Chapter 1
“Is there a God?”
Agnes, 19, shed tears.
As the salty tears mingled with the blood and saltiness formed on the torn and bleeding corners of her mouth, bitterness engulfed her.
Is bitterness all there is?
Her torn flesh and ripped muscles left no part of her body untouched by pain.
“Agnes. My ‘Lertiom’.”
The Duke Gerwer descended into the underground and called out Agnes’s name.
Inside, Agnes instinctively recoiled.
The scent of vile blood.
It seemed she had once again used her ability.
Beyond memory. The voice she once thought affectionate now only signaled agony to Agnes.
Ten years ago, Agnes roamed the slave market floor as a ware commodity.
Duke Gerwer picked up the young child, treated like an animal for being dirty, for not being sold.
“You were born for me.”
Agnes believed salvation had come to her dark life.
Just like her mother and uncle said, she was not a pest-like being. She was a being born with significance.
A clean room without mold and insects appeared, and soft bread was served as a meal.
Agnes was happy.
For just six months.
“It hurts, it hurts…”
“Purify!”
Agnes’s 9th birthday, as winter began. The Duke ordered her to cleanse her powers.
A strange sensation twisted her insides. A terrible sensation of flesh tearing and muscles writhing.
The affectionate Duke changed from the moment Agnes refused purification.
Amidst agonizing pain, Agnes made her escape.
Several escapes, and several captures.
Each time Agnes was caught, the space she occupied grew narrower.
From mansion to room, from room to prison, from prison to our…
Within the confined space, her muscles gradually lost their function. Since three years ago, Agnes could do nothing but collapse inside our cages.
Agnes’s narrow world. The only visitors were Duke Gerwer and the blind and deaf maidservant.
“I used a lot of strength today. Barely survived. That dog-like Lodwick. If it weren’t for him…”
The Duke sighed. Then, he grasped Agnes’s hand trapped between the bars of our cage.
“No.”
Agnes’s lips trembled.
“Don’t hurt me.”
But even uttering those words was difficult. She didn’t even have the strength to resist purification.
Like a broken doll sprawled on the ground, Agnes trembled in anticipation of what was to come.
“Purify.”
“Ah, ah…!”
Pain, like a knife jabbing into festering wounds, surged.
The Duke’s oppressive energy flowed into her through the hand he held. It burned like fire, scorching hot.
“Why do I have to suffer?”
“Was it wrong for me to be born?”
“I don’t want to hurt.”
Agnes despaired as always.
No one saved her from this pain.
“War is coming.”
From one day, Duke Gerwer stopped coming to Agnes.
Agnes sensed it. Time was running out for her.
If Duke Gerwer didn’t come, would a brief peace come to her life?
But as if to mock fleeting rest, the footsteps of strangers echoed in the underground.
“You’re really going to take this?”
The maid who found Agnes trapped in our cage frowned and covered her nose.
A servant accompanying her approached with a bunch of keys. Then, with frantic movements, he matched the keys to our locks one by one.
“The valuable ones were taken by others. When Duke Gerwer lost in the war and all the members of the family died. You have to take care of your severance pay.”
“How does that filthy thing turn into money?”
“How does it turn into money?”
Agnes breathed faintly. Through her eyelids, she saw the maid’s face beyond the bars.
“What nonsense is this? This is ‘Lertiom’! The nobles are searching for it with eyes lit up! Roadwick, Hebetman, Serdia. They’ll pay millions wherever it goes!”
The servant’s voice was tinged with greed.
“No.”
Agnes’s lips, now chapped, moved slightly.
It was a voice that no one could hear.
“If I go to the nobles, I’ll suffer. Just like before.”
The ability users of the four noble families needed Lertiom.
To cleanse the accumulating curse-like energy in their bodies as they used their abilities.
And purification undoubtedly meant throwing Agnes back into terrible agony.
She had to escape.
“How?”
In the meantime, the servant who found the right key entered our place.
He unlocked the device restraining Agnes’s hand and grabbed her arm with his filthy hands.
“Come here!”
Her battered body was dragged on the dirty floor.
Clunk.
Just as we were about to leave, Agnes suddenly jerked with a cough.
The servant stopped and turned around.
“Why, why is this happening?”
Agnes’s worn-out shirt was stained red. The piece of cloth that had been covering her mouth fell off her weak hand.
“She’s coughing up blood.”
The maid holding the candlestick trembled.
“What?”
“She suddenly started spewing blood from her mouth! Like she’s about to die…!”
The limit of her deeply rotten body had been reached.
Agnes’s vision blurred, repeatedly oscillating between clarity and haziness as she listened to their conversation.
Then it happened.
Somewhere, a chilly wind blew in. Before the maid and servant could realize it, they froze, unable to move again.
Agnes breathed heavily and rolled her eyes in the direction the wind came from.
The power to manipulate cold.
Someone from another noble family had come looking for her.
“Ah, Agnes. Now, only the young ones who inherited the abilities and me remain as the heads of the noble families.”
Among the three Dukes, the one using this ability was undoubtedly…
‘Ah.’
Agnes stopped thinking. She realized that her pondering was futile.
Thud. Thud.
Three men descended the stairs.
They were handsome enough to captivate anyone’s gaze, but Agnes didn’t know that.
All she saw were three huge masses, heavy and sticky, like flames.
The curse’s aura had grown so large that their faces couldn’t even be seen.
The sticky, intertwined aura writhed as if it could swallow her at any moment.
“…You’ve come to purify me.”
Agnes twisted her bloodied lips.
Whether it was a smirk of victory before being captured by them or a wry smile at the pathetic end of her life, she couldn’t tell.
She couldn’t tell anymore.
The first Duke to descend reached out to Agnes, saying something, but perhaps due to the loss of blood or the ringing in her ears, she couldn’t understand properly.
Her eyelids, continually sinking, made it increasingly difficult to look up. Agnes prayed within her fading consciousness.
If there is a God…
Just let it end my suffering.
***
Agnes liked sleeping.
Every moment awake was filled with pain, so she’d rather sink into sleep, feeling nothing at all.
But today was different.
“Huh…?”
Awakening from her slumber, Agnes stared blankly at the ceiling.
It was old and musty, but there was a blanket covering her. Even on the bed.
But that wasn’t the only strange thing.
“I’m not in pain.”
It was supposed to start with excruciating pain.
Not feeling any pain was a strange sensation, one she couldn’t recall ever experiencing.
The surroundings were different too.
Rotted wooden ceilings, moldy wallpaper scattered around.
The nauseating smell was unpleasant, yet it invoked a strange nostalgia.
Like the attic she spent her childhood in.
“Attic?”
Agnes sat up and looked around.
A squeaky wooden floor beneath her small, clumsy feet. And small hands.
Her heavily stained dress, revealing her calves and forearms where it didn’t fit properly. The tangled silver hair, matted and dusty. It could almost be described as a huge gray furball.
This appearance…
“Hey!”
Startled by the irritated voice of a woman, Agnes turned around.
Facing a woman leaning against the door, Agnes couldn’t hide her surprise.
Purple hair, sharp eyes, a mole near the mouth.
It was Nora, her uncle’s lover, who lived with them when she was young.
“Is this a dream?”
But she had never had such a vivid dream before.
Nora waved her hand towards Agnes with a blank expression on her face.
“Are you wandering around in a daze because your mother died? You didn’t even prepare breakfast this morning. Thanks to you, I had to come all the way up here, smelling like this.”
“…My mother passed away?”
“Yeah, your mother died yesterday.”
It was a phrase she had heard several times already. Nora responded with annoyance, as if dealing with a drunkard who kept asking the same question.
At Nora’s words, Agnes slowly turned her head towards the empty space and murmured absentmindedly.
“My mother…”
Seeing Agnes in that state, Nora clicked her tongue.
Even though her mother was insane, she seemed perfectly fine. Was she going mad because of her mother’s death? Eventually, she resembled her mother, who had gone mad from her death.
But contrary to her thoughts, Agnes was numb.
“You wretched thing! Disgusting! How could I have someone like you…!”
Even hearing the word ‘mother,’ Agnes could only recall fragmented memories.
The severe palms striking her, the veins standing out on her neck as she raised her voice, the harsh words piercing like needles.
There were times when she sought even a shred of affection, but such emotions had long since dulled with time.
Instead of recalling her mother’s face, Agnes tried to gauge her own age.
“If my mother passed away yesterday, I must be seven years old.”
Though she still entertained the thought that this might be a dream, she could stand on her own two feet. She wasn’t confined, and her freedom, regained after many years, felt vivid.
“Even if it’s a dream, I’m fine with it.”
How many times had she revisited her past in the cold floors of Duke Gerwehr’s mansion?
When did it all go wrong?
When did the abuse of her childhood and the unbearable pain surpass any semblance of a life?
She had pondered thousands, tens of thousands of times. Agnes’s conclusion: she was seven years old.
“Selling a child. For 100 dergels? That’s not even worth two days’ worth of alcohol. …Well, can’t be helped. Just take it.”
Since her mother’s death and the day her uncle sold her into slavery, she had been in the attic. And now, she wasn’t sold yet.
“Can I start over?”
Agnes’s heart fluttered.
Even if this was a dream that might never end, she wanted to live a new life.
Perhaps even in a dream, she could have this version of herself.
Living a normal life, laughing like everyone else.
“To do that…”
She had to change the past.
Just as Nora, who hadn’t waited for Agnes, brought up her errands.
“Hey! You’re going to the market with Tambor tomorrow, right? Before you go, do me a favor.”
“The market…”
“Why are you like that? Can’t even understand what a market is? That’s why you won’t even get paid properly…”
Although Nora realized her mistake and shut her mouth, Agnes heard the word ‘paid’ clearly.
It was tomorrow. The day she would be sold.
“Tomorrow…”
Agnes wiped the sweat from her small palm onto her tattered skirt.
***
“Huff, huff.”
Agnes ran, holding her breath up to her chin.
Moments ago, Tambor, who was talking to a slave trader, managed to escape when the opportunity arose.
“Damn woman!”
Her uncle, Tambor, was now chasing after her, cursing.
Agnes ran and ran.
As they left the alley where the slave market was, a normal market unfolded before them.
There were quite a few people at the daytime market. Agnes desperately maneuvered through the crowd.
Fortunately, as a child, Agnes was able to slip through the crowd skillfully, but Tambor, as an adult, couldn’t.
But she couldn’t let her guard down. She had reached the point where there was no choice after entering the slave market.
Nobles liked well-groomed pretty children. So she, dirty and smelly, would likely not be sold again this time.
She would eventually meet Duke Gerwehr.
“Even if I hide that I’m a Letiom, the Duke will recognize me.”
The Duke’s cold gaze penetrated her memory.
The ability to see through to the essence.
The Duke would surely figure out that she was a Letiom.
“I won’t be caught.”
But despite Agnes’s determination, the crowd began to thin out.
From dozens to just over ten. From that number, just a few…
The voice of Tambor, fueled by anger, from behind became clearer and clearer.
“Please…!”
She didn’t want to be caught.
Agnes, running with all her might, collided with someone’s leg and fell flat on her face.
Of all times for this to happen.
Agnes swallowed the rising sadness and looked up.
“Oh…”
A man, with the sun at his back, was looking down at her.
