A Good Person (1)
Karin was digging through countless books in search of that single term. 'Blood Curse.' It was the name of the curse that sealed the gate. Yet the word appeared in no index of any forbidden tome, nor could it be found after scouring even the most obscure ancient texts. At one point she grew so desperate she wondered if it had all been a lie. But Karin shook her head and steeled herself. 'That guy wouldn't lie about something like this.'
Still, searching any further today was impossible. Her vision was already swimming from sheer exhaustion. Karin removed her research glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, tilting her head back. A warm trickle of nosebleed had begun to flow.
"Guess I'll sleep... for today."
For several days now, Karin had been sleeping at her desk. The moment she opened her eyes she would hunt for the next reference material, only to pass out again in an endless cycle. She rummaged through her desk drawer and pulled out a music box. It was an enchanted one with a recorded song. For someone suffering from chronic insomnia like her, it had recently become an essential item for falling asleep.
When she wound the starter key, the crystal carousel began to turn and a melody flowed out. It was a warm, popular tune. With her face buried in her arms, Karin stared blankly at the spinning toy horses and let her mind drift back. Back to the day she first met that guy.
Karin Rufraint. The second daughter of the Rufraint ducal house—one of the most prestigious magic families in the entire Empire, perhaps even all of humanity. Yet her life had been far from happy. All because of her older brother, Alphonso Rufraint.
He was a genius. The kind of genius who would be remembered in history. Even in the Rufraint family, which had produced countless magical prodigies, he stood in a league of his own. He shattered nearly every record for youngest achievement, skipping grades repeatedly until he graduated top of his class from the Academy at just thirteen and joined the royal capital's magic corps. There he piled up achievement after achievement, rising through the ranks at blinding speed. By the time he was barely an adult, he had already reached the level of the Empire's strongest—shoulder to shoulder with the guardians of the realm.
People praised him in unison as the hero who would save humanity from its flickering candle-flame existence. And then he betrayed them.
Alphonso Rufraint turned his back on humanity and joined the Demon King's army. It wasn't an ordinary betrayal, either. It was an unprecedented, excruciatingly painful one. His betrayal took place during the subjugation of Baal, the fifth-ranked Demon King successor.
On the southern plains beneath a torrential downpour, twenty thousand troops, three knight orders, and three heroes sacrificed their lives so that humanity could barely manage to capture Baal. The finishing blow had been dealt by Alphonso. After piercing Baal's heart with magic, he looked up at the sky. Rain poured through the ink-black clouds like a hole had been punched in them, soaking his jet-black hair. On the hill below, corpses were piled up like some sick joke. Drenched in rainwater and spilled blood, he walked toward Baal's remains.
And then he extracted its essence and swallowed it. By consuming Baal's essence, he had made himself a Demon King successor.
To his stunned former comrades, he had reportedly said this:
Leaving behind the anguished screams of his lover and comrade, Alphonso joined the Demon King's army and was officially recognized as one of the seventy-two successors.
When the next head of the family had done something like that, there was no way the Rufraint house's prestige could remain intact. Their honor plummeted in an instant. Alphonso had been a genius of unprecedented caliber and the designated successor. The family had spared no expense, pouring money into every elixir and essence to raise him. If that same fortune had been used to train a magic corps, they could have built three of them. Yet their eldest son, on whom they had invested so heavily, had become a traitor to humanity. The blow the Rufraint house suffered was immeasurable.
And the full brunt of that aftermath fell squarely on his younger sister, Karin.
When Alphonso committed that spectacular betrayal, Karin had just turned sixteen and was entering the Academy. It was inevitable that every ounce of hatred and jealousy would be aimed at her. Twenty thousand lives had crumbled into the muddy plains of the south solely to kill Baal. Those twenty thousand lives had been cruelly toyed with. That boundless resentment gathered on Karin like a curse, crushing her frail shoulders.
Once she entered the Academy, Karin endured relentless ostracism. It became routine to spend the entire day unable to speak a single word to anyone before falling asleep in silence. Someone would destroy all her belongings, or draw demonic symbols on her desk. Anonymous letters called her a whore who spread her legs for anyone, or urged her to kill herself. She witnessed several people suddenly slap her across the face while screaming that she should apologize in her brother's place. Some professors even joined in the bullying. After all, there were countless families who had lost loved ones in the Baal subjugation.
Even those without direct grudges participated in the ostracism. After all, abusing someone while holding the moral high ground was an enjoyable thing. The Rufraint house looked like an orca bleeding out and sinking into the abyss. It was only natural that a swarm of sharks would gather at the scent of blood. The fact that it ended without direct terrorism was only because the family was still a ducal house. In a world that had been at war with the Demon Realm for hundreds of years, the treatment of a human traitor was normally far worse.
Karin had started out no different from any other girl, but after enduring that school life she gradually began to change, poisoned by malice. No matter what achievements she made, they were always belittled and ignored. The moment she showed the slightest opening, someone would pounce and tear into her weakness. School was hell for her.
The only way to survive that hell was to be number one. Because the achievement of being first could not be disparaged by anyone, no matter what they said. So she obsessively chased grades and accomplishments like a madwoman, determined to be first in every field.
Yet the moment she claimed first place, people would begin comparing her to others under different names and tearing her down.
'That bitch is just as much of a monster as her brother.'
'Well, her bloodline's decent for nothing else. She'd make a perfect breeding sow.'
'No matter what she achieves, if her life is truly on the line she'll just crawl to the Demon King's army and spread her legs anyway.'
'She's not as good as her brother, so if she betrays us she'll probably just become a courtesan.'
They dragged in her brother—who had taken first place far more overwhelmingly than she ever could—and used him to stab at her wounds. Whenever she heard those whispered words, Karin would lock herself in a bathroom stall, bite her nails bloody, and swear to herself.
She would become a great mage and kill Alphonso with her own hands. Clinging to that single thought, Karin endured her school days.
There was even a time when something like a friend appeared for Karin. During the final exam dungeon raid, she had saved her party members' lives and performed brilliantly.
"Um, Lady Rufraint, these are fruits sent from my family estate. Would you like to share them?"
The girl who spoke to her had been in the same dungeon party— the soft-eyed daughter of a rural baron.
"Huh? These are in season already?"
"Our territory has a famous orchard blessed so that fruit grows year-round. My mother loves her children a bit too much, so she always sends so many at this time of year that we don't know what to do with them. I'd really appreciate it if you could help us finish them."
"W-well, if that's the case, it would be a shame to waste them. Thank you, I'll gladly accept."
The peach she bit into that day was so sweet it brought tears to her eyes.
For the next several days, Karin and the baron's daughter spent time together. They ate meals together, chatted, and studied together.
"The rumors really can't be trusted. You're not a bad person at all. You're actually pure and honest."
She even said things like that. For a little while, Karin was happy.
But that small happiness didn't last long. The harassment that followed Karin began to target the other girl as well. Rumors spread that the country bumpkin was trying to latch onto a declining ducal house, that she was selling her body on Karin's orders—every filthy accusation imaginable. People started picking fights with her for no reason. She pretended not to mind, but Karin was sharp. So she made her decision.
"Just because I hang out with you, you think we're the same level?"
"N-no, my lady, that's not—"
"Don't bring me this kind of trash anymore. I only kept you around for a few days to threaten you and it wasn't even fun. I'm sick of playing with a lowly bitch like you."
She deliberately slapped the girl across the face in front of everyone and stomped on the preserved fruit she had offered. Several people immediately rushed to the baron's daughter as she fell to her knees crying. To comfort her. With that, the harassment ended. And so did the friendship between the two.
After doing it, Karin locked herself in a bathroom stall. The loneliness was suffocating. As she sat there blankly staring at the mirror on the white door, a painful realization hit her. That in this lifetime, she would have no allies. That if she grew close to anyone, that person would only get hurt too.
From her third year onward, even that hellish Academy life finally showed signs of ending. It was because a retired Archmage had come to the Academy as a professor. Yet from the very first class, her words were ridiculous.
"Honestly, I had no intention of being a professor! I just don't want to work but I need money, so I came to collect a pension!"
Ruina Alund. The tiny woman whose stature made one doubt she was truly an adult yawned as she sat on the podium.
"So I'm thinking of using the excuse of raising a successor to take one direct disciple and hole up in my lab. Anyone want to be my star pupil?"
Then she simply lay down sideways. The Archmage's successor. Many eyes sparkled at those words. It was that tempting an offer. Several people raised their hands, but Ruina, scanning the classroom with half-lidded eyes, chose Karin instead of them.
"You! You have the highest mana capacity here! Be my successor!"
"B-but, Sage, that girl is the sister of a human traitor! If you take someone like her into your workshop, it will tarnish even your great name..."
"Huh? She didn't do anything. What's it got to do with her?"
Ruina answered with a snort. It was the first time Karin had ever heard those words. She had been about to refuse at first, but those words made tears well up so suddenly that she ended up accepting.
From then on, instead of attending regular classes, Karin went to Ruina's laboratory. The Archmage's words from the first class had not been empty. She truly never laid a hand on Karin. But since Karin had practically taught herself everything anyway, maintaining her position as top of the class was no problem. In the end, she graduated at the top of the Academy. As she stood on the podium amid everyone's jeers to receive her diploma—
"Hero party?"
"Yeah. The Holy Sword Gramhilt that everyone thought had turned into a complete paperweight suddenly chose a hero. Apparently they're struggling because no one wants to join the party. Someone asked me to recommend a person, so I mentioned you. Want to do it?"
Ruina yawned as she spoke.
"But why would an offer like that come to me?"
"The guy who got chosen by Gramhilt is... well, pretty awful. So everyone turned him down. The policy apparently became to just send promising talents and hope they grow."
The legend of the Holy Sword Gramhilt. The tale that the one chosen by this sword would overcome all trials through the power of love and save humanity from crisis. But legends were just legends. Even greater legends than Gramhilt's had lost their light and vanished beneath the Demon King's might. The Empire was only considering a hero party as one of many measures. It wasn't foolish enough to pour all its resources into a single legend. That was why the offer had finally reached even Karin.
Karin thought she couldn't let this opportunity slip.
"If you don't want to, you can refuse. I only recommended you on a whim."
"I'll do it!"
If it meant shaking off this wretched stigma of being related to a human traitor, she was willing to do anything. If she joined the hero party and defeated the Demon King—or at least cut off the head of one successor—then no one would be able to insult her family or herself by calling them traitors anymore. Carrying those swelling expectations, Karin packed her bags and joined the hero party that very day.
And from the day after joining, she immediately regretted it.
"Why the hell does this bastard never work and just fool around all day?"
It was because the hero chosen by Gramhilt was such a hopeless case that it gave her neuralgia.