Chapter 61 – Chapter 01: Elf Heavenly Horse
Therefore, even though he rejected death and tried not to die, he was not afraid of death and showed no will to never die.
In a way, he is the type of person who can accept death at any time, and that may be why he can play pranks carefree while dealing with Yeonhwa, who can give him death at any time.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to live. He was able to show his composure because he had achieved the biggest goal he had ever wanted to achieve in his life… , Or something that should be called ’empty’.
“When I found out about that, I became curious about your past.”
… In fact, this wasn’t the only reason for being curious about the past, but let’s move on and the important thing was that Yeonhwa revealed her curiosity about Eugene’s life.
Yeonhwa, who had no interest in others, began to wonder about Eugene’s past.
I wanted to know the trajectory of his life in order to find out why Eugene, who was only in his early 30s, had no regrets, passion, or sincerity in life as if he were a person who had lived his whole life.
“And after hearing about your past directly from your own mouth over the past few days, I was able to be convinced. “You bastard, you told me a lie that wasn’t a lie?”
“… Me? Against a Heavenly Demon who uses a human sword?”
Yeon-hwa opened her mouth with confidence when Yu-jin’s somewhat sad-looking voice questioned whether something could not possibly have happened.
“You said you did a job called exorcism, a job that required you to hunt demons and monsters for a living, in short, to survive, right?”
“I did.”
“That is a lie that is not a lie. “You said it as if you took over your parents’ business because you needed money to live, but isn’t that true?”
To be precise, it is clear that he inherited the profession of exorcism as a living, but an even bigger truth is hidden in that fact.
“In order to survive, I inherited the profession of exorcism. To be precise, the truth you wanted to hide was that if you inherited the profession of exorcism and failed to achieve any goal, you would never be able to live a proper life.”
“… … .”
As Yeonhwa’s words begin to reveal the truth she had been hiding, Eugene cannot hide his bitter expression and has no choice but to remain silent.
“Then what is the goal? In fact, it’s a story so likely that it’s strange that we’re noticing it now. You said “My parents passed away for some reason, so I had no choice but to inherit the profession of exorcism in order to survive.”
… So, why did his parents, who were gifted people who continued their exorcism business, die, leaving only their young son behind? Of course it had been decided.
Exorcism, in the world, is referred to as a monster or a devil depending on the popular perception, but experts are a professional who responds to ‘geomai’, ‘supernormal phenomena’ that are ‘harmful’ to humans, and receive compensation accordingly.
And being a professional is a very dangerous job, or to put it another way, it is a job that can be accompanied by ‘death’.
A yoma born from the collective fear of humans. A different race that has survived since the mythical era. A villain who wields supernatural powers to satisfy his own greed.
All of this was called a strange phenomenon, a monster, and the people who responded to it by exorcising demons were people with magical abilities who made their living exorcism.
And of course, in this process, they often engaged in battles with those responsible.
As a result, those with low abilities or those who tried to perform tasks that were not theirs naturally ended up dying, and Eugene’s parents were one of them.
“What will a child who lost his parents like that think about? If you imagine that fact, you are bound to come up with an approximate answer. You did not inherit the profession of exorcism as a living. “I just inherited the profession of exorcism as a means to get revenge.”
And Yeonhwa says that she only earned the money she needed to live on until she achieved her revenge.
“… Really, you figured it out. “For some reason, I avoided talking about that side of the story.”
“Who do you think is in charge? No matter how much you try to present your past in a plausible way, it is still 100 years too early to deceive the government.”
And the conversation between Eugene, smiling bitterly, and Yeonhwa, full of confidence, proved that Yeonhwa’s guess was true.
“… Ha, yes. As you said, the reason I took over my parents’ profession was so that one day I could kill the damn monster that killed my parents with my own hands.”
As Yeonhwa said, one of her goals was to earn money to live both privately and privately, so the meaning of taking over exorcism as her livelihood, as contained in her answer that she had taken up the profession of exorcism in order to survive, was also not a lie.
However, the meaning that he took on the task of exorcism as a means of revenge because he was not confident that he could live properly if he did not take revenge has a deeper sense of truth.
Well, in the end, either way, what Eugene said about taking over his parents’ job to survive had no choice but to be true.
“I guess so. “If I think about it now, the story itself is contradictory: that a person of your level of ability had no choice but to choose a job that would risk his life just to survive.”
A person with Eugene’s level of ability would have been able to earn enough money to live by means other than combat.
With his superhuman-level physical ability, it was possible to earn the salary of an executive at a large corporation just by doing hard work like loading and unloading.
In that sense, taking over the profession of exorcism as a living was a story that was bound to be contradictory.
“But why did you bother to deceive me?”
“I didn’t really try to deceive you. … “I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“That was to deceive.”
Yeon-hwa said that the fact that she did not want to tell even though she wanted to know was already an attempt to deceive herself, and that it was an absolute prerequisite to tell if she wanted to know.
Eugene suppressed the urge to sigh at the fact that even in this situation, the Heavenly Demon was the absolute standard that placed himself at the center, and continued speaking.
“Everyone has a past they want to hide, and you know that trying to forcefully reveal it is a violation of manners, right?”
“This story does not apply to the person of Heavenly Demon. In that sense, say it properly. Why do you want to hide the past? Are you regretting the past?”
Really, Eugene thinks about how he would like to make his nose bleed in that heavenly horse if he could.
Since the daily sparring had proven that hitting her in the face would only hurt his fist, he wanted to make his nose bleed somehow.
However, since it is impossible in reality, it is called resentment, and that is why Eugene lamented and answered Yeonhwa’s question.
“… I don’t regret the fact that I ran for revenge. “If I were to go back in time, I would probably make the same choice.”
Eugene’s parents were her most beloved family.
She took pride in her work as an exorcist, and that is why she taught Eugene her special abilities from a young age. Nevertheless, she was the kind of parent who would gladly support Eugene’s future if he wanted it without forcing it.
For her Yu-jin, her yokai who took away her own family, her Imae Mangryang, was a yōkai who must die by her own hand no matter what.
And the fastest way to do so was her exorcism business, which is why Eugene jumped into the exorcism industry as a child talent right after her parents died.
“As long as that monster, Lee Ma-mangyang, was alive, I would not even be able to properly control my hatred and it would be impossible for me to live like a human being. In that sense, I had no choice at the time. “In order to secure the future, I have no choice but to kill Lee Mae-mang-ryang with my own hands.”
Imaemangryang is classified as a yoma that has the status of an absolute being, one of the few in the world.
This imaemangyang is one of the monsters that appears so often that it is not easy to even determine its location.
Therefore, in order to avenge her, Eugene chose to inherit the profession of exorcism and become famous through his skills in order to become a talented person who is invited to subjugate Imae Mangyang faster than anyone else.
“With my own strength, if my strength alone is not enough, I can use anything… I would be satisfied if I could kill Lee Ma-mangyang using all the means possible. “At that time, you could say I was literally a vengeful spirit.”
And that was an unavoidable choice for Eugene. Because the resentment that caused him to lose his parents at a young age forced his future path so that he could not choose any other path.
“Then why are you trying to hide it? It looks like revenge has been achieved? “Then it is clearly contradictory to try to hide the past without regretting the fact?”
That’s why he makes the same choice even if he goes back to the past, and when Yeon-hwa asks Yu-jin that he has no regrets about that choice, Yu-jin smiles bitterly and tells her why he doesn’t want to talk about this topic.
“Even if I say I don’t want to talk, you would probably use force to listen, right?”
“Sounds obvious.”
Eugene sighed at Yeonhwa’s confident answer and continued speaking.
“… I don’t regret my choice to live for revenge. “I just regret being immature and not being able to look around even once during that process.”
Eugene spoke with a bitter expression to Yeonhwa, who looked as if she was regretting the past.
“Even if you were running for revenge, couldn’t you have looked around… Wasn’t there a need to use even the people who looked at oneself as just a tool? … Even if I didn’t do that, couldn’t I have achieved my revenge with my own strength? … “I just have those regrets.”
Even that was barely noticeable when everything was over, so it was just a meaningless story now.
It wasn’t until after she had completed her revenge and had enough time to look around her that Eugene realized that there were people who had entered her enclosure before she knew it, and that she had lost all of them.
“That’s why I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t regret setting the goal of revenge, but I don’t want to be reminded of the immature me in the past who just ran to achieve that goal…”
So, if I were to go back to the past now, even if I had to go for revenge, unlike my past, I would at least try to protect the precious relationships that came to me without losing them.
Just like in the past when Eugene originally sent them, he used them as a tool for revenge and lost them, so that he wouldn’t regret it after it was all over.
“This is a story that is difficult for us to sympathize with. “Humans other than the main body are merely parts that make up the world, so I don’t see what’s wrong with treating them as tools.”
But Yeonhwa asked, saying that she could at least understand what Eugene was regretting.
“Then is that why you don’t have regrets about life? “Do you feel empty because you have achieved revenge?”
“No, like I said, I don’t really regret the fact that I set revenge as my goal and got it. “From the beginning, I have a strong feeling that revenge is an ’emotional debt’ that must be repaid in order to settle the past and live in the future.”
The only thing I regret is that I could not have achieved revenge by protecting my people more perfectly, that is, perfect revenge.
“Still, I have regrets… “If you don’t feel the passion you mentioned, it’s not because of revenge, but because you’ve lived a life focused on only one goal: revenge.”
Since he ran with only one goal in mind, after losing that goal, Eugene had no idea what to do.
A sense of accomplishment from having achieved one’s goal and a sense of liberation from finally being free from hatred.
But more than that, she felt at a loss that she didn’t know what to do from now on.
Regrets over what was lost after returning to the past with some leisure time could also be said to have been the reason why Eugene went into seclusion.
But more than that, as a result of running with only one goal in mind, he didn’t know what to do when he achieved it, which is probably the biggest reason why he stayed stuck at home.
“That’s it. My past. It’s just that one vengeful ghost lives without knowing what to do with his life after achieving revenge… “That’s what life is like.”
