Ch.155Kiss of Fire 6

Nahyun dragged her bleeding body toward her phone.

A trail of red blood stains stretched across the floor where she had passed.

With trembling fingers, she turned on her phone.

And made a call.

To the person she trusted most.

“Ah… Team Leader Han.”

“Vice Chairwoman…? Are you alright? Your voice sounds strange.”

The familiar voice of her Red Lion.

She seemed to be in a car, as the surrounding noise echoed loudly.

She’s probably on her way here.

“Well, I’m not dead yet.”

Nahyun took a labored breath.

Then she confessed her failed mission.

“Team Leader Han. I couldn’t protect our daughter-in-law…”

“What happened to Siho?!”

The urgency in her voice.

From that urgency, Nahyun could feel her affection for Siho.

To think she couldn’t protect her subordinate’s love.

Nahyun blamed herself for being a failure as a superior.

“I’m sorry…”

“…”

A moment of silence followed.

Afterward, the Red Lion asked Nahyun again in a calmer voice.

“Are you alright, Vice Chairwoman?”

But Nahyun couldn’t answer her question.

Her mind was already filled with just one word: ‘failure.’

Failure.

A name that had always hovered around her and chained her neck like shackles.

That word hurt more than the bone blade that had pierced her side.

Nahyun closed her eyes, suffering from that pain.

“I’m sorry…”

The phone she had been barely holding rolled lifelessly onto the floor.

“Vice Chairwoman…! Say something!”

“Vice Chairwoman…!”

Tired eyelids twitched slightly.

I thought I would die from losing too much blood from my side.

But my well-trained body wouldn’t let me go so easily.

Thanks to that, I opened my eyes.

But at that moment,

I frowned because of the pouring sunlight.

“Morning…?”

When I collapsed, it was dawn.

But now the sun was blazing brightly overhead.

Moreover…

This wasn’t the penthouse.

I grabbed my stiff head and sat up.

Looking around, what came into view was a wasteland.

A vast plain stretching to the edge of the horizon.

Was there such a place in Korea?

I staggered to my feet.

“Ugh…”

The pain flooded in.

I barely remembered being pierced in the side by Park Shinae’s angels just moments ago.

I managed to look down at my body.

Black blood was still boiling from my side.

It was fatal, as if a curse had been cast to prevent it from healing.

To be thrown into a wasteland in this condition.

Just thinking about it made me dizzy.

Where on earth was this place?

I stared at the distant horizon.

Then suddenly, an asphalt road caught my eye.

As it was the only man-made structure here, I walked leisurely toward it.

Perhaps because it had absorbed so much sunlight,

The road was so hot that heat waves rose from it.

I calmly stepped onto it.

It wasn’t hot since I was wearing shoes.

But the surging pain in my side and the flowing blood.

My consciousness was gradually fading.

Not a single car passed by.

I just staggered forward, hoping to meet someone eventually.

“Haah…”

I thought if I kept walking, I might find a gate to the next life.

Or a door back to reality.

Like in some movie I’d watched at home.

But mockingly, the road seemed endless.

As I walked and walked…

I suddenly turned my head at the sound of approaching footsteps.

And at that moment, my eyes widened.

“That’s…”

A young girl in a tank top was running on the road.

And on this scorching road, she was barefoot.

Thanks to that, I realized this was a dream.

Because that girl shouldn’t exist right now.

She had green eyes like mine.

And her face looked exactly like mine.

Me when I was young.

Specifically, when I was 16.

“Huff… Haah…”

She ran past me like she was in a marathon.

As if she couldn’t see me.

“Hey…”

I called out to my younger self with an urgent voice.

But she couldn’t see me and just kept running straight ahead.

With each step she took,

I could see her soles were torn and blackened.

Blood was even dripping from places that hadn’t fully healed.

But she didn’t stop.

“Right, I remember now…”

I finally recalled where this was.

The period when I was training to become the vice chairwoman.

The Mojave Desert where I was deployed during that time.

I was thrown into the desert to build my endurance.

And my father’s order to escape from there on my own.

I used to run alone on the road without any help to fulfill that order.

“I almost died back then.”

Successor training.

I went through many ordeals besides crossing the desert.

Hellish training that started in the morning.

Followed by tutoring from various teachers.

And every night, I had to report to my father what I had accomplished that day.

If my grades dropped or I fell behind in jogging, I was always scolded.

“Yes, it would have been fortunate if it ended there.”

But after the gates opened,

The already intense training and education reached their peak.

My father became a Sword Master who could unleash sword energy.

His achievements attracted many people, and he became the chairman of that group.

A legion that united the existing company and various hunter mercenary groups.

That was Ilshim.

The company’s growth was a very good thing.

My father’s reputation shook the nation, and he soon became the No. 1 ranked swordsman.

As a result, the spotlight on me gradually grew larger.

The daughter of the No. 1 ranked hunter.

Everyone expected me to be as strong as my father.

But I wasn’t as strong as him.

Of course, I could unleash sword energy like my father, and its power was great.

However, it took me too much time to unleash that sword energy.

I lacked the talent to draw out the life force and anger from within.

I worked desperately to overcome this.

I swung my sword tens of thousands of times until my wrist broke.

But I couldn’t meet my father’s expectations.

And he always looked down on me with contemptuous eyes.

Even after he collapsed from overwork.

Perhaps from using sword energy too frequently?

My father’s life force eventually hit rock bottom.

His overwhelming power, strong enough to reach the No. 1 ranking.

That power crumbled pathetically before old age and worn-out life force.

My father became an old man who frequently visited the hospital.

On days when walking was difficult, he even used a wheelchair, and on days when breathing was hard, he wore an artificial respirator.

Nevertheless, he still seemed to find me unreliable.

He didn’t call me when discussing stepping down from the chairman position with the executives.

Instead, he ordered them not to make me the chairwoman at the meeting.

At that moment,

It felt like all my hard work had been in vain.

Not being acknowledged by my father until the end.

That feeling choked me like a noose for a long time.

I couldn’t overcome that pain.

Instead, I found comfort in that noose and started living carelessly from then on.

I drank constantly and only received reports on work.

It wasn’t because I was angry about not becoming the chairwoman.

I just hated that my father didn’t acknowledge my efforts.

Just one word from him saying I had worked hard all this time.

That’s all I had been craving.

“…”

I looked up at the girl who was now far away.

She was breathing heavily.

She was struggling so much that she staggered from hyperventilation.

“…”

I silently watched her.

Where she had passed, red bloodstains were soaked into the ground.

My father probably didn’t know.

That my soles were so worn that I couldn’t walk properly for days.

As I walked while thinking these thoughts, a blue sign gradually came into view in the distance.

I couldn’t tell what was written on it.

It would still take a while to reach it.

My breathing became increasingly labored.

In the end, I couldn’t follow that girl and collapsed on the road.

The scorching asphalt.

If I collapsed here, I would surely burn to death.

But I no longer had the strength to even move a finger.

I could only lie there, blankly staring at the girl moving ahead.

“That young kid runs well without collapsing.”

Was it because I was facing death?

I don’t know if I’ve gone crazy, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You should succeed and satisfy our father.”

Parched lips.

Those lips soon stiffened coldly.

I closed my tired eyes.

Me, who failed to meet my father’s expectations and lived recklessly.

Such a me was closing my eyes miserably like this.

I couldn’t even protect my subordinate as a superior.

I even died before my father.

I was a ‘failure’ until the very end.

Thinking this, I closed my eyes.

“Nahyun.”

Someone grabbed my body, which was burning up.

At that touch, my tightly closed eyelids trembled.

My lifeless eyes moved once again.

Soon, I regained consciousness and turned my head slightly.

And I saw the face of someone looking down at me.

A deep shadow was cast under the hot sun.

But I could soon guess who it was.

Green eyes identical to mine.

It was my father.

“Father…?”

“How can the second-in-command of Ilshim be lying on the ground?”

My father handed me a water bottle.

But when I looked closely, it wasn’t a water bottle.

It was a stainless steel shaker.

The liquor bottle that Siho had given me.

He slowly let me sip from that shaker.

Eventually…

A fragrant drink slowly flowed down my throat.

Life returned to my body, which had been drained of blood and was drying up.

Thanks to that, my focus became clearer.

And I could see my father’s face more distinctly.

By now, wrinkles covered his face.

His once black hair had turned white and glistened in the sunlight.

“It’s been hard for you, hasn’t it?”

My father asking if I had a hard time?

This is definitely a dream.

My father wasn’t the type of person to say such things to me.

Perhaps because I know this situation is fictional, I can’t help but snicker.

So I answered his question boldly.

After all, I’m about to die anyway.

“Yes, it was very hard.”

I looked up at my father with half-closed eyes.

Now my father would surely get angry with me.

But…

He didn’t show any anger toward me.

Instead, he smiled with pity.

“You must have hated me a lot.”

Do I hate my father?

Of course I do.

I hated him very much.

He threw young me into this desert.

And after losing my mother, he ignored me throughout our life together.

To him, I was just a failure.

“Yes, I hate you very much.”

He gently laid me on his lap.

To receive my father’s lap pillow in my lifetime…

“This is ridiculous.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Because of that laugh, my pierced side also coughed up blood.

“To receive something like this from my father before dying…”

“Well, it’s a dream. Anything is possible in dreams.”

We sat side by side on the scorching asphalt.

My father, who should be dependent on an oxygen respirator in the hospital, showed no reaction to the heat.

He looked rather comfortable.

My father raised the corners of his mouth with a pitiful expression.

And he told me things he couldn’t say before.

“Not just anyone can sit in the successor’s seat.”

I firmly held the familiar shaker bottle and calmly listened to his words.

“You never know when you might be assassinated, or when you might be arrested.”

“If you’re unlucky, you might be betrayed by your subordinates or ambushed by rival groups.”

He rolled up his shirt sleeve.

Several large scars were clearly visible.

“If you sit in this position unprepared, you won’t be able to bear the weight.”

My father looked down at me intently.

“That’s why I tried to raise you to be strong.”

For your sake.

The excuse parents often make.

I pressed my lips together at the familiar repertoire.

But those lips soon parted again.

Because I never knew my father was capable of retracting his words.

“But I realized that raising and nurturing are different.”

He gently wrapped my blistered hand.

On this day, even if it was a dream, I learned for the first time that my father’s hands were warm.

“I didn’t know you would struggle this much.”

My father’s voice trembled subtly.

So much that I could feel the trembling through our clasped hands.

“That’s why I decided not to pass the chairmanship to you.”

A hoarse, metallic voice.

Unlike when we first met in the dream, my father’s voice was gradually deteriorating.

“But when I saw you recently, I saw you in a new light.”

He forcibly raised his aching body.

And kneeling, he smiled at me.

“The executives follow you well.”

My father gently caressed my cheek.

And as if it was time to leave, he whispered softly.

“You’ve grown well, my daughter.”

The moment I heard those words,

My frozen heart ached.

The feeling of a lifelong burden finally lifting.

I never imagined I would feel this for the first time at the age of thirty.

And at the threshold of death, no less.

“Father…”

Forgetting even the painful memories, I got up.

And I called out to my father who was walking away on the road.

“Father!”

At that call, Chairman Choi Hosun suddenly stopped.

And he turned to look at his daughter intently.

“I… I’ll work hard. Even though I’m much weaker than you now…!”

“I’ll become someone who can protect all my family and subordinates!”

I placed my hand on my chest and spoke proudly.

At those words, my father, who had been bitter until now, smiled faintly.

And he said what he had never said to me in life…

Words I had wanted to hear more than anything.

“Yes, this father believes in you.”

“I always have, and I always will.”

With those words, my father disappeared.

He turned into particles like sand and scattered into the air.