076. The Circus Elephant
076. The Circus Elephant
The circus elephant.
Around the thick ankle of an elephant, many times the size of a human body, a single thin rope was tied.
It seemed so utterly obvious that the rope would snap with just one step, and the stake attached to it would pull right out like a rotten tooth.
But the elephant never thinks of snapping that rope, never thinks of pulling out the stake.
No—it cannot think of it.
Ever since childhood, the elephant had struggled desperately to escape the rope tied around its ankle.
But back then, it was truly weak, and the young elephant could not break free from the rope.
Failure is repeated.
Frustration is learned.
Despair becomes a habit.
And time passes.
Even though the elephant has become an adult, grown enormous, and could break free at any moment if it tried,
to the elephant, the rope around its ankle still looked impossibly strong.
*
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
From somewhere, the sound of something pounding echoed in her ears like an auditory hallucination.
Shin Se-hee couldn't even think of blinking as she watched what was unfolding before her.
'How on earth did it come to this...?'
Back when Jin Yu-ha first stepped forward,
she had been frantically racking her brain for how to salvage the situation.
Should she run out right now and say she would go back home?
Should she throw herself on the ground, cry, and beg?
Should she cling to her sister's ankles and plead, promising anything, just asking her not to lay a hand on Jin Yu-ha?
The only thoughts she could summon against Shin Su-yeon were things like that.
What turned her tormented mind completely blank was the moment Jin Yu-ha suddenly slapped her sister across the face.
Smaack—!!!
"Ah."
The instant she heard that sound, Shin Se-hee's mouth fell open and her expression went vacant.
Because she thought something truly irreversible had now happened.
He hadn't just offended her sister—he had earned her outright enmity.
Shin Se-hee pictured the future that would now unfold,
and despaired.
It had definitely been that way.
'But... what is this...?'
Shin Se-hee wondered if she might be dreaming right now.
But even when she rubbed her eyes, what was happening before her was reality.
Smack—!
Her sister.
Was being hit.
One-sidedly, at that.
'What on earth...'
Shin Su-yeon was unmistakably an S-Rank Hunter.
Of course, even if there were dozens of hunters ranked above her, the title of S-Rank was not a light one.
Because her temperament detested anything bothersome, she rarely took the initiative,
but once she did step forward and swing her sword, a storm of Mana would shake the entire area and enemies would be swept away in a single stroke.
That overwhelming scene was seared into Shin Se-hee's mind like a brand.
She was a wall.
A genius possessing an amount of Mana she could never hope to match.
A sheer cliff she could never climb, whose top she couldn't even look up at.
And since that sister had deliberately bound her, she couldn't even conceive of any other recourse beyond passively taking it or hiding to avoid being noticed.
'Then, why?'
Why was that sister of hers getting beaten like a dog by a man who was nothing more than a cadet?
To Shin Se-hee, this entire scene felt like a cruel joke.
So much so that she almost wanted to snap at her sister to stop messing around.
Smack—!
"Urk!"
When Jin Yu-ha kicked her, Shin Su-yeon flew pathetically through the air with a juicy thud.
The first possibility she seized upon to make sense of the situation was that Jin Yu-ha might actually have been hiding incredible skill.
But Shin Se-hee's eyes immediately denied that fact.
'Jin Yu-ha's movements are certainly impressive, but...'
They were definitely impressive.
Enough to keep up with Kang Do-hee, and in a man's body no less.
Thinking of the future, she couldn't even begin to guess how strong he might become.
'...But that's ultimately just a story about the future. Right now, Kang Do-hee is faster.'
Since Jin Yu-ha had ordered her to analyze the party members' specs,
Shin Se-hee had recorded the party's movements, analyzed them frame by frame, and quantified them.
And right now, Jin Yu-ha's movements looked even slower than the speed he normally produced.
'Then there's no reason Shin Su-yeon couldn't dodge.'
Next, a second possibility surfaced in her mind.
'Could it be that something happened to Shin Su-yeon, and she can't use her body properly right now...?'
Just then, Jin Yu-ha opened his mouth.
"If you were that strong, you would've shown up as a villain in the Main Story, not in a Personal Story. You dumb bitch."
"J-just—!"
"Being a Personal Story villain means Shin Se-hee can screw you over all by herself just fine."
Smack!
'...Main Story? Personal Story?'
Incomprehensible words that had tumbled out of Jin Yu-ha's mouth.
But those words were quickly erased from her mind.
Because what he said at the end bothered her far more.
'What does that mean? Me, beat her? There's no way I could beat Shin Su-yeon!'
Shin Se-hee's mind was rejecting the very idea as if she had just heard someone claim the earth was flat.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
But once again, the sound of something pounding echoed in her ears like an auditory hallucination.
"Hey, did you think I'd be scared if you popped the Mana you so frugally hoarded, or if you squawked around about being a Shin? A half-assed S-Rank Hunter at best."
'Her sister, a half-baked S-Rank Hunter? That's ridiculous.'
Shin Se-hee shook her head again, instinctively denying Jin Yu-ha's words.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"All this time you've been sucking up Mana from your cousins, your own flesh and blood, your own little sister, blowing through it like crazy and pretending to be S-Rank. You really think that makes you a real S-Rank?"
'...Sucking out Mana? Acting like an S-Rank?'
Crack—!
"Once your Mana runs out, you get your ass kicked by a cadet like me, and you call yourself S-Rank?"
C-crack—!
"When Shin Se-hee went off to the academy, you must've been trembling in your boots. Why? There's no Mana supply quite like Shin Se-hee, is there? So you came tearing out here the second you heard she'd come outside, didn't you? You goddamn bitch!?"
C-c-crack—!
The world surrounding Shin Se-hee.
That impossibly solid world of hers, at some moment, had treacherous cracks spreading across its every surface, as if it would crumble at the slightest touch.
And then, for the first time, her eyes took in
an unfamiliar image of her sister.
The woman who had relentlessly hounded her without a moment's rest.
The woman who had strangled her with an expressionless face that betrayed not a single trace of emotion.
The woman who had looked down on her as if she were something beneath contempt.
The woman who always snatched up whatever was in her hands and sought to control everything from above her head.
That woman.
That Shin Su-yeon.
"Y-You, do you not know who I am!?"
"That's right! Fuck! I'm Shin Su-yeon! Shin Su-yeon of the Shin family, I said!!!!"
"My family will never let you get away with this!!!"
In a ruined state, crawling on the floor like an insect,
she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
Invoking the weight of her own name, invoking her family.
This was, truly...
a horrifically pathetic sight.
"Hah?"
Shin Se-hee's mouth fell open as she let out a dumbfounded, hollow laugh.
C-c-c-crack—!
At that moment, Jin Yu-ha whispered something into Shin Su-yeon's ear.
And abruptly, Shin Su-yeon's head turned, and her eyes met hers.
Crash—
Along with the sound of something shattering completely,
the solid world that had encased Shin Se-hee's mind broke apart into countless fragments.
'My sister... is afraid of me...?'
* * *
"No no no. No no no no no. No."
Unable to accept that the Mana Absorption Artifact was destroyed, Shin Su-yeon curled up and trembled uncontrollably.
'Hmm, should I call this luck, or...'
I had stepped in to take down Shin Su-yeon here only after calculating that it was entirely doable.
'She's at her weakest state when she first appears, after all.'
Shin Se-hee's Personal Story, 「The Circus Elephant,」 begins with Shin Su-yeon's entrance scene.
Shin Su-yeon had originally been operating abroad as an S-Rank Hunter, gulping down the Mana sent to her by the Shin family.
But at some point, the quality of the Mana sent from the family had plummeted.
The cause was none other than Shin Se-hee enrolling in the Academy, which meant high-quality Mana could no longer be supplied—an unfortunate turn of events.
That was why Shin Su-yeon had appeared, targeting the day Shin Se-hee went out, in order to seize her Mana.
'Even on the forums, people used to say that if you just take down Shin Su-yeon the moment she first appears, you can skip the entire Personal Story in one go. And here I am, actually pulling it off.'
Of course, I didn't regret stepping in.
Originally, the predetermined sequence was that Shin Se-hee would return to the family here.
And for Shin Se-hee, returning home like that meant a brutal ten-episode frustration arc was waiting for her.
'Crushed by the realization that even running away to the Academy couldn't free her from the family... mentally and physically devastated by her family's and her sister's gaslighting... and having her Mana sucked dry on top of that...'
Stepping in was absolutely the right call.
The only reason I felt a little conflicted was that I wondered if it was okay to rush things this much.
Originally, this process was supposed to happen gradually.
After attending Velvet Academy and meeting truly strong people, Shin Se-hee's standards would rise, and when she returned to the family, she would feel a sense of dissonance.
While enduring the frustration arc, that dissonance would steadily grow,
and finally she would realize she didn't have to just keep taking it.
Shin Se-hee breaking out of her shell like that and exacting a cathartic revenge on the family that had persecuted her—that was the overall plot.
'Hmm, I wonder how Shin Se-hee's going to react.'
I glanced over at Shin Se-hee.
She was staring at Shin Su-yeon with a blank, dazed look. Then,
she trudged over, dragging her feet.
"...Jin Yu-ha."
Shin Se-hee called my name in a trembling voice.
"...I, just one thing. Let me ask just one thing first."
"Sure. Ask."
Shin Se-hee looked at Shin Su-yeon, then turned her head away.
"...Did Shin Su-yeon... get weaker...?"
Her eyes as she asked that looked as if she was pleading for me to say yes.
Filled with earnest desperation.
But I shook my head.
"No."
"...Then, was she always... was she weak from the start?"
"Yeah."
"Weaker than me...?"
I nodded, affirming her question.
At that, Shin Se-hee bit her lip.
"Jin Yu-ha..."
As if something was welling up inside her,
she closed her eyes.
All the things she had suffered through must have been flashing through her mind.
"Actually, right now... there are so many other things I want to say, but..."
She slowly opened her eyes.
"Before any of that,"
Suddenly, Shin Se-hee rushed at me.
Whoosh—
And threw her arms around me.
"Just for a little while, let me stay like this for a little while... Please."
'Whew. Her mental state must be pretty wrecked.'
I slowly patted Shin Se-hee's back as she buried her face in my shoulder and trembled uncontrollably.