I've Been Found Out!!
Anger, fuck... I've been caught!! Why? Just why? Whywhywhywhy?!
No matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn't make sense of it. What mistake had I even made? Where the hell was there a reason for me to get caught?
If I do say so myself, I'm a master of stealth and thievery who's never once been caught stealing in this line of work.
Just last night, hadn't I slipped through that terrifying encirclement?
Today had been perfect too. No—it *should* have been perfect.
I hadn't made a sound, hadn't disturbed a single twig or scrap of trash underfoot. I'd completely erased my presence and simply crouched behind the garbage.
But now. That red-haired woman across from me was staring directly at my position with zero margin for error.
“You pathetic bug who can't even understand when spoken to nicely. I'll give you exactly three seconds so even a dimwit like you can comprehend.”
With those words, the countdown began between the woman's red lips.
“One.”
My mind spun into overdrive.
What if I don't come out? What if I stay crouched until the end? Isn't this just a bluff? Maybe she doesn't know my exact location? What if she's only guessing and testing me? If I turn and sprint with everything I've got right now, couldn't I still survive?
“Two.”
No. No, no, no, *no*! Even without seeing it, I knew. Every cell in my body was screaming that the woman's horrifying presence had locked onto me.
As proof, an unbelievable scene began unfolding beyond the trash heap.
Hssssss.
With the sound of oxygen burning in the air, vivid red flames erupted across the woman's entire body.
The massive fiery aura enveloping her was sucked toward her right hand, compressing into a sphere of terrifying density.
Even from this distance, the surrounding air dried out instantly. The scorching heat that stole my breath evaporated the sweat running down my cheeks.
Ah. So that's real magic.
On a completely different level from my crude little tricks—just one flick of that hand could reduce me and everything around me to ashes without leaving a single bone. A pure crystallization of destruction.
Was that woman really about to attack me? Was she trying to kill me?
If I don't come out, will I burn into a charred lump right here? But if I *do* come out? She'd already called me a filthy bug to my face. Called me trash. Even if I emerged, I wouldn't be treated like a person. I'd be hacked apart by those terrifying knights' blades or tortured alive by those flames before dying.
WhatdoIdo shouldIcomeoutornot ifIcomeoutIdie ifIdon'tIdie wherecanIrun evenifIrunI'llburntodeath pleaseletmesurviveIwanttolive whatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo!!!
“Three.”
“P-please spare me! I'm s-sorry for stealing!!”
Survival instinct and terror turned my legs to jelly. I tumbled out from the trash pile, rolling like a ragdoll.
I planted my violently shaking hands on the dirt floor, pressed my forehead to the ground, and begged for my life.
Rosaria's red eyebrows twisted in clear displeasure as she looked down at the pathetic little brat who'd just rolled out.
It was a truly wretched sight, as if the child had been freshly dragged from the sewers. A nauseating stench that suggested she'd never touched water in her life, with black dust and unidentifiable grime caked hard across her pale skin.
Her facial features alone were quite—no, *extremely* cute. But in Rosaria's eyes right now, she was nothing but a filthy, revolting clump of waste.
“Come here.”
When Rosaria jerked her chin, Vita tried to crawl forward on trembling limbs.
Slip. Step.
“No. Stop right there. Don't come any closer. It stinks. Disgusting creature. Do you not even know how to wash yourself properly? Tsk.”
Rosaria hastily covered her nose with her sleeve. Deep contempt filled her golden eyes.
Even if this was the average standard for Asirians, the girl clearly possessed some crude ability to handle mana.
To know magic yet live like livestock rolling around in this filth pit—how catastrophically low must her intelligence be?
Rosaria gazed down at Vita like a perfect inferior lifeform, as if even sharing the same air was repulsive.
It was then. Lying flat on the ground and looking up, I clearly saw the look in that woman's eyes.
Contempt. Disgust. The exact expression one makes when avoiding dog shit stuck to the roadside.
The moment our eyes met directly, I heard the sound of my fear-frozen reason snapping with an audible *crack*.
What the fuck did you just say, you crazy bitch? Don't know how to wash? You pampered greenhouse flower, fuck!! Try living in my body for a month! Most people don't even have drinking water and have to squeeze mud puddles just to drink— what insane bastard would waste that precious water on a shower?! You braindead bitch!!
I almost said it out loud. But since that would clearly turn me into charcoal in one second, I bit my lip and swallowed my tears.
“Well, it's not as if I expected anything remarkable from inferior races like you. How truly pathetic.”
“Shall we dispose of it immediately, Lady Rosaria?”
That single phrase, spoken as lightly as cutting roadside weeds or crushing a noticeable bug, made my heart tremble again.
This was the end. I couldn't resist, and I didn't want to burn to death. Please, when I open my eyes, let it be my room back home….
The instant I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the blade—
“Who gave you permission to interrupt without being asked?”
“Y-yes! I'm sorry!”
The massive knight who had been about to draw his sword with merciless force trembled at the words of a girl far smaller than himself and bowed his head like one of Pavlov's dogs.
Having rebuked the knight, Rosaria lowered her gaze back to Vita.
“The reason I wasted time making a bug like you—who I'd happily stomp to death right now—crawl out is actually very simple.”
She stepped closer and bent slightly at the waist. Our eyes met at an uncomfortably close distance while I lay flat on the dirt.
“You. That magic… exactly who taught it to you?”
“Y-yes? W-who taught it to me…?”
“Haah, really. With intelligence worse than a beast, you've somehow learned to speak like a person and now chatter in front of me. Did I ask some impossibly high-dimensional question that's difficult to understand?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“That magic which doesn't suit a thing like you. I'm asking who taught it to you. Answer.”
“I-I've never learned it from anyone! It's the truth! I-I just… it just worked on its own…!”
It was one hundred percent pure truth without the slightest lie. But the moment those words left my mouth, I instinctively knew.
Something had gone *very* wrong.
“…Self-taught? *You*? Magic? Are you seriously telling me to believe that bullshit? Do I look that ridiculous to you?”
Her tone was creepily gentle, but the waves of mana radiating from her were anything but. The bright red flame flickering at her fingertips suddenly flared, scorching my cheek with intense heat. The acrid smell of my hair ends crackling and burning stung my nose.
Hiiik…!
I couldn't even scream. I simply pressed myself flat against the ground, shaking uncontrollably.
“Answer honestly. If you're lying because you wanted to catch my eye—picked something up somewhere and decided to do some pathetic genius cosplay—you're gravely mistaken. Worms who crudely self-teach magic and try to crawl into the academy are a dime a dozen in Aurelia. So don't even think about acting above your station in front of me. Answer with what you know, the facts exactly as they are. If you keep running your mouth with lies until the end… Yes. I'll torment you in a very *entertaining* way.”
That viper-like bitch must have had her reasons for sending me into this disgusting Asirica.
Rosaria was certain her dispatch was somehow connected to this pathetic worm trembling before her eyes.
It was driving me insane. I'd spoken the complete, unadulterated truth. That woman had never intended to believe me from the start.
Was this what it felt like to be forced into a false confession? To have to admit to crimes that didn't even exist?
But what if I randomly invented a fictional mentor's name just to survive?
I didn't know how narrow and closed the world of mages truly was. Maybe it was open.
Yet if the sloppy name I made up to save myself was exposed as a lie in that woman's mind in less than a second?
I would clearly be reduced to ashes without even a chance to explain.
Gulp.
Hot saliva slid down my parched throat.
Ah, aah. Why did things like this only happen to me?
Had sneaking outside the wall yesterday been such a terrible crime?
Because I had dared to wander the world beyond the wall for the first time and gotten caught?
Was that why these terrifying humans had opened the steel gate and entered this stinking slum?
It was unfair. So unbearably, maddeningly unfair that I thought I might lose my mind.
Why? Who the hell were these people?
We were the same—breathing, bleeding, feeling pain. With what right? Based on what did they arbitrarily rank human beings, treat me like a bug, and try to kill me…!
I hadn't asked to be dropped into this world.
I hadn't chosen this miserably poor life.
I hadn't wanted to be trapped in this powerless body that couldn't do anything!
Since being thrown into this world, I had never once made a choice of my own free will.
I could swear it on my name with my head held high: every single action I'd taken had been purely to survive.
To live the most basic human life that any person should rightfully enjoy.
Was that such a terrible sin?
A society that didn't even give you the chance to earn food through honest labor with your own two hands.
A world without blood or tears, where no charitable angel offered a single slice of bread to a starving child.
Was stealing a bit of bread because I couldn't endure the hunger and simply wanted to live such a great crime?
No. No. *No*! Absolutely not.
I had done nothing wrong.
A living being struggling to survive could never be a sin. Because from the moment they are born, humans possess noble dignity and innate rights that no one in this world has the right to arbitrarily violate.
Whether hair is black or red, whether eyes are red or black—with such trivial standards, not even a king, let alone an emperor, has or should ever have the right to rank human value and decide life and death.
Therefore, the ones in the wrong aren't me. It's you—locking us away and treating us like bugs.
As an outsider, I don't know what grand original sin the Asirians supposedly committed in the past to deserve this horrific discrimination. Nor do I care.
But one thing I know with every fiber of my being: this rotten society's rules are the abnormal ones. Every desperate action I've taken to live like a human being is infinitely justified and tearfully dignified.
So.
Don't you dare look down at me with those filthy eyes as if I'm trash.
“I haven’t… lied…. I! From the beginning until now, I have never once lied to you!!!”