Chapter 30: Harbouring Hope (6)

“Don’t die… please….”

Ianna pleaded in a trembling voice as she looked at the fallen deputy.

The deputy showed no reaction.

Aside from convulsively curling up, she didn’t respond to Ianna’s pleas.

Ianna’s heart grew increasingly anxious.

Her pupils were extremely constricted, tears and mucus streaming down her face, as she stared at the deputy with deadened eyes.

“Answer me.”

An enraged Byulmu-ri forcibly pulled Ianna up and questioned her harshly, but Ianna showed no interest whatsoever in Byulmu-ri.

A wet stain spread between Ianna’s thighs.

Seeing the liquid trickle down her prosthetic legs and drip onto the floor, Byulmu-ri instinctively gave Ianna a slight push.

Toppled by Byulmu-ri’s shove, Ianna fell backward.

Though she wore prosthetic legs, she rarely ever walked herself, always being pushed around in a wheelchair by her deputies.

She wasn’t used to situations like this.

She couldn’t maintain her balance.

The light connection between her prosthetics and her thighs snapped cleanly apart.

The prosthetics collapsed helplessly, and the cleanly severed stumps of Ianna’s thighs came into Byulmu-ri’s view.

Ianna’s body trembled violently.

Even so, her gaze remained fixed on the deputy.

Through her disheveled white hair, her dazed eyes were locked onto the deputy.

For Ianna, the only thing that mattered now was the deputy’s condition, not her own.

Ianna began crawling slowly toward the deputy across the cold Management Bureau floor, dragging herself by her hands.

Creak.

Byulmu-ri lightly stepped on Ianna’s hand.

“…Answer me, Janwol… Why did you look at me like that… You too, even you… are you thinking of me the same way as them…?”

Byulmu-ri spat out in a voice choked with resentment.

Ianna said nothing in response.

She simply kept trying to crawl toward the deputy.

In Ianna’s field of vision, only the deputy existed.

The nightmares she had suffered under Heosang surfaced vividly, making it impossible for her to look away.

She didn’t want to see anyone die.

Especially not the deputy.

As Ianna continued to struggle forward, Byulmu-ri found she couldn’t keep pressing down on her hand.

Byulmu-ri, as a magical girl, was not like Heosang or Cheonching, who mindlessly exercised violence.

Even when she attacked the deputy, it was only because the deputy had pulled a gun on her first.

And stepping on Ianna’s hand was no more than lightly placing her foot over it.

As Ianna kept wriggling, worried that she might genuinely hurt her, Byulmu-ri lifted her foot off Ianna’s hand.

Ianna, her white hair a wild mess, continued crawling toward the deputy with vacant eyes.

Before her two eyes, memories of the past unfolded.

The joy of receiving ‘love’ from her mother, the relief of saving innocent lives, the subtle, embarrassing emotions she had felt toward certain magical girls, and all the other ‘happy’ memories flashed before her.

Just one more step.

For Ianna, she only needed to take one more step and choose any of those memories.

By superimposing those memories onto her grim and miserable reality, she could escape.

Her mind would retreat to the distant past, and she wouldn’t have to endure the present.

When she finally came to, it would all be over.

She wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.

It was a type of defense mechanism to minimize mental damage.

But when the deputy, right before Ianna’s eyes, was struck in the side by Byulmu-ri, Ianna suffered an indescribable mental shock.

Byulmu-ri’s figure overlapped with Heosang’s in her eyes.

Thus, Ianna’s mind instinctively activated her defense mechanism.

Every time she suffered a shock capable of breaking her spirit, she regressed into a childlike state.

It was her own way of mitigating the pain.

When she was captured and tortured, it was the same.

When she was condemned by all and forced to act as a doll, it was the same.

Ianna had kept falling into her own world to survive.

Because she was afraid of her mind breaking.

However.

Ianna no longer wanted the old memories to replay before her eyes.

Life was in the present, and responsibility lay with the future.

She did not take another step.

Despite the shock great enough to shatter her sanity, she did not activate her defense mechanism.

She had decided not to run away anymore.

Repeatedly regressing into a child might seem like a relief at first, but eventually, it would lead only to her destruction.

One way or another, Ianna would become something no longer human.

Thus.

She decided to confront it.

She swore to face it head-on.

She would no longer turn her back.

Because the future of everyone depended on her shoulders.

If she, the only one who knew the future, continued to regress and lose her rationality, only the end would await them.

She didn’t want to witness the deaths of her loved ones.

To protect the weak and defeat the wicked—such was the mission of a magical girl.

Ianna still thought of herself as a magical girl.

Even if nothing remained, even if her body was no longer whole, Ianna vowed never to give up.

Even if it meant her death.

Because that was what it meant to be a magical girl.

However.

Because Ianna didn’t activate her defense mechanism, an overwhelming amount of mental damage surged into her mind.

The shock she accepted without filtering was tremendous.

Ianna’s fear of magical girls was greater than ever before.

“Hey, answer me…”

Byulmu-ri had calmed down a little.

After all, she had reacted impulsively when the deputy pointed a gun at her; she had no real intention of harming Ianna.

If Ianna would just look at her.

If Ianna wasn’t looking at her with the same eyes as everyone else.

If Ianna was being controlled.

Then she wouldn’t cause her any harm.

She swore it.

But Ianna ignored Byulmu-ri and began frantically searching the deputy’s body.

Looking for a sedative.

In her current state, she couldn’t do anything.

She would die, not save the deputy.

Ianna was convinced of that.

To her, Byulmu-ri was no different from Heosang.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have tried to kill the deputy.

What Ianna harbored toward Byulmu-ri was nothing but hatred.

She desperately searched the deputy’s body and found a glass vial filled with orange liquid and a special aluminum syringe.

Thud.

Without hesitation, she stabbed the syringe deep into her neck and began injecting the sedative like mad.

“W-What are you doing…?”

A flustered Byulmu-ri tried to approach her.

Thunk.

But Ianna only pushed the syringe deeper.

Tilting her head slightly, she opened the vial’s lid with trembling hands and poured the sedative into the back of the syringe.

The sedative immediately flowed through the syringe into the artery in her neck.

One vial, two vials… three, four…

As many as she could grab, she opened them and poured the sedatives down her neck.

Until she could calm down.

Until she could make rational decisions again.

Byulmu-ri tried to stop her, but it was too late.

Ianna had already injected nearly ten vials’ worth into her own neck.

“Ah… ah, ah.”

Expressionless, Ianna inspected the deputy’s condition.

Though it seemed the deputy’s internal organs had been damaged, it didn’t look fatal.

Ianna let out a breath of relief.

“…You.”

Ianna looked up at Han Byeolhwa.

Her eyes were utterly devoid of life.

Her face showed no emotion whatsoever.

Somehow.

It felt deeply unsettling.

It didn’t seem like the Ianna she knew.

The lifeless, hazy eyes looked less like a person and more like a doll.

An intricately crafted, lifelike doll.

…Still.

There was no turning back now.

She had to find out why Ianna had looked at her with those eyes.

“You mustn’t do that! You mustn’t look at me like the others! You, you of all people….”

Han Byeolhwa shouted loudly, her voice filled with desperate emotion.

Han Byeolhwa thought.

If that was the case.

If she was going to look at her like that, she should have just—

From the beginning.

She had acted kindly.

Had tried so hard to win her heart.

Had stirred strange emotions inside her.

Why, why on earth—

Would she turn around and look at her like that?

It was disgusting.

Ianna appeared utterly disgusting to her now.

Just like the humans she despised, like Han Hojoon.

She looked endlessly blackened.

Of course.

It was all a misunderstanding.

Ianna had no idea why Byulmu-ri was acting this way toward her, why she had tried to kill the deputy.

She couldn’t grasp the reason.

From Ianna’s perspective, it was like a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky.

She could tell that Han Byeolhwa wanted to say something, but to her, the words sounded frustratingly vague.

“Answer me… right now…”

Han Byeolhwa lifted the collapsed Ianna upright.

Ianna, staring blankly at Han Byeolhwa,

whispered softly:

“…”