How the hell did I end up living such a fcked-up life?

Was it from the moment I was taken to a demon laboratory at the age of five and subjected to brutal torture and experiments?

Or perhaps it was from the moment they forcibly drained the mana from my body, leaving the mana circuits inside me battered beyond repair?

I don’t know.

I don’t know why I’m living like this.

My childhood has become hazy.

Back then, when I can barely even remember things properly, I was born with abnormally powerful mana compared to other children my age.

I think I was quite a reckless and energetic child back then.

It was a spring day when the cold frost was finally being broken apart by the warmth of the season.

As I headed to the mountain behind our village as usual, I suddenly lost consciousness from an unexpected blow and was kidnapped.

When I regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was the roaring cheers of countless demons and monsters.

I was lying alone in a miserable prison with barely enough space to lie down, while they looked at me with deranged, mocking smiles.

What awaited me after that was, needless to say, hell.

Torture disguised as experimentation.

They skinned me alive and used me as a punching bag for countless demons.

In the end, they even forcibly extracted my power, damaging the mana circuits inside my body beyond any possibility of recovery.

‘It was the kind of pain that made me beg them to just kill me.’

Only after enduring that hell for four whole months was I finally able to receive salvation.

As luck would have it, the Hero Party of that time happened to be passing nearby and rescued me.

The hero treated me with the utmost care before taking me aboard a carriage headed toward my hometown.

A peaceful little village located on the outskirts of the royal capital.

My hometown, Lemonie Village.

I had returned home after five months.

I wanted to see the neighbors as soon as possible and be embraced by my parents.

But what greeted me was not the warm welcome of my neighbors, but a horrific landscape littered with corpses.

The hero beside me looked at the corpses and muttered quietly.

‘They’ve been dead for quite some time.’
‘A month…?’
‘No, perhaps several months…’

That was when I realized it.

On the day I had been kidnapped, those bastards had deliberately targeted this place from the very beginning.

I hurried toward the house where I had lived.

When I violently kicked open the door and entered the living room, my parents were there, dead on their knees with pieces of my clothing clutched in their hands.

As I embraced the rotting corpses of my biological parents, I shed tears of blood and made a vow.

I swore that I would kill every last monster and demon who had taken everything precious to me.

That was when my life underwent a major turning point.

It was a life far removed from anything resembling normal.

By giving up the privilege of being a child who could step inside the protective shelter of others, I was able to begin systematic training with a sword from the moment I was old enough to wield one.

However, the process of continuing my training was far from smooth.

Being left behind by others because my power had been extracted became an everyday occurrence, and to make up for that difference, I endured enough training every day to collapse from difficulty breathing.

But my body, damaged beyond recognition, couldn’t produce results proportional to the effort I put into it.

But I didn’t stop.

No, I couldn’t stop.

‘Because I’m scared.’

I was too afraid.

Afraid that I would have to experience something like that again.

Afraid that I would be dragged back to those days once more.

I was so terrified that I couldn’t endure it without constantly whipping myself onward.

My childhood was a time when I couldn’t even sleep unless I chose to collapse unconscious after grueling training, and I couldn’t even bring myself to look toward dark alleyways.

I lived with sleep deprivation for my entire life.

Things became somewhat better after I grew up.

I became capable of falling asleep without training myself to the point of unconsciousness, and I could finally look straight at the monsters I had feared.

‘But.’

That only meant I had become accustomed to it.

It didn’t mean I had overcome it.

‘…..’

I’m afraid of the pieces of monster flesh being sliced away by my blade.

The eyes of the monsters staring at me send chills down my spine.

The thought of their teeth approaching my face is so terrifying that I can hardly bear it.

I wanted to die, but at the same time, I wanted desperately to live.

And so I kept killing.

Through that fear, I came to understand.

‘I was still nothing more than a brat who hadn’t escaped from his past.’

“Wake up.”

“Mm…”

A clear, pure woman’s voice reached my ears as I slept.

It was the same voice I had heard before losing consciousness.

The figure of the pure-white woman I had seen at the end of that dazzling light.

What exactly had that been?

My mind was terribly hazy.

I slapped the top of my head with my palm in an attempt to wake myself up.

“Ah, I slept well… Huh?”

As I sat up while tapping my head, I tilted it in confusion at the strange sensation I felt.

My body didn’t hurt.

No, rather than hurting, I felt so refreshed that I could practically fly.

When was the last time I had woken up feeling this refreshed?

No, more importantly, there was something else I needed to check first.

I opened my eyes wide and began feeling over my body.

“What the hell?”
“What happened?”

My fingers were perfectly intact.

My leg was there too.

Just moments ago, my entire body had been no better than a tattered rag.

‘Was it a dream?’

Just as that thought crossed my mind, I noticed a sticky crust of dried blood clinging to my forearm.

“It wasn’t a dream.”

It was a bizarre situation that could only be described as a miracle.

‘What is this?’
‘Why has my body completely recovered?’

I continued wondering about it for quite some time.

Then—

“Did you sleep well?”

The same voice I had heard before losing consciousness came from directly in front of me.

“You were completely knocked out, even talking in your sleep.”

Boom!

“Urgh!”

My body felt heavy.

It felt as though my organs were being crushed.

Crack, crack!

An invisible force pressed down upon my entire body.

Fragments of the white plaster tiles beneath me shot into the air.

The words that came from her mouth were nothing more than a casual morning greeting.

Yet the overwhelming presence contained within that simple greeting crushed every cell in my body with an irresistible pressure.

“I can’t… breathe…!”

“Ah, my apologies.”
“It’s been such a long time that I forgot to suppress my divine power.”

“Divine… power…?!”

“Yes, divine power.”
“Wait just a moment.”
“I’ll suppress it shortly.”

Rustle.

As she slightly nodded her head, the invisible pressure that had been crushing me transformed into pure-white particles and scattered through the air.

The pressure weighing down on my body gradually disappeared.

My breathing returned.

I lifted my head while desperately gasping for breath.

“Cough!”
“Cough, cough!”
“What the hell is this…?”

“……”

“Huh?”

What the fck?

Was this really a dream?

“I’m sorry.”
“I haven’t met anyone for two thousand years, so I made a mistake.”
“Please forgive me.”

“…”

Could a girl this beautiful really exist in reality?

Beautiful.

No, could this appearance really be dismissed with something as simple as the word beautiful?

Long white hair as though pure-white snow had settled upon it.

The warmth contained within her pure-white smile was incredibly gentle, yet the eyes staring directly at the bridge of my nose shone intensely.

‘If there were such a thing as untainted purity, perhaps it would look like this.’

Enchanted by the girl’s exquisite appearance, I completely lost my ability to speak.

“Are you all right?”

Swoosh.

“Uh… huh?!”

A pair of pure-white eyes suddenly appeared right in front of my nose.

I flailed my hands pathetically and fell backward.

Crash!

“Gah!”

A blunt impact traveled through the back of my head and into my brain.

I grabbed my throbbing head with both hands and got back up.

“Urgh… It… it fcking hurts…”
“Why is there a pillar in a place like this…?”

…

“What the fck?”
“Where am I?”

A massive ceiling with rough dust falling through tiny cracks.

Dozens of pillars made of quartz supported the ceiling while displaying their magnificent forms.

Judging by the moss and cracks covering the walls, this place seemed to have endured the ravages of countless years.

Yet even that was nowhere near enough to diminish its overwhelming grandeur.

“A temple?”

I tilted my head and looked around.

“Hmm…”

The place where I was standing appeared to be an altar.

The altar stood at the end of a tall flight of stairs, and from there, I could see the entire interior of the temple at a glance.

It was a desolate landscape filled with nothing but broken stones.

‘Why am I in a place like this?’

Just moments ago, I had clearly been lying in the Demon Realm, dying.

Rustle.

While I was distracted by the appearance of the temple, her voice rang out beside my ears once again.

“Oh my~”
“To ignore me and let your mind wander somewhere else…”
“You certainly have some nerve.”

“Huh?”

A prickling sensation of mana at the back of my head.

I slowly turned around and looked at the girl.

Smile.

The girl was smiling beautifully.

Her smile was so exquisite that I nearly lost myself in it once again.

But something was strange.

Clink.

Dozens of iron chains were tightly wrapped around the girl’s body.

Behind the girl, hanging on the wall, was a mirror with what appeared to be bat wings growing from it.

‘What the hell is that?’

The girl shook her head and cheerfully swept aside her flowing white hair.

“I like you.”
“Even after seeing me, you don’t look frightened at all.”

“Who are you?”
“Where is this place?”
“What happened to the wounds on my body?”

“Ask one question at a time.”
“If you rush me like that, I won’t be able to answer you properly.”

The girl cleared her throat for a moment before beginning to explain the situation in a bright voice.

“First of all, let me say that it’s nice to meet you.”
“And you are quite lucky.”
“Of all things, you happened to be above my head when I regained consciousness.”

“Above your head?”

What was she talking about?

“Are you saying we’re underground?”

“You catch on quickly.”
“That’s correct.”

“Huh?”

“This is the ancient temple of Roflerum, built to seal me away.”

“Roflerum?”

What was that?

I felt like I had heard that name somewhere before.

I stroked my chin with my right hand and searched through my memories.

When I was young, whenever I suffered from insomnia and couldn’t sleep at night, my father would sometimes tell me stories.

Two thousand years ago, during the ancient era, more than a hundred gods lived together in the divine realm.

The gods watched over all things day and night for the peace of the mortal world.

Then, one day.

A goddess rebelled and waged war against the gods all by herself.

Because of that war, the more than one hundred gods were reduced to barely thirty survivors, while the goddess was given the title of Calamity of the Divine Realm and sealed deep within an underground temple.

The goddess’s name was Lilac.

The Sinner of Godslaying, and the Butcher of Gods.

An evil goddess who must never be released into this world again.

‘The name of the temple where that goddess was sealed was Roflerum, wasn’t it?’

…

“Huh?”

What had that girl just said this place was called?

She had definitely said Roflerum.

“Don’t tell me…”

I slowly lowered the hand that had been stroking my chin.

The girl looked at me and grinned before introducing herself in a playful voice.

“Oh~”
“Judging by that expression, it seems you know who I am.”

As the girl moved, the countless chains around her body rattled violently.

I gently nodded toward her.

“Good.”
“If you already know, then this will be easier.”

Clink!

“I am the one known as the Calamity of the Divine Realm, the last goddess to be created.”

“Lilac.”

“…..”

“Let’s get along from now on.”

This had to be a dream.

And a truly terrible nightmare at that.

F*ck.