So What? (3)

Han Soyeon hated her mother.

She hated that her mother would always throw nearby objects at her whenever she looked her way.She hated being physically abused for no reason.Above all, she hated how her mother would always strangle her and resort to violence, bringing up her father who had run away.

She simply hated everything.

As a young child, Han Soyeon hated pain, hated her mother's resentful eyes, and also hated the hand that would be raised just to beat her.

Yet, even so, Han Soyeon endured it.

Even in that place where there was nothing but things she hated—where she only ever got beaten by her mother—she managed to persevere.

After all, to her as a child, her one and only comfort and source of understanding was her father.

Ever since she was old enough to understand speech, the "runaway father" her mother always talked about would sometimes come to visit when her mother was away.

He would come to see her and comfort her.

Of course, what her father said was nothing more than self-consolation, pouring out the guilt he felt for merely standing by and letting it happen. But even that was enough.

For Han Soyeon, even those brief thirty minutes when she could meet her father were enough.

In those thirty minutes, she felt warmth and happiness.

As a child, she felt comfort from a man who, in truth, was just offering consolation laden with guilt over his own inaction.

She believed he was the only one who truly understood her.

Granted, the words "I'll come again next time" were, for her, perhaps words of despair. But even so, the young Han Soyeon was able to hold on.

Because, at the very least, her father always kept that promise.

But that didn't last long.

When Han Soyeon turned eight, something happened.

Her mother discovered that Han Soyeon had a talent for sorcery, and tried to sell her off somewhere.

Behind her mother, eight sorcerers entered the room, and they tried to forcibly take the cowering Han Soyeon away.

All while laughing broadly, saying, "Since her birth was never even properly reported, she's the perfect material without a thing to worry about."

Naturally, Han Soyeon resisted.

Was it because she heard what those sorcerers were saying?

No.

As a child, Han Soyeon didn't even understand what they were saying.

She simply resisted because that painful home was the only place where she could meet her sole comfort—her father.

That was why she didn't want to leave.

She didn't want to lose the only person who could comfort her in this pain.

She thought, if she wasn't here, her father would never come to see her again.

So she resisted, and so she killed.

She killed her mother, who was pushing her away, telling her to 'get lost already', and, likewise, she killed all of the sorcerers too, who, upon being attacked, tried to use sorcery to kill her.

And then, she saw it.

Her father's face, contorted in a grotesque grimace as he found her.

She heard, from the only person who used to understand her, the word 'monster', a word that denied her existence.

After that day, Han Soyeon was taken in by the Sorcery Institute, recognized for her talent.

However, from that moment on, Han Soyeon refused to use her talent.

Because, in the end, she had lost the one who understood her because of her actions.

And, after being exposed to more information, she came to realize that what she had done could never be forgiven.

She was abandoned by the only person who understood her.

But she still needed someone to understand her.

So she hid herself.

She hid her talent, and she hid her past.

She didn't have the knack for saying things to make people happy, but she tried her best to present herself in a pretty package.

Of course, even so, she never found anyone who understood her.

All she found were people who tormented her, just like her mother did.

But Han Soyeon couldn't just get rid of them.

She was afraid that if she stirred things up again, a new understanding person—someone she was still hoping for—might never appear.

So she simply endured.

If she resorted to violence, she feared she might never meet an understanding person in the future, so she just bit her tongue and endured.

When she entered the Sorcery Institute, she finally found the person she had so desperately hoped for.

Kim Dojun.

When she first met him, he seemed like a strange person.

But as she talked to him more, she realized that he knew more about her than she expected.

She didn't know how he knew.

But he knew.

He knew she had killed her mother.

Even if he didn't know the precise truth, Kim Dojun understood her.

He said it was just an accident.

He said she couldn't help it.

He even said he would have done the same in her position.

... Of course, the truth was, killing her mother was not an accident.

But Kim Dojun's words were so sweet.

He understood that she had killed her own mother.

He not only understood that she was being bullied, but even told her to deal with her bullies herself.

It was so sweet, she thought to herself.

Kim Dojun truly was the one who understood her.

And that was all there was to it.

She had finally found her understanding person.

That liberated everything she had been suppressing and enduring until now.

For the past few months, she had been incredibly happy.

"...."

But now, she was in despair.

She had tried everything she could so that Kim Dojun—her understanding person—wouldn't find out the truth, but in the end, he heard it.

The sin she had committed.

The very mistake that no one in the world could ever understand, that even her only understanding person—her father—had called her a monster for before running away.

She felt empty.

And she was afraid.

She was afraid of how that ever-confident, smiling face would look at her with a grotesquely twisted expression.

She was afraid of the scorn that her sole understanding person would show.

She was so terrified of all the things Kim Dojun might say after understanding her mistake that she trembled.

At that moment.

"So what?"

She heard words flow from Kim Dojun.

Words she thought would be impossible to hear.

####

To be honest, right now, Kim Dojun was secretly relieved.

'When I heard there was a hidden story, I worried it might differ from what I knew.'

Thankfully, Han Soyeon's past wasn't all that different from what Kim Dojun already knew.

'If it had been different, I might've been screwed.'

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"... Did you really understand what I said? That kid killed her own mother—!"

"So what, and what of it?"

He replied to Ji Seung-gon's rant with a calm expression.

"She even killed the sorcerers—!"

"Do I care?"

Kim Dojun spoke with utter composure.

'It's not like there's someone else who could be the boss in Han Soyeon's place, right?'

From the beginning, Kim Dojun didn't really care whether Han Soyeon had killed her mother and the sorcerers, or even if she had hunted down and killed her runaway father afterward.

Sure, he might've thought, "Wow, the average personality of a would-be boss is incredibly low~," but when it came to Han Soyeon, he didn't even think that much.

"And besides, even if I got something a little bit wrong, it's true that her mother was abusive, right?"

"Th-that's—"

"See? I'm right. If I had parents who beat me every other day, threw stuff, and lost their minds, I'd lose it too. Honestly, I think even German suplexing her off the 63 Building would be justified."

Seriously, if you hit, you should be ready to be hit back. Without hesitation, Kim Dojun turned and undid the chains binding Han Soyeon.

Kwadudeuk-!

With the sound of breaking metal, Han Soyeon, freed from her restraints, stared vacantly at Kim Dojun.

As if she had something to say, she opened her mouth a few times before finally speaking.

"Um... You don't hate me?"

Han Soyeon spoke in a strained voice.

As he met her eyes, which were still filled with anxiety, Kim Dojun replied.

"Why should I hate you?"'If you're gone, I'm screwed.'

Without Han Soyeon, all the build-up so far would be for nothing, so Kim Dojun had absolutely no intention of doing such a thing.

Just think of all the time and effort he poured into her...!

'There's no way I'd let that happen.'

With those feelings, Kim Dojun firmly gripped Han Soyeon's shoulder.

"There's nothing wrong with you, in fact, I'd say you've done really well."

He said.

"Ah...."

Han Soyeon stared blankly at Kim Dojun's face.

Her heart pounding in her chest, for a long while.

'Wait, why is she staring so hard at me?'

Made awkward by the way Han Soyeon looked at him, Kim Dojun tried to take her and get out of there.

Puk-!

A sudden, clear sound pierced his thoughts and made Kim Dojun turn his head.

"?"

He saw Ji Seung-gon.

Or more precisely, Ji Seung-gon driving a jet-black dagger into his own heart.

"Keuk—!"

Crimson-black blood spewed from Ji Seung-gon's mouth.

But although a dagger was clearly stabbed into his heart and he should have been suffering, instead he twisted his mouth into a grin.

"Did you really think I'd let you leave this place? There's no way I'd let that happen...!"

Pugeugeuk-!

He then pushed the dagger in all the way.

"I've already lost everything, so there's nothing left for me to lose. Now that it's come to this, I'll offer myself as a sacrifice and kill those who ruined my ritual!"

He burst into mad laughter and formed a hand seal.

Before Kim Dojun could react.

"Kkyaaaaah!!"

Something black began to erupt from Ji Seung-gon's body.

Something indescribable and black, as if it had always been inside him, ripped through his flesh and began devouring it in turn.

Kwadudeudeuk-!

At that, the dismembered bodies of the possessed entities nearby began—

Kagagak-!

—to be sucked toward the black thing forming around the association head's body.

No, on closer inspection, it was not being sucked in, but ground up.

The bodies of the possessed entities disappeared the moment they touched the black thing, as if they were being shredded in a blender, and were sucked into the association head's body.

By the time the association head's scream of agony was completely gone.

By the time all the dismembered remains of the possessed entities had been sucked into that black thing.

Kim Dojun saw a being that seemed to have been forged out of the abyss.

No shade existed.

No shadow, either.

A being that could only be described as something black.

The human-shaped thing's face formed grooves where its eyes would be.

"... What is that?"

Kim Dojun muttered without realizing.

As the black something undulated along the grooves, it looked straight at Kim Dojun.

"Bow, feeble human. I am the 'existence of possibility'."

It spoke.

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