City ​​of Witches 731

Chapter 731 – #156_Fugitive(6)

#731

1.
Rinne, who had turned Toho Temple into a battlefield, had cut down dozens of government soldiers and even warrior monks.

Rinne, who had crawled out of hell, looked miserable.
Her body, which had only been roughly washed in the valley for a long time, reeked of animal stench, and her tattered clothes were full of large and small wounds.

But the real problem wasn’t that.
She had fought in the middle of a temple with nowhere to run, her body exhausted, and a long spear blade had pierced her thigh and shoulder.

Rinne leaned against a wooden pillar, trying to catch her ragged breath, but it showed no signs of calming down.

The Buddha statue in her blurry vision lamented the sight of the Geumdang Hall, which had been turned into a slaughterhouse.

‘…….’

Her body was cooling down.
The cold, which made her teeth chatter as if they would break, seemed to freeze her to the bone.

Rinne habitually clutched her necklace.

At this point, Rinne already knew.
Her mother had said that she could find Rinne with this necklace.
But that wouldn’t be the case.

It was probably just a device to make Rinne a more appetizing prey for the remnant hunters.

Even so, the reason she grabbed it in the last moment before closing her eyes was because the time she spent longing for her family was her only salvation.

Was it thanks to that?
She couldn’t feel the cold.
Her body, which had cooled down from the large loss of blood, slowly warmed up, and she felt a sense of comfort.

-Thud, thud

Then, someone entered the Geumdang Hall where the Buddha statue was enshrined.
The shadow cast over Rinne, who barely raised her head, was her mother.

Even in the overwhelming emotion that made her heart pound, Rinne didn’t cry.
No, she couldn’t cry.
It was as if she had forgotten how to cry.

‘Mother….’

Her mother, who had crouched down, pulled out the spear that was broken and stuck in her thigh.
Immediately after enduring it without even screaming, Rinne’s body had surprisingly finished recovering.

Rinne tried to say something.
But the moment she saw her mother’s eyes, whom she had missed so much, she couldn’t say anything.

Because the only emotion engraved in those eyes was deep disappointment.

‘Just this much….’

The one word of praise she had been hoping for was replaced by a short sigh.
Instead of hugging her warmly, she didn’t even help Rinne, who didn’t have the strength to stand on her own, to get up.

She knew.
The mother figure that Rinne was attached to was just an illusion that her teacher had created.
Longing for her past mother was no different from feeling nostalgia while looking at someone else’s family photos.

Her teacher stood there, contemplating.
Rinne could tell that her hand was reaching for her waist, ready to draw her sword at any moment.

Like a craftsman who breaks a piece of pottery with a hammer when it doesn’t turn out to be a satisfactory work, she was contemplating Rinne’s disposal.

The moment she saw that, Rinne felt a heat swelling hotly between her skull.

She had been clinging to the illusion of family, not facing it directly, and suppressing it.
The deep hatred and anger that had risen in her heart, which had been so dry that it seemed like she couldn’t feel anything.

Rinne’s body sprang up like a cat pouncing on a small bird.
She quickly swept the floor, and the sword in her hand shot up like a fountain.

But there was no way she could be a match for her in the first place.
Her teacher easily deflected Rinne’s thrust and immediately pressed her chest down with her foot, drawing her sword.

Just like Rinne had done dozens of times, she could kill her by simply pushing the sword in lightly.
Rinne, pinned to the floor, struggled even in front of the hazy, glowing blade.

‘…I’ll kill you.’

She couldn’t forgive her.
She would never forgive her.

‘If the day comes when you die…. I’ll be there with a sword, laughing…!’

A desperate cry that was no different from an animal’s howl.
The anger that had been fueled by regret and grief echoed loudly through the Geumdang Hall.

‘Oh ho.’

Was it because she was satisfied with the venomous energy?
Or was it because she liked Rinne’s eyes, which were burning like a Heavenly Killing Star?
Her teacher put down her sword and said.

‘So be it. I’ll be waiting.’

2.
After that day, Rinne began her full-fledged succession lessons under her teacher.
It was also at this point that she came to feel the curse of deprivation to the bone.

She couldn’t feel any emotions or sentiments related to happiness.

Even when she thought of her happy past, she felt nothing, like a callous, hardened palm.
Only when she was striving for strength was she allowed a brief rest.

But Rinne didn’t care.

She didn’t care about the succession of the mark or anything else.
She had a goal of making her teacher kneel before her someday and giving her the final blow.

That’s why the relationship between Rinne and her teacher was deformed, like a mixture of liquids that could never mix.

She traveled all over the country with her teacher, learning swordsmanship.
She killed ronin and warriors using only pure swordsmanship without using magic, and learned about magic in her remaining time.
She even went beyond the archipelago to the far western continent.
Every moment except for sleeping was a time of training to become stronger.

A year passed.
Three years passed.
Five years passed.

No matter how unforgivable the opponent was, if you received endless lessons from them and traveled the world together, seeking strength.
Moreover, if you were saved from near-death situations several times.

Sharp resentment would naturally become dull.
The fact that her teacher was the only person she could rely on also played a part.

Rinne hated her teacher, but at the same time, she loved her mother.

At the same time as the deep resentment that she wanted to kill her someday.
She felt a morbid attachment that she wanted to be loved by her again someday.

Ten years had passed since she became an apprentice witch.

Rinne had changed a lot.
She had grown taller as she got older, and her hair had grown back.
She had learned magical knowledge and accepted the harshness of the world.
She had no similarities with the Rinne of the past.

Her teacher hadn’t changed.
None of her values or ways of thinking had changed.
The only thing that had changed was that her teacher had become weaker.

‘Aaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah!’

The screams filled the inner quarters of Hyangwol Pavilion.

It was a familiar occurrence.
Rinne, who had been wielding her sword, let out a short sigh and entered the room.

‘I can’t, I can’t…. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t….’

The room was stained with red drawings.
It was the result of self-harm, just like the blood that had stained her teacher’s white clothes red.

The curse of deprivation not only drives the owner to become stronger, but also gives them terrible nightmares if they can’t become stronger.
Unlike Rinne, who still had promising growth, her teacher had reached her limit three years ago.

‘Aaaah!’

A sharp sword strike with a single scream.

-Clang!

Rinne easily wrapped her sword around it and threw it away.
The sharply flying sword was stuck in the floor, trembling.
Rinne’s skill in pure swordsmanship already far surpassed her teacher’s.

‘Hic! Hooo!’

Her disheveled hair and sobbing figure had none of the kind mother’s appearance, nor the dignity of the teacher who seemed like she could cut anyone down with a single blow.
Whenever she saw her teacher’s fallen appearance, Rinne felt a low sense of superiority and pity rising in her heart.

‘Stop it, it’s pathetic.’

Superiority and pity have something in common.
They are emotions that are far from anger.

Therefore, Rinne no longer hated her teacher.
It was after her goal of killing her had become blurred.

She just laughed.
She believed that all of this was the price she was paying for her sins.

At the same time, although she didn’t want to admit it, she was secretly hoping.

It was hard to even imagine her teacher’s weak appearance in the past, but now things were different.
Rinne was now the only person her teacher could rely on.

If she honestly admitted her mistakes and looked at Rinne.
If she became Rinne’s family again like before, she would pretend to be unable to resist and forgive her.

She had wished for it a hundred times, and given up a hundred times.

But foolishly, she was hoping for it for the hundred and first time.

3.
Her teacher died without meeting any of Rinne’s expectations.
In the most comfortable-looking state in the last two years.

Rinne stared blankly at her teacher, who had inherited the mark and turned into an empty shell.
A corpse that didn’t move, didn’t blink, and just stared at the ceiling.

It was the end of a cowardly fugitive who had been chased, had chased, and had caused a lot of trouble to those around her before dying.

Now, Rinne had no family left.
Even the person who might have become her family had disappeared.

It was empty.
It was so empty that she didn’t know what to do, what emotions to feel, or how to act.

‘…….’

Rinne clutched her necklace.
It was the necklace that her teacher had given her when Rinne became an apprentice witch.
Now, she stroked the jade beads one by one, which had lost some of their luster because she had touched them habitually.

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

‘Mother.’

Rinne, who had become an orphan for the first time, felt a sense of loss that made her feel like she was suffocating.
Couldn’t she have hugged her gently just once, like that day?

‘Mother, mother, mother….’

Clear tears flowed.

She sat down in front of her mother, whom she couldn’t hate or love, and cried.
Rinne, who cried, collapsed from exhaustion, and woke up again to cry, picked up her sword and stood up.

Behind her, white moonlight and black shadows lined up.

Rinne realized that a scar of loss had formed in her heart that would never be filled.
A scar that no one could fill and would forever gnaw at Rinne.

The recollection was over.
Rinne’s body sank.
Rinne sank endlessly to the bottom of the darkness that swirled like a mirage.

It was a sea of solitude.

It was a lonely life, so lonely that she had forgotten what loneliness was.
Even if she opened her eyes with difficulty, nothing would change.

If so, she didn’t want to open her eyes.
She wanted to fall asleep forever like this.

Then, a very small voice was heard.

“…Master.”

A man’s voice.
Rinne’s eyelids fluttered.

“Master!”

The person who had entered this space of memories where only Rinne should be was Shin Siwoo.
Only then did Rinne’s memories, which had been stuck in the past, flow backward.

“Let’s get out of here.”

In the sea of solitude that pulled everything down, he looked like he was barely able to support his own body.
Even so, he gritted his teeth and reached out a hand to Rinne.

“Hurry up, Master! I really can’t hold on for long!”

Rinne stared at him with wide eyes.

“…….”

That’s right.
Why had she forgotten until now?
She was no longer alone.
The family she had barely found in her life of meaningless drifting was here.

“Don’t make such a fuss.”

Rinne reached out and grabbed Siwoo’s stiff hand.

His hand was very rough.
And it was warm.