Chapter 63
Chapter 63
And when she regained consciousness again, it was a dim evening. She was under a blanket. Nari threw off the blanket and looked back. It was a wide room with nothing in it. It was Mago’s dormitory.
"Ah, damn…!"
At the sharp sting, Nari looked down at her hand. Her hand was covered in blood. Looking closely, she saw a deep wound.
"Ah. Ah… ah…!"
Once she recognized the wound, the pain surged in full. Then the memories began to surface. Right, after she met her father, after she saw her mother’s cult. And then…
She had no memory of how she had returned here afterward.
"What, did I, did I maybe…"
Had she killed someone? Or hit someone? A person? Her head filled with dark thoughts.
‘You went crazy, Shin Bitnari. You finally became a criminal. You finally became a criminal…’
As she repeated that to herself, a black indirect message appeared before her eyes.
[The Lord of Chaos squeezes your shoulder and says you absolutely did not do anything wrong.]
"Lord of Chaos?"
When the familiar black message window appeared, Nari finally broke out of the loop of negative thoughts. As if to comfort her, the Lord of Chaos sent another message.
[The Lord of Chaos explains that those are wounds you got from breaking your mother’s mannequin and wrecking the coffin.]
"Ah…"
[And the Lord of Chaos pats your head, saying that you immediately opened a rift in space to leave and head for Mago’s dormitory, and that even in that moment you acted as rationally as possible.]
Only then did Nari really look at her wounds. There were punctures and smears of blood that looked like she had banged into some large, flat object several times. Relieved at last, Nari lay back down under the blanket.
"I don’t remember anything."
[The Lord of Chaos comforts you, saying that people sometimes forget memories to protect themselves from excessive stress.]
Maybe so. In an extreme stress situation, she had erased everything. It had happened before.
Believing the Lord of Chaos, Nari rolled from her back onto her stomach, staying in the same spot.
"My dad… wasn’t cheating."
Once she got a handle on the situation, Nari’s mind started working fast. He had not cheated. He had joined her mother’s cult.
A father who had loved her mother that much would not suddenly love another woman after her mother died.
Nari thought of her father again.
He insisted her mother was not dead. He believed she would return, since he had prepared a body for her.
So he fell into her mother’s cult, put her mother’s clothes and wig on a mannequin, and squeezed money out of Nari for years…
"Ugh!"
Suddenly nauseous, Nari hunched over. She had eaten nothing all day, so sour yellow stomach acid splattered out at once. Her whole body began to tremble.
‘...What do I do?’
Shaking, she pulled the blanket over her head. The feeling that followed was fear. Black spirit energy seeped out and spread through the room.
When her energy covered the room, the quiet space rang again with the sound of a gong.
"Be quiet!"
Nari clapped both hands over her ears and shouted, but the exquisitely crafted illusion let her hear the scene vividly. With a trembling voice, she managed to speak.
"Help me…"
Tears welled in her eyes. Plop, plop, a few drops fell onto the blanket.
She could not forget the mannequin in her mother’s clothes and her father’s eyes staring at her, sharp and cold. Her happy childhood with him unfurled in painful clarity.
The stark contrast felt like a message that there was no going back.
She did not know where it had all gone wrong. Now even repairing the relationship seemed impossible. Half sobbing, Nari lay prone and began to plead for help in a whisper.
"Help me, someone help me. Mom, Jeong Suho… help me, I am so scared. What should I do? Kang Ihyun… help me. Please. What do I do now? What do I do about my mom and dad? Mom… what do we do?"
But Nari’s room was quiet, and she sobbed for a long time, crying out to no one.
She could not contact Kang Ihyun. They had said calls would be tapped. Even if she contacted Jeong Suho, there was nothing he could do. He could not come down from the north.
Realizing she truly had no one to ask for help, Nari pushed herself up from under the blanket. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and dabbed at her mouth with tissue.
Outside, evening was falling, and the mountain was quiet. Wearing a blank expression, Nari headed for the entryway.
"Nobody will help me."
Nari murmured softly. Right, nobody would help her. Nobody could. Repeating that to herself, she put on her shoes as if in a trance and stepped out of the dorm.
"So I have to handle this myself…"
Muttering that, Nari went down the steps. Black spirit energy was creeping out, inch by inch.
Fine, she had power anyway. She was an S-rank, number one in the world. Even if she killed people and silenced them, nobody would know.
‘Kill them, then tear through their memories and find everyone connected, then go to them one by one, erase their memories, forge the official records, and cancel their resident registration…’
Nari walked outside. In her head, a plan formed step by step for how to deal with them. Unchecked fear and anger were moving her.
"There is no other way… I have to kill them. Kill them all and then I have to die too. Everyone connected to Mom has to disappear… There is no way now. Everything is ruined. So I, who am still whole, will take responsibility…"
Her steps took her toward the path between the dorm and the temple. As she walked along the bamboo grove, bong, the bell rang out.
She thought she had heard this once. The reason for ringing the bell was for the sinners of the hell world.
Sometimes it was struck to help innocent beings achieve Buddhahood, but it also carried the meaning that the jailers who punished the sinners in hell would be praying while the bell rang, and during that time the prisoners could have a brief rest.
At that sound, Nari paused. She had to remember it. Soon, she would hear it too. She prayed the monk would ring the bell for a long time, so that her and her father’s rest would be long.
Nari looked at the memorial stupa that held her memories with her mother and the Arhat.
‘They told me to come when my resolve is set.’
It felt like she would never be able to go. It could not be helped. Her father had to die. And she had to die too.
Everything was ruined beyond repair. If even her dead mother had to be made into that, then it was right for everything to disappear. Maybe she should have followed right after her mother died.
If only her mother and father had never married, if only she had never been born.
Then maybe no one would have been unhappy. From the start, she should not have been born.
As her thoughts spiraled further and further into nonsense, the sinister black spirit energy spread again around her.
At times like this, the Lord of Chaos always kept silent, and so Nari’s thoughts twisted even more extremely.
There was no one to protect her father or Nari. Even the mother who had protected them was gone.
"Ms. Shin Bitnari!"
She was staring blankly at the bell when someone yanked her wrist and spun her around. Nari lifted her head and saw the man.
Nan was breathing hard, wiping the sweat on his brow with the sleeve of his suit. When Nari stared at him blankly, Nan stumbled over his words.
"I apologize for grabbing you so suddenly. I have been calling from the dorm, but you would not turn around. Are you all right?"
"I am fine."
"No. You are not. You look very dangerous right now."
Nari pulled her captured hand back. Her hand slipped free without any strength. Wearing a composed face, she turned away from Nan. He strode quickly and blocked her path.
"Please step aside."
"...Where are you going? What happened? Huh?"
"I must kill my dad."
At Nari’s flat answer, Nan sucked in a breath. He gently took both of Nari’s shoulders and spoke.
"...Will you tell me what happened? We will help you."
Nari glanced up at him. His dark eyes were full of worry. Help. At that word, Nari lowered her head and stared at her shoes, then muttered weakly.
"...Now you want to help?"
"Ms. Nari."
Nari rubbed away the tears with her sleeve. Ever since she came to Busan, she had been surrounded by reasons to cry. Forcing herself to hold it in, she began to speak.
"Why now? Why not when my mom died? You should have helped before my dad fell into a cult. How do you expect me to believe you will help me now!"
Wailing, Nari covered her face with both hands.
Whenever she needed help, there was never anyone beside her.
Help that came with suspiciously perfect timing was a trap. She had seen that with her father. After her mother’s death, traps had been strewn across her family’s path.
She did not know how her father had been living, but she could not tell what was a trap and what was not, so she could not afford to trust anyone lightly.
So Nari did not trust help. She had only barely managed to trust Kang Ihyun.
And now, after she had struggled alone this far, they said they would help. It was far too late.
"...I am sorry. I have no excuse. But we will help you."
"How do I believe that?"
Nari shouted. Nan gripped her shoulders. A chill voice flowed from him.
"You do not have to believe it."
At that tone, Nari looked up.
"I know you do not easily trust people. You don’t have to trust me, but could you postpone killing your father in return?"
"...What?"
Nan’s face was set. He took Nari’s hands carefully.
"If you allow it. I will resolve the problem that torments you now, within twenty-four hours."