Pulled from the Streets
Freesia, the daughter of the Great Chief of the Yo clan, Iris, stood at a crossroads.
As she always did, sneaking into the bustling human city of Paestum had been fine—until the rest of it.
A man lay collapsed in the alley she frequented.
“Oh… smell….”
He looked clean on the surface, yet the stench was overwhelming.
She scrutinized him closely, wondering if he simply hadn’t washed. His skin was pristine.
No trace of the stench she expected.
Yet the stench pierced like needles, vibrating with toxic malice.
“Ugh… ugh….”
Edgar lay unconscious, groaning.
Sweat poured from his twisted face.
She hated humans.
Most Yo clan members discriminated against them.
She had always turned her back, letting humans suffer unnoticed.
‘What if he dies?’
But if he died, his face would haunt her forever.
She might forget eventually, but the day she would forget it felt far too distant.
“Tsk.”
This was when one should bite the bullet and regret it later.
Freesia hoisted the man on the ground onto her shoulder and walked down the alley.
She moved with the ease of someone who slipped in and out of the city as often as she did.
She knew the hidden passages and could slip through the walls undetected.
She had even paid the watchmen guarding the walls more than once.
Given the impoverished times, many people had no shame.
For her, this was actually a good situation.
‘Ugh… the stench!’
Her face twisted at the intense, toxic odor.
No homeless person in the slums could smell this bad.
‘Should I just leave him?’
Should she or shouldn’t she.
Freesia shook, the warp point a few steps ahead, until she finally made up her mind.
The vague whisper in her ear—“I’ll leave him, team”—tormented her.
She had a cave in the mountains near Paestum.
*
The warp point.
In the distant past.
Among the ancestors of the Yo clan, someone had secretly prepared a marker usable by only a select few.
It was originally meant to transport from one map to another during a game.
Did the one who arranged the warp point know this?
Or not.
History alone knows the answer now.
‘It’s because of the stench… he’ll die.’
Houses and buildings covered with Eastern-style tiled roofs, unlike Western-style castles.
A magnificent palace. A place overflowing with the vibrant culture unique to the Yo clan.
Freesia’s hometown and the foundation of the Yo clan was just such a place.
Freesia returned to the warp point in a hidden location within the palace and immediately headed for the Great Chief’s chamber.
Passing through the dark secret passage, she emerged into her own room, then left it and strolled through the palace grounds.
Faint footprints lingered like afterimages on the neatly swept stone paths.
“Mother!”
Clang! Before the servant waiting by the door could even react, Freesia flung it open.
The door was an old Eastern-style one with iron rings.
“You child! Don’t you see the maids are flustered?”
A woman with small horns on her head rose in surprise, her long, elegant light-pink hair swaying.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not the issue—look at him!”
“Him… Mother!”
The woman finally saw the young man slumped over Freesia’s shoulder and gasped in shock.
She knew her daughter sneaked out secretly, but she never minded—how could this be…?
“You say you want a son-in-law, yet you hate humans, but he turned out to be a human?”
Iris chuckled as she asked, and Freesia shook her head vigorously.
“No, it’s the stench! The stench is too strong!”
“Stench? Could it be you… have you already consummated the marriage?”
Iris, startled by her daughter’s recklessness, asked.
The fact that her daughter had already mixed with someone before picking a son-in-law was shocking.
Freesia’s face flushed scarlet as she shouted about the absurd misunderstanding.
“No! Mom, smell it too!”
How flustered she was, the word “Mom” slipped out naturally from her childhood days.
“You child. Even in front of a mother who does it herself, you’re taking the heat too far. Who does he think has no father-in-law?”
“Ugh! That’s not it! Just smell him already!”
Freesia frowned deeply, covering her nose.
Iris walked over to the young man slumped over her daughter’s shoulder and sniffed.
The same overpowering stench that Freesia had detected stabbed her nose sharply.
“Ugh?! The stench!”
“Right? It’s disgustingly strong!”
“Yeah. It’s the first time I’ve ever smelled such a man. It’s pungent and so toxic it makes my head spin.”
Iris marveled anew at how patient her daughter was.
She had brought this stinking human all the way here.
“His body looks clean, but the stench is terrible. Isn’t that strange?”
“Um… now that you mention it, it really is odd.”
Even with her nose covered, the stench seeped in, so Iris’s brows furrowed.
She scanned Edgar’s entire body with sharp eyes.
As Freesia had said, the stench wasn’t from a dirty body.
Suddenly, Iris recalled a memory of a similar stench.
It was faint in comparison, but the nature was the same.
‘Could it be…?’
She couldn’t be sure, but maybe?
Iris raised her voice to confirm the fleeting hypothesis.
“Is anyone out there!”
“Yes, Great Chief.”
Creak. A maid waiting outside opened the door.
The maid had small horns like all the other Yo clan.
“Prepare a bath remedy at once.”
“Yes. I’ll inform you the moment it’s ready.”
A bath remedy? Freesia looked at the maid’s retreating back and asked.
“Mother, why are you suddenly ordering a bath remedy?”
“I can’t be sure, but I suspect this child you’re carrying is cursed.”
“Huh? Cursed?”
Freesia’s eyes widened, turning toward Iris.
“Really cursed?”
“I can’t be certain, but even though his body is clean, that overwhelming stench… it seems only a curse could explain it.”
“Wow… so that’s why it smelled like I was submerged in shadows.”
Freesia had already accepted her mother’s hypothesis as fact.
She spoke cautiously, calling it a hypothesis, but she read the subtle certainty in her mother’s tone and expression.
And because she trusted her mother so much.
“Great Chief, the bath remedy you ordered has been prepared.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
The maid who had gone to prepare the remedy returned, bowed her head, and approached.
Iris and Freesia left the room as if they had been waiting and strode toward the bathing chamber.
Freesia showed no sign of fatigue despite carrying an adult man for quite some time.
Thanks to her superior physical strength and exceptional strength compared to humans.
‘Wow!’
The moment she entered the room with the large circular bathing pool,
A refreshing, soft, and transparent bath-remedy scent seeped into Freesia’s nose.
“Let’s put him in the remedy.”
“With his clothes on?”
Freesia asked in genuine surprise.
Disbelief filled her expression.
“That’s not right, is it?”
Iris answered hesitantly, and Freesia replied.
“Then I’ll have to undress him. Mom, undress him.”
“Um… me? Of course, since you brought him, you should be the one to undress, right…?”
“If I undress him, the picture will be weird. It’d be better if it’s a married mother like you, right?”
“You child! If I undress him, it’ll be even weirder. Now you’re lusting after a young man?”
“It’s weird. You said women have high sex drives in their thirties, right, Mother?”
“Ugh…!”
The heavy fact hit her square in the chest.
Iris stumbled backward on instinct and groaned.
Yo clan women feel their strongest sexual desire in their early to mid-thirties.
Among them, some experienced both pain and pleasure during childbirth.
Freesia pointed out that instinct.
As a result, she ended up having a discussion with Iris.
It ended quickly, but she felt mentally drained.
‘Thinking about it, this wasn’t necessary…’
Suddenly, Freesia felt a deep sense of emptiness and raised her voice.
It was just a call for help.
“Here, help me!”
“Yes. Did you call?”
Those who served the Great Chief always had attendants.
So it was natural for a maid to wait outside.
Freesia slowly and carefully lowered the man she carried on her shoulder and said,
“Take his clothes off and put him in the bath remedy. He’s unconscious and can’t move on his own.”
“I understand.”
Undressing a stranger was unpleasant for anyone.
Yet the maid did it calmly, efficiently, and without a hint of discomfort.
Since he wore simple clothes to begin with, it was easy.
‘This is the first time I’ve undressed my husband…’
Iris looked at the naked Edgar, her face flushing as she recalled the memory,
‘So this is what a man’s body looks like.’
Freesia, seeing a man’s body for the first time, felt ashamed.
Yet she stared fixedly without looking away.
However, the moment the maid dragged Edgar into the bath like a fish,
Shame and surprise vanished far away.
Only awe and fear remained in her eyes as she gazed at the round bathing pool.
Because the transparent bath-remedy water had turned pitch black like ink.