Life underground was so terrible it was hard to describe.
I went in with a heart full of penitence, prepared for the pain.
The meals served twice a day were bitter, sour, and stank to high heaven.
I had no time for leisure, only to recover from the fatigue of prayers.
Had I not met Mia earlier, I might have used this power bestowed by the gods for something dreadful.
Mia… my friend, my benefactor, and my hope.
So, I must keep my promise to her at all costs.
I must survive.
For the sake of capturing Mia, who is trapped within me, until the very end.
Munch, munch—
A girl who had been sound asleep jolted awake as blue hair entered her mouth.
With the dawn arriving and the remnants of sleep fading, the horrifying dream she had repressed in her subconscious resurfaced.
“Wake up! It’s prayer time!”
“Oh! Holy one, over here! Please bless us, faithful servants!”
Memories flooded back of being dragged around aimlessly by the followers, blood and flesh spilling everywhere, devoid of limbs.
“I-I’m awake!”
In a frantic rush, the girl sprang up from bed.
Her eyes still barely open from sleep, she was—
“Ugh…?!”
Trapped in her blankets like a caterpillar, she lost her balance and tumbled over.
Still in a half-dream, she felt no pain.
Instead, she nodded off, her head bobbing as she lay there.
So sleepy.
She just wanted to sleep a little longer.
No more wishes should be made.
After all, this is Mia’s body…
“Umm…”
On the border between dream and reality, the girl began to slip back into her dreams.
“Gasp… huh…”
“What a cutie…”
A strange voice echoed from a short distance away.
Tweet, tweet! Chirp!
As if urging her to wake up, something jumped up and down over the girl’s head.
Ultimately, the girl, pushed by this pressure, opened her eyes slowly.
“Ah…?”
A yawn escaped her lips, but it was cut off quickly.
She discovered a massive something standing tall across from her.
A gigantic square cloth blended with fiery red and black.
It was so large it looked like it had been made out of fabric for a house.
“Uh… huh?”
Wasn’t there something like that yesterday?
Turning her eyes with a creak, she saw two women sitting right next to her, staring intently.
For some reason, they were grinning broadly, lifting one hand to wave.
“…Eek!”
This is bad!
I, I have broken into someone’s home while I was sleeping!
Did the sparrows carry me here?!
Or did I roll down the slope?!
The girl urgently scrambled to her feet.
“Hey! If you get up too fast…!”
And once again, still wrapped in blankets, she collapsed sideways.
With such a small head and a light body, it was a sheer stroke of luck her head didn’t hit the ground.
“W-we’re not weirdos!”
“Hey, here’s a hot dog, want to eat this?”
The girl’s complexion went pale.
She was shaking so much with fear that the blanket wrapping around her trembled too.
Clearly, she looked stunned and cautious as she faced the two women.
“Here! Johnsonville hot dogs! Do you like mustard? Or ketchup?”
“Sis! Kids these days don’t like that stuff! It’s spicy chicken sauce!”
The sisters hurriedly skewered a hot dog with a fork and waved it.
“B-but I was told not to eat things given by strangers…”
As if repelled, the girl retreated even further away.
It was absolutely adorable how she timidly hid behind her blanket, making them want to hug her.
Yet the sisters, busy fighting monsters, surely had no experience dealing with children.
After failing to win her over with food, they attempted the second plan immediately.
“Hey! You should listen to adults. If we’re bothering you, where’s your guardian? We can take you to them…?”
The moment the word “guardian” slipped out, the girl discarded her blanket and took off running.
She was puffing and panting loudly, making a ragged escape despite her best efforts.
“…Shouldn’t we catch her?”
“Yeah. The way she’s running indicates she may have run away from home.”
Initially, the sisters also stood up to chase the girl.
With their S-rank and A-rank awakened abilities, catching a single child would be a piece of cake—they thought.
However, just as the sisters were about to pick up speed and catch up to the girl—
“Don’t follow me!”
The girl’s piercing shout revealed that her previous fear had been nothing but an act, striking a chilling fear even into the sisters, who were normally a match for any monster.
In fact, the speed of the fleeing girl began to increase.
“I-I’m going to lose her!”
“I’ll catch up!”
The younger sister, an S-rank Awakened, pulled herself together and really gunned it.
Whoosh—!
She was running at such an incredible speed that the thick trees seemed to shrink down to toothpicks.
They thought she could readily catch up, but the gap between them and the girl stubbornly refused to close.
The way she was bounding through the trees, jumping across the ground, and deftly stepping on branches was enough to make one question if she was even human.
Eventually…
“Hah… if we keep chasing her, we’re just going to get ourselves hurt.”
It was a hassle to run through a dense area like this, even for her.
And she was just a kid—if she crashed at that speed, at least one bone would surely break.
In the worst-case scenario, she might even die without a chance to react.
In the end, the younger sister hung her head in defeat and trudged back towards the tent like a dejected soldier.
“What’s wrong? Why are you coming back alone?”
“…I guess the kid was a proper Awakened. I can’t chase her without worrying about her getting hurt.”
The speed was such that anyone else wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
At that moment, the sisters finally shook themselves out of the daze they had fallen into while mesmerized by the girl’s appearance, gulping down their drinks to regain focus.
They realized all too late that they’d overreacted.
“Let’s leave her alone. If she’s an Awakened, she can play in the mountains by herself. What if we get labeled as kidnappers?”
“Right! It’s not like she has dirty skin or messy hair!”
“Yeah. The blanket looked brand new, and she seemed accustomed to nature from her wanderings. She must come from a good family, so it makes sense she could hike up here alone.”
Even in these turbulent times, the villas of the wealthy are everywhere.
The sisters were no different.
They didn’t have the luxury to vacation far away, so they were content with hiking Bukhansan.
“Exactly! She’s definitely a well-off kid, so Johnsonville hot dogs probably don’t even catch her eye.”
“…Am I only your sister at times like this?”
As they shifted their focus back to the girl simultaneously, the sisters exchanged glances, as if they had made a pact.
Though their pupils were identical in color, their expressions were wholly different.
“Milk monster.”
“Gum milk.”
“Eeeek!!”
And so the sisters launched into yet another of their usual meaningless squabbles.
They couldn’t have imagined that the girl was one who had fled, without parents or a home.
* * *
The sweltering summer had passed, and autumn was creeping in.
Bukhansan’s damp air was now painted in shades of yellow.
The streams flowing by had become cold enough that one would hesitate to dip their feet in.
And atop a giant rock, overlooking the valley—
“You crazy! You’re going to die! Please, just go back to the city!”
“…No. If you’re caught, Mia, you’ll be in danger.”
A raggedy stick lay limply on the ground.
The girl’s appearance had visibly changed after spending two months living like a beggar in Bukhansan.
“No! Stop worrying about me! This is your body now!”
“But you’ve kept me from even showering…”
Shouting and bickering.
Though Mia’s loud voice echoed in the vicinity, the girl seemed unfazed.
She simply didn’t have the energy for such arguments.
Above all, Mia’s voice was so nice that even her anger sounded pleasant to the ears.
“What… what if I’m embarrassed!”
“Yeah, I totally get it…. So no complaints, okay? Let’s just live here together….”
She felt dizzy.
She did eat some bread left behind by hikers in the morning, but it clearly wasn’t enough.
She would have to drink plenty of stream water.
“Really?! We just aren’t getting through to you! Seriously!”
Even as Mia continued her relentless nagging, the girl remained unfazed.
Through their experiences, Mia also realized that she knew nothing of survival.
When Mia got frantic and asked why the girl kept collapsing, holding up a poisonous mushroom to show her—
“Eating spoiled stuff is why!”
She had said so, but it took three times of fainting after eating the same mushroom for her to grasp it.
Ah.
So this white mushroom makes you sick if you eat it.
The girl, who had been trapped underground, found everything to be unfamiliar.
There were the eerie sounds she heard while wandering the mountains, the shriek of “squee!” that sent shivers down her spine. Why did mountains collapse when it rained? And why did adults throw things at her whenever they saw her?
Unlike her previous helplessness, unable to move with her limbs severed, now, even with her body intact, she felt powerless.
Ultimately, there was only one thing that changed from her time underground: she was occasionally accompanied by Mia, who appeared at random.
In the end, this world felt like a hell for someone like her, who couldn’t atone for her sins.
Splash!
“Hey! Get a grip!!”
As the girl bowed her head to drink from the valley, she suddenly lost her strength and began to sink into the water.
The water was chilling enough to make anyone shudder.
Yet, that frigid water had a heat that could warm her.
“Gah… cough…!”
Her consciousness was fading.
Though she struggled in panic, it was impossible for her frail body to fight against the currents.
Thud!
As she was swept downstream, she must have hit something along the way.
With blood bubbling up from her head, she no longer had the strength to thrash about.
And…
“Master, the contamination level is alarming. We may need to consider relocating the temple…”
Among a group of people climbing up the valley, an old man rushed towards the water and extended a long staff.
“Little one! Grab this!”
It was a voice that reached her, even as her consciousness was muddled.
The girl—or rather, Mia—wouldn’t let this opportunity slip by.
She focused her recovery energy into her lungs and arms and clutched the staff with all her might.
“Master Ja-myung! The child!”
“Hold tight!”
The others who had come with the old man hurried to follow, but he focused all his attention on saving the girl dangling from the staff.
“Quit gawking and get the girl out of there!”
Thus, the girl was pulled ashore by the hands of the monks.
Thud, thud, the pebbled ground quickly became awash with water from how soaked she was.
Not just water, either.
It looked like she must have sustained a serious injury to her head, as the water was turning a pink hue from mixing with her blood.
“Master! The child is burning up!”
Her labored breaths, colorful and labored, resembled a candle about to be snuffed out.
“Someone go fetch winter clothes! And boil up some hot soup!”
“Right!”
It was a blessing that the old man was there with them.
He was one of the most renowned religious Awakened in the country, Master Ja-myung.
His abilities allowed him to heal using the essence of nature.
Quickening his steps, Master Ja-myung placed his wrinkled hand on the girl’s forehead.
At that moment, a memory of something that happened months ago resurfaced.
The old man’s eyes widened as he realized the child’s appearance looked familiar.
She seemed dirtier than before, as if she hadn’t washed properly.
Yet that was unmistakable—her hair, the color of the river, and her delicate features.
“Aah… this was fate, after all…. My negligence has caused you pain…”
The fact that the child he thought was just a girl from a nearby village had shown up in this state meant only one thing.
She had survived all alone without anyone’s protection, never having left this mountain.
“Little one, come with me. Let’s go eat something delicious and regain your strength.”
His heart ached with guilt.
However, Master Ja-myung knew the child had yet to lose consciousness.
As he infused his energy into her body, he offered a warm smile.
With a dirty appearance, he gently ruffled her hair, just like he would his own child.
‘…Just this once, I’ll let it slide, old man.’
This time, even Mia closed her eyes in silence.
After the child, who had been gasping for breath, fully shut her eyes—
“…I think we should head back for today.”
Only then did Master Ja-myung shed a single tear as he cradled her in his arms.
“Master! We’ll take her!”
“This is my duty, you all should prepare a resting place for her.”
And so, the girl was taken to the temple alongside the monk.
It had been about two months since she escaped from the basement.
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