Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Special Education
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Rather than one lying on silk, the one rolling in the mud reaches the great mountain first.
『An old proverb descending from the Deep Tower』
***
“Yo-you dare, you livestock… you dare…!”
Ridiculous words.
To utter such things in the Academy, not some pasture, and with the back of your head smashed in no less.
It made her feel just how utterly worthless the Shepherds had viewed the sheep all this time.
Seti replied with a smile.
“Livestock? Shepherd, you should call us candidates or black sheep.”
“Shut up! I said shut up…!”
The Shepherd spat curses as she fled.
Blood streamed from the back of her head, her sense of direction lost, her body swaying wildly, yet she moved somehow to put distance between herself and Seti.
It wasn’t a rational judgment.
If her head hadn’t been cracked… she would have activated her restraint right away or flipped the situation with a fight.
But having allowed the sneak attack, the Shepherd couldn’t even extend her legs properly, let alone think of that.
Thud. After just a few steps, her feet tangled, and she face-planted into the ground.
“Urk…!”
The Shepherd floundered to get up, then turned her head toward the growing footsteps.
Beneath the long-stretched shadow of night, a girl approached leisurely, hammer dripping with blood in hand.
“Seti… you… filthy bitch…”
The Shepherd’s hand trembled despite herself.
It couldn’t be helped. The blood on that hammer was hers.
“Act like the livestock you are…”
Only then did she recall the restraint and drew up her mana. And the moment Seti came within reach.
Snap! She flicked her fingers.
“Kneel…!”
Twisted mana formed into a spell that flew toward Seti’s head, and Seti…
Looked down at the Shepherd with the corner of her mouth raised.
“H-how… the restraint…?”
“If I’d feared the restraint, I wouldn’t have ambushed you in the first place, right? Oh, did your cracked skull keep you from thinking that far?”
Watching the Shepherd’s face darken with despair, Seti pulled something from her bosom.
A black crystal a bit larger than a thumbnail.
A magic tool that absorbed restraint spells? Or something else? The Shepherd had no way of knowing, but one thing was clear.
Seti, freed from her collar, was no longer a sheep.
“Seti, you traitor—!”
Before her words finished, the hammer flew.
Crack! With a gruesome sound, sensation vanished from the Shepherd’s leg.
Instead of screaming, the Shepherd desperately gathered mana.
‘Head… I need to use my head now…’
A futile effort.
Seti knew more about Shepherds than the Shepherd herself and had no intention of giving her a chance to counter.
Boom!
The hammer fell. Beneath the moonlight, corrupted black blood spread.
Seti aimed the hammer meticulously. To inflict maximum pain without killing.
Boom!
She swung down once more. Sweat flowed. Sweat drops mingled with all sorts of emotions trailed down her cheeks like tears.
Downward, downward.
And when those falling drops of sweat rippled the pool of blood.
Seti stopped hammering. Her blue eyes turned to the Shepherd sprawled on the ground.
Thanks to her control of force? The Shepherd could still move her mouth.
“Urk, urgh… You think… you trash… can get away with this… cough, unscathed…?”
“...”
The Shepherd rambled on, exhaling blood-mixed breaths. Her speech bordered on delirium, whether from pain or madness.
“Trash…! With three potentials… you couldn’t even handle two… defective products…! That’s what you sisters are!”
Martial arts, magic, divine power. Three ways to wield mana,
Yet Seti and her sisters, born with all three potentials, struggled even to use two.
The Korean government wouldn’t tolerate it. They hounded the sisters to master all three.
With torture, threats, and every vile act imaginable.
“Especially… you… Seti, you’re the most… cough, worthless… lost your divine power… left with just martial arts…”
Seti set down the hammer, bent at the waist, and met the Shepherd’s eyes. Eyes filled with loathing and hatred tangled in the air.
“Failed… livestock bitch… your value… was only as a broodmare, urgh…”
“…Broodmare?”
Seti suddenly recalled words from her dream. The repulsive talk of ranch owners seeking prime studs.
She’d hoped it was just dream nonsense, but apparently not.
“Cough… Why do you think… we left you sisters’… purity intact…?”
Even though the words insulted her and her sisters’ femininity, Seti smiled brightly.
She realized it wasn’t just this Shepherd’s thought—it was the Korean government’s collective view.
“Ah, so that’s why you came rushing alone? Because the broodmare you never expected brought back a fine stud?”
The Shepherd gave no reply.
But her hate-filled glare told Seti her guess was spot on.
“…Thanks for letting me know.”
“Cough… What?”
“I was wondering how to draw the line between Yeomyeong and the government… Now I’m certain.”
Yeomyeong? So Cheon Yeomyeong wasn’t just bait to summon her?
“What… are you—gah!”
As the Shepherd tried to continue.
Stab— Seti’s finger pierced her temple.
“And one thing you’re all mistaken about: I never lost my divine power.”
Even with her head pierced, the Shepherd didn’t die instantly. And that fact filled her with horrific terror.
“The gods abandoned me. Because I heard your order to kill the Saintess during the match.”
“Ugh… uh…”
Mouth gaping, cries that couldn’t become screams.
Seti looked down at the Shepherd and slowly drew up her mana.
“But a new god came to me.”
The Shepherd trembled.
Because she knew Seti spoke truth, and the mana flowing through her hand was proof.
Mana unlike martial arts or magic— what the faithful called blessing.
“Far better than the Five Gods. He accepts any sacrifice.”
“N-no…!”
“Shh.”
Seti covered the Shepherd’s mouth with her other hand.
Did even the moonlight turn away? Just then, the moonlight shifted, leaving her head in shadow.
Night shadows stretched long, enveloping them both, and the moment Seti completed the blessing.
Something wriggling in the darkness burrowed into the Shepherd’s mind.
“The Shepherd who dragged off my sister. I offer her… as my first sacrifice.”
With the sensation of something filling her mind, the Shepherd screamed.
A belated scream.
***
Leaving the crow beastman Korbus to handle cleanup, Yeomyeong ran through the Academy for a while.
Arriving late at the rendezvous, he spotted Seti and halted.
“…Seti?”
She sat amid the bushes, gazing at the moon. Her expression somehow relieved.
“You’re here? You’re a bit late. Were the Shepherds pretty strong?”
“No, not that… Something unexpected came up…”
As Yeomyeong approached Seti, he flinched and stopped.
Black blood pooled around the bushes where she sat? No, not that.
What halted his feet was the chair she sat on.
More precisely, a masked woman on all fours.
She twitched faintly, so not dead, but why Seti used her as a chair was beyond him.
Yeomyeong frowned slightly and asked.
“…What’s that?”
“Hm? What?”
Instead of answering, Yeomyeong glanced downward. Seti paused a moment, then replied lightly.
“Oh, that? No big deal. It’s the Shepherd who chased me.”
“…And that’s no big deal?”
“She’s our Shepherd now.”
Uttering words fit for an American president, Seti stood.
Rustle. The sound of grass underfoot spread softly.
Yeomyeong tensed, fearing the Shepherd might lunge, but she didn’t even twitch.
Like a docile doll.
“…What the hell did you do to turn a Shepherd into that?”
“Nothing much… Just tinkered a bit with the black magic in her head.”
Seti answered nonchalantly.
But turning a near-monster Shepherd into a slave with magic? How?
Sensing Seti hid something, Yeomyeong cautiously began to ask. Or tried to.
But before his lips parted, Seti, now close, pulled him into an embrace.
“…Huh?”
A sudden hug. Yeomyeong neither pushed her away nor hugged back, just asked.
“…Seti? What’s wrong?”
Instead of replying, Seti tightened her arms and buried her face in his chest.
He felt her breath vividly at his chest. Yeomyeong thought it hot as a dragon’s.
“Just for a moment, a very brief moment…”
“...”
“Can you hold me like this?”
A voice suppressing something, tinged with longing. Only then did Yeomyeong embrace her and stroke her back.
But not tightly.
He was a vigorous young man, after all, and his body reacted before his mind.
Yeomyeong recited unknown sutras in his head and gazed at the tactless moon.
Until Seti’s mood lifted, continuously.
***
Their embrace didn’t last long.
After Yeomyeong repeated the innocent sutra about five times, Seti opened her mouth with a long sigh.
“…Yeomyeong, remember our plan?”
“Of course.”
Yeomyeong gains fame, uses it to gather government officials in one place… then wipes them out.
“Can we… keep going with that plan?”
Seti’s question held deep fear. Fear of rejection.
Yeomyeong understood.
When they first planned, he was a dung beetle dreaming only of revenge. No room or heart for other futures.
But now? He was Cheon Yeomyeong. Divine power headlining news daily, a figure everyone watched.
If he wished, he could choose Yeomyeong’s future over the dung beetle’s revenge anytime.
That’s what Seti feared.
Maybe he no longer wanted revenge? Maybe he’d abandon revenge rather than a bright future…
A valid doubt, a natural fear.
But Yeomyeong dispelled all fear with one reply.
“I won’t stop until every bastard deserving death is dead.”
“...”
“You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“…Me? Why me?”
“You’re free of the restraint now. You could ditch revenge and flee abroad with your sisters, right?”
At his words, Seti pursed her lips silently, her expression saying how could you say that.
That was answer enough.
Yeomyeong smiled faintly and took Seti’s hand from his waist.
Calluses here and there, yet always soft and beautiful to touch.
“You haven’t forgotten our deal, right?”
“…Deal?”
“You help me, I help you. But no risking each other’s lives.”
Whispered softly, it was what they said when they first joined hands.
The original promise, buried deep in memory.
Seti’s lips moved like a clam caught with its pearl, then clamped shut.
Silence flowed. Before it stretched, Seti carefully spoke.
“Yeomyeong. About the plan…”
“Yeah.”
“I found a good way to use the government. I spared that Shepherd to use her in it too…”
She paused, then continued haltingly.
“I seduced you on her orders…”
One sigh.
“And you… fell for me…”
One deep breath.
“So they think Korea can control you… make them believe that state…”
Seti couldn’t continue. Her words trailed off, her gaze shifting oddly.
Yeomyeong watched, then chuckled softly.
“Pretend to fall for the honey trap?”
Her embarrassed words summed up in one line, Seti couldn’t hide her expression.
Not quite a smile, not quite tears—a strange look.
Yeomyeong suppressed the urge to touch her quivering lips, then released her hand.
“Hm… Let’s stop here.”
“…Huh? Stop what?”
“Any more, and we’re not just breaking curfew—we’re pulling an all-nighter.”
No excuse even with the invisibility cloak.
Yeomyeong added that, and Seti’s face flushed crimson upon understanding.
An expression even her sisters had never seen.
***
Fortunately, they didn’t pull an all-nighter.
Though they did break curfew by about three hours.
* * *