Chapter 32

On a summer night when I was 14, under a crescent moon.

After an unusually harsh kick from my mother that day, I helped my younger sister up as she lay there.

Her expression, which would normally be tearful or twisted, was strangely bright.

She was smiling.

When I closed and opened my eyes, her body was wrapped around me.

Despite being showered with insults and violence by our mother, who claimed to love her endlessly, my sister hugged me tightly and whispered, “I love you.”

Something was clearly very wrong.

But it had been so long since I’d seen her smile, so I forced down my unease.

She didn’t look anxious like our father had in his final moments; instead, she seemed more at peace than ever.

Why didn’t I realize then that it was the relief of escaping this painful reality?

Stupidly, I let her go when she said she wanted to take a bath alone.

And just like that, my sister died.

Two hours later, I found her in the bathtub, her wrists slit.

The red-stained water and her pale, paper-like skin created a chilling contrast.

Her eyes remained open, staring into the void even in death.

What could she have been looking at so sorrowfully?

Did that man, who was nothing like a father, come to greet her in her final moments?

I chose to believe it.

Because if I didn’t believe she found happiness in death, I wouldn’t be able to bear it myself.

So, I believed.

The death of a 13-year-old child.

It was suicide, but at the same time, it was murder.

Horrifically, the culprits were the two people she had cherished most.

After staring at my sister’s body for a while, I headed to my mother’s room.

For the first time, I raised my voice, screaming and flailing my arms and legs.

The saying that children learn from their parents wasn’t wrong—I was doing exactly what they had done to me and my sister.

When my mother finally used magic to slam me into the wall, I finally broke down, wiping away the tears that had started to flow and collapsing to the floor.

I cried.

Tears that hadn’t come when my father died now poured out like a flood.

My mother, finding my behavior strange, went to check the bathroom, and soon another voice joined my sobs.

Through my tear-blurred vision, I stared blankly into the air as my mother’s screams of regret reached my ears.

She was apologizing, saying she loved us, that she never meant for this to happen—repeating the same things she had said when my father died.

But there was no one left to hear those words.

Unlike me, who had grown numb, she had always waited for those words.

Why?

Only now?

It’s disgusting.

Why do humans only regret things after they’ve happened?

I hated my parents, but this wasn’t just about them.

I was disgusted with myself for being optimistic despite knowing everything, for being unable to bear it.

I was the worst perpetrator, watching my sister fall apart from the closest distance yet doing nothing.

There were two culprits in my sister’s death. Excluding the one who was already gone.

My mother.

And me.

***

After that day, the violence in our household disappeared.

It was only natural.

There were only two of us left.

My mother and I, now in a strange relationship that could hardly be called a family, didn’t know how to treat each other.

I deliberately ignored her, and she didn’t have the energy to care about me.

It took over a year before we could even exchange a semblance of conversation.

But we could never return to the affectionate mother-daughter talks of the past.

Our relationship was dry to the bone.

It wasn’t particularly sad.

The affection that could have made it sad had long since dried up.

Even months later, the deaths of my father and sister lingered in my mind, though they were fundamentally different.

For a while, I considered following them, but I always gave up at the last moment.

I was afraid of death.

Just imagining it made my limbs tremble, and the corpses I had seen twice flashed before my eyes.

I guess I was the kind of person who prioritized my own existence above all else.

That’s why, unlike my sister, I never thought about death even when enduring my father’s violence.

After giving up on suicide, I looked at my mother, who was still alive, and thought she must be similar to me.

If she had been like my father, she would have died long ago.

Maybe I was secretly relieved that she would stay by my side until the end.

In reality, my mother stayed by my side for quite a long time.

She lasted several years, long enough for me to realize that all my thoughts had been delusions.

***

My mother began to teach me.

It seemed I had a talent for magic.

She said if I worked hard for a few years, reaching her level wouldn’t be difficult.

It was a good opportunity for me, as I planned to leave this fake barony the moment I became an adult.

In the Empire, a magical powerhouse, mages were well-treated.

I had no reason to refuse, so I silently accepted her teachings.

Ironically, my mother was a good teacher, unlike her role as a parent, so I had no complaints.

Two years passed like that.

***

On a particularly cold winter day when I was 16, I was checking the heating in the mansion.

It had been months since our relationship had shifted from a dry mother-daughter dynamic to something more like a typical master-student relationship.

I was…

I was able to inherit what I had learned.

It was said to be a faster trend than expected.

I was also told that this might not be the limit, so I should look for a better teacher at an academy or something later.

Saying that, my mother stroked my head, looking somewhat relieved but also with empty eyes, giving me a strange feeling.

That familiar sign.

It was the third time, so it wasn’t too hard to notice.

I no longer felt optimistic or hesitant.

I told my mother.

“Don’t die,” I said.

Hearing that, my mother opened her eyes wide in surprise, then smiled faintly and hugged me.

It had been almost three years since we last shared warmth like this.

Her embrace was no longer wider, warmer, or scarier than mine—now, only physical warmth remained.

Her arms tightened around me.

The shoulder I buried my face in slowly grew damp.

It wasn’t a hug to comfort me.

It was a hug for her to be comforted.

Around that time, I realized what my mother was trying to do.

It wasn’t that hard.

After all, I had become a mage like her.

Apart from that.

I wasn’t too pleased to hear that I was late again.

As I kept my mouth shut, my mother, still burying her face, began to mumble something.

It was so quiet that I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t listened closely.

“I love you.”

“It wasn’t because I hated you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who’s going to kill you.”

“I shouldn’t have given birth to you.”

“I shouldn’t have married him.”

I’m sure I was the only one who saw my father’s suicide note and tore it up, but it seems couples are couples—even their final words were disgustingly similar.

When she finished speaking and pulled away from my embrace, my mother’s face showed relief and contentment.

She seemed happy, as if she could finally say it, as if she could atone.

But I still hadn’t let go of anything.

Why was she feeling so relieved on her own?

If she wanted to atone, I wished she’d regret it for the rest of her life and die after me.

I really hated the idea of her running away and leaving me alone, just like my father did.

When I opened my mouth to snap back, my mother’s head had already fallen to the ground, rolling away.

Blood spurted from the severed carotid artery, and her seated body fell backward.

Probably the result of a pre-set spell.

The clean cut from a sharp blade looked vivid, as if it were still alive.

I stood still, letting the pouring blood soak me, and met the eyes of my mother’s head rolling on the ground.

Even separated from her body, her head was still smiling.

As if it had frozen like that.

So I think I smiled too.

Honestly, it was a little funny.

The state I was left in.

Hiding it wasn’t difficult.

After all, I had become a mage on par with my mother.

The fact that she chose death after raising me was probably because she was worried about what would happen after her death.

Still, she was a better person than my father.

Emotionally, it was equally disgusting, but objectively speaking, she was better.

After finishing everything, I lay down on the bed, wondering what to do, and impulsively filled out an academy application.

It was an escape, really.

I didn’t want to stay in this mansion a moment longer, but unlike others, I still wanted to live, so I couldn’t run away through death.

I thought that if I left everything behind and went far away, maybe the broken parts could still serve some purpose.

I can’t say my mother’s advice didn’t influence me.

After all, she was my mother, so I couldn’t completely ignore her advice.

The affection I received as a child was still vividly etched in my memory.

So I thought it wouldn’t hurt to follow her last words as a teacher.

Thinking about it, my eyes suddenly ached, and I blinked nervously two or three times.

It was the kind of pain that didn’t easily subside.

Of course, I didn’t feel much about her death.

I wasn’t sane enough to feel sad about being left alone now.

The reason I’m like this is probably because I’m angry that I’m the only one left who remembers my sister’s death.

It couldn’t be anything else.

It couldn’t be.

I cried.

All night long.

***

I found a girl who had fallen down the stairs and was lying there.

She was the girl I’d seen being bullied in class a few times.

Back then, I didn’t want to get involved, so I pretended not to notice.

But seeing her bleeding, I suddenly thought she looked like my sister back then.

Without realizing it, I took a step forward.