episode_0123

The peaceful daily life continued for a while.

The two ate meals together, he meticulously healed the ugly scars that remained, and on nights plagued by high fever, he stayed by her side all night.

The familiarity they felt for each other steadily accumulated as time passed.

Now, they knew the other existed in their respective worlds.

The days they had leaned on, relied on, and supported each other had formed yet another world.

A subtle relationship was growing between the boy and the girl.

“Now… winter is slowly passing.”

The season was already ending winter.

When I first met the girl, it was the beginning of winter, but before I knew it, I was already flipping the calendar to February.

That must mean we spent an intense and full period of time together.

I would often smile.

It was a smile for the blunt girl.

“How about it? Aren’t you looking forward to the coming spring?”

“······Not really.”

Even our stiff relationship had progressed.

Before, she never opened her mouth first, and barely managed to give a reply, but now we could have light conversations.

Perhaps it was the power of familiarity.

Perhaps because her guard against me had lowered significantly, the instances of her sensitively bristling also noticeably decreased.

Sometimes, if I stroked her while she was half-asleep, she would quietly accept it.

Of course, when she was fully awake, she would detest it and run away…

“I might be a little disappointed.”

Anyway.

As the distant gap narrowed, I was getting to know the girl.

This was something I had observed over the past three months.

“Hey… aren’t you tired?”

“Hmm?”

“I mean, nursing me every dawn. I thought it might be tiring to do it every day. My fever isn’t just for a day or two…”

“Should I take that as worry? Or gratitude?”

“······I didn’t say that much.”

“Because some feelings are conveyed even without words.”

“Never mind. I said something unnecessary again.”

“Huhu… Neria-yang is indeed thoughtful.”

“Nonsense.”

The girl was fundamentally kind.

Although she was often clumsy when dealing with others, she fundamentally knew how to worry about them.

She just didn’t know how to express it, but her inner self was sufficiently tender.

She was no monster.

She was just an ordinary nineteen-year-old.

An ordinary nineteen-year-old who was often lonely, sometimes timid, and tearful at night.

If one were to ask why such a girl closed her heart off from the world…

It must have been because of the curse she carried.

-No… if I go outside.

-If I go outside, someone else will get hurt. That’s why I said I had to stay here…

The reason the girl tried to distance herself from others wasn’t really a way to protect herself.

Rather, it was a desperate struggle to protect people from herself.

An uncontrollable, immense power.

The monster feared the harm it inflicted on others far more than the harm it received from them.

Perhaps it was due to the despair born from loss.

-Anymore, I… don’t want to hurt anyone.

The girl would often toss and turn in the early hours due to guilt.

This personality was evidence of her aforementioned kindness, and the sad conviction of a nineteen-year-old who, despite being a monster, wished to retain a human heart.

I dared not fathom the thorny path that fragile being had walked.

Throughout those tattered years.

How much of herself must the girl have had to give up?

First, she abandoned happiness, then relief, and finally, within the cycle of misfortune, she even abandoned sadness and anger.

At the end of those emotions, lost one by one… only ‘resentment’ towards the world remained.

I would occasionally recall the girl’s demise in the original story.

-Such power… I never even wished for it from the start.

-Why did the stars choose me?

The monster’s truly miserable end.

Despite such a fragile mindset, how much prolonged suffering must the silver-haired girl have endured before ultimately falling into villainy and burning the world?

Whenever such thoughts arose, I would feel pity and and want to take even more care of her.

I was still weak when it came to children.

I put all my effort into helping her recover to a normal life.

It seemed I had given her every possible help.

“It’s a pleasant treatment time today too!”

Among those, the most difficult task was, of course, performing the treatment.

No… could it even be called treatment?

The Star’s Blessing contained within a fragile body.

To prevent that ruthless flow and the starlight’s rampage, I had to periodically suppress her power.

Even this wasn’t perfect, so it was no different from a temporary measure.

“Cough!”

As I concentrated with our hands clasped, suddenly a cough mixed with blood burst from my lips.

With a severe sense of nausea, I wiped away the bloodstains from my mouth.

It was always like this.

Perhaps it was due to overloading my abilities.

While performing the treatment, nosebleeds would suddenly occur, or my internal organs would be damaged as a matter of course, and in severe cases, I would even lose consciousness.

It seemed I was overexerting myself by forcibly scraping together insufficient output.

The existence of a star was truly tricky.

‘Star’s Blessing.’

A single proposition encompassing natural laws.

It was a power that tricky.

Until now, I had been scraping by at the bottom, twisting and deceiving various laws, but among them, starlight had a complex and precarious structure.

If rated by difficulty, it ranks among the top three even based on the present, three years later.

It was also why I couldn’t take reckless action.

A star was like.

gunpowder piled next to a lighter.

If even a slight misinterpretation occurred during the process of deciphering the power, that body would inevitably be destined to shatter amidst the overwhelming paradox.

I, who was connected to the girl, would also find it difficult to remain intact.

My approach had to be cautious.

‘If only I had enough output… I could boldly try to swallow the starlight.’

There was also a way to erase the natural laws themselves with lies, but.

With my output at the time, it was close to impossible.

As I had keenly felt since struggling at the bottom… what always held me back was the lack of output.

How could I explain the helplessness of being unable to execute despite possessing the potential?

To give a simple analogy… it was like knowing the perfect solution to a given problem, but being unable to write down the answer due to a lack of ink in the pen.

The lack of output was a fatal problem to that extent.

“Haa, haa… Is it a failure again this time?”

Repeated failures.

It seemed I would need to research for a while to fill out the answer sheet.

It was perfect timing, as I was greatly concerned about increasing my output.

I realized anew how formidable the original Yuda was.

That guy handled such unstable power freely, and practically played with the world’s natural laws with countless lies, so his proficiency was like a gap that couldn’t be easily narrowed.

I would often swallow a sigh.

“Oh dear, my sleeve is a mess.”

“Are you okay…?”

As I wiped away the dark red stain from my sleeve, the girl, who had been receiving treatment, cautiously asked.

Her gaze, looking at me, held a complex wavering.

Over the past three months.

There had been a slight change in the monster’s reactions as well.

When she first received treatment, she would express repulsion or a strong wariness of contact, but now she subtly seemed to care about me.

It meant she showed concern with every cough and every staggering movement.

It was a reason to believe that our distance had, to some extent, grown closer.

“Blood… it seems like too much came out.”

“I did overdo it a bit.”

“Does it hurt?”

“I don’t feel a thing.”

“Lie.”

“It’s true.”

Kindness was hidden behind the short sentences.

I wore a faint smile.

A smile on the verge of scattering like the mist of a murky dawn.

The quiet silence neatly organized their relationship.

Soon, the girl murmured.

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know how to understand you. I have nothing to give you, but you keep trying to give me something.”

“I think I told you the reason last time.”

“That I’m precious to you… I didn’t want to hear words I couldn’t even understand the meaning of.”

“The value of mercy comes from not seeking its meaning.”

“Even though you were just spitting blood?”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“······Strange person.”

The girl frowned.

As if she couldn’t understand my meaning, only confusion surged in her silver pupils.

I deflected her persistent gaze with a smile.

“Neria-yang.”

A calmly called name.

My hand, gently extended, carefully stroked her silver hair.

The warmth of my touch left a poignant impression.

I whispered softly.

“Everything will be alright.”

Before long, the girl accepted the touch as if accustomed to it.

I made a promise.

“This time, I will protect you.”

The silver-haired monster.

Perhaps the first responsibility my life had taken on since falling into this world.

It was nothing less than shackles binding my heart.

“Huhu… it’s getting late. Shall we tidy up and have dinner?”

“Alright.”

The girl nodded.

Our winter seemed to be passing like that.

But.

Why didn’t I know?

“······It’s not alright at all.”

The murmur that brushed past my ear.

The fact that the girl’s expression was particularly dark that day.

***

The girl was spending an awkward daily life.

A coziness she couldn’t get used to.

The house, her first real home in her life, stayed by her side like a sudden gift.

The peaceful daily life was more beautiful than the ideal she had hoped for.

Every day, no longer in pain.

However.

A sticky anxiety was slowly creeping up within the monster.

A thorny rope hung around her slender neck.

‘Am I allowed to be here?’

Recently, the frequency of her seizures had increased.

Her control over her power was also not complete.

The high fevers that came every night grew more severe, and sometimes uncontrolled flames would leak out.

Confirming her worsening physical condition, the monster had a premonition.

The starlight was becoming violent.

As if it could rampage at any moment.

‘No…’

Although the boy was suppressing her power under the name of treatment, it was merely the effect of temporarily pressing down a tightly coiled spring.

Even so, the boy would spit blood every time, perhaps from overexertion.

Though he comforted her by saying he was fine…

Whenever she saw his pale complexion, she realized what a terrible lie it was.

Because even as his vitality was fading, the boy was smiling.

‘Why.’

Problems that were not fundamentally resolved gnawed at her heart.

The monster had to keep asking questions.

Even though he was covered in blood, the boy’s bright eyes made the whispers beyond her memory repeat.

It was none other than a part of the brainwashing and a scar inflicted by the ruler.

-A child filled with all kinds of malice.

-You were born with the fate of misfortune, and you will surely burn everything around you to ashes.

-Please, do not wish for happiness from the outside world.

That she was a child bound by a curse.

That she shouldn’t have been born.

That since she was chosen to harm others, she should not dare to wish for any happiness, warmth, or future.

As each day passed, the girl was driven further into a mental corner.

Accordingly, the starlight also became rampant.

Her body was not well.

It was clear that a major incident would surely occur if things continued like this.

Suffering from distress, the girl asked.

‘What am I doing?’

She didn’t know when a rampage might occur, yet was it alright to live so thoughtlessly?

She had already committed countless sins with these hands.

How dare a monster like her.

Had she become too intoxicated by this warmth?

Until now, that person had painstakingly stopped it, but could they continue to maintain this peace in the future?

As the starlight’s backflow intensified, she felt her reason waver.

Perhaps.

Everything will burn down again this time?

The girl was deeply uneasy.

-Neria-yang. Everything will be alright.

No.

Nothing was alright.

She was incredibly uneasy.

‘Strange person.’

It was because of you.

Because you existed, she couldn’t erase this anxiety.

The person who found her even in darkness.

The kindness she had received, the warmth that had melted her body, the unbelievable devotion, and even your noble, noble presence.

Despite receiving all those miracles, she feared that she might harm you.

Feared that she might hurt you.

Such a possibility was endlessly terrifying.

-This time, I will protect you.

However.

Even amidst her gloomy anguish, the boy only repeated that it was alright.

Rather, that assertion shattered her heart.

‘It can’t possibly be alright.’

She had yearned for the word ‘stability’ so much, but now, ironically, it was killing the girl.

The reality was more painful than the cruel tortures she had endured until now.

The warmth she had held for the first time…

More than she had imagined.

So much better.

She felt like she might suddenly cry, saying she didn’t want to lose it.

And at the same time, she feared she would break that warmth.

She hated that.

‘I’m scared.’

She was scared of herself.

She hated hurting another person.

Despite having a clear will, the fact that she couldn’t escape her fate in the end, the scene of the world turning white after being consumed by starlight—the girl detested it to the point of disgust.

Such obsession and fear gnawed at the flower’s insides like a parasite.

A mental state as precarious as standing on the edge of a cliff.

Ultimately.

“Pant, pant…!”

The girl ended up running away.

To distance herself from the only warmth she had, to once again confine herself in that terrible, deep basement, her pathetic steps stumbled out of the mansion.

The fierce wind swallowed her silver hair.

Whoosh-!

A biting landscape.

Was even the ending winter throwing stones at the monster?

A blizzard, unforecasted, was raging.

Despite the weather roughly slapping her cheeks, the girl ran across the snow-covered plains.

Perhaps because her tension had eased, the suppressed starlight slowly seeped out.

A hot aura spread around her.

Drip, drip-.

The light falling like dew contained the star’s power.

The girl staggered without a moment to care.

‘Why… am I.’

A question that quickly scattered.

As she stumbled several times on the difficult snowy path, hatred for her fate slowly boiled up within her.

Flames sparked here and there along her tightly clenched fist.

‘Why did it have to be me?’

Such power… I never even wished for it from the start.

Why did the stars choose her?

Why did that damned star have to choose her?

She was born bearing a cursed fate.

She hadn’t even prayed for other wishes; all she desired was the ordinary life of ordinary people.

Even that boring peacefulness, the girl yearned and yearned to have.

But.

‘I didn’t ask for much.’

All that returned from her yearning was a bitter scoff.

Resentment was visible in the surging starlight.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

The girl chewed on that lukewarm warmth and murmured.

It was a single phrase that melted away all her resignation.

“······Maybe I should just die.”

She had lived a long time bearing the curse, but she no longer had the courage to move forward.

Perhaps it was because she had already come to know warmth.

The basement, where she had lived for half her life as if it were her home, felt particularly terrifying.

Rather than returning there, she felt it would be better to tie a knot on her cold life now, while a little warmth still remained.

The girl stopped walking.

‘Yes…’

Let’s die.

Let’s just die.

If she continued to live like this, she would only be buried in darkness again, so she might as well let go now.

Her slender fingers pulled out something she had strapped to her waist.

It was a dagger.

More precisely, a symbol of this life.

The girl gripped the hilt tightly.

-Take it… This is your fate from now on.

-You were born bearing the starlight that will aim at others, so from now on, do not forget that this sword is your negativity.

-You will follow your destined fate and become a beast of terrible hatred.

The ruler had given her the dagger along with those words.

Since the day the brainwashing and torture began, the girl had lived carrying a dagger of negativity.

Clang-.

Now was the moment to end all her life with her own negativity.

As a test, she traced her right cheek.

Perhaps because the starlight was transmitted, a high temperature coated its surface.

Sizzle… As she brought the boiling surface close to her pure white skin, with the sound of flesh cooking, a flower bloomed on her small face.

Her brow furrowed at the burn etched like a brand.

It was a terrible pain.

“Ah… Ugh, sniffle…”

Her groans mixed with sobs.

It was painful, but.

For the liberation that lay beyond it, she did not stop her hand.

With the sharply raised tip, she prayed.

‘Please.’

That at this end, there would be complete peace.

That she might enter an eternal sleep where she would neither inflict nor suffer any more wounds.

Now the girl aimed the sword at her own neck.

Tears falling drip by drip.

This was the end.

The final act for a destiny that had become a curse rather than a blessing.

The demise of the monster who rightly should have died.

The starlight contained within the sword glittered with peculiar brilliance.

Holding a dazzlingly beautiful scene in her hand, the girl was committing the final murder of her life.

The blade bared its teeth.

Just before death finally pierced her fragile breath.

Thud-!

There was a hand blocking the execution.

A palm suddenly appeared before her, holding the dagger while grasping the girl’s swaying body.

Through the swirling blizzard, dull golden hair was visible.

Following that, a call reached her ear.

“So this is where you were, Neria-yang.”

“You…?”

Beyond her open eyelids.

Those half-opened white eyes were gazing at the girl.