292 — The Past

With a scent like fragrant lemon,
A rosy atmosphere unfolded.

Moon Bora slowly pulled back.
With the “heart-eyes” more certain than before etched in her pupils, she rested her face against his chest.

Rubbing and nuzzling.
Whimper-whimper, whine-whine.
Now she whispered without hiding it.

“…I-I love you.”
“……”

Yu Seha froze like a statue.
A very brief moment of embarrassment.
But as if he couldn’t pretend ignorance any longer, he was about to speak.

But before he could say anything, Moon Bora was quicker and covered his mouth with her index finger.

She winked one eye and stuck out her tongue slightly.
She looked so coquettish that it felt like a succubus from a dungeon was right in front of him.

“Y-you just did something despicable.”

Moon Bora turned away slightly.
She looked out the door.
Her cat tail, which she hadn’t been able to hide,
its red, fluffy fur trembling as if it were a small earthquake.

Moon Bora chuckled, “hoohoo~.”

“Tell me Yu Seha’s feelings later.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’ll say this in advance: we all know, including me, that Yu Seha is a bit of a greedy one whether he knows it or not. You can just… take everything. I haven’t said it out loud, but everyone would agree.”
“…Uh, uh, eh, oh, uhn?!”
“Then can I ask the rest?”
“…Huh???”
“Oh my~ You said you’re not curious about the future, but I never said I had nothing to ask.”

Moon Bora looked up at the flustered Yu Seha.
Then she suddenly asked a question that made him even more flustered.

“What I want to know is… Yu Seha’s past.”
“……!”
“Please, will you tell me?”

Moon Bora grinned as if she could wait forever and twisted her body playfully.

Her hands, modestly folded together,
gently overlapped on the back of one hand.

Her clear, transparent purple eyes,
the irises filled with hearts,
tingled various corners of his heart.

‘Hmm…’

Well, yeah.
It wasn’t exactly a big secret, and there was no reason to hide it on purpose.

He simply hadn’t bothered to explain it properly because there was no need.
It wasn’t that significant.

‘Just…’

He felt a bit embarrassed, perhaps.
A slight shame washed over him, as if he were showing a diary written under a dawn haze.

At that sight, Moon Bora drew a smile at the corner of her eyes.
She shifted her hips back a little, looked up at him from below, and giggled.

“Hey, why are you laughing all of a sudden…”
“Whine~ It’s because being embarrassed is cute.”
“…Ahem.”

Moon Bora teased him with a “whine~” sound.
Yu Seha cleared his throat.

Then, as if to shake off the mood quickly…
he began to tell his past.

However, from the very first premise came a shocking detail that was hard for Moon Bora to believe.

“…Huh, huh, whine?! My past life?”
“Uh, well, if you want to put it that way, yes.”

Moon Bora looked at him as if puzzled.
Of course, since it was Yu Seha saying it, she didn’t doubt him for a moment.

But most people don’t remember things like past lives.
Or rather, in the first place…
it’s uncertain whether the concept of current life and reincarnation even exists in this world.

If that did exist,
it would mean there’s an afterlife too…
and it implies that the concept of ‘reincarnation’ recorded in old texts is sometimes part of the picture—an incredible claim.

Whether true or not, Yu Seha didn’t care.
He calmly told his past.

“To be honest, it’s so hazy… I don’t really remember properly. The reason I’m uneasy about the word ‘past life’ is simply… it feels like someone else’s story to me.”
“…Someone else’s?”
“Yeah, but if you’re curious, I’ll tell you.”

A world of uncertain location.
A time of uncertain era.

There was a place called <Blood Valley>.
Originally it would have been a famous mountain with good air, clean water, and beautiful scenery,
a famous spot sung by countless poets.

But at some point, people stopped coming.
The reason was that as time passed, the river’s color turned reddish,
and corpses began to flow along it…

“That man grew up there.”

He was probably around eight or nine years old, it is assumed.
Whether he was a lonely orphan,
or the heir of a wiped-out clan,
or perhaps sold by his parents during a great famine—no one knew,

What Yu Seha remembered, anyway,
was that the boy had endured hellish training there.

“At first, I remember he was taught how to kill his emotions.”

Torture performed little by little each day.
Using fire, poison, and electricity to extinguish the senses in the body.

At the same time, they gradually erased his humanity.
In that process, most of the roughly eighty children in similar circumstances died.

To the boy, those children were like brothers and sisters.
More tragically, some of those corpses were reduced to food due to hunger.

Blood drained from Moon Bora’s face at the description.
As someone fond of children,
it was an unforgivable atrocity.

“Why, why target children of all people…”
“To raise assassins.”
“A-assassins? Do you mean killers?”
“Yes. In that world there aren’t classes or systems. Instead there are unusual talents like physical build, lineage, or innate aptitude… things like that.”

There were also martial arts, sorcery, spirit arts, and such powers.
You can probably get a sense of the world.

Yu Seha continued.
There wasn’t much to explain.
From then on, it was almost the usual wuxia fare.

He was thoroughly raised as an assassin, and with naturally excellent physique and martial talent, the still-young boy became the most promising assassin candidate.

The reason this was possible was, of course, his fate of being born with the Heavenly Killing Star.
Unequivocally the most bizarre yet outstanding talent.

Heavenly Killing Star.
Because the boy bore it.

“But the boy was defective.”
“Defect…ive?”
“As an assassin, that is.”

For reasons unknown,
the boy somehow maintained his emotions despite those hellish days.

He only pretended, so they let it slide,
but he was unsuitable to be an assassin.

Ten years in all.
At nineteen, the same age as Yu Seha, the boy was sent on his first and last mission.

“The result was a success.”

He was unsuitable, yet excellent.
Literally appearing like lightning, he cut the target’s life short in an instant.

“It was some old man…”

Well, probably someone like an elder of a powerful faction.
In any case, that’s not the important point.

The boy killed the old man,
and fled the scene to survive.
Originally, he should have followed orders and left no trace, even committing suicide.

In fact, the others trained with him—those like brothers and sisters—all took their own lives.
But the boy fled because he still had a will to live.

“You could call it fortunate: because of that, the headquarters’ location was exposed and everyone involved with Blood Valley was killed.”

Thanks to that, the boy wasn’t pursued by headquarters,
and ultimately obtained the freedom he wanted.

Up to here it seems like a happy ending.
Hearing this, Moon Bora also exhaled in relief.

“…That’s fortunate.”
“But that wasn’t entirely the case.”
“Huh?”

What use is being free.

He was essentially a walking disaster and a beast who had learned nothing but killing.

Moreover, he was a Heavenly Killing Star.
And he was an assassin who had never learned to control it and had fully embraced the art of killing.

“Of course, he couldn’t properly blend in among people…”

It was that kind of age.
A world rife with superstitions and prevailing ideologies.

No psychiatric therapy,
or counseling existed.
He was simply a monster.

“…From here, I really don’t remember well.”

Perhaps some petty misunderstanding,
or an approach just to deceive him.
In any case, the boy ended up getting blood on his hands again.

The small amounts of blood soon grew into handfuls,
and pooled to his ankles.

Before long it became a raging torrent strong enough to engulf him.
Though it wasn’t blood he sought to spill himself…

“That didn’t mean killing others could be condoned.”
“……”

Naturally, he was hunted by those called the <Five Great Families>.
In that process, the boy’s Heavenly Killing Star became even stronger,
and he learned to treat his very will to live as a tangible power.

“Se-ha, is that perhaps…?”
“Yes, that’s right.”

The immovable killing art that first stopped an opponent when facing a <Kappa Rhino>.
Later it even developed into a skill called [Killing Spirit].

“All those techniques were used by that man. To be precise, what you see now is far weaker than the originals.”
“…You mean the ones used now are weakened?”
“The Heavenly Killing Star he had and the one I have were on different levels. Plus, he hadn’t learned to control it, which made a huge difference…”

As time passed and passed,
when the boy reached twenty-eight.

The fugitive hid himself deep in a mountain.
And there, the boy had a premonition.
That this place would probably be his end…

So he lived in hiding in the wild, not knowing when he might die.
He found the first, last, and only warmth he would ever know.

“A cat.”
“…Huh? A cat?”
“Yeah.”

Strangely, perhaps due to a defect,
a black cat whose tail tip was split, looking almost like two tails.

The creature appeared beside the boy who had been living like a wreck, acting affectionate and begging for food.
And to his surprise, the boy shared his food with the cat.

“Looking back, it was foolish—cat food wouldn’t suit a cat used to human food…”

But the boy had no choice.
He hadn’t learned, so he didn’t know.

Having never learned how to be loved,
he couldn’t give affection.

He only fed it and watched from a distance.
To him, that was the greatest warmth he could offer.

They lived together like that for three years.
A full three years.
During those three years, the boy never once unleashed his Heavenly Killing Star.

“Whether he suppressed it… or learned to control it, I don’t know. But one thing’s certain…”

That time was the happiest period of his life.