༺ Nightmare ༻
-Crash!
A city was engulfed in flames.
The world appeared to be coming to an end, almost as if the apocalypse had just begun.
“Gah!!”
“S-Save me!”
“This is not your average dungeon break!”
The screams and cries of the people only added to this feeling.
And at the center of this mayhem were beings who appeared to be amused by the situation.
They had large horns attached to their heads and wings and looked like humans but were clearly not.
A truly demonic appearance.
“Haha.”
The demons slaughtered the surrounding humans without remorse, acting as if they were killing bugs.
A literal slaughter. A few hunters attempted to take them down but failed.
“You’re weak, you’re all too weak!”
The demons rejoiced as they slaughtered the hunters who attempted to resist.
The situation was becoming increasingly unfavorable.
The hunters were constantly exposed to the city’s black magi, which caused them to cough up blood.
Despite the demons’ small numbers, the many hunters were simply massacred.
“Ahhhh…”
In the midst of that carnage was a little girl that looked to be about five years old. She shook horribly, only able to watch the ongoing massacre.
Clearly caught off guard by the sudden attack, she was left unable to run away. At such a young age, the violent massacre left her legs frozen in fear.
Instinctively, she held her breath and reduced her presence as much as possible.
-Grab!
Someone suddenly grabbed the girl from behind. Before she could scream, her mouth was covered by a hand.
“M-Mom!”
The little girl, who referred to the newcomer as her mother, had a look of relief on her face. Like any normal child, her parents still meant the world to her.
She wanted to beg her mother to get her away from this hell, but something felt wrong.
“■■.”
Because of the substantial noise from the fighting, she wasn’t able to hear exactly what her mother was saying.
Still, the little girl could tell that her mother was calling her name.
She certainly believed that her mother would get her out of this situation, but as she looked at her mother’s face, that anticipation quickly dissipated.
It was as though she was determined but also scared.
It was something the five-year-old girl had never seen before, and it terrified her.
“Do you see that path? If you go through that alleyway, ■■, other adults can protect you. Close your eyes and run. You can do that for me, can’t you, ■■?”
The mother attempted to calm the young girl, who instinctively felt something was wrong. Like she would never be able to see her mother again if she obeyed her.
“I don’t want to!”
And so she resisted, wanting to stay with her parents and survive together.
“Mommy is an S-rank hunter! I’ll be safest beside you! I won’t go anywhere else! I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!”
“■■.”
“Let’s go together… Please…”
She desperately held onto her mother’s clothes with her small hands, begging her to run away with her.
“I’m sorry, my child.”
“Don’t say that! Why would you say something like that?!”
“It’s as you said, ■■. Your mother is a strong hunter, so I have to go and protect the others. Otherwise, they’ll get hurt.”
“No! No! You don’t have to care about other people! Just come with me!”
Completely out of control, she threw a tantrum.
There were many people screaming, but the little girl couldn’t hear them. She simply wanted to protect her mother, who was right in front of her. She wanted to save her mother, but her tantrum caused a disaster.
“Oh? There’s another one here?”
“Ah…!”
Her scream attracted the attention of multiple demons, allowing them to find their location.
The demon who found the two of them smiled in delight, bloodlust oozing from his expression.
“■■! Hurry!”
“Sob…”
“Hurry and go!”
The girl knew that she had to run if she wanted to survive, but turning her back, she caught a glimpse of the demon and the magi surrounding his figure. The horrific sight left her paralyzed with fear.
As the girl said, perhaps her mother would have been able to defeat the demon, or at the very least, inflict serious damage on it…
But a five-year-old child was a burden.
The mother knew any sort of attack would be fatal to a child her age.
“M-Mom?”
The last thing she saw was black magi surrounding her mother as she slowly died, without putting up any resistance.
***
“Haa… haaa.”
The girl, now a woman, let out several deep breaths.
After fifteen years had passed, she was now 20 and eligible to enter the academy.
“…”
As she regained her bearings, she thought back to that day.
For her, the incident that had occurred fifteen years earlier was a recurring nightmare and something that she would never forget.
Is that the reason?
As if her status window were taunting her, it outlined a special skill.
[Nightmare].
A skill that temporarily made your strength somewhat equal to that of the person designated as an enemy. But depending on the amount of strength she gained as a result, she had to dig deeper into her nightmare.
Naturally, she didn’t want to use the skill.
The memory of her mother’s voice, combined with the fact that the woman had died for her, left a deep scar in her heart.
Just recalling that day made her feel like she was going insane because it was as though she were really there.
Even if she was going to die, she swore to herself that she would never use that skill.
However, she was forced to accompany her friends to a dungeon and remembered some strange things.
It was surely not her own memories, as what she remembered was from six years into the future.
She knew better than anyone that such a phenomenon wasn’t possible.
It should have been impossible, and any normal person would have called her an idiot for believing it, yet her memories were far too vivid to be fake.
It was almost as if she had experienced those memories personally, alongside the people in front of her.
She didn’t want to move.
Just seeing that black energy made her remember the day her mother had died because of her inaction and made her feel like she could hear her mother’s voice.
The girl in front of her gave off a similar vibe to that demon.
Still, she couldn’t allow her friends to die.
Even if those memories were fake, the people inside them had given her a new life and a new hope.
For that reason, she used [Nightmare].
However, that would be the first and last time. She knew for sure she never wanted to use the skill again.
It didn’t matter whether those memories were real or not, because what was important to her was already decided.
If that future in her memories was real, it was clear she wouldn’t be able to accomplish what she wanted.
Since she was unable to do so, even now.
“Mom.”
The small pendant that hung on her neck had a picture of her parents engraved on it.
Thankfully, the pendant had remained intact even during the fierce battle.
It was natural, as she had taken measures to prevent it from being visible to other people.
She had used a skill that changed her appearance.
The girl’s hair was shortened to the point where it could be mistaken for a man’s, and her physique, which had been petite to begin with, became bulky enough to pass as a man.
Finally, the pendant she wore became completely invisible.
“Still, I have to ask.”
Were those memories really from the future? Or was it all a hallucination?
It would be better to ask her comrades about her memories. If those memories were real, it would mean that she had failed.
“Hey.”
As if on cue, a man appeared in front of her.
Their first impressions had been terrible, but the Si-woo in her memories wasn’t such a bad person.
“Lee Hyun-a, let’s have a chat.”
He called out for her while uttering a name she never wanted to hear again.
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