212. Master and Disciple Journey (5)
212. Master and Disciple Journey (5)
Baek Seol-hee was five years old, just beginning to run and learning the world one thing at a time.
The world back then was monochrome.
It was the Era of Chaos—kill or be killed if you wanted to live.
Gates had appeared, and the monsters that poured out of them slaughtered people indiscriminately.
Of course, even then, the Sun of Korea, Rina, was actively fighting, and Velvet Hunter Academy had been established—but it was still a clumsy time, before everything had been set right.
Especially the area where Baek Seol-hee lived—a slum the Hunters' hands had yet to reach.
It was a high-crime district.
— God has grown wrathful and brought the apocalypse upon this world! All of you, pray! If you pray fervently, you will cast off your mortal flesh and Awakening will come upon you!
The streets were overrun with Gate doomsayers, ranting that the Gates were divine punishment from a God sickened by human arrogance.
— That's mine! I found it first!
— Ha, finders keepers. What's this "mine, yours" crap? If you're so sure, go on, try and take it.
Public order had long since collapsed, people trusted no one, and violence, theft, rape—these had become everyday occurrences.
In a land where strength was the only standard, if you were lucky enough to experience an Awakening,
you might be treated like nobility and live in even greater abundance than before.
But tragically, both of Baek Seol-hee's parents were ordinary civilians.
Which meant they were the lowest stratum of humanity.
So Baek Seol-hee's family had no choice but to starve in a shabby one-room shack in the slums, with no electricity, no running water, and rain leaking through the roof.
Even so, Baek Seol-hee, in her own way, had been happy back then.
"Honey, what we ate yesterday—it hasn't gone bad yet, has it?"
"Mm, a little mold's grown, but if we cut that part off, I think we can still eat it."
"You and Seol-hee split that, and give me the moldy part."
In a world where even blood relatives betraying one another had become the norm,
she was raised by parents who still held to the old-fashioned value of family.
That humble yet precious daily life shattered
when a band of Awakeners settled in the slums.
"Ahahaha! Let's start right here! It's not like that bitch Rina gives a damn what happens in a place like this anyway!"
They had gained power beyond ordinary people through Awakening,
but instead of hunting monsters with that power, they hunted humans, seeking to reign over them.
Back then, such people weren't called Demonized Humans—they went by the title Villain.
"Alright, I'm sweeping through here right now, so drag out every last rat that's hiding!!"
KABOOOOOM—!
A woman with massive forearms swung them with heavy force,
and the already dilapidated buildings crumbled in an instant.
"Kyaaaak! P-please, spare me!"
"I-I'll come out! I'll come out, just please, not the house!"
"Kyahahahahahahaha!! See, if you'd just come out when I told you to, we wouldn't be in this mess! Eh?"
The slum's nightmare began that day.
A space where even a place to lie down had been completely demolished, scorched earth.
Everyone who had been hiding and holding their breath was dragged out by them.
And the Villains set those they'd dragged out to work building a new stronghold.
"Come on, come on! Move it, move it! Build it nice and clean! You saw what happens if you don't, right? You wanna spend the rest of your life hobbling around missing a leg, go right ahead and slack off!"
A kingdom—for them, by them, of them.
And in that hell,
Baek Seol-hee's family could be no exception.
"Kik, nice look in your eyes. Yeah, you'll do."
"S-Seol-hee! N-no!!"
Among them, Baek Seol-hee was forcibly separated from her parents and dragged away by one woman.
Her face was caked in stark white powder, and she'd smeared blood-red lipstick all the way to her temples.
She called herself by the alias Joker,
but the name the other Villains used—Red Mask—suited her far better.
"What? Why'd you keep this brat alive? Kids are nothing but mouths to feed. Just kill it."
"Ah, this little bitch is a test subject for my ability. A test subject. Don't you want to see what happens when I use it weakly? And if she dies because it's too strong, that's fine too—and if she lives a long time, well, then I get to watch her suffer for a long, long time······."
"······Fucking crazy Red Mask bitch. Tone down the concept act. You fake lunatic cunt."
The other Villains each tossed a remark her way, shaking their heads as they walked off,
but Red Mask showed no sign of giving up.
She was an Awakener with the ability to turn the blood flowing through her body into deadly poison.
Swish—
She cut her own finger with a kitchen knife.
And thrust the welling blood toward Baek Seol-hee.
"Here, eat up?"
"······No."
At first, Baek Seol-hee clamped her mouth shut and resisted, absolutely refusing to eat it.
But every time, the woman giggled and said:
"You really won't eat it? Then should I feed it to your mommy and daddy?"
"Wow, what an unfilial daughter. Unfilial daughter. If they die because they raised a kid wrong, what kind of pointless dog's death is that?"
"Heuheuheu, you know your daddy's pretty good-looking, right? You know there's a lot of people eyeing him from all over? But you know why no one's laid a hand on him? That's right—because I'm protecting him."
"Come on, come on, so hurry up and eat? There we go, eat this and I won't touch your family~"
If she didn't drink that blood, her family would die.
For Baek Seol-hee, so young and utterly powerless, there was no choice at all.
Chewing her lips, she had no choice but to speak.
"······I'll eat it. I said I'll eat it!!!"
At that, Red Mask broke into a grin—and clapped, clapped, clapped with exaggerated applause.
"Yes, yes, good thinking! Here, gulp it down, gulp it down— that's right!"
Drip, drip—
One drop.
One drop.
Drops of blood falling into her mouth.
The nauseating, metallic blood slid down her throat.
She wanted to vomit her churning stomach out then and there.
But she swallowed it all.
Soon, the deadly poison seeped into her body.
A searing pain, as if her body were on fire, erupted through her entire frame.
"Keok!!"
Veins bulging all over her body, Baek Seol-hee clutched her throat and vomited pitch-black blood onto the floor.
Splat—
The black blood she threw up splashed onto Red Mask's shoes.
Red Mask's face went rigid.
"······Ah, fuck. Disgusting. Hsss. Thought this would be fun. Boring as shit."
Baek Seol-hee trembled like a paralyzed frog.
Red Mask looked down at her with eyes that had lost all interest.
"Should I just kill her? Mm, nah. Nah. Ah, how about I rape her daddy and kill him right in front of this little bitch? Oh? That might actually be pretty good?"
She'd touch her family.
Flash.
Baek Seol-hee's murderous eyes snapped upward.
Even so, Red Mask just snorted.
"Ha, what're you looking at, bitch? Looks like you're about to die anyway. I'll give you one last good show."
With that, Red Mask grabbed Baek Seol-hee by the scruff of the neck and lifted her like luggage.
That was when Baek Seol-hee's eyes caught something.
The kitchen knife at Red Mask's waist—the one she'd used to cut her finger.
She had to grab that.
The thought seized Baek Seol-hee's mind on pure instinct.
But her body, already poisoned, refused to move.
'Please, please, please—!'
She clenched her teeth and forced her arm to move.
And in that moment.
Ttiring—♬
A bright chime, utterly out of place with the situation, rang inside her head.
And with that chime,
her body moved.
Whoosh—
Snatch.
Baek Seol-hee's arm shot out, and she succeeded in seizing the kitchen knife.
"······You, how—"
Red Mask's eyes went round with shock.
SHUNK!
"Hweoooorrrrk······."
The woman's throat was already pierced through—she could only produce a deflated sound of escaping air, unable to form any more words.
Her eyes bulged as if in outrage, but with her throat run through, death was already a foregone conclusion.
Thud.
Red Mask collapsed on the spot.
"······"
That was the moment the Slaughter-Crazed Woman Awakened.
* * *
"······You insane—! Three down already!"
"Goddamn it—!"
"Kill her! Kill that brat!!!"
KABOOOM—!
Whoosh!
One after another, the Villains lashed out with their abilities, trying to catch Baek Seol-hee,
but she used her small body to weave through the terrain and cover of the slums.
And whenever she spotted a Villain who'd gotten separated from the rest, she crept up behind them, holding her breath.
Slice—
And slit their throat.
"Geuk—."
Thud.
Another Villain fell.
She'd known it the instant she gripped the kitchen knife.
How to swing it.
How to cut so a target died in one stroke.
And how to hunt efficiently.
It was possible because she had bloomed an S-Rank Swordsmanship Specialization along with the traits [Swiftness] and [Intuition].
From the start, an insane, S-Rank talent for the sword was something you might find one or two of in the entire world—if that.
That is to say, the ceiling of what a human could be born with.
That was what S-Rank meant.
If anything, Utopia—teeming as it was with S-Rank talent—was the bizarre exception.
There was no way the Villains who'd tried to lord it over a mere slum could catch someone like her.
As time passed, the Villains came to realize
that they weren't hunting her—she was hunting them.
"Fuck, we ran from one monster brat and now there's another fucking monster brat!!"
"Crazy······. Shit, we picked the wrong place. Fuck!! Where the hell did everyone go?! They all get offed by one little bitch?!"
"Whose goddamn idea was it to run from Rina and come to this shithole, anyway!!!"
And when Baek Seol-hee realized she no longer needed to hide, she finally revealed herself before them.
In one hand, she held a kitchen knife stained crimson.
Black hair hanging loose, sunken black eyes—a small girl.
Step—
Step—
As she approached, the Villains stumbled backward in terror.
"F-fucking crazy!"
"Stay back!! You monster bitch!!"
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!"
Then the woman with the massive forearms shouted, as if a thought had just struck her.
"Hey! From before! This bitch's mom and dad! Bring 'em!"
"······!"
In that instant, Baek Seol-hee kicked off the ground—she knew she couldn't let this happen.
But her mother and father were taken hostage first.
"Hey, you! You wanna watch your mommy and daddy lose their heads?!"
The woman with the massive forearms grabbed Baek Seol-hee's mother's head in one hand and her father's in the other, shoving them forward toward her.
"······Ah."
And seeing that scene, Baek Seol-hee's eyes shook uncontrollably.
"S-Seol-hee! We're fine!"
"We're fine! Don't worry about us—"
"Shut up!"
Crackle—
The woman tightened her grip.
"Geueuk—"
"Geuht!"
Her mother and father grimaced in pain.
'······What do I do?'
What in the world should she do?
Baek Seol-hee didn't know.
She knew she had become strong.
But not strong enough to save her family from that Villain's grasp.
If only she had been stronger, so much stronger—she could have saved her family too······.
'What in the world do I······!'
That was when it happened.
Whoosh—
"Huk······!"
Suddenly, without any warning, a pure white light descended from the sky.
The light poured down upon the Villain, her mother, and her father—
and in a single instant, erased only the Villain, without leaving a trace.
"······Huh?"
She raised her head toward the sky.
And she could see.
A small girl with violet hair in twin tails,
wearing a haughty expression that didn't suit her at all, slowly descending from the heavens.
"Did you dare think you could escape Rina's grasp? You trash."
That was the first meeting between Chairwoman Rina and Baek Seol-hee.