Abyss
Abyss
If there was one unexpected fact I learned while living as a fugitive, it was that a person could survive for quite a long time on grass roots and muddy water.
I don't know if it was because my body was so broken that I couldn't even taste anything, or if it had reached a point where it didn't matter what I shoved down my throat.
The grass roots were somewhat edible.
Literally, they had no taste, and the more I chewed, the more the taste of dirt spread, not to mention they were hard to chew.
But somehow, I managed to swallow them.
The muddy water was similar.
After scooping up the water, I'd wait for the dirt and sand to settle, and if I carefully swallowed only the top part, it was enough to quench my thirst.
Naturally, it was a temporary measure.
Since I wasn't even filtering the water, which wasn't clean to begin with, it couldn't have been good for my body.
I knew well enough that things like sterilization and hygiene were luxuries in this situation, but I couldn't help the self-pity that welled up.
I was essentially selling my future just to survive right now.
I let out a bitter laugh, thinking that I had become no different from the type of people I despised the most.
It felt like only yesterday I was drinking alcohol more expensive than a house like it was water, painting a golden future for myself, and now it was laughable that I had fallen into a state worse than a beggar.
It was also laughable that I was being torn apart by the very things that used to crawl before me.
If it had just been those bastards colluding and rising up, I could have easily crushed them.
Ah, why on earth did His Majesty have to personally step in to destroy me?
I had offered up so much money just to ensure I wouldn't be marked by the Imperial Family.
Should I have offered more? Or should I have acted like a madman and taken a more aggressive stance?
I know that "what if" scenarios are meaningless, but I couldn't help but think about them.
Partly because there was nothing else to do, but also because if I didn't think about such things, I wouldn't be able to keep my sanity.
"Keuk, keuk... Cough, cough!"
It seemed that even laughing like a madman was too much for this body.
As soon as I tried to laugh a little, a cough mixed with blood erupted, as if I were about to die.
Damn this body, I can't even think properly.
I was catching my breath, unable to even grumble.
"You seem to be alive by some miracle. What were you thinking about to make you laugh?"
She looked down at me with a consistent tone, as if I were pathetic, and wiped away the blood.
Her sleeves were also a mess of dried blood and mud, so it didn't do much good.
Even though she was in just as sorry a state as I was, what kind of leisure did she have to be worrying about me?
Or was she keeping me alive tooth and nail because she found some use for me?
Whatever it was, it was a foolish thing to do.
Once it reached this point, there was no recovery.
Neither as a merchant, nor as a human being.
So, stop the nonsense.
Stop the waste.
I wanted to sneer at her like that.
But catching my breath was all I could do.
"It's... nothing."
"Then that's fine. Open your mouth. It'll taste bad if it gets cold."
"What does taste matter, I can't even taste my own blood right now..."
"Enough. Say ah."
She shoved something charred black toward my mouth.
I thought, she's become quite cheeky for a bodyguard.
No, come to think of it, had she been like this since the first time I bought her?
She always looked at me with dead eyes.
I don't know if those eyes were always like that, but at least they were like that from the moment I bought her.
Even though she was sold to my family and dragged before me, she didn't cry or beg.
She only looked at me briefly when I paid the price and told her to lift her head, and while I was thinking I had bought a decent item, she lowered her gaze again.
I bought her because her face was pretty and her attitude was interesting.
I thought about making her a courtesan or taking her as a concubine, but since she knew how to handle fire, I made her a bodyguard.
When I ordered her to burn someone, she burned them; if I told her to burn a house, she burned it; and if I told her to get rid of a corpse, she burned it to nothing.
Even while following orders like a slave, she would occasionally try to lecture me.
Saying things like, that person is already scared, so stop.
Asking what I would gain by breaking that person.
Telling me I was truly the worst, consistently.
She was an excessively insolent girl for something I had bought with money.
And such a girl was guarding my end.
It was laughable and tragic beyond words.
"You eat it, I'm fine."
Red eyes that resembled dead fish eyes met my eye level.
Normally, I would have thought it was worth the high price I paid, but now, covered in dried blood, wounds, and mud, only those red eyes were as vivid as a beast's.
"I caught and ate a rabbit on the way here. So, ah."
Judging by the way she glanced to the bottom right before speaking, it was a clear lie.
She had a habit of looking to the bottom right before telling a lie.
She was probably trying to feed me whatever lizard or newt she had managed to catch.
I didn't even have the strength to lift my hand to swat it away, so I turned my head.
"I just ate an ant, too."
"You're even half-assing your lies now."
"Are you disobeying your master, for a bodyguard?"
"You speak as if you ever listened."
Even when arguing, I had no choice but to raise both hands first.
Whatever our previous relationship was, the upper hand was with her now.
If she wanted, it wouldn't be strange if I turned into a lump of charcoal right now.
Or perhaps be led by her hand and handed over to the pursuers.
Or, I could just be abandoned here and die.
My fate was to die anyway, but since I wanted to die peacefully if I could, I quietly followed her will.
That was the moment.
A flock of birds flew up in the distance.
Her gaze turned toward the forest beyond the window frame, which barely retained its shape.
It would be nice if it were just a bear or a tiger hunting, but both she and I knew that wasn't it.
The pursuers must have finally caught up.
"How many do you think there are?"
"Who knows. There will be many. Wouldn't there be thirty? Since I've earned the grudge of more people than that."
Thirty.
Well, there were over fifty pursuers, so that sounded about right by now.
There were those she had killed herself, and those who had run away out of fear.
If she had been in perfect condition, she could have done something about it even on her own.
No. What do you mean "something about it"? She could have wiped them all out.
But not now.
There was still an unhealed laceration on her side, and she had been limping on her right leg for days.
The iron fan she used as a weapon was bent and broken, unable to even open properly.
Anyone could see it was impossible.
"Go."
I said to her.
"You heard them. Go."
I had to admit that I was cornered.
There was no more running away, and nowhere left to run.
Fighting back was no different from saying I wanted to commit suicide.
Judging rationally, it was time to stop.
There was no way she would miraculously defeat all the pursuers.
Because I didn't have the money to make such a miracle happen.
To that, she replied indifferently.
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
I didn't have the time or energy for more riddles, so I forced my lungs to squeeze out the main point.
"They want me, not you. So, just tell them where I am and go your own way."
I said I wanted to die peacefully, but if the pursuers were right on my tail, that was a different story.
It's better for one person to die than two, right? Arithmetically.
She didn't even pretend to listen to me, tying her red hair into a ponytail.
"Or cut off my head and take it with you. Then you might even get the bounty."
She was looking down at me silently as I muttered.
Is she debating whether to kill me or not?
Then, I should relieve her of that worry.
"If you really have nowhere to go, you can go back to your family."
I deliberately said the thing that would sting the most.
At that, she frowned slightly.
Just as I was happy thinking she would finally stop this foolish behavior, she poured cold water on me.
"Ha, they'd surely welcome me back if I returned now."
Her words were filled with mockery, but her expression wasn't smiling at all.
Nervously opening her fan, she emitted fire from her charred right arm.
"Can you move?"
"...Hwari. Stop doing stupid things."
"You can't move."
"Hwari."
She withdrew the fire and supported me as I was.
Even though she couldn't even steady herself and was trembling, I couldn't understand why she was still being so stubborn.
"Let go."
"If you have the energy to talk, save it."
"I said let go."
"Can you not even walk while being supported now? Your condition has gotten worse."
I knew it was intentional that she wasn't even pretending to listen.
So I acted a bit more strongly.
"I'm a dead man anyway. Whatever the hell you do... haa. Nothing will change."
She turned her head and looked at me without a word.
"The curse has already spread to my dantian. Even if you somehow kill all those bastards, I won't last a few days anyway. So, go quickly. Stop doing useless things."
"That is for me to decide."
Frustrating woman.
She doesn't understand a word I say.
"...As your master, I order you. Get lost."
At that, she lifted the corners of her mouth as if to sneer.
"Now of all times?"
Such stubbornness, really.
Hwari lifted a wooden board scattered on the floor.
Under the rotten floorboards, there was a gap just big enough for one person to fit in.
It smelled terrible and was crawling with bugs; it looked filthy beyond measure.
She put her hands under my armpits and shoved me into it just like that.
"You, what are you trying to..."
I wanted to shout, but all that came out was a cough.
"Just stay like you do when you write something in the ledger."
"What?"
"I meant, stay buried like a dead mouse, and don't even make a sound."
"Jeok Hwa-ri!"
When I screamed, blood burst out along with it, I don't know where from.
Hwari reached out and wiped the blood from my mouth.
It was her right hand, charred black and no different from a lump of charcoal.
"I'll be back soon."
It was an absurd lie.
I knew it.
She wouldn't be coming back.
"Don't go..."
I don't know why I said that, but I tried to hold onto her as I said it.
But my hand only waved through the empty air.
"Wait for me."
Covering the space where I was hidden with the rotten wooden board, she headed outside.
"I said don't go..."
Hwari didn't look back.
"Try to live."
"..."
"Then it will work out somehow."
Soon after, the sound of something burning could be heard.
"Those are the words you always said."
She raised the corners of her mouth, however faintly.
"To people who failed like you."
With that, she stepped out of the ruined house.