Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: Chapter 5 - Vampire
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Yuseong doesn't remember me.
"Yu, Yuseong-ah. You're joking, right? Huh? Sis isn't in the mood for jokes right now. Say it's a joke. Quick. There's no way Yuseong forgot about sis."
-Shake shake-
I grabbed Yuseong's collar and shook him back and forth.
Was it Yuseong's body that was shaking, or my own pupils?
Either way, nothing felt still.
My heart pounded like mad, my vision narrowed, and the range of things I could perceive shrank to exclude everything around me.
Right now, the only thing I could recognize was Yuseong.
I couldn't hear what Master was saying.
So say something, Yuseong-ah.
You didn't forget sis... right...?
I parted my trembling lips and urged Yuseong, who was still dazed and oblivious to my feelings.
"Yuseong-ah... Yuseong-ah... Yuseong-ah... Yuseong-ah..."
"Ugh..."
As his body shook, Yuseong let out a groan.
The moment I waited desperately for an answer from his mouth—
"So who the hell is that anywayyy..."
-Crack-
The words that came from Yuseong's mouth betrayed me completely.
-Hiss...
I twisted my head and stared at Master in silence.
Silence.
It was a silence laden with the demand that she explain what the hell was going on.
"...Come to think of it, I forgot to mention it."
Master spoke up with a stiff expression.
I just kept staring at her in silence.
-Gulp-
Was Master tense too?
She swallowed once, then continued.
"There was an accident a little while ago. The root cause that led me to... treat that child. It seems the shock from it caused him to lose parts of his past memories."
"..."
I maintained my silence.
No thoughts came to mind.
I had etched an indelible scar on Yuseong's body with the sole resolve to be remembered by him forever, to make sure he could never forget me—and for that, I lost my life.
But in truth, that scar had become the trigger for Master to take his first experience.
And no matter the reason, he had forgotten me.
What the hell had I done all that for?
"Ah..."
If I had to express the emotion, it was futility. Nothing else fit.
"Ahh... Ahhhh..."
Words wouldn't come out properly.
My mind had stopped. I didn't know what action to take, what to say, or what to think.
It was the moment when everything that had been holding me up came crashing down.
The final foothold I had before plummeting into a deep abyss vanished.
There was nothing left to stand on.
-Rumble-
My eyes lost their light, and my body lost its strength as it began to slump.
Did Master see me like that?
"So, Soyeon-ah! Pull yourself together!"
She began speaking urgently.
"Was it such a shock that the boy forgot you?!"
"That was... everything to me..."
"Th-think of it differently! Even if what you did to him won't vanish, since he doesn't remember it now, you can start fresh, can't you?!"
"Fresh... start..."
Yeah...
Not bad words.
-Swish-
I moved my hand to stroke Yuseong's cheek.
Even though he'd aged, it felt taut and soft, unchanged.
"Yuseong-ah... Yuseong forgot sis, huh..."
"Who's sis...?"
"Sis...? Yeah... the one who really loves Yuseong...?"
As I stroked his body, my emotions finally began to calm, bit by bit.
Yes. There was no flaw in Master's words.
I loved Yuseong. I wanted to be with him.
But if he remembered me as I was, there would be countless obstacles in the process.
Forgetting might actually be for the best.
Since he wouldn't remember what I'd done.
But...
"Sis doesn't want that."
-Ping!
I raised the sword I'd momentarily set aside to stroke Yuseong.
It couldn't reach Master.
But it could reach Yuseong and me.
"Let's die together."
There was no point in the two of us living in a world where Yuseong didn't remember me.
If we died, his memories would come back.
Let's die and be together forever, Yuseong-ah.
Before Yuseong could even react, I thrust the sword forward.
So my beloved Yuseong wouldn't feel pain. I aimed precisely at his throat for an instant death.
"You still haven't come to your senses to the very end!!!"
But Master was right there beside me, eyes blazing fiercely as she watched.
The sword I'd held was drawn away by Master's internal energy, slipping from my grasp, and my body was pulled into her arms. My final act of defiance ended in failure.
-Flail flail-
"Yuseong-ah!! Yuseongaaaah!!!"
"To think even to the end, after I believed in you...!"
Master's voice came from right behind me, but my vision held only Yuseong.
Master was holding me and pulling away from Yuseong.
To stop me from scheming.
To keep me from being with Yuseong.
Master was getting in my way.
No.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
It had to be now.
If I couldn't reach Yuseong now, who knew when the next chance would come.
This was my second life, barely obtained. I couldn't let it end like this without doing anything.
-Poke-
"Ah..."
In that instant, a familiar sensation hit me.
One I'd felt before. The sensation of losing consciousness from an acupoint strike.
Unlike last time, I only had one arm now, and the one holding me was Master.
Escaping the way I had before was impossible.
"Yuseong... ah..."
In my fading vision,
Yuseong from that identical situation back then overlapped perfectly.
And as my consciousness sank deep—
-Rumble rumble rumble-
An ominous sound echoed from somewhere in my body,
-KABOOM!!!!!
A blood-red aura spread out around me.
And on the stump where my arm had been severed,
A blood-red arm had sprouted, settling into place as if it had always been there.
While preparing the magic circle, I'd kept watching the two women.
At first, when the disciple drew her sword on the man, I'd screamed inwardly.
'Crazy bitch, why the hell would you kill him!!'
All the hardship we were going through now was just to get a taste of that guy once. If he died, it would all be for nothing.
But fortunately, the master didn't want that either and swiftly stopped her disciple's rampage.
Snatching the sword and pinning her body in an instant—it was so clean, I wondered why she hadn't done it sooner.
"She must've been worn out from all the rampaging, making it easy to suppress."
"Probably."
"Otherwise, we'd just feel even more screwed over..."
That's what I'd decided to think.
If she could've suppressed her that easily but hadn't, our skyrocketing repair bills would be all on us.
'...No way she deliberately let her trash the inn just to mess with us.'
Once the suspicion started, it spiraled endlessly.
In any case, the master successfully subdued her disciple and flicked up a finger, poking some spot on her body with quick hand movements.
At first, I had no idea what she was doing, but when the disciple's body went limp right away, I realized it was some kind of technique.
"It's called an acupoint strike. Pretty much every martial artist learns it as basic training."
"Fascinating..."
"Anyway, the fight's over, so can't we stop this work now?"
-Flinch-
The vice branch manager's question made my train of thought grind to a halt for a second.
Thinking about it, he'd assumed I was drawing the magic circle to chase the women away—he had no idea about my real plan.
For my plan to work, I needed to blast both of them far away, fight or no fight.
"Uh... well..."
As I pondered how to convince the vice branch manager—
-KABOOM!!!!!
A red aura erupted from the disciple's body, the one we'd thought had collapsed.
Bloody magical power blinded my vision, and by the time it cleared, she was radiating a far darker, more ominous vibe than before.
And the biggest change? A new arm had grown on her empty stump.
-Chill-
The chilling energy spreading around made goosebumps rise on my skin involuntarily.
"...Manager. Do you know what that is?"
"No clue... It's freaking me out too..."
"Earlier you said it was a familiar made by one of your kind. Isn't it like me?"
"No idea... No clue whose it is... And you don't have a feature like that..."
"Tch."
While we whispered back and forth, the now-awakened(?) disciple charged at her master.
But her sword was already in the master's hands.
Charging in like that would just lead to a bare-handed brawl.
The moment I thought that—
-Shuruk-
"?!"
The bloody magical power condensed and instantly formed the shape of a sword.
The master side panicked too, hurriedly raising her sword—
-Clang!
A clear ring,
-KABOOM!!!!!
Followed by the resounding crash of their utterly contrasting energies colliding.
-Creak! Creak!
Under the even stronger impact, the inn's remaining pillars began groaning ominously.
As the two women kicked off round two, even more ferocious than before, I thought to myself.
'Who the hell made that thing.'
I had no idea what kind of bitch she was,
but damn, she'd caused one hell of a mess.