Chapter 5: How am I supposed to live alone!!!
People harbor an instinctive aversion to things that are different from themselves.
In unfamiliar places, they feel unease.
When encountering an unknown beast, they feel fear.
And,
When faced with a human whose appearance is unfamiliar,
They tend to treat them not as a fellow human…
But as something else entirely.
This human nature—to feel repulsion toward things that differ from what is known, toward beings that deviate from the familiar.
This primal sense of wariness,
Made her life…
Utterly arduous.
*
She possessed an appearance fundamentally different from the people of this land.
Golden hair, red eyes, snow-white skin, and a refined nose.
With such a strikingly distinct appearance, people would look at her and say:
Demon.
Monster.
Creepy thing.
A creature to avoid at all costs.
These labels, expressing wariness and rejection of her very existence, followed her like a tag through people’s words.
No matter where she went,
She could only live a life of scorn, suspicion, and exclusion.
Whenever something happened, she was the first to be suspected,
And there were no shortage of people who used this to falsely accuse her.
Thus, treated as a monster among people, she lived a life steeped in tears, alone.
Then, one day,
Amid a life stained with pain and suffering,
She…
Met that person.
That day, as she was being sold from place to place, little more than a slave doing menial tasks,
He appeared before her.
Her first impression of him was, honestly, dominated by fear.
A man with black hair and dark eyes,
Exuding a cold aura, sharp as a honed blade.
When she heard he intended to buy her, she was gripped by momentary anxiety but had no choice but to follow him silently.
After all, she was nothing more than a monster, different from others.
No matter where she went,
No matter who she met,
She was merely a being that inspired disgust in others, and she believed such treatment was only natural.
However,
As always, meeting her new master without a shred of hope,
He, unlike her previous masters, spoke to her—the one called a monster—with a quiet, warm voice for the first time.
“Hyangbi. That’s your name.”
“! Hyang… bi…?”
For the first time in her life,
She was given a name, not a derogatory epithet stained with negativity.
And from that day forward,
Her life…
Hyangbi’s life began to change in ways she had never experienced before.
She had always lived a life of discrimination and rejection, never treated as a person.
But from the moment her new master gave her a name, he began treating her as a pure human being, as an individual.
Calling her by her name, not a slur, without a trace of disgust.
Eating with her, smiling at her, praising even her smallest achievements with joy.
Thus, through her master, she belatedly gained the rights any person should naturally have.
For the first time, she was treated as a human by someone.
Hyangbi’s heart, battered and broken from a lifetime of pain, began to heal slowly through her new master’s touch.
And,
To repay her master’s kindness,
To be of even the slightest help to this renowned martial artist,
As she grew older and stronger, Hyangbi voluntarily began learning martial arts from him.
Four years after starting her martial training,
With the help of a tremendous talent she hadn’t even known she possessed, Hyangbi achieved remarkable growth.
In just four years, despite not yet reaching her twenties, she had already surpassed first-rate mastery and was approaching the peak of martial prowess.
However,
Despite such growth that would astonish others,
That day,
Hyangbi could only weep, lamenting her own powerlessness.
The long, grueling war between the Martial Alliance and the Heavenly Demon.
To bring it to an end,
Her master, chosen as a key figure in the final battle, spoke to her in a calm voice.
“This marks the end of our contract. From now on, live freely as you wish. Try not to get entangled with the Martial Alliance.”
Declaring the end of their contract before the final battle,
Facing a danger so great anyone could see it, speaking as if leaving a last will,
In that moment, Hyangbi instinctively realized.
Her master was prepared to die in this battle.
After this, the man before her would disappear forever.
And,
Upon realizing this,
Hyangbi fell to her knees before her master, pleading in a desperate voice.
“Please… please take me with you, Master! I… I don’t care what happens to me… Even if I die, I don’t care. So please… please don’t abandon me!”
She knew full well that she was still too weak to face the Heavenly Demon, let alone his subordinates.
She also knew that following him would only hinder, not help, her master.
Yet,
Despite this, Hyangbi pleaded tearfully with her master.
To not leave her alone.
To let her stay by his side until the end, even if it meant being used as a shield and dying.
However,
To her desperate pleas, her master responded in a resolute voice.
“You must survive. No matter what happens. Even if I disappear. You must do so. That’s my final order to you.”
Despite her pleas, her master did not waver.
She tried to follow him even without his permission, but…
“Ugh! Mas… ter…”
“Forget about me… and live happily.”
“No… I don’t… want…”
Her defiance ended with her master knocking her out and leaving.
As her consciousness faded, she watched her master’s figure disappear.
Looking at him,
Thick tears began streaming down Hyangbi’s face,
And at the same time, the despair she had forgotten since meeting her master began to resurface in her heart.
The despair of her own weakness, unable to hold onto her master who was prepared to die.
*
“…Sob…”
In a small hut nestled at the foot of a mountain,
A woman sat alone, locked in her room, refilling an empty wine cup.
With snow-white skin and red eyes, different from others,
And disheveled blonde hair from long neglect,
Resembling the so-called Westerners, she picked up the wine cup before her without any snacks.
Her pupils half-glazed, she looked like a complete wreck.
Then, gripping the cup so tightly it might break, she shakily spilled half its contents, pouring the rest into her empty stomach.
“Live… happily, he said… How… how could I possibly do that… How am I supposed to live alone… in a world without Master…”
Two months had passed since her parting with her master.
Outside, rumors of the Heavenly Demon’s death had spread far and wide, filling people with joy and laughter.
But these rumors only fanned the flames of sorrow in Hyangbi’s heart.
According to the tales, among the six masters who defeated the Heavenly Demon, only her master’s whereabouts were unknown.
Even after a search following the subjugation, no trace of him could be found.
Through this,
Hyangbi’s faint hopes were completely shattered.
Her master had vanished from this world without a trace.
She concluded that her master had died during the battle with the Heavenly Demon, his body lost beyond recovery.
“Sob… sniff… Master… Master…”
Clutching a bottle that refused to intoxicate her no matter how much she drank, Hyangbi began to cry again.
At that moment.
– “Huh? The light’s on?” –
A man’s voice suddenly reached her ears.
Recognizing what it was,
Hyangbi, without realizing it, let out a hollow smile filled with despair.
“Ha… haha… What’s this? Now I’m hearing things?… I’m really done for… Sob… waaah…”
Sinking into deep self-loathing, Hyangbi let out a gloomy laugh.
At that moment…
Creak!
“…Huh?”
The door suddenly began to open.
Breaking through the barrier she had set up beforehand,
Wondering what could be happening now, Hyangbi laboriously turned her gaze toward it.
But…
“…What… First auditory hallucinations, and now visual ones…?”
“Sigh… I knew it was you.”
“…!?”
“Look, I clearly told you to live happily. How did you end up holed up here, turning into a wreck like this?”
“…Uh?”
As her vision gradually cleared, the figure of that person came into focus.
Feeling the alcohol’s haze lift,
Hyangbi asked the man before her in a trembling voice.
“M-Master…? Yang… Yang Soyu… Master?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Hyangbi asked, filled with disbelief.
In response, her master at that moment,
Yang Soyu, gave her a slightly awkward expression and spoke.
And then…
“S-Sob…”
“Huh?”
“WAAAAH!!!!”
The next moment,
Hyangbi burst into earth-shattering sobs and threw herself with all her might toward her master standing before her.