City ​​of Witches 730

## Chapter 730 – #156_The Fugitive (5)

#730

1.
Half a day.
That was the time it took to eliminate the men in terrifying armor, the soldiers armed with swords and spears, and the groups of thieves taking advantage of the chaos, all of whom her mother had dealt with.

Rinne, like a baby duckling, followed her mother, engraving every scene into her memory.

“From now on, I am your teacher. Do not call me mother, but teacher,” her mother said, after returning to the mansion after the purge, and burning the bodies of her father, brother, and the rest of the household.
Her mother, her enemy, and the witch, had become Rinne’s teacher.

She knew, in fact.
That the one who caused all this tragedy was the woman Rinne called mother and followed.

Why this? How could she do this?
It was natural to have these questions.

But before questioning it, before being enraged by the atrocity, Rinne chose obedience and compliance.

There must have been many reasons for that.

It could be because she was intimidated by the strength her mother displayed, which Rinne could not overcome right away.
It could be because her young mind knew that it was impossible to survive alone in this harsh world.
It could also be because, no matter how ruthless she was, her mother was the only family and mother Rinne had left.

Not reverence. Not love.
Not hatred. Not resentment.

Rinne, standing somewhere in the gray area, neither white nor black, reserved judgment on the feelings she had for her teacher.

Without any preparation, Rinne, who had been given a vessel, became a novice witch.

2.
The training method of her predecessor was reminiscent of that of a lion.
The ruthless myth of rolling the cubs off a cliff and abandoning them if they could not climb back up.

‘Never lose this. Only then can I find you again.’

Her teacher gave Rinne, who had just become a novice witch, a gift.

It was a necklace with four expensive jade beads, processed and covered in gold.
And without even having time to dwell on the grief of losing her family, she was abandoned in the mountains with only a dagger after one night.

‘Mother, Father, Brother….’

Left alone in the forest where she could not see an inch ahead because the moon was not up, Rinne trembled with cold and loneliness.
She could hear the howls of wild dogs that had grown fat eating corpses.

To avoid freezing to death, Rinne curled up between tree hollows and touched the necklace her mother had given her whenever she felt afraid.
She cried and cried, holding her breath so that the wild animals would not come after hearing her cries.

3.
Unlike other novice witches who were given basic magical knowledge along with a vessel, what was given to Rinne was insignificant.
Physical strength at the level of an average adult male, a sturdy reflective body that did not need to eat.

Only the curse of deficiency that would ruin Rinne’s life terribly in the future.

Rinne, who was avoiding beasts that had tasted human flesh and curling up in a dugout at night, waiting for her mother to come for her, was confronted by a peasant with a spear.

The first person she had encountered in three days.
Rinne ran towards him with a bright face.

She did not know why her mother had left her alone here, but she thought that if she received help from that farmer, she would be able to wait for her mother in a slightly better situation.

However, the moment Rinne made eye contact with the peasant, who had woven blood-soaked armor and hung it on his back, she froze.

‘Hey, I hit the jackpot.’

He grinned, revealing his few remaining yellow teeth.

It was the era of war.
The powerless commoners were swept up in the flames of war and burned in vain.

The farmer, who had lost his family, land, and future due to the war, willingly chose to take up arms in his bony hands and become a remnant hunter.

Hunting down the defeated and straggling soldiers and taking their weapons was more productive than cultivating a field that could be looted at any time.
Moreover, it was the best way for the robbed to take revenge by robbing.

Morality and justice preached to those who had nothing to lose were just empty echoes.

To the remnant hunter, a young girl wandering alone in the mountains was nothing more than good prey.
Especially if that girl was wearing what looked like precious jewelry.

There was no way Rinne, who knew nothing about the world, would know such circumstances.
The more a child is raised with love, the later they discover the ruthless side of the world, and Rinne was no different in that regard.

But her intuition was warning her.
That man, whose whites of his eyes were a murky gray due to malnutrition, was someone who would put Rinne in great danger.

‘Stop right there!’

Rinne immediately turned and ran away, and the peasant chased after her.
As the distance did not narrow easily, he threw away even his spoils and chased after Rinne with only a spear.

Even if her physical abilities had been slightly enhanced by becoming a reflective body, there was bound to be a difference in speed between Rinne, who had grown up as a maiden in her room, and the peasant who had been rummaging through the mountains.

‘You’re running pretty well.’

Rinne, cornered at the edge of a cliff where a waterfall was pouring down, could not go forward or backward and looked back.

A nobility that could not be hidden even in her shabby appearance.
The appearance of a beauty that he could not have dared to hope for when he was working in the fields was enough to bewitch the farmer who had lost his goodness.

It was not only beasts that had tasted human flesh that ate humans.
Since the beginning of time, the entity that had eaten the most humans was other humans.

‘It must be a bride sent by the spirits. Thank you, spirits, thank you.’
‘Haa…. haa….’
‘Now, put down that dangerous thing and come with me.’

Rinne was reminded of the gang she had seen at the mansion from his drooling appearance.
The image of her mother, who had punished their recklessness with a single sword, followed after that.

Could this violent impulse be called a talent?
Even in this suddenly changed world, Rinne knew exactly what to do.

Rinne gripped the dagger as if it would break and kicked off the frozen ground.

‘You little thing! You’re coming to embrace your husband!’

The peasant’s smile, as if the girl’s charge was cute, was soon stained with blood.
Rinne stabbed the peasant’s chest with the dagger again and again, until the moment he died, he did not let go of his spear.

4.
A strange rumor spread.
That a fox monster in the form of a girl was eating people in the mountains behind the local temple.

The girl had a beauty that was not considered human.
She wore a jade necklace around her neck that could not be exchanged for a thousand gold pieces.
She cut down farmers and straggling warriors as soon as she saw them, and the number was well over a hundred.
The new lord had put a bounty on the monster’s head.

By the time the last rumor spread, even the farmers in the nearby villages, who had not been interested in the ominous rumors, could no longer sit idly by.

This was because the lord had actually offered a huge bounty and had offered the extraordinary condition of permanently exempting the village that captured the monster from taxes.

Under the unprecedented special order to reward those who succeeded in capturing or killing the monster, regardless of their status, even nearby thieves joined in and began a full-scale hunt.

As hundreds of people formed a huge belt and slowly surrounded the mountains, Rinne was adapting to the hunt day by day.

The experience of just one month was enough to change Rinne’s consciousness.
It was also enough to awaken the talent that was inherent in her.

She learned how to protect herself from the extreme cold that froze even her breath.
She learned that if she used the darkness and the terrain to ambush, she could deal with a large number of enemies.
She learned what kind of stench a human with cracked skin could emit.

She learned where to stab to kill silently.
She learned how to deal with warriors with armor and large swords.
She learned that even an old woman with a kind face who offered a gourd of water could put poison in it.

No one offered Rinne a helping hand.

Her mother was right.
Life does not forgive weakness.

If she did not want to become prey, she had to become a hunter.

Rinne would crawl into abandoned animal burrows to hide when the sun was up.
When night fell, she would go out hunting with a long sword she had taken.

She had never formally learned swordsmanship, but it did not matter.

Her body taught her, and her sword taught her.
Rinne, who was just a greenhouse flower a month ago, was led by her cursed talent and awakened the talent of a sword demon.

‘Agh!’
‘It’s, it’s a monster!’
‘Catch her, catch her!’
‘Run away! Run away!’

Rinne, who had cut off her long hair that had been getting in the way in the bushes, jumped down from a tree and swung a lightning-like flash.
Using her small stature, she quickly traversed the steep and wooded forest, slaughtering all the members of the search party consisting of a dozen people.

‘…….’

Corpses that had fallen to the ground in just three minutes without even being able to make a proper request for support.
Injured people with some of their limbs cut off or their internal organs protruding, on the verge of death.
Rinne moved through them and gently pushed her knife into the throats of the farmers who were still struggling like overturned bugs.

Rinne, abandoning the long sword that had lost its edge and picking up a weapon in good condition, headed towards the valley she had been eyeing with tired steps.

-Splash, splash

The blood that had been stuck to her hands was released like a red thread into the cold, clear water.
On the distorted surface of the water, a self-portrait of herself, who had changed into a completely different person, was reflected.

‘Ugh, ugh!’

Rinne, unable to hold back, vomited and dragged her tired body towards her hiding place.

Excessive exercise in extreme conditions without proper rest was wearing Rinne down.
She had received a vessel, but its effect was only a very basic physical enhancement through magic.
Rinne had to go through this hell with the body of a girl.

Rinne, lying down in a dugout filled with fallen leaves, curled up to keep warm and held the necklace in her hand.

The largest jade bead was her father.
The two smallest jade beads were her brothers.
The second largest jade bead was her mother.

‘Father. Brothers. Mother.’

Now, when she had nowhere to retreat, both physically and mentally.
What Rinne clung to was the days of her close-knit family, which felt like a distant past even though it had only been a short time ago.

When she danced and played in front of her father, her brothers would smile contentedly, and her mother would hug her.
It was extremely ordinary.
But now, it was a moment that she could no longer return to.

Because of the curse of deficiency, she could not feel any emotion even if she reminisced.
But Rinne obsessively replayed her memories as if she were a paranoid patient.

She hated her mother, who had destroyed everything.
She could not understand.
She was hateful.

But she loved her.

‘Mother. Mother…. Rinne is doing well as you said…. Please come and get me soon….’

She could not hate her precious family, with whom she had been happy.
She was waiting for her mother’s warm embrace to hold her gently once again.

It was two months later that her mother found Rinne again.
It was after Rinne had finally killed all the pursuers.