Chapter 31: In the End, It Was a Wise Decision
by Diswa“It’s sudden, but I want to finish telling you about my parents, which I vaguely glossed over last time.
No, I’ve already explained my father’s history in detail before, so today I want to tell you my mother’s story. I hope you’ll bear with me even if it’s a little long.
My mother was from a southern tribe. To be more precise, she was from the ‘Paura tribe,’ but that’s not very important. However, it would be good to know that the jungle area where the Paura tribe resides is included in the region ruled by the Poison Valley.
Like my father, my mother does not know her parents’ faces. It’s because she was dragged to the Poison Valley in her childhood, which she doesn’t even remember, and had to serve as a test subject. She also learned that she was from the Paura tribe there. It was because the older children who could communicate with her called themselves the Paura tribe.
There were numerous test subjects in the Poison Valley besides my mother.
The vast majority were children selected from the tribes scattered within the territory of the Poison Valley. Those children had something in common. It was that they were resistant to poison. The Poison Valley had selected only the children who had passed the primary test and brought them to their base.
The children, who were as young as three or four and as old as six or seven, lived in a group in a field called the ‘Poison Field.’ According to my mother’s memory, there were over a thousand of them. However, that number decreased rapidly. It was because the children who could not withstand the poison injected into them at each stage of the ‘Poison Gate’ died.
About a year after my mother entered the Poison Valley, there were only about ninety children left. A year later, their number also decreased by a seventh.
When fourteen were left, my mother was separated from the other survivors. After that, she never saw them again, so she doesn’t know if they are alive or dead.
Anyway, my mother, who was left alone, received intensive care in a closed area. For reference, the expression ‘intensive care’ came from those who were in charge of my mother. It might give the impression that some benefit was given, but in reality, it was a time when she was forced to endure more severe pain than ever before.
Although I said ‘time,’ my mother did not know the passage of time. It was because the place she was in was a secret room where the sun did not shine, and she had to lie like a corpse, enduring the pain of her insides rotting, for most of the time.
But my mother grew up.
One day, she realized that she was no longer a child. It was because she had noticed that her build had become similar to those who were ‘intensively managing’ her. Around that time, someone came to see my mother. It was a dwarf old man, and he called my mother a ‘treasure.’
My mother knew that he was a special person. It was because those who managed her were very afraid of that old man. That’s right. That old man was the World-Destroying Poison Lord, who was the head of the Poison Valley. They say he is now called the Poison King.”
Jin So-wol, who had been listening to my story with bated breath, let out a cry of admiration.
“Ah!”
A sense of anticipation flickered in her eyes as she looked at me, as if she had a premonition of something. My heart wavered. But since I couldn’t change my decision now, I composed myself.
“The Poison King taught my mother the secret art of the heart. He also personally taught her the secret method of circulating her internal energy in reverse and controlling her blood flow at will. Just as martial artists accumulate internal energy in their dantian, my mother began to condense the poison energy in her body into her bones.
It was not an easy process. My mother had to endure the extreme pain of her flesh burning and her bones melting every time she meditated. The Poison King comforted my mother, saying that she would soon be freed from the pain. Do you know what that means?”
It was a very easy problem for Jin So-wol. She answered with a rhetorical question.
“The Poison King was planning to extract the poison energy that resided in your mother’s bones?”
“That’s right. My mother heard that fact from one of the people who were managing her. He called my mother a ‘gift from God.’ He said that not only her body, which had endured hundreds of kinds of extreme poisons, but also her mental strength, which had not lost its reason despite the extreme pain of over ten years, was a miracle in itself, and he urged my mother to run away. He said that when my mother’s poison essence was completed and the Poison King performed the great ritual, my mother would become a guest of the undying.
My mother decided to follow his advice. But to do that, she first had to learn how to move. It was because she had forgotten how to move her body after lying on a stone bed like a corpse for so long.
Whenever the managers were absent, my mother would fidget diligently like a newborn baby. And before long, she was able to get off the stone bed and stand up. She also learned to walk again. She said that she was filled with a sense of exhilaration when she walked back and forth in the small secret room, even though she was anxious that the managers might come in. Then, she was caught by a manager twice. Fortunately, both times it was the one who had advised her to run away, so she was able to be safe.”
Jin So-wol let out a sigh of relief. Then, I remembered how I had swept my chest when I had heard that story from my mother.
The woman, who had long been called only Number Eight without knowing her real name, knew that the time had come.
In fact, it was not the time she had wanted. Although she was not yet ready, it was a situation where she had no choice but to carry out her escape. It was because one day, the ‘master,’ who had come to the secret room alone, had instructed her to memorize the key points of the ‘great ritual’ and then to prepare her insides according to those key points.
The master gave her a deadline of twelve watches. Although she didn’t know how long twelve watches was, Number Eight knew that she had no time to spare.
After the master left the secret room, Number Eight went down from the stone bed. Then, she went to the entrance and checked for any presence in the passage. After confirming that she could not hear the footsteps of the managers, Number Eight walked stealthily like a thief cat. The passage, which seemed to have no end, suddenly showed a wide space.
Number Eight, who was on the verge of falling into a state of panic, barely managed to recall the escape route that the one who had advised her to escape had told her. Dragging her trembling legs, Number Eight moved along the left edge of the underground plaza and entered the third cave she encountered. After advancing about ten paces, a fork in the road appeared. Number Eight chose the right.
After climbing the gently sloping road for a long time, a sudden light greeted her. It was the moonlight. Tears flowed for no reason.
After escaping the valley surrounded by strange rocks and bizarre stones, Number Eight entered a dense forest. And she advanced blindly. Since she had no destination, setting a direction was meaningless. Her only goal was to get as far away from her ‘home’ as possible.
Number Eight, who had been pushing through the bushes in a daze, froze at some point. It was because of two lights that were shining in the darkness. It was the eyes of a leopard that was looking down at her from a tree branch.
Number Eight, who had been frozen with fear, unconsciously stretched out her hand toward the beast that had jumped down at her. It was an instinctive movement. And it saved her.
Number Eight was bewildered when the leopard that had rushed at her turned into pieces of flesh with a ‘bang’ sound. Then, she was startled when she realized that something that had been emitted from her palm had crushed the leopard.
That was not the only thing Number Eight had noticed. Number Eight, who had realized that she had been operating the Mindless Heart Art that she had learned from her ‘master’ without realizing it since she had sensed the danger lurking on the tree branch, became extremely excited.
“The excitement must have been excessive. My mother, who had learned that meditation gave her a special power, forgot the Poison King’s warning and operated the ‘Super-Conquering Divine Art,’ which she was only supposed to perform during the great ritual. Then, her body floated into the air and she was able to fly like a bird.
My mother, who was flying over the jungle at a tremendous speed, lost control of her body at some point and fell to the ground. And a group of strange men approached the place where my mother had fallen a moment later. They were the third reconnaissance team of the Orthodox Alliance’s mercenary corps. Among them was my father.”
Jin So-wol, who had been silent for a while, opened her mouth.
“It was your first meeting. It’s somewhat dramatic. My heart is pounding for no reason.”
I had a sneer. The reality was tragic. It was because my father had had to fight an unscheduled desperate battle with his comrades.
My mother was naked at the time.
Although her appearance was far from being a beauty, since it was a night where it was difficult to distinguish things and my mother had a voluptuous body, the mercenaries, except for my father, immediately felt lust. My father stepped forward and stopped his comrades who were arguing over the order to rape my mother.
My father’s action was not so much an expression of his sense of justice as it was a result of the wound engraved in his past. My father, who was born with an unusually pretty appearance, had been plagued by wicked gazes and dirty hands since his childhood. He had had terrible experiences several times.
After learning martial arts, my father had mercilessly punished those who had tried to rape him. And he extremely hated and detested those who tried to forcibly rape others, regardless of their gender.
Coincidentally, at that time, my father had just moved from the fourth squad to the third squad. It was because the comrades of the fourth squad, with whom he had shared joys and sorrows for eight months, had been annihilated in the previous battle, and only my father had survived. Therefore, the mercenaries of the third squad knew nothing about my father. It was a long time later that my father gained fame with the nickname ‘Undying Ghost.’
To make a long story short, the mercenaries of the third squad did not understand my father’s action and did not tolerate it. My father fought against them, who were trying to eliminate him. And he killed them all.
It was a result that would have made those who knew the situation’s eyes pop out. It was because my father’s martial power was objectively not stronger than any of the seven mercenaries who had attacked him in a group. Nevertheless, my father, who was considered the weakest, had sent them all to the road to hell.
Although she was in a state of paralysis, since she had not lost consciousness, my mother had watched the whole process clearly. And to borrow her expression, she had fallen head over heels for the ‘dazzlingly beautiful warrior.’
I responded bluntly to Jin So-wol, whose heart was pounding at my parents’ dramatic meeting.
“Your impression will change if you know the chaos that happened afterwards.”
As I told her the secret story of that day, Jin So-wol frowned.
“Ah… so that’s what happened. But my feeling is the same. No, my heart is pounding even more. Your father was a really cool person, Young Master Jeon. It’s only natural that your mother fell for him. Any woman would have lost her heart.”
“…”
“So what happened?”
“…Although he had dealt with them, my father also suffered serious injuries that left him unable to move. My mother, whose paralysis had worn off, held my father and flew away again. For some reason, she felt that she shouldn’t stay there. In the end, it was a wise decision.
I learned later that the Orthodox Alliance and the Poison Valley had fought an all-out war at dawn that day. The World-Destroying Poison Lord, rather than trying to face the masters of the Orthodox Alliance who had surrounded the Poison Valley and were on a mission to annihilate it, had been running around like a madman. But he hadn’t run away either. It was because he hadn’t left the jungle for a long time even after the sun had risen.”
“He was looking for the ‘treasure’ that had disappeared.”
“Although I didn’t confirm it with the person himself, my parents, who heard that later, were sure that was the case.”
“That’s amazing. To think that there was such a backstory to the great victory of the Orthodox Alliance. The World-Destroying Poison Lord was a super strong man who was evaluated as being the closest to the number one person in the world at the time. If he had actively resisted, the damage to the Orthodox Alliance would have been great. But he didn’t lift a finger even when his subordinates were dying and just wandered through the forest like a madman. There were all sorts of speculations about him, but no one knew the exact reason, and now I see it was because of your mother, Young Master Jeon.”
I agreed with Jin So-wol’s judgment. In fact, this was a conclusion my parents had reached a long time ago.
As I fell silent, lost in thought, reminiscing about my mother, Jin So-wol went ahead with the story.
“You said earlier that your father left the battlefield because of the poison that had seeped into his bones, right? I had guessed that it was the aftereffect of the poisoning he had suffered during the war, but was it perhaps related to your mother, Young Master Jeon?”
A deep sense of anticipation was embedded in Jin So-wol’s voice as she asked the question and in her gaze as she stared at me.
[End of Chapter]
0 Comments