Chapter 264
Chapter 264
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 264
Chapter Title: Snowfield (4)
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“Why are you…”
Kasia stared at Oh-jin, who had turned into a black storm cloud, unable to comprehend.
“N-No… It can’t be. Th-That’s a fake… Yes. There’s no way he’s the real Cheonma.”
Her eyes widened.
Stumbling backward, Kasia clutched her head.
The light emanating from the black gem embedded in her forehead flickered erratically.
“…I have to kill him.”
*Grit.*
Baring her teeth fiercely, she raised her staff.
Shadows spread out from where she slammed her staff down.
The shadows expanded like a black lake.
From within, much larger snakes slithered out.
If the snakes that had shot up from the shadows before were the size of rattlesnakes, these were like anacondas.
Snakes large enough to swallow a person whole surrounded Oh-jin, flicking their long tongues.
“Snakes of the shade.”
*Jingle.*
The sound of a bell rang out clearly.
Kasia aimed her staff at Oh-jin.
“Swallow the liar.”
*Sssss, sssssssss!*
With a ghastly sound, the snakes of the shade shot forward like bullets.
Oh-jin ducked low and extended his right arm, which had turned into a storm cloud (it had regenerated when he used Gaecheon).
The snake’s maw opened savagely.
Sharp fangs dug deep into his forearm.
“Kuh?!”
He’d expected the fangs to pass right through his forearm, as neither physical attacks nor attacks imbued with a Stigma's magic could harm the clouds of Heukcheon.
‘The attack went through?’
Even though the fangs had pierced the part that had turned into a storm cloud, he felt a dizzying pain spread up his arm.
Turning to look at his bitten forearm, he saw the clouds of Heukcheon dispersing into the air like ink in water.
“I knew it. You are a fake.”
Kasia smiled brightly.
Having confirmed that her attacks were effective, she shook her staff with even greater conviction.
*Jingle, jingle.*
In time with the clear sound of the bell, the snakes of the shade lunged at Oh-jin.
“Oh-jin!”
“I’m fine.”
Waving a hand at Isabella, who was about to approach, Oh-jin calmly observed the movements of the swarming snakes.
‘The effects of Gaecheon aren’t working.’
When he used Gaecheon, any opponent he recognized as an ‘enemy’ would lose their physical senses one by one.
But perhaps because the snakes weren’t living creatures but summons created from Kasia’s magic,
the power of Gaecheon, which could grant him an absolute advantage in battle, had no effect on them.
‘In that case.’
Oh-jin’s gaze shifted to Kasia.
The storm clouds flowing from his body shot toward her.
“Oh my, are you aiming for me?”
Kasia smiled sweetly as she widened the distance, as if she’d expected it.
*Chomp!*
In that moment, another snake of the shade bit down on Oh-jin’s forearm.
This time, the fangs pierced a part that hadn’t turned into a storm cloud.
A searing pain shot through his arm, but he had no time to scream.
-Kzzzzzt!
Black lightning incinerated the snake biting his arm.
Oh-jin lightly stomped his foot, dodging the snakes lunging from all directions.
It was another function of Gaecheon.
His body vanished like mist dispersing into the air and reappeared instantly in front of Kasia.
“Ugh!”
Was it the effect of Heukcheon, causing her senses to fade?
Kasia frowned and stumbled backward.
Oh-jin reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
*Rumble!*
Black storm clouds extended from his palm and began to greedily devour her magic.
The immense magic absorbed through Heukcheon spread throughout Oh-jin’s body.
No, to be precise, it wasn’t just magic that was being absorbed.
-Tiring!
[A portion of ‘Kasia Colagrande’s’ memories is being transferred.]
Memories flashed through his mind like a panorama.
‘This is…?’
It had been a long time since he’d received memories from someone other than Lee Shin-hyeok.
Oh-jin paused for a moment, focusing on Kasia’s memories flowing into his mind.
Before him unfolded a pure white snowfield.
In the raging blizzard, the figure of a slender girl, curled up and trembling pitifully.
And appearing before her.
‘That bastard… Cheonma.’
The form of a being enveloped in black storm clouds.
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes, examining the faint silhouette visible within the dark clouds.
But all he could make out was that the silhouette was human.
The form of the Cheonma, shrouded in black clouds, was not clearly visible.
[You poor child.]
The Cheonma stroked the fallen Kasia’s head and continued.
[To your fate, abandoned by your family, by the world, and even by yourself.]
A star twinkled from within the black clouds.
[I shall gift you the star of the Serpent.]
The memory ended with the starlight emerging from the clouds and flowing into Kasia’s body.
“Let… go…!”
Kasia, still in his grasp, opened her eyes fiercely.
She slammed the tip of her staff into Oh-jin’s body, and from that spot, snakes of the shade erupted, instantly coiling around him.
A crushing pressure constricted him, as if his entire body would be smashed.
“Kuhk! Keuk!”
He hastily turned his body into a storm cloud to escape the snakes’ grip, but.
*Swoosh!*
The tail of a massive snake whipped out like a lash and struck Oh-jin.
His body flew backward like a cannonball and crashed into the rails of Atlantis.
“Ugh!”
*Screeeech!*
The rails crumpled like paper.
Twisted steel bars rained down on top of Oh-jin.
Oh-jin pushed through the debris of the rails and emerged.
“Hah, hah!”
He was gasping for breath.
More than the physical pain, it was his consciousness, which had started to blur after using Gaecheon, that tormented him.
‘How much longer can I hold on?’
He couldn’t know for sure.
But one thing was certain: he couldn’t maintain Gaecheon for long.
An instinctual warning echoed in his mind that if he continued to maintain Gaecheon, he would step into an ‘irreversible domain’.
With an anxious expression, Oh-jin watched Kasia slowly getting back up.
He thought he’d absorbed a considerable amount of her magic, but the power still flowing from her was suffocatingly dense.
‘Even with Gaecheon, it’s this difficult?’
He hadn’t thought Gaecheon was a cheat code that could effortlessly defeat any enemy.
But having never fought such a tight battle while using it, he had been complacent, secretly believing he could win easily.
‘…It’ll be hard to win by fighting.’
At best, his chances of winning were fifty-fifty.
And that was only if he could continue to maintain Gaecheon.
*Rumble.*
Even now, his consciousness was in a precarious state, on the verge of being consumed by Heukcheon; he couldn’t continue to fight a close battle with Kasia.
“Kasia.”
If there was no way to win by fighting.
He had no choice but to use another method.
The one he could use best.
*Rumble!*
The black storm clouds flowing from Oh-jin’s body enveloped the area, much like the shadow dome Kasia had created.
The range wasn’t wide, but it was enough to prevent Isabella from seeing what was happening inside.
“Hah, hah. What is this?”
Kasia, looking quite exhausted herself, glared at him.
Oh-jin spoke in a calm, subdued voice.
“You must have suffered so much, all alone.”
He recalled the memories of Kasia that had flowed into his mind.
The memories of a girl with an incurable disease.
Abandoned by her family, abandoned by the world.
The memory of being left alone in a cold snowfield.
“What did you just say…”
“I’m sorry. For not realizing it sooner.”
“……”
Kasia’s body flinched.
She glared at Oh-jin with sharp eyes.
“…Wh-What do you know!”
“I know.”
Oh-jin continued with a faint smile.
“Because I was the one who gifted you the star that day.”
In that moment.
A light appeared in Kasia’s eyes.
“Ah, uh.”
But it was only for a moment.
As the black gem on her forehead pulsed with light, the light that had appeared in her eyes vanished.
“Th-That’s a lie!”
“You can think that. No, I suppose you have no choice but to think that right now.”
Slowly.
He walked toward her.
“Because right now, you are being deceived by him.”
“…Deceived?”
“Yes.”
Kasia’s eyes trembled.
“The one deceiving me is you. You… are not the Cheonma.”
“Then who is the Cheonma?”
“The Cheonma is…”
Kasia trailed off, stepping backward.
She clutched her head, her body trembling violently.
“The Cheonma is… the Cheonma… is…”
He grabbed the shoulders of the quivering Kasia.
Right now, her consciousness was being controlled by the Cheonma’s power.
But even if she was being controlled, her consciousness hadn’t completely disappeared.
‘When she was about to attack Isabella but stopped.’
She had shown signs of instinctively resisting the Cheonma’s control.
‘It hasn’t disappeared.’
Kasia’s consciousness was merely submerged deep within.
His job was to pull her submerged consciousness back to the surface.
To do that, he needed to exist as the ‘Cheonma’ for her.
‘The possibility is high enough.’
Right now, her consciousness was being controlled by the gem on her forehead.
Conversely, this meant the Cheonma had to use a gem that forcibly controlled her consciousness just to be acknowledged by her as the ‘Cheonma’.
In other words.
‘She trusts my side more.’
If she didn’t trust him more.
The Cheonma would have had no need to embed a mind-controlling gem in her forehead.
“N-No.”
Kasia shook her head, her face pale.
“I-I have to follow his words… I-If I don’t.”
Kasia hugged her shoulders and curled up.
“You’ll be abandoned?”
“……”
Oh-jin looked down at Kasia, who was trembling in fear.
A body so slender she could be mistaken for a young girl.
A fragile woman who seemed as if she would shatter like a glass bead at the slightest touch.
That was likely the true face of ‘Kasia Colagrande’, hidden behind the fearsome title ‘Queen of the Serpent’.
‘Trauma from the past.’
Extreme self-loathing that had built up since her incurable disease appeared.
The distant despair felt by a girl who could only sit in a wheelchair, powerlessly awaiting her approaching death.
The Cheonma stimulated that trauma to turn her into a puppet.
For her, being ‘abandoned’ must have been a fear so great it made even death seem trivial.
In that case, there was only one thing he had to do.
“I will not abandon you.”
“…Pardon?”
“I said, I will not abandon you.”
Slowly, he caressed her cheek as if touching a priceless treasure.
“Because you are more precious than anyone.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Kasia’s eyes wavered.
To her, who had been treated as something to be discarded since a distant past she could barely remember, the word ‘precious’ felt far too unfamiliar.
“No… I’m not.”
There was no way she could be a precious being.
If she were.
She would never have been abandoned alone in that snow-covered field.
“I… don’t deserve to be called precious.”
“You are not the one who decides that.”
“B-But I…”
A memory surfaced.
A nightmare rose.
*—Still, it’s a relief.*
Late at night.
Her mother’s voice, seeping through a slightly ajar door.
That single, relief-filled phrase that had shackled her life tore sharply through her mind.
“N-No one… ever needed me.”
“I need you.”
“Everyone, everyone left me all alone!”
“I will not leave.”
“I have… nothing.”
“You have me.”
Oh-jin stared at her with unwavering eyes.
In that moment.
*Crack!*
A crack appeared on the black gem embedded in her forehead.
Her vacant eyes, which had lost their light, began to sparkle again with a beautiful emerald hue.
“…Ah.”
Letting out a short gasp, Kasia soon gave a faint smile and looked at Oh-jin.
“You… are not the Cheonma.”
Kasia shook her head with sad eyes.
“The Cheonma is not this kind.”
“……”
Did his excessive kindness backfire?
There was nothing Oh-jin could do about it.
He wasn’t the Cheonma, merely a con artist playing his part.
He couldn’t become exactly like the Cheonma.
However.
‘If I’m a true con artist.’
It’s not about deceiving others.
It’s about making others deceive themselves.
That was the job of a con artist.
“Yes, just as you say, I am not the Cheonma.”
Oh-jin nodded slowly.
A murmur of “I knew it” escaped Kasia’s lips.
Tears welled up in the corners of her sadly smiling eyes.
“Not yet, that is.”
“What… do you mean by that?”
“To you, what kind of being is the Cheonma?”
In that endless snowfield.
The only being who approached her.
The being who plucked a star from the night sky and gifted it to her.
“He… is my everything.”
“The one who tries to control you with a gem like this?”
Oh-jin pointed to the cracked gem on her forehead.
“The one who threatens to abandon you if you don’t follow his orders?”
“……”
The Cheonma made one mistake.
What she needed wasn’t some star from the night sky.
What the girl abandoned in the white snowfield had wished for wasn’t a star in the night sky, but the warmth of a person who could melt the cold snowflakes.
“Kasia.”
He wiped away the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“I swear to you, here and now. No matter what happens, I will not abandon you.”
He whispered in the gentlest of voices.
“I will never let you experience those cold, painful, lonely memories again.”
He whispered in the sweetest of voices.
“Because you… are more precious than anything else in this world.”
The words the girl abandoned in the white snowfield wanted to hear most.
He whispered the words she had desperately longed for her entire life.
Even if those whispers were nothing but the sweet lies of a mere con artist.
“I will become your Cheonma.”
She would have no choice but to be deceived.