Chapter 88
Chapter 88
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: The Woman with the Cursed Horns
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Hwi Mun was the head of the Left Guard Bureau. At sixty-five years old, he was also the living history of the royal family, having served three generations of kings.
His hair had long turned pure white, but his upright posture and dignified bearing commanded such respect that not only his own Left Guards but even the Right Guards and the king himself dared not treat him lightly.
It was a famous sight in the palace: whenever Hwi Mun walked by, members of the Left Guard Bureau—humans, elves, halfkin, nixies, dwarves, kobolds, froglins, and all sorts of other races—would follow in his wake at his command.
Yet today, Hwi Mun was showing a hint of unease that belied his reputation.
The Hwi Clan was one of the most renowned families in Heukrin.
Considering that most prominent known houses belonged to lizardmen, it was remarkable for a human family to stand out among them.
One of the Hwi children had steadily served as the lord of Jadon Fortress and margrave of the borderlands, and the family had never once left the position of Left Guard vacant—a true noble lineage.
They were nobles and high-ranking officials, but above all, the Hwi were a merchant house.
Merchants entering Heukrin had to pass through Jadon Fortress, as did those leaving for other lands.
The Hwi Clan wanted for nothing, but for all their shining prestige, they harbored shadows as deep.
The cursed horn.
The event that truly elevated Jadon Fortress had occurred about 150 years prior, during the era of Lord Hwi Kyung.
And Hwi Kyung had borne two deer antlers sprouting from his head—a tale now dismissed as ancient history.
A legend much like the one about Rakrak slaying the evil god.
Rumors even persisted that Hwi Kyung had fathered a child with a lizardwoman named Mu-el, and that her blood mingled in the Hwi line.
Of course, no child could be born between a human and a lizardman.
Thus, people interpreted the Hwi crest of spreading antlers as a symbol of various branching powers.
But the elders entrusted with the clan's grave responsibilities knew a portion of the legend rang true.
In the Hwi Clan, children were occasionally born with horns, just like the legendary Hwi Kyung.
By clan rule, however, those horns were always concealed.
For every such child inevitably descended into madness.
There were no exceptions.
Children born with horns would babble to the empty air or display impossible feats.
They might emerge unscathed from a hail of arrows on the battlefield or tumble from dozens of meters without a scratch.
It was undoubtedly a power derived from some ancient evil.
Before the Yacheon Church's influence could spread, the Hwi Clan resolved to seal that power away.
Fortunately, the method was simple.
Hwi parents would regularly saw and grind down the horns of any child born with them.
Then the child could grow up normally into adulthood.
Yet they could not prevent one such lineage from bearing horned offspring.
Calls arose within the clan to bar that line from producing heirs, but such measures were repeatedly shelved as too cruel.
Legend held that Hwi Kyung's mystical horn-granted powers enabled his merchant empire, but given his miserable end, people tended more toward viewing it as a curse.
Some even whispered that the fortune and fame he amassed all stemmed from that ancient evil.
And that with it, he had sired a child with the lizardwoman Mu-el.
That he had achieved an impossible love.
Thus, the shame manifested as horned children—an eternal sin the Hwi must bear, or so the clan elders said.
Yet those born with horns were invariably given the middle name "Mu-el."
And the Mu-el branch, though afforded every Hwi honor, was forever confined deep within Jadon Fortress, hidden from the world.
If only it had ended there...
Outliers were bound to emerge.
And Hwi Ravina Mu-el was one such child.
At just nine years old, Ravina had fled the fortress and stowed away on a caravan departing for the continent.
Her parting words: "I can't live in a place like this forever."
Ravina abandoned both her Hwi and Mu-el names, wandering the continent aimlessly.
She tagged along with the Satyros Merchant Company as an errand boy, only to be captured by kobold bandits and sold into slavery, then tutored by a solitary noble.
The Hwi could not stand idly by and hired mercenaries to retrieve her.
By the time they caught up, Ravina had become an apprentice in the Alchemist's Tower in Sekmyeon.
The mercenaries reported back to the clan, leaving the Hwi elders aghast.
The Alchemist's Tower.
A crude stone fortress atop a mountain peak. Within: warehouses stocked with the world's rarest herbs and treasures; libraries holding all knowledge; and academies where alchemists taught forbidden lore off-limits even to onlookers from outside.
If these alchemists were mere scholars, people might not shun them.
But they were all "heretics."
Gods might not manifest for everyone, but their miracles always existed.
Priests who borrowed divine power proved the gods' reality above all.
Debates raged on truth versus myth, but tales endured of divine guardians appearing in pivotal battles that decided a nation's fate—and many believed them fact.
Yet alchemists denied the gods' obvious existence, prizing only their own knowledge.
To the faithful, they were impious wretches half-possessed by ancient evils.
Even Hwi Do-young, current lord of Jadon Fortress, called Hwi Kyung's flight to the tower "perhaps an inevitable end."
After all, the tower harbored many like the cursed Hwi Ravina Mu-el.
Hwi Do-young and the other Hwi elders decided to cease pursuit.
The tower was one of the few places where the Hwi's cursed horns could fade into oblivion—not to mention practical concerns.
Though a den of heretics, the tower endured because its power repelled conquest.
Even the trolls of nearby Sekmyeon had launched assaults several times, only for alchemists to repel them with blasts of fire or horrific corrosive poisons that melted soldiers alive.
Sekmyeon lacked not the strength to destroy them, but the cost in troops made tribute collection the wiser path.
The tales of the Alchemist's Tower and Hwi Ravina Mu-el seemed destined to fade into history.
If only His Majesty had not sought her out.
Hwi Mun gazed at the horned woman before him.
Hwi Ravina Mu-el appeared an ordinary woman in her mid-twenties.
Black hair and deep maroon eyes marking her Jadon origins; skin darker than an elf's.
She even resembled Hwi Mun in his youth, as they shared blood.
If not for those horns.
Hwi Mun had glimpsed Ravina's horned mother in his own Jadon youth, but her horns were always trimmed, so fully grown ones were a first.
Ravina spoke.
"Fascinating, isn't it?"
Hwi Mun sighed.
"Forgive me. Living in Oran exposes one to each kingdom's wonders, so my staring wasn't mere curiosity."
"No need, elder. Everyone stares at first. Once they're this big, you can't help it. They're impossible to miss."
Her massive pair of deer antlers branched in multiple tines.
Hwi Mun pointedly ignored them and pressed on.
"Truth be told, I didn't expect you'd come so quickly after my message. To avoid misunderstanding: do you know why I summoned you?"
"Yes."
Ravina replied.
The journey from the Alchemist's Tower at Sekmyeon's edge to Oran took months.
No trivial matter could draw one along that path.
Ravina continued.
"I heard His Majesty seeks an alchemist."
"Indeed."
Hwi Mun nodded.
King Kyle Rak Oran of Heukrin desired an alchemist.
But unlike Sekmyeon, Heukrin was strict with heretics like alchemists.
Any knowledge of heretics or ancient evils was confiscated for the palace, with punishment to follow.
Thus, to find an alchemist meant looking abroad.
Yet alchemists hid even overseas, and the most famed tower forbade outsiders.
Hwi Mun had been perplexed by Kyle's quest but figured the sole alchemist he knew—secluded in that impenetrable tower—would evade even the king.
Then someone in the Hwi let slip Ravina's name.
Soon Kyle learned of the cursed horns and Ravina, commanding Hwi Do-young—clan head and fortress lord—to summon her to the palace.
Hwi Do-young, Hwi Mun, and the clan hoped she'd ignore the order, but astonishingly, Ravina traversed that arduous road and arrived in Oran's palace today.
To Hwi Mun, Ravina was clan in name only—a stranger met for the first time.
As palace steward and king's aide, he had every reason to regard her warily.
Above all, her intentions remained unknown.
I can't let her meet His Majesty like this.
Ravina, seeker of forbidden knowledge and heretic, could face legal punishment.
Should she show irreverence, Hwi Mun was ready to call the royal guard at once.
"No preamble. Why are you here?"
"Because of His Majesty's command."
"You abandoned the clan over a decade ago, holing up in the Alchemist's Tower—accessible only to its members. Alchemists who serve no god. What do you fear to invoke His Majesty's will now?"
Ravina met Hwi Mun's eyes with surprise.
"Pardon? His Majesty is fearsome."
"True enough. But how would you, dwelling far in Sekmyeon, know that? Surely you didn't think he'd lead an army to drag you here if you refused."
Ravina blinked in confusion.
"He probably would have."
"What?"
"By some means or other, he would've forced his way into the tower. That's why I came."
"What do you know of His Majesty to say such things?"
Ravina tossed out an odd retort.
"Elder Hwi Mun, you're ignorant of forbidden lore."
"Of course. One who cherishes the clan's honor and serves Heukrin faithfully wouldn't touch such knowledge. And what does that have to do with His Majesty?"
"He might take offense at that."
"What do you mean?"
Ravina reached for the bag beside her.
Hwi Mun flinched, watching for alchemical tools, but she withdrew only a letter.
"Letters arriving at the tower for years. Queries on ancient forbidden knowledge, packed tight. The senders' locations shifted constantly, so the alchemists assumed some outsider hiding his identity."
"And?"
"But the latest one revealed the truth. All routed through Oran. And only one in Oran could orchestrate such a thing while knowing the most forbidden lore."
Hwi Mun shot to his feet.
"You dare... Don't speak words beyond your station."
"No. I must."
"You...!"
"His Majesty is already Heukrin's greatest alchemist—unrivaled by any."
Hwi Mun bellowed.
"Guards outside! Summon the royal guard!"
The door opened, and a lizardman entered.
Slender and short even by human standards, clearly not yet an adult.
"Hwi Mun, that's enough."
It was Kyle.