WARNING: This chapter contains violence, sexual content, and traumatic themes. Reader discretion is advised.
...
Lir sat at the table as the first light of morning filtered through the windows. On the plate before her lay a piece of bread and a thin slice of cheese—luxuries by Cairn's standards. As Lir chewed her morsel, she wondered how these supplies were obtained and where they came from in the midst of Cairn's poverty.
"Where does this money come from?" she wondered. Looking at the cracks on the table, she remembered the harsh voice of the old healer.
"The old healer said you owe a great debt," she said in a flat voice. Without taking her eyes off her plate, she waited for Elara's reaction.
Elara was busy wiping soot stains off the window with a dirty, damp cloth. The moment she heard Lir's sentence, her hands froze in mid-air. Instead of answering, she simply nodded slowly in confirmation.
A few seconds later, she dipped her hands into the cold, slightly murky water in the bucket. Elara straightened up, quickly wiped her hands on her apron, and walked toward Iris. She wore a gentle smile that masked her exhaustion, its artificiality unnoticeable.
"I have a few small errands to run, sweetie," she said, her voice soft but hurried. "Don't go outside while I'm gone, okay?"
Before Lir could answer, Elara leaned down and pressed a damp, warm kiss onto her daughter's cheek. Lir froze for a moment at this sudden contact; her eyebrows lifted slightly, and her body tensed.
Being exposed to someone else's affection so closely felt foreign to her. However, this expression didn't last long.
"Okay?" Elara repeated, looking into her daughter's eyes.
Lir, thinking there was no point in objecting, slowly nodded her head up and down.
"Fine... Good luck," Lir said. Her voice was as dull as ever.
As Elara headed for the door, she stopped one last time to look back, smiled at Iris again, and closed the heavy, creaking wooden door behind her.
Only the sound of the fireplace crackling remained in the house.
Left alone in the wooden house, Lir leaned back in her chair and locked her hands behind her head.
She took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. Her mind was still trying to process this new reality. Though she hoped every time she closed her eyes that she would escape this strange world and return to her old life, she found the same damp walls in front of her every time she opened them.
With a sudden thought, she stood up, rummaged through the wooden cupboard in the corner, and found a few scraps of paper.
Lying down on the bed, she began scribbling with a strange ink pen—a pen used in the royalty, with thick, dark ink. She poured her knowledge of neuroscience from her past life onto the paper: the working system of the brain and the functions of the mind. Writing these took her less than half an hour.
The thought of how time would pass in this place without technology bothered her.
When she put the papers aside, she wondered how she would spend her time. She made small plans for the hours to pass.
With calm steps, she moved to the narrow section that resembled a kitchen.
she looked over the dried leaves arranged on shelves and the herbs kept in small pouches. When she chose a few of them and let them steep in a simple pot, she realized she still didn't know how this whole system was established. The steam from the boiling water softened the heavy air of the room a bit.
She prepared a cup of herbal tea for herself.
When she took the cup in her hand, she stopped to smell it. The plants of this world were surprisingly not much different from the plants of the world she came from.
Their tastes and smells were familiar. This small similarity gave her a strange sense of relief, even if only for a short moment.
As Lir slowly sipped her herbal tea, she sat on the corner of the bed and looked out the window. Cairn was as dark and dirty as ever. The streets were irregular, the air heavy. Lir watched this scene in silence. After a while, the story her mother had told her yesterday came to mind.
"Chrysaor... A divine being who is an angel in appearance but a demon at his core," she muttered. Her lips curled mockingly for a brief moment.
"Hmph. How ironic." She paused, then sighed.
"In the midst of poverty, a being whose very existence is unknown appears and attempts to destroy humanity. But if he wanted to, he would have done it long ago. So why did he retreat?" she wondered.
"Even his retreat was part of his own plan. Most likely, his cursing of Cairn was too. But why?"
These vague questions occupied her mind for a long time. Finally, she took a deep breath and leaned her head back.
"They say he massacres people mercilessly..." she said mockingly.
"Their own kingdoms are no different. Evil is dominant in human nature. Human beings, who speak of morality, adapt to the very concept of evil they created. Despite this, they still talk about goodness."
A pitiful smile, born of the pain accumulated from the past, appeared on Lir's face.
She shook her head slowly, as if mocking the god who established this order or the lords of this kingdom.
"Hmph." A short smirk curled her lips.
"I've seen a lot in this life," she said to herself. "A pitiful man looking with passion but eventually being dragged into poverty... One who loses everything while trying to build his own future. War, passion, beauty, pain, being loved... I've seen it all."
She paused for a moment.
"But at what cost?"
She turned her gaze to the dirty street behind the window. There, a few youths had knocked a boy to the ground and were kicking him hard in the stomach. Lir watched this scene silently. There was neither anger nor surprise on her face; only a calm, accustomed expression.
"All people are driven toward the same goal. Some follow the light, others the darkness. Some for a child, some for love, some for obedience... Everyone eventually creates a meaning to stay standing in this world."
Lir glanced at the cup in her hand and continued:
"And everyone... continues to be enslaved for the sake of something."
She looked at her own reflection on the surface of the herbal tea. Her deep blue eyes were fixed on the void, as if sinking to the bottom.
"And everyone... eventually vanishes from this universe alone. Meanings are erased, freedom loses its value... But the world continues its life."
Lir's lips trembled for a moment.
"But at what cost?"
Her voice was just as calm and melodic. As Lir said these things, there was no expression on her face that reminded her of her poverty. Her gaze was as hard as a monolith; her words were as sharp and direct as the tip of a sword.
...
Hours later, Lir sat under the dim light. She was taking notes on paper with an ink pen. Suddenly, when the door cracked open, Lir placed the paper under her bed with a calm but swift motion.
The one who entered was, as usual, Elara. She looked tired and exhausted, as if she had carried a heavy burden. Noticing Lir sitting in the dim light, a tired smile appeared on her face.
"You haven't slept," she said, her voice weary but calm.
Lir first caught Elara's tired expression. Then she closed her eyes calmly.
"Welcome home, mother," she said in a flat tone. With her usual expression, she slowly stood up. "You're late. Your work must have been difficult."
Suddenly, Elara ran toward Iris and hugged her tightly. Lir felt as if she were almost suffocating in the woman's arms; Elara's chest was pressed against her face. She spoke with a compassionate smile:
"Yes... it was a long day. Very... tiring."
Lir stood stunned at first, but it didn't last long. Noticing Elara's tired tone, she realized the woman had had a bad day and surrendered silently. She neither pulled away from her arms nor reciprocated; she just stood there like a log.
"I see," she said.
Elara placed both hands on Iris's shoulders, then pulled back and looked at her daughter's face with a compassionate smile. For a moment, as if something had occurred to her, she scolded herself in a startled manner:
"Have you eaten?!"
After saying this, without waiting for Iris's answer, she moved toward the wooden box in the kitchen. There was an old cloth spread over the box; Elara opened the lid with a slightly tense expression. She took a few pieces of bread from there, put them on the table, and lit the fireplace.
~~~
After Elara prepared the soup and set two wooden bowls on the table, Lir walked slowly to the chair and sat down. In the dim light, the two sat opposite each other, watching the light steam rising above the hot soups.
Lir took her wooden spoon, dipped it into the soup, then lifted it and blew on it, waiting for it to cool. Elara watched this scene with a slightly sad smile. Lir didn't understand what the sadness in the woman's eyes was connected to. She continued to drink her soup in silence. She remained quiet.
...
Morning hours in Cairn:
The day continued with the usual routine. Shortly after Elara went out, Lir, with a growing curiosity, adjusted the black cloak over her, ignoring the dirty air leaking through the windows. She pulled the hood over her head to hide her face. As she stepped out of the house, the heavy and smelly air of Cairn immediately filled her nostrils. She pulled the door shut behind her and stepped out into the street.
When she reached a square resembling a marketplace, she looked around. The sight here was one of the worst scenes a person could imagine. Children with sunken faces from hunger, men looking around with hatred, and people trying to live in the mud... There was not the slightest sign of mercy in anyone; everyone was just trying to survive. Poverty was dominant in this small town.
Lir quickened her pace and turned into a narrow street at the end of the square. There, what she saw made her pause.
At the corner of the street stood three men in expensive, gleaming armor. Their faces were completely covered by helmets. In this state, they stood out dangerously among the poor folk around them.
The men had surrounded a young girl. The girl's long dark brown hair was dirty, and her white strapped dress was torn in places. The girl stood trapped between the three tall armored men, crying out desperately. The men continued to approach the girl, ignoring her cries.
Lir watched this scene calmly from under her cloak.
"W-wait! I swear to you, it wasn't me who did it!"
The girl's voice echoed off the walls of the street, trembling. One of the armored men smiled mockingly at this helplessness. He reached out, grabbed a lock of the girl's dirty hair, and began to play with it by twirling it around his finger.
"Haha! Who accused you of such a thing?" said the man. His voice sounded muffled and arrogant from inside his helmet.
The young girl burst into tears and tried to pull away, but the other two men had blocked her escape route. They continued to mock her among themselves, eyeing the girl like prey.
"Take off what you're wearing!" one of the men growled. "If you want your head to stay on. Kheheheheh!"
Lir was watching this scene from a few meters away. A faint expression of disgust appeared on her face. Just then, the young girl's wet and hopeful eyes met Lir's under the cloak. For a moment their eyes met; she saw an expression in the girl's eyes she shouldn't have seen.
Lir immediately looked away. As if nothing had happened, she quickened her pace and walked away. She ignored the sounds of crying and the coarse laughter of the men rising behind her. As if she hadn't seen what just happened, she continued on her way.
Lir didn't slow down when she reached the end of the street. Those armored men were probably guards sent from Aurelion, but she couldn't figure out what they were doing here. She continued to walk with quick steps on her small feet. Everywhere her eyes touched, every corner consisted of poverty.
The sights she saw started to make her feel sick after a while. She couldn't stand it anymore and turned back the way she came toward the wooden house.
She took a deep breath as she opened the door and went inside. She quickly took off her cloak and threw it onto the bed. She pushed aside the dust on the surface of the water in the wooden bucket with her hand and filled a glass. She drank the water in one gulp.
"The outside world..." she murmured as she put the glass on the table. "Complete nonsense."
She lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She wanted to rest her mind. Lir waited for Elara to return, as usual.
...
As evening fell, the door creaked open. Elara entered with her shoulders slumped and a tired expression on her face, as always. Lir watched the woman's movements silently from the corner of her bed. Her curiosity was more dominant this time. In a town like Cairn, where people wandered in poverty, how did Elara manage to bring that dry bread home every day? What was her job, really?
Elara put the package on the table and stood silently for a while. Lir kept her questions to herself, as always.
...
In the early hours of the morning, Elara left the house silently as usual. Lir got out of bed a few seconds after the woman pulled the door shut. She put on her black cloak and pulled the hood forward to hide her face completely. Keeping her distance, she began to follow Elara.
They walked through the misty streets of Cairn. When Elara passed the market square and turned into a more secluded street, she noticed a guard with gleaming armor and a large build waiting for her. After a brief whisper, the guard grabbed Elara's arm firmly and dragged her toward a damp side street. Lir could barely hear the whispers from a distance. Maintaining her distance, she continued to move forward.
She heard muffled groans from the thick wall of the alley...
Lir paused for a moment at the sight she saw.
Elara was leaning her hands against the filthy stone wall, leaning forward with her lower half pushed out. Standing behind her, the two-meter-tall giant guard leaned over the woman with his coarse, armored body. Every time the man grabbed Elara by the hips and pushed her hard against the wall, Elara's exposed and full breasts swung rapidly up and down. The guard reached his rough hands forward from under Elara's armpits, clutching the woman's imposing breasts from behind. He was mauling her breasts crudely, burying his fingers into her white skin.
"Hah! That's it!" said the man. His voice sounded coarse and muffled from inside his helmet.
As the man shoved Elara against the wall with every forward and backward movement, he pulled one hand away from the woman's breast. He forced two fingers into Elara's mouth and pulled her head back toward his own shoulder. Leaning into her ear, he wheezed:
"How does it feel, woman, huh? I can't hear your voice! If you keep this up, you'll be worn out even more."
Elara's face was beet red, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was breathless from the hard, fast blows coming from behind. She tried to groan between the fingers in her mouth. Her jet-black hair was disheveled; she had her tongue out, and her saliva was visible.
"Hah... i- hng... p-please be slow..."
"I can't hear you!" the guard roared and increased his pace further, shaking the woman's bent body.
"S-slo- ahh!~.." Elara's scream echoed through the narrow street.
Lir watched all of this with an expressionless and hard gaze. There was a somber look on her face. A somber expression that only thought about how disgusting this moment was... She couldn't take her eyes off Elara's shaking body and the guard's face, brutalized with lust.
"Pitiful," she whispered to herself. "Was it all for a few coins? Were you in this state just to feed your own daughter?"
Lir's lips curled slightly. "What a pity. Iris is already dead."
She didn't want to watch anymore. She turned and walked away with slow, heavy steps. A woman enduring this humiliation to save her own daughter, and another mind that had taken over that daughter's body... For Lir, what was happening was nothing but irony.
To be continued.