fighting like that, before I knew it, I'd become an S-Rank Hunter, formed a guild, and was living like a family with my executives."
The emptiness in her words was palpable.
You could glimpse the years she'd spent clinging to the illusion of a substitute family after losing her real one.
And then, the incident that shook it all up again.
"It was three months ago. We got a report of a mid-to-low grade dungeon in Incheon. To expand Moonlight Sword House's influence, I went in for a preemptive strike with my executives."
"I heard a bit about that incident from others. Something happened right after entering, right? A monster ambush?"
"...No. It would've been better if it was."
Yunhwa's lips began to tremble noticeably.
Her voice, calm until moments ago, started shaking, her fingertips vibrating faintly.
"The dungeon was 40 floors. Average monster grade was just C+. The boss was a skeleton dragon made of bones. Something I could've cleared solo in a single day. And I did shatter that boss in one go."
But the problem came right after.
She said she stood frozen before the fallen boss monster's corpse.
Due to a strange intuition.
"Everyone was celebrating the boss kill when... I felt something off. I kept staring at the corpse and looked inside its hand."
In the skeletal hand of the dead dragonkin... a newly hatched baby dragon was trembling and crying.
As if desperately calling out to its still-living mother.
"...In that moment, it... looked like my mother."
A child yearning for its parents.
A life crying in its embrace.
And herself, the one who destroyed it.
Even if it was a monster threatening humans, that scene was too human.
"I kept holding that baby in my arms the whole time. Fighting with just one hand... but never letting it go."
In that instant, Yunhwa realized that she herself had destroyed the ideal she'd desperately longed for as a child.
And she broke.
"If... if all monsters have emotions like that... how many families, mothers and children... have I just butchered?"
Everything twisted.
The 15 years she'd lived in dungeons to forget and survive.
But in the end, she'd chosen a life closer to a "monster" than anyone.
From then on, her body began to shake faintly.
"The moment I thought that... it was all meaningless. I'm just... a failure. Worse than a monster...!"
Her lips turned pale blue as she curled up, hugging her body. Her eyes started to glaze over.
I sensed it instinctively.
This wasn't just a psychological reaction.
It was a 'trauma-reactive seizure.'
Known in psychiatry as 'Dissociative Seizure,' this symptom occurs when trauma is extremely triggered, causing emotional overload that temporarily shuts down brain function.
Rational judgment and sensory systems paralyze, and it can lead to muscle spasms or autonomic nervous system disruptions.
"Cheok Yunhwa! Snap out of it! If this continues... you could suffer brainwave damage!"
The human brain reacts more sensitively to fear than hope.
Negative emotional stimuli can wreck the dopamine system, leading to long-term neurological damage that impairs cognitive function.
In fact, among PTSD patients, delayed treatment often results in permanent emotional regulation deficits.
But the problem was that she was an S-Rank Hunter.
There was a risk of her powers rampaging unconsciously, and my body could be shattered first.
I thought fast.
Right now, she was... regressing unconsciously to a 'child state.'
And for affection-deprived patients, the initial state lies in that 'missing sense of connection.'
...In the end, I made the final choice.
"Yunha, stop. No more crying."
"...Huh?"
"You can't shed tears like that in front of Papa. If you cry, Papa gets sad, right?"
"Papa...?"
The treatment I judged most effective in this moment.
Role-Play Based Emotional Substitution Therapy.
The emotion no one had ever given her.
The warm role of a protector she'd never received even once as a child.
I decided to fill that void myself, cooing softly.