The Village of Triang – The First Lesson in Evil
The boy had already grown numb to the terrifying darkness after surviving the lycanthrope.
The forest no longer stirred even a flicker of emotion in him.
“Kkhugh…! Yes! Yes, I did answer properly this time… so why are you still asking?”
The youth’s voice had grown hoarse from endless questioning, yet it now carried a faint thread of pleading.
Just where had he gone wrong?
Why was this boy so merciless, slicing open a person’s leg without the slightest hesitation on his face?
A few hours earlier, when his subordinate reported the sudden appearance of a boy and three girls in their territory, the man had burst into laughter, clapping his hands in triumph.
According to the report, they all looked like Academy graduates, and among them only one held a weapon—the boy.
Even if this were the elite of the Academy, an ambush in the dead of night would throw any soldier into confusion. And their own forces outnumbered the intruders several times over, so the man had believed it was a perfect chance to plunder the three young girls.
But vigilance was never to be taken lightly, and he had learned that lesson through countless bandit raids.
Thus he ordered his subordinates to prepare flasks of poison for throwing and arrows tipped with paralyzing toxin.
Even if the girls were weakened by the poison and their skin began to melt, it would not matter much. Academy girls were undoubtedly prettier than village women, and their skin would be far smoother and tighter anyway.
The loss in value was nothing compared to the guaranteed opportunity to claim three girls.
But this was pure fate’s cruel joke.
The very night they had chosen as ideal for a surprise attack—the darkness itself—had become the perfect time for the boy to unleash his skills.
Everything the group had prepared turned into mere children’s toys against the experienced monster of a youth.
The moment the scent of the campfire smoke drifted from their hidden camp reached him, the boy emerged from the darkness like a ghost under the moonlight.
The subordinates who had been grinning with greedy mouths, eager to plunder, found their lips torn apart instead.
The man could not believe his eyes.
He had known all along that skill and action were fundamentally different. A knight would grind away for years under a master, yet the instant he faced real death, that one second of hesitation would take his own head.
It was a phrase he had spat out countless times while watching men who claimed to protect women get slaughtered.
And now?
This boy was a born murderer?
*This guy’s insane.*
The man’s thought as he watched the boy begin to peel away his skin and start the interrogation.
Insanity had no place in his plans, so the man screamed in agony and answered every question with perfect honesty.
Yet even that was not enough. When the boy stabbed into his thigh, the pain was unbearable.
“…You’re surprisingly repulsive.”
That was the reason.
Even though the man had only answered truthfully, the boy had still chosen to pierce his thigh.
* * *
This process was something Grace desperately needed right now.
Evil was far too easy and far too sweet in its consequences, and the first step was to make sure Grace understood that people who committed evil rarely changed.
Grace had successfully identified every heretic in the village, but she had not reported all of them.
Only the able-bodied adults and teenagers had been told, excluding the elderly and the young ones.
Out of that pathetic sense of justice, out of conscience.
Because of an emotional judgment that bore no logical reasoning, the heretics had not been rooted out completely, and later they had rampaged again, killing countless innocent people.
Grace now understood she had to tell them.
They should stop believing that evil men would repent on their own.
Once a person had tasted that easy and sweet reward, they would only truly come to their senses after tasting something truly bitter.
“You’ve finally understood, Grace? These people are just opportunists who want to steal wealth and rape women.”
“…!”
“Grace?”
Grace lifted her head and looked at me with gentle eyes filled with pity, sorrow, and compassion.
I could not help but frown.
It was not a thief bleeding from his wounds. Her gaze alone demanded an answer.
* * *
Grace was an orphan.
The very moment she was born, a note bearing the words “I’m sorry” and a few coins had been placed beside her at the orphanage door while she cried.
Yet she had lived without any discomfort.
The first reason was that she had been born in the Holy Kingdom.
And the Holy Kingdom generously supported its orphanages.
The second reason was her appearance.
From childhood her large, round eyes and soft, plump cheeks had made her shine like someone who carried an aura of light.
The surrounding boys had surrounded her and protected her, their faces blushing as they did so.
Watching those boys blush, Grace had thought to herself.
*Something keeps moving like it’s squirming inside a ball of cotton.*
The words she had spoken to the boys had been true, but the story was not about their appearance.
It was about a world only she could see.
“W-what did you say, Grace?”
“That older brother doesn’t like his sister. That’s a lie. Whenever he looks at his sister’s face, it keeps moving in circles!”
An older girl in the same orphanage had taken Grace to the director and demanded an explanation, suspecting the child might be mentally ill.
But the more Grace spoke, the clearer it became that she was not insane.
“The people I was looking at… had extreme social anxiety.”
Grace had described the common trait of the people she saw.
They were people suffering from severe social anxiety, or still suffering from it.
The director had urgently called a priest.
As a resident of the Holy Kingdom, it was only natural to suspect that Grace’s power came from sacred forces.
The Kingdom’s priests were dispatched fairly quickly to manage and supervise the orphanage.
Soon the priests brought Grace to the church, questioned her and examined her.
To their astonishment, they discovered something astonishing.
“This child can see the movements of souls.”
Her ability was not merely a lie detector.
She had only described what she saw—the souls of people trembling with strong emotions.
However, strong emotions were usually visible on the surface, so Grace’s power had rarely been put to practical use.
Few people could perfectly hide anger.
Love was no different.
Thus the times when Grace’s ability was truly useful were rare.
Detecting anxiety in someone who was lying.
And this was the power most closely tied to faith and compassion, both of which the Holy Kingdom valued above all.
Soon Grace left the orphanage.
“Moreover, this child carries quite a strong holy power.”
This was the reason Grace had begun training in holy magic at the church.
Thanks to that power, the character Grace had been born.
Because of her unmatched holy power compared to her peers, she had grown up surrounded by priests and nuns.
Her beauty had made everyone adore her, and she had always received love from those around her.
Given the Holy Kingdom’s emphasis on faith and compassion, priests and nuns sometimes told light-hearted lies, but genuine malicious lies were almost unheard of.
That was why Grace, despite graduating as the top student of the Divinity Department, had still managed to retain her warmth and sense of justice.
That was where the original story Grace had known had begun.
The tragic love that threw Grace’s body into the story because of the background the boy had not known had also begun.
The reason was the sudden change in the environment surrounding Grace.
In the church, where everything was good and kind, life had been peaceful.
But at the Academy, envy, jealousy, and malice overflowed everywhere.
Of course, that was only Grace’s subjective impression.
In truth, evil people had never been abundant at the Academy.
It was only natural that a student who had struggled so hard to enter would feel the burning desire to outshine everyone else.
But for Grace, even that desire had become too much of a stimulus, and the constant pressure had drained her mind and body.
Suddenly, a man of pure goodness—exceptional even among those who embodied goodness—named Ian Cedric had appeared before her.
It could almost be called fate.
From that moment on, Grace had followed Ian like a baby bird following its mother.
Every time she saw his kindness and sense of justice, they had offered her an comfort she could not refuse, having left her home behind.
Thus the girl’s love had begun, and its end would have been a horrific conclusion.
Had she not witnessed with her own eyes the first time two souls shared one body.
And had she not known that the emotions of those two souls were directed at only one person…
Grace would have met a terrible end.