Chapter 730 – #156_The Fugitive (5)
#730
One.
Half day.
It was the amount of time it took for Mother to wipe out the men in armor that were terrifying just to look at, the soldiers armed with swords and spears, and the thieves taking advantage of the confusion.
Linnaeus chased after her mother like her ducklings, imprinting the whole sight in her eyes.
“Now I am your teacher. From now on, don’t call me mother, call me teacher.”
After cleaning up her entire area, she returned to the mansion and gathered the bodies of her father, brother, and family members together and burned them, the mother said.
Mother, enemy, and witch, she became Linne’s teacher.
She actually knew
That the culprit that caused all this misery was the work of the woman whom Rinne called her mother.
Why would you do this? How the hell did you do this?
It would have been natural to ask such questions.
But before Linnaeus questioned it, before she resented the atrocities, she chose obedience and conformity.
There could have been several reasons for that.
The strength she showed could be because she was frightened that Linnaeus couldn’t overcome her right away.
It may be because she knew in her young heart that it would be impossible for her to live alone in a harsh world.
It may be because, no matter how heartless she committed, she was the only family she had left for Rinne, and she was her only mother.
Not even awe. Not even love
Not even hate. Not even resentment.
Standing somewhere in the gray area, neither white nor black, Linnaeus suspended her judgment on her feelings for her mentor.
Rinne, who was given her vessel without any preparation, became an apprentice witch.
2.
The previous generation’s discipline was similar to that of a lion.
It refers to the cruel myth that a baby is thrown off a cliff if it can’t climb and climb.
‘Never lose this and keep it. Then I can find you again.’
The master gave a present to Rinne, who had just become an apprentice witch.
It was a necklace with four precious magatama made by processing jade and covering it with gold.
And without time to chew the grief of losing her family, she was abandoned in a hillside with a dagger in one night.
‘Mother, father, older brother….’
Left alone in the woods where the moon did not rise and she could not see an inch in front of her, Rinne shivered alone in the cold and loneliness.
All around her were the cries of wild dogs that had eaten and fattened her corpse.
Linne, who crouched in the hollow of her tree to avoid freezing to death, fiddled with the necklace her mother had given her whenever she became afraid.
Hearing the sound of her cry, she cried and cried, holding her breath, in case the wild beasts flocked to her.
3.
Unlike other apprentice witches who were given her vessel along with her basic magical knowledge, what Rinne was given was very insignificant.
A normal adult male’s level of physical strength, a sturdy reflector that doesn’t need to be eaten.
There is only the curse of deficiency that will ruin Rinne’s life in the future.
Avoiding the beast that learned her taste for human flesh, and waiting for her mother to pick her up while crouching in the dungeon at night, it was a slash-and-burner with a bamboo spear who appeared in front of Rinne.
The first person I see in three days.
Rinne ran out in a flash of color.
She didn’t know why her mother had left her Rinne here alone, but she thought that with the help of that peasant she would be in a better position to wait for her mother.
However, Rinne froze as soon as her eyes met the slash-and-burn people who weaved her armor soaked in her blood and hung it from her back.
‘Hey, this was a windfall.’
He smiled, revealing his few yellow teeth.
A time of war.
It is an era in which the powerless grassroots are engulfed in the flames of the telephone and burn fleetingly.
The peasant who lost his family, his land, and his future in the war willingly chose to become a hunter with a weapon in his skinny hands.
Hunting down defeated and fallen soldiers and stealing their weapons was more productive than cultivating a field that could be plundered at any moment.
In addition, it was also the best way to take revenge by taking it away.
Morality and justice that are preached to those who have nothing to lose are just echoes of emptiness.
In the eyes of the remnant hunters, a young girl wandering the hills alone would be a perfect prey.
It is all the more so if the girl has precious-looking jewelry on her body.
There was no way that Rinne, who knew nothing about worldly affairs, would even know such a situation.
A child who grew up receiving love tends to reveal the heartless side of the world later, and Rinne was no different in that respect.
But her intuition was warning her.
This man, whose whites are dull gray due to malnutrition, would make Linnaeus very dangerous.
‘Stand there!’
Rinne immediately turns her back and runs away, and the slash-and-burn people chase after her.
As soon as the distance did not close, he threw away his loot and chased after Rinne with only a bamboo spear.
Even though her physical abilities improved slightly as she became a reflection body, there was bound to be a difference in speed between Rinne, who grew up as a virgin, and the speed of a mountain slasher.
‘He runs well.’
Driven to the edge of a cliff by a waterfall, Linnaeus couldn’t move and looked back at her.
Nobility that cannot be hidden even in an ostentatious manner.
The appearance of a beauty that one could not dare to wish for while working in the field was enough to charm a farmer who had lost his goodness.
Beasts that have learned the taste of human flesh are not the only ones to eat humans.
The existence that has eaten the most humans since the beginning of history is the same human being.
‘It must be a maid sent by a divine spirit. Thank you God, thank you.’
‘Ha…. Ha….’
‘Now, let’s put down that dangerous thing and go with me.’
Linnaeus approached, drooling, and she remembered the cabal group she had seen in her mansion.
The back of her mother, who condemned their insolence with a sword, follows.
Can I call this ferocious impulse a talent?
Even in her suddenly turned world, Linnaeus knew exactly what to do.
Linnaeus kicked the frozen ground with her dagger in a brittle grip.
‘Hey, hey, hey! You’re coming to be embraced by the West!’
The smile of the slash-and-burn farmers, who laughed as if the girl’s rush was cute, soon turned bloody.
Rinne slashed the chest of the slash-and-burn peasant who did not let go of her bamboo spear until the moment she died, again and again with a dagger.
4.
Strange rumors circulated.
There was a rumor that there was a fox monster in the shape of a girl who ate people in the mountains behind Toho Temple.
They say that the girl has a beauty that is not considered human.
It is said that she wears a necklace of magatama that cannot be exchanged even for a thousand gold pieces around her neck.
Farmers and stragglers cut down every foot in sight, and it is said that the number exceeded one hundred.
A new lord put a bounty on the monster’s head.
By the time the last rumors circulated, farmers in nearby villages, who were not interested in the vicious rumors, could not stand by.
This is because the lord actually offered a huge bounty and offered an unconventional condition that the village that caught the monster would be permanently exempted from paying taxes.
Under the unusual special order to congratulate those who succeeded in capturing or killing them regardless of their status, even nearby bandits joined in and started hunting in earnest.
Hundreds of people formed a huge belt and slowly surrounded the mountain.
Rinne was adapting to hunting day by day.
The experience of just one month was enough to change Rinne’s consciousness.
She also had enough to blossom her talents that were inherent in her.
She has learned how to protect herself from the bitter cold that freezes even her breath.
She has learned that if she uses the darkness and terrain to ambush her, she can take on multiple foes.
I learned what kind of stench a man with cracked skin can emit.
She learned where to poke for a silent kill.
She learned how to deal with a warrior with armor and a big sword.
I learned that even an old woman who handed over a gourd full of water with a benevolent face could get poison in it.
No one gave Rinne her helping hand.
Her mother was right
Life does not forgive weakness.
She had to become a hunter if she was not to become a prey.
Linnaeus said that whenever the sun was up, she crawled into the den of an abandoned beast and hid herself.
At night she went out on her hunt with a longsword she had captured.
She had never formally learned swordsmanship, but it didn’t matter.
Her body taught, her sword taught.
Only a month ago, Linne, who was just a flower in the greenhouse, was led by her cursed talent and brought her sword-eared talent into bloom.
‘Keah!’
‘Yo, it’s a monster!’
‘Catch and hold!’
‘Run away! Run away!’
With a short bob of her long hair that got in the way of her bush, Linnaeus jumped from the tree and gave a lightning-like strike.
Utilizing her small frame, she slashed through the steep, wooded forest at high speed, killing off dozens of people in the search team.
‘…….’
In just 3 minutes, the corpses fell to the floor without being able to properly request support.
Wounded people who were near death from having some of their limbs cut off or having their internal organs blown out.
Linnaeus moved between them, gently thrusting her knife into the throat of the struggling peasant like an overturned insect.
She threw away her longsword, which had worn out its blade, and picked up a weapon that was in good condition, and Rinne headed towards the valley she had noticed in advance with her weary steps.
-Chambang Chambang
The clotted blood on her hands was released like a red thread in the clear, cold water.
A self-portrait that has changed into a completely different person is reflected on the distorted surface of the water.
‘Ooh, ooh!’
Linne, who could not stand it and vomited her blood, headed for her lair with her exhausted body.
Her excessive exercise in extreme conditions without proper rest was wearing her linen.
She received the vessel, but the effect was only a very basic physical strengthening through her magical powers.
Rinne had to go through this hell in the body of a girl.
Lying down in her leaf-strewn crypt, Linnaeus curled up and held her necklace in her hand to keep her body warm.
Her biggest gem is her father.
The two smallest grains are my older brother.
The second largest magok is the mother.
‘Father. Brother. Mother.’
Now, there is no place to retreat physically or mentally.
Rinne was clinging to the happy family days that felt like the distant past, even though it had only been a while ago.
When she danced and fluttered in front of her father, her older brothers smiled happily and her mother hugged her.
Was extremely ordinary.
But the moment I can’t go back now.
Because of the curse of deficiency, I couldn’t feel any emotion even if I recalled it.
Linnaeus chewed on her memories, clinging to them like her paranoid counterpart.
I hate her mother for destroying everything.
Can not understand.
Hateful.
But I love you.
‘Mother. Mother…. Linnaeus is doing just as her mother said…. Please come pick me up quickly….’
She could not hate the precious family she had with Linnaeus at the happiest moment.
Her mother’s warm embrace was waiting for her to embrace Linnaeus once more.
It was two months later that her mother found Rinne again.
Finally she was after Rinne had killed all her pursuers.
