Chapter 52
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: The Girl and I
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The girl had no name.
Born at the very bottom of the Eastern Continent, in a slash-and-burn village not even marked on any map.
In that place filled only with red dust, she was simply called "wench" or "one more mouth."
When drought struck, people peeled and ate tree bark.
When even that ran out, they scooped up white mud and ate it.
The children who filled their bellies with mud
would have their anuses clog up every other day, their stomachs swelling until they burst and they died.
Then, when even the mud lost its nourishment, the adults would swap each other's children.
It felt wrong to boil and eat their own flesh and blood with their own hands,
so they'd exchange with the neighbors and toss them into the pot.
In such a place,
the girl was fortunate enough to be sold off instead of becoming boiled meat.
Men in black clothes came and gathered up the children like livestock.
The girl's father didn't even glance at her retreating back,
too busy burying his nose in the sack of rice he'd received as payment.
They called the children they dragged away "poison."
Hundreds of children were thrown into a massive underground cavern devoid of any light.
It resembled jars for fermenting sauce.
A giant jar of humans called "gu poison."
Every day, unidentified broth mixed with poisonous herb scraps rained down from the ceiling.
Eating it brought agony as if your guts were being torn apart, but vomiting meant death.
The girl swallowed it. To survive.
And to survive, she had to kill the one beside her.
The child who had leaned on her shoulder to sleep yesterday had their throat strangled by her hands tonight.
The corpses weren't cleared away.
The children tore into the limbs of their sprawled-out friends on the floor.
They even fought over which parts were the most tender.
That just meant more meat.
She was quite talented at it—shoving sharply honed bone shards into the bellies of familiar faces
and carving open freshly dead bodies to devour without hesitation.
After a couple of seasons had passed,
and the blood pooling up to their ankles had dried into sticky black layers,
of the hundreds of children, only ten still clung to life.
Only then were they given the surname "Black."
The boys got names like Black Tiger and Black Snake.
The girls, Black Shadow and Black Fang.
The name given to the most outstanding among them was Black Rin.
The training was brutal.
The men would grab the children's healthy limbs and twist them.
They'd force dislocated joints back in, then yank them out again, repeating the process.
Ligaments shredded,
and amid the agony of bones crumbling, the children howled like beasts.
But screamers had their tongues cut out,
so eventually they had to mime being mute with their mouths gaping silently.
After breaking and resetting bones hundreds of times,
Black Rin's limbs could bend at grotesque angles like an octopus's.
And the black broth the men forced them to drink daily
gradually stripped away her femininity, bit by bit.
Around the time her first period was due, perhaps.
After a day when her belly felt like it was ripping apart,
no more red flowers bloomed from her body.
Her body, unfit for womanly duties,
became nothing but a lump of muscle for killing.
When her body reached the age of sixteen,
she resolved to escape.
She wasn't alone. There was the boy her age who'd survived the jar with her,
with black hair and black eyes: Black Wolf.
The boy and girl fled under cover of night.
Evading the black-clad men's eyes, they crossed mountains barefoot and pushed through thorny thickets.
But the pursuit was relentless.
Just before reaching the harbor, the girl and boy were surrounded.
The girl crammed herself into a rickety wooden crate,
and the boy leaped out as bait.
And he was caught.
She watched the scene through the gaps in the wood.
The pursuers forced the boy to his knees and demanded,
Black Wolf didn't answer.
He just clamped his mouth shut and didn't even glance toward the crate where she hid.
Sizzle—!
One black-clad man pressed a glowing red branding iron to Black Wolf's back.
The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
It should have elicited a scream, but he bit his tongue and endured.
With his limbs bound in ropes,
he thrashed, twisting his freer-than-normal joints every which way.
Then their eyes met.
Even in that pain, Black Wolf smiled at her for a moment.
Forcing his blood-smeared lips into a weak grin,
In the language only the boy and girl knew,
he mouthed the words silently, moving only his lips.
It was but an instant, but she clearly saw and understood.
And the girl held her breath.
While Black Wolf's back and face sizzled and melted under the heated iron,
she fled like a coward, like a rat.
After crossing to the Central Continent alone, the girl changed her name.
She erased the "Black" and took "White."
White Rin.
But simply changing her name
wouldn't erase the soot caked onto her soul.
Still, the girl had to live.
And more enjoyably, freely than before.
On the night she'd resolved to escape,
huddled in pitch-black darkness, the trivial dreams they'd shared.
Family.
The girl remembered the look in Black Wolf's eyes as he voiced his final wish.
Of course, with her femininity erased, her body couldn't create a family,
but in front of the boy, she'd silently nodded.
She hadn't wanted to dampen his spirits.
So after fleeing to the Central Continent,
the girl lived as her heart desired, as much as possible.
When she had money, she bought meat and chewed it down.
Stuffing herself until her stomach felt ready to tear, grease dripping down her chin.
She guzzled booze, bought what she wanted, slept where she pleased.
Fulfilling the first, second, and third wishes herself first.
That was what gave them meaning.
The trivial talk she'd shared with the boy that day,
and his will to sacrifice his body so she could go ahead.
Living like that, flesh gradually filled out her gaunt frame.
Especially her breasts and hips, which protruded noticeably,
occasionally drawing lustful men who lunged at her on the spot.
Or offering money to proposition her.
She beat them down or killed them all.
The girl didn't place much value on her virginity,
but losing it that way felt far from her first wish of a free life.
Things weren't always smooth sailing.
She was a black-haired foreigner without status.
Normally, she pulled her shabby cloak's hood low, suppressing her presence.
If trouble arose, she'd slit their throats,
and avoided places where lack of papers would be an issue.
She was sick of running, but did it when necessary.
Even striving to roam freely, there were far more places she hadn't seen than had.
Living like a beast,
or the freest of humans,
the girl waited.
She believed those words.
That was why,
whenever she saw a black-haired man,
her heart would drop and she couldn't tear her eyes away.
Was it him, perhaps?
Had he clawed his way out of that hell and come to find her as promised?
Of course, it was always a mistake.
Each time, she'd swallow a bitter smile and grip her sword hilt again.
He'd come someday. And find her.
And she'd boast.
Everything you dreamed of back then, I've already done it all.
Until then, she just had to stay alive.
.....
Sixteen when she fled across the sea.
Six years on the Central Continent.
Now twenty-two.
No longer an age fitting for "girl."
Just me, White Rin.
So I lived as me.
By now, I'd grown quite familiar with this continent's language,
its culture and daily life had seeped in naturally,
and I felt I'd become somewhat like the locals,
the hook-nosed colored folk—except for my appearance.
I still couldn't read writing, but it wasn't much of a hassle.
This continent was like the one I'd been born in;
far more illiterates than literate folk.
So eating, sleeping, living—all fine.
Then one day, a weirdo barged in.
Black-haired,
face mostly covered by a mask up to his nose.
First impression: utter trash.
Thinking maybe a countryman, I spoke to him—only for him to charge suddenly,
spouting vulgar crap and groping my breasts outright.
But what pissed me off most was his money bullshit.
One clash of blades, and I knew he had zero real power,
yet he strutted with his money, blabbering smugly.
Of course I hated it,
but I needed cash, so I took his offer.
A one-day contract anyway.
High pay for the job and time, no doubt.
But that night,
after saving his bloodied ass
and seeing his unmasked face,
"......"
Half his face was hideously twisted.
Gruesome burn scars like flesh melted from fire.
For a moment, a sharp breath went down the wrong pipe—not my windpipe.
Black Wolf's back and face searing under the red-hot iron flashed in my mind.
His voice sounded a few years younger, eye color different,
speech and actions nothing like the boy I remembered,
but seeing that face, I wondered if maybe this was Black Wolf.
But in that prison basement,
I learned his true identity.
'......Blond?'
Under the piss pot, his hair wasn't black.
Where the cheap dye had washed off, dull blond showed through.
Disappointment crashed over me like waves.
Not him after all. Not a countryman, not Black Wolf.
Just some unlucky hook-nose with burns.
The situation was obvious.
He'd probably slaughtered all the drugged-up women locked here.
None of my business.
I'd just take my pay,
drag him to that bank to swap paper for gold coins, done.
To do that, he needed to survive and get out,
so I'd warned him of the mob approaching from afar
and even come down to escape together,
but this lunatic's response was a spectacle.
He tossed me the whole money pouch and chased me out.
Way more than agreed.
Ahead were a drugged woman and a brat.
He planned to stay alone and finish something.
'Whatever, die if you wanna die.'
I turned without regret and climbed the stairs.
Didn't look back.
Merc's job ends with payment;
his life wasn't my problem.
So I left him and escaped alone.
.....
Days later, the whole kingdom buzzed.
Leon. His name was on everyone's lips.
Caught right after emerging from that basement prison, slated for execution soon.
"......Fucking retard."
I chewed bread and shut my ears.
Not my business.
I'd survived, got my money.
Sure, that paper he gave me caused hassle, annoying,
but I could just leave before any mess entangled me.
But.
Nights lying down, sleep wouldn't come.
Staring at the ceiling, memories from six years ago crept up.
Black Wolf's face, caught alone at the harbor to save me.
And this guy's mug, tossing me money to stay behind alone.
Situations different,
time together incomparable,
I knew his intent differed from Black Wolf's.
Yet again, I'd become
the bitch who abandoned a comrade to death and survived alone.
"......Ugh."
Nausea churned inside.
No food or booze could wash away the unease.
If I left like this,
I'd carry that vulgar prick's ghost beside Black Wolf's forever.
So I went.
To the kingdom's heart, the prison where he was held.
And declared,
In exchange for busting him out of prison,
I made him my ten-year slave for peanuts.
A way to vent.
For daring to remind me of Black Wolf, that nobody.
And I couldn't stand his money-flaunting strut anymore.
He was baffled but nodded in the end.
Thus, master-slave flipped. Now I was master, he the slave.
During our fugitive life again because of his wanted status,
I worked him like a dog.
Made him carry luggage, do chores, kicked him at every turn.
But while grumbling, he doted sickeningly on the baggage lump on his back: that kid.
The drug-ravaged girl brat from the basement.
Spouting filthy curses and bitching,
yet chewing tough jerky into mush for the brat's mouth, carrying and raising her.
It grated on me.
Frankly,
seeing a kid that size just soured my mood.
Memories from the jar, perhaps.
The feel of a friend's throat under fingers to survive.
The smell from starving days, swapping neighbor kids for my sibling to boil.
All those revolting memories revived in that brat's whines.
And, more bluntly.
"......Tch."
I unconsciously rubbed my lower belly.
Womb poisoned and withered. Body robbed of womanly function.
I'd never qualify as a "mother."
So instinctive revulsion toward what I couldn't have,
couldn't become.
But he was different.
Not his daughter or sister, just some stranger's blood clot.
Chewing jerky to mush and feeding it,
handling shit and piss with utmost devotion.
Every time I snapped, he'd snap back the same.
Like atoning for something.
That oddly
reminded me of Black Wolf dying for me, irking me more.
......Honestly, I know.
My head knows,
but my heart denies, won't fully accept.
The girl I'd been believed Black Wolf would cross the sea someday to find me.
He promised. Said he'd follow.
But now "I" know.
I'd never see Black Wolf again.
He couldn't follow me.
I knew best what fate awaited an escape tool.
Undoubtedly dead.
Tortured to extremes,
then torn limb from limb for beast fodder.
So I tormented him more.
This idiot Leon—if I grew attached,
if he became precious like Black Wolf inside me,
I might lose him too.
The guys by my side, all leaving me alone to die.
So I treated him crueler, kicked, pushed away on purpose.
But,
This guy crossed the line again today.
Lifelong.
That word lodged in my ear, blanking my mind.
A long-buried memory fragment surfaced.
One night,
as the fleeing Black Wolf and Black Rin boy and girl burst blisters on each other's feet and bandaged them.
His fourth, final wish.
The girl knew.
It was his deepest dream.
But she also knew.
Her broken body couldn't make a normal family.
She couldn't fully share all his wishes.
So that day, she'd asked.
Then Black Wolf paused bandaging and smiled at her.
And with utter conviction,
Spending life together.
That was the boy's definition of family,
and the family the girl understood and accepted.
Only then did she think she could share his fourth wish too.
Not fully,
but seven or eight out of ten parts.
Since she couldn't bear children.
So Black Wolf could meet a good woman, marry,
have kids, make a family for life.
And she someday meet a good man...
And live a sorta-family life forever.
That'd do it,
she thought.
But now.
This vulgar weakling before me
uttered that heavy word.
Though tagged as slave, selling himself.
On his knees, clutching my hand, pleading desperately.
I.....
Still don't fully get why,
but right there, I accepted.
Bought his entire life.
The ten-year contract became lifelong.
Of course I know.
Why he goes that far:
to save that kid I despise.
Not love or friendship,
just a deal for the brat on his back.
But reason doesn't matter;
he staked his life on me.
Black Wolf's "family" words oddly overlapped
with this guy's "slave."
My mind went white.
And,
to give that brat proof of personhood,
he walked into the slaughterhouse where the iron heated his own foot.
Sizzle—!
Burning flesh stabbed my nose.
A familiar smell,
and the scent of reality unfolding before me.
I saw it.
Even as his back festered in agony, he turned to look at me.
"......"
He was smiling.
Like Black Wolf.
Cold sweat pouring,
yet forcing his lips into "I'm fine."
The guy who'd spend life together,
give me everything.
Burning his own body before my eyes.
"......Ah."
Seeing that smile,
the dam I'd barely held burst inside.
"......Fucking retard."
Vision warped.
Everything blurred; his face indistinct.
Not yawning.
Drip. Drip.
trickling down my cheek, falling.
Last time I'd cried?
When I was still a girl.
Watching Black Wolf's lie of "I'll follow," holding my breath.
Finally accepting his death,
ending girlhood.
So this,
chest heaving with tears,
was a first for me.
.....