Ch.187White Scales (4)

A World Filled with Starlight.

Through the passing spring breeze, Irene looks up at the sky.

A field of constellations with nothing left but starlight.

The girl simply stood holding her sword.

“……”

The silence settles, becoming tranquil.

At the ends of her fluttering white hair, faint embers flutter.

The pitch-black night has now brightened to pure white.

The surroundings, noisy until just moments ago, now maintained a cozy silence.

Irene savors the breath flowing through the night air.

‘It’s peaceful.’

Nothing remained beside the fox.

Not the teeth of the growling hounds.

Not the businessman she had devoted her life to hating.

Not even the darkness that once thickly obscured her vision.

A moment’s flash had burned all those scenes to a handful of ash.

All that remained for Irene was just the acrid smell of gunpowder from the scorched dawn.

Her pupils and eyelids, dyed pure white, blink weakly.

It was quiet.

‘Why.’

The fox couldn’t carelessly break the silence.

The night sky she had finally reached by treading across the world was blindingly beautiful.

A sensation as if all the constellations connecting the seasons were singing in chorus.

She couldn’t bear to close her eyes to such holiness.

Irene sinks into contemplation.

‘This feeling…’

Perhaps.

Was it because of the businessman’s rather empty end?

The fox could hardly grasp the reality of the situation.

Though she had cut through the night with her own hands, her steps still remained in the dawn.

The starlight in her pupils flickers.

“……”

How should she explain this feeling?

A feeling where surreal relief and a hint of emptiness mix together.

Irene simply played with the flames at her fingertips.

-I’ll give you the night too.

As those red lips had told her.

No longer did anyone who had given her the night remain in the girl’s dawn.

Only ashes and dust tinged with pure white were floating around.

The traces of the past were that insignificant.

Just as she was lost in thought.

“Miss Irene.”

Suddenly a voice is heard.

A voice calling for her despite wandering in the middle of nowhere.

At the end of her turning gaze stood a narrow-eyed boy.

A faint smile was looking at her.

‘My star.’

Light that had streamed through the iron bars.

The boy who had given another night to her gloomy world.

Someone who didn’t torment her like a scar, but simply wrapped her in his comfort.

The constellation she had made the guiding point of her life.

Irene pronounces with trembling lips.

“Judas…”

That name became a small resonance.

She simply felt like saying it.

Perhaps she wanted to feel the reality that he existed in her night.

With embers scattering in the wind behind her, the fox’s steps rush toward that name.

The starlight racing through dawn was brilliantly illuminating the earth.

The snake, as if it were natural, embraces the approaching girl.

Whoosh-!

“Oh my.”

A warm embrace.

Even though her own body temperature was clearly hotter.

The fox felt the boy’s embrace to be more comforting.

His uniquely refreshing scent, faint warmth, and the hand supporting her waist…

The embrace filled with affection, its mere existence gave her fulfillment.

Irene had to breathe for a while with her face buried in his chest.

Her senses, which had been on edge, gradually relaxed.

“Judas, Judas…”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I… killed him. That man. I burned him without leaving a trace.”

“I see. That’s truly impressive. And you’ve been through a lot.”

“I, with my sword…”

Irene murmurs.

Judas was simply responding to such soliloquies.

While gently stroking her dyed white hair.

“It’s over… it’s all over.”

Sixteen years old, trampled by injustice.

Three years thoroughly broken.

Adding the time spent wandering through mental images, a scar she had carried for nearly nine years.

It had been a long and painful night for the girl trapped in iron bars.

And she had finally achieved the future she had longed for.

Irene leans on the unreality of it all.

“Now, truly…”

“Miss Irene.”

However.

If she had a momentary misconception,

It was none other than the misconception that everything was over.

The narrow-eyed boy smiles quietly.

“This is just the beginning, isn’t it?”

It was as he said.

Just as she had declared to the stars herself.

The fox quietly nods.

“Yes… that’s right.”

A brilliantly approaching starting line.

Before standing there, there were still things that needed to be handled.

***

The apple tree that had been utterly devastated.

It had been the Empire’s largest illegal slave auction house, but its status could no longer be found there.

It had fallen into a barren wasteland with nothing left except blood, ashes, and flames.

That miserable scene was like punishment descended from the stars.

The night had brightened.

“……”

The fox moved with unfamiliar steps.

She crosses the collapsed pillars and corridors littered with debris.

Soon after, stairs leading underground appear.

Her steps pause momentarily, hesitating in place.

However.

Step-.

As if it never happened, she moves forward.

Following the steps she treads, the darkness deepens, but the girl’s starlight illuminates her vision.

It fulfills its brilliant calling as if to never be buried in this pitch-black again.

The path that had only been deepening ends, and Irene steps onto the lowest floor of the building.

A somewhat familiar bloody smell tickles her nose.

The fox confronts it.

“…It’s the same.”

Unbearable memories.

Until just a year ago. The iron cage where she had been imprisoned.

There were still many slaves crowded there.

White eyes examine beyond the iron bars.

‘All of them…’

The slaves were both beast-people and humans alike.

They were just money-makers for the businessman.

Irene’s fist clenches tightly.

‘I wanted to save them.’

When escaping from here.

At that time, she had no strength, so she didn’t even have the luxury to take care of them.

She could only run down the corridor with her siblings.

The fox had often recalled that day.

‘I won’t run away anymore.’

The weak me.

The powerless me who couldn’t help anyone.

Yet so fragile that I couldn’t forget the pleas behind me.

The girl had never forgotten her cowardice that day for even a moment.

Finally, only today did she return to this place.

To the side of those she had abandoned and fled from,

“It’s okay now.”

Slash-.

A sword strike that cuts through an instant.

Following it, thousands of bars covering the underground are cut away.

The cages imprisoning the slaves are cleanly stripped away.

It was the sound of cutting that bestowed liberation.

“You are… free now.”

Her pronunciation blurs for a moment.

For some reason, her throat was choked up.

Rustle-.

“……”

People leaving the iron cages while still wary of the outside.

Clear fear is evident in their eyes.

What happened?

Is this a trap?

Can we be safe?

Despite all kinds of worries being layered, there exists a clear light beyond.

If there’s a word to express that light, it’s none other than hope.

That confusion overlaps with a certain scene.

-Won’t you let me tame you?

-I’ll take you in.

-I’ll help you escape from this hell.

At that time.

Were my eyes also like theirs?

Did I have a similar look when I first met you?

Did you see such precarious hope in me?

“…Ugh.”

Her mind becoming unnecessarily complicated.

Irene turns her feet and leaves the basement.

Outside, the deep night sky was waiting.

A scene where stars bloom fully like ripples.

Only then do the girl’s steps stop.

-Irene.

Swoosh-.

As tension releases, her hair gradually regains its original color.

Along with it, the hot fire and body temperature also cool down.

However, her eyes conversely grow hotter.

Her vision strangely stings.

-My fox.

Only then does the girl realize.

She feels that her night has finally ended.

She had endured that dawn that was painful, agonizing, and lonely.

Suddenly, an intense sense of liberation deeply pierces Irene’s heart.

The fox’s story was standing at the starting line.

-Miss Irene.

The world blurs thickly.

Following it, lukewarm tears flow down her cheeks,

From her throat, which feels like it has flour dough on it, only scattered resonances leak out.

It soon blooms into a single sob.

“Ugh, uugh…”

The girl, only then, could cry.

It was no longer night.

“I did it.”

Irene stood with her sword.

Unlike before, without falling or surrendering.

She was greeting the gradually approaching morning.

It was quite metaphorical.

“I finally did it…”

In her ears, another voice.

A prayer from an old man that she no longer needed to keep.

-Find your star.

I found it, Master.

I finally found the star you spoke of.

From now on, I’m going to move forward with that person.

I don’t know what dawn these steps will point to, but I won’t break.

As you taught me, I’ll overcome the storms even while frustrated and crying.

Like that… I’ll engrave my name up to the highest night sky.

So that my story can reach the sky where you became a star.

“Hic…”

Tears pouring like a broken dam.

Beyond the horizon, dawn was brightening.

Orange hair flutters in the spring breeze.

The sky full of stars fades away, and dazzling sunlight illuminates tomorrow.

The day awakening was especially beautiful with its pure white.

The girl simply stood.

“Now… it’s the beginning.”

The fox was no longer trapped in iron bars.