Ch.137Drunkard (1)

“Selena Drunkard.

To summarize her actions in the original work in one word, it would be:

‘Traitor.’

What more could be added or subtracted?

Everything was a choice she made herself.

There was no coercion or pressure in the process.

The woman simply betrayed the academy for her own purposes and joined hands with those she should have stayed away from.

None other than black mages who worshipped slaughter and greed.

An endless path of destruction.

Of course.

She hadn’t intended to betray from the beginning.

Just as villains have their own circumstances, drunkards have their own reasons.

Perhaps she could have become a more excellent educator.

If only she hadn’t clung so foolishly to the past.

‘Memories.’

For adults, memories are attachments, or alcohol.

A deficiency that makes life wander aimlessly.

And this… was the stupidity and intoxication attached to the name Selena Drunkard.

The time goes back to when she was very young.

“Lianne! Look what your big sister brought!”

“It’s bread that hasn’t gone bad…! Today’s begging was completely successful!”

Selena had a sister five years younger than her.

Lianne.

A little sister she raised like her own daughter.

“My sister is the best!”

“It smells so good! They must have just baked it at the bakery!”

“Hehe… I’m already drooling.”

They had no other family.

Their parents had passed away in times so distant they could barely remember.

Selena had to take responsibility for her sister as the older one.

Although they lived a life moving from slum to slum, depending on others’ charity, the children never lost hope in each day.

Because they had each other.

In a way, it was ordinary.

Beggars were everywhere in the slums. Their life was no different from those others.

When times were hard, they would briefly lean on each other’s shoulders.

Even in desperate, cold, hunger-creeping winters… the girls survived with their tight affection as their season.

Their dependence grew stronger as they aged.

“Sister, you’re the best in the world!”

A life at the bottom where even faint light couldn’t reach.

A life constantly chased by misfortune.

Yet still a life of hope.

Perhaps it was a reward for the children’s hearts.

Even days covered in pitch darkness were eventually touched by sunlight.

“You… have talent.”

“Would you like to learn magic under me?”

“I’ll take in your little sister too.”

An old man who appeared one day.

He introduced himself as the head of a prestigious educational institution and offered Selena and Lianne to become his disciples.

He had recognized Selena’s talent for magic.

The children hesitantly took his hand.

“From today, call me Master.”

An unforgettable moment.

Afterward.

Color entered the girls’ lives for the first time.

Experiences that piled up one by one. A comfortable home, soft clothes, warm food, and even a cozy bed.

A miracle that came overnight.

“Master! Master! Can you teach me the magic my sister is learning too?”

“I want to become a wonderful magician someday.”

“Like the sages in fairy tales!”

“Lianne… Master said it would be difficult for you because your body is weak.”

“Besides, it’s not that fun anyway. Why would you willingly fall into the swamp of homework?”

“Yes! Because my sister is working hard too!”

“I want to become strong enough to protect my sister!”

“So please teach me!”

“Hoho. If you want to learn, there’s no reason not to.”

“It might be difficult to match Selena… but Lianne, I’ll teach you magic as well.”

“Hooray! Long live Master!”

The children learned the meaning of peace.

Smiles that never left their faces.

A life where they no longer had to starve, cry in fear, or shiver from cold.

The morning that came after the long dawn was so precious.

That’s why they wished and believed that only happiness would fill their future.

But.

“Three months from now.”

Misfortune wouldn’t let them go.

When Selena turned twenty and Lianne fifteen… the younger sister was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness.

The exact cause was unknown. They could only guess. That her body, weakened from life at the bottom, finally couldn’t hold on and broke down.

Tragedy shattered even their momentary dream.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’ll definitely make you better… somehow, absolutely, I won’t let you die.”

“Master is looking into it too. There must be a way.”

No.

There was no such way.

An incurable disease, you could say.

Every doctor they met frowned, priests shook their heads, and eventually even the master put down his pen.

The girl in the sickbed was simply slowly dying.

While holding her beloved sister’s hand.

“I’m sorry… sister.”

“I wanted to, stay by your side, a little longer… I wanted, you to stay, by my side…”

“I’m sorry… sorry I can’t be with you…”

Lianne murmured with breaths that seemed about to stop at any moment.

Emotions overflowed in her endlessly falling tears and voice that kept apologizing.

As if they would spill over at any moment.

“……”

Selena was helpless.

There was nothing she could do for her sick sister.

She could only tightly hold the warmth in her hand.

Until the faint breath stopped… and even the warmth that had represented life grew cold.

The older sister couldn’t leave her sister’s side.

“Lies… this is a lie.”

A piece of meat with the soul gone.

The girl held what was once Lianne and wailed.

The colorful world instantly reverted to black and white.

“Lianne… please open your eyes.”

“We just became happy, why, why do these things happen only to us…”

What your death left behind was only a cold world without you.

Only after losing everything in life did she realize.

The light that had come to them wasn’t morning at all.

Just a shooting star that shone briefly before disappearing.

Happiness was such an empty and false concept for Selena.

“It was all lies.”

After death.

The girl wandered endlessly.

As if she had given up everything.

The light disappeared from her pupils.

Her expression grew increasingly rigid.

She drank alcohol that had never suited her taste by the bottle, and the time she spent intoxicated grew longer with each passing day.

It felt like she was rarely sober anymore.

“Lianne…”

Even though she was no longer showing signs of youth.

Even though she was now called a woman rather than a girl.

Selena lived only ruminating on memories.

Buried in the happiest moments of her childhood.

As those meaningless days continued.

“Would you join hands with us?”

Certain figures approached her.

They were cultists.

Planning to use the wandering Selena, they whispered a proposal that she, as an older sister, could never refuse.

The devil’s whisper that they could resurrect her dead sister.

“Don’t you want to meet her again?”

“Your beloved sister.”

The woman couldn’t refuse.

Her mind wasn’t sound enough to make a proper judgment.

She only wanted to meet the departed girl once more.

Eventually.

Selena decided to become their puppet.

She even placed a mana contract on her heart.

Perhaps she was drunk at the time.

Her mind was filled only with thoughts of saving Lianne.

The woman who had killed her emotions ended up participating in all those tragedies.

“Just follow our instructions properly.”

“Beyond that… we’ll take care of everything.”

Their demands were simple.

Periodically passing on the academy’s secrets and information.

For Selena, who held the position of the headmaster’s top disciple and chief professor, it wasn’t particularly difficult.

She was also the one who delivered the underground passage map to the cultists.

“Wait for me, Lianne… surely.”

“When that time comes, can we, be happy again…?”

The woman knew she was embracing evil.

But her precarious steps didn’t stop.

Like a truck with broken brakes, the damaged accident could only race blindly forward.

Selena drove her life like a drunk driver.

However.

“This, this is… what on earth.”

Even such a mess of intoxication eventually sobers up.

After consciousness returns, one must face it.

All the tragedies one has committed.

“KUOOOOO!”

A dragon roaring ferociously.

With the collapsed academy main building at its center, calamity stood tall.

Hot flames and death poured down like rain.

The surging hatred seemed ready to destroy the entire world.

Corpses were scattered around.

Students she had taught.

Colleagues who had always been annoying.

Once a place that had been home to her, but now a landscape more fitting to be called hell on earth.

The choice the woman made had buried countless lives in ruins.

“Ah.”

The woman belatedly realized.

Her foolishness and the sins it had stained.

“What, what have I done…”

“This wasn’t what I intended, I, I just wanted… just once more, that child…”

“No… this isn’t what I wanted!”

In a place full of despair, all that remained was only blood and flesh pooled in puddles.

And the emptiness that filled those puddles and more.

Screams, sorrow, fear, pleas.

Selena was watching the blazing red scenery.

Sitting blankly in place.

“All of this… is a tragedy I caused.”

Tears flowing down.

As she sat there in a daze.

Shunk-!

Something pierced through the woman’s chest from behind.

It was a sword.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Looking back.

The cultist she had been cooperating with was standing there.

With a vile smile on his lips, he had thrust a sword into Selena’s heart.

As if this had been the plan from the beginning.

“A card that has served its purpose… should be disposed of.”

“The plan, as you can see, is a success.”

“Now we can finally hasten his resurrection.”

The drunkard collapsed, spitting blood.

She stopped her miserable breath along with the burning academy.

Perhaps it was a fitting end for a traitor.

‘…But what was revealed afterward is even more shocking.’

Selena Drunkard.

According to settings revealed later, she too had merely been played by the cultists’ hands.

The mysterious incurable disease that afflicted Lianne… it was revealed that cultists were behind her death.

A spider’s web spun from beginning to end to draw Selena in.

Her little sister’s death was thoroughly fabricated, and the promised resurrection in exchange for cooperation was also a lie.

The woman couldn’t escape her fate.

‘In the end… it was a story where no one found happiness.’

An ending that couldn’t be more gloomy.

I clear away my idle thoughts and meet the gaze of the woman before me.

“……”

“……”

Sitting on the hospital bed is the traitor, or perhaps the sacrificial lamb.

Only a chilly silence lingers in the hospital room.

As I slowly digest the gloomy atmosphere, the woman suddenly smiles bitterly and asks.

It was a sunken voice.

“…When did you know?”

“Hmm?”

“When did you notice my betrayal?”

“Well. It was just a feeling, I’d say.”

“A feeling… I see. Judas is someone with many secrets.”

“Besides, it’s a meaningless question at this point.”

“That’s true.”

The conversation flows like water.

Similar to usual, yet different in a way.

Shaking off that sense of dissonance, I speak.

“There’s a lot I want to hear. A lot I need to hear too.”

“……”

A complicated expression returns.

What emotion are you feeling right now?

Resignation?

Despair?

Sadness?

Loss?

Or…

“…Do you regret it?”

An uncharacteristically hesitant question.

As if responding, her red eyes tremble.

I was quietly waiting for the woman.

It seemed that only after hearing her answer… could I choose what action to take next.

I waited for you.

‘Please.’

Hoping that you would be different from me.