“Uh?”
Iserin wore a shocked expression at Jinseong’s words. Next to her, Iarin awkwardly smiled, looking a bit troubled, then quietly approached Jinseong and said,
“Um, um… brother?”
“What’s up?”
“Right now, um, it seems that the situation and, um… the timing and the, uh… place… yeah… don’t quite match…”
Iserin subtly glanced toward where Ella and Anastasia were. Fortunately, it seemed that the two hadn’t heard what Jinseong said and were playfully tumbling around, resembling a scene from a rodeo festival.
Anastasia trying to ride on Ella’s back and Ella attempting to shake her off, declaring her heavy, was enough to lift the mood simply by watching.
“Just after suffering a bit from that… bad shaman… saying something like that.”
Those two needed some consideration.
Iserin awkwardly remarked to Jinseong.
And Iarin, who had been stunned by Jinseong’s words, was glaring daggers at him with her eyes. She couldn’t curse him out loud, but her eyes seemed to accuse him with, ‘Do you even have a heart?’
“Hm.”
Jinseong tilted his head and looked at Ella.
A person not in his memory.
The woman who disappeared into Anastasia’s body.
A friend of his younger sisters, and a child whose personality he couldn’t quite grasp.
‘Right. The Third World War hasn’t broken out yet…’
Generally, after a major incident, mental disorders follow.
In the past, newbies who had just come to the battlefield and killed people for the first time, referred to in mercenary slang as those who’ve just lost their “murder virginity,” all spoke of mental anguish.
They would dream of the people they killed haunting them, feeling as if someone was strangling them during their daily life, or experiencing visions of themselves dying in the same way as those they had killed.
However, after the Third World War broke out, such complaints about mental anguish decreased dramatically.
Everyday life had turned into a hellscape, making it nearly impossible for anything to cause mental shock anymore.
In short, one could say the threshold for “mental shock” has risen.
Murder?
It was common even in huge cities.
If you went to a dimly lit alley, it was possible to witness the real-time scene of a robber killing someone, and in slums on the outskirts of the city, you could brutally see the consequences of anarchy.
The rich even trained bodyguards to shoot anyone who broke into their homes, calling it “self-defense,” and seeing someone collapsing under attack was a daily occurrence for politicians and high-ranking officials.
Cities were relatively better, though.
In rural areas, you could easily see the entire village colluding to murder outsiders and seize their belongings, and in isolated environments like islands, unimaginable incidents could occur.
For example, you might see a village heavily invested in a cult performing all sorts of horrifying acts, or a mad wizard doing human experimentation using people as materials, or even government-led experiments taking place.
Jinseong had seen and heard quite a lot during his time as a mercenary.
In America, under the direction of the CIA, brainwashing body experiments dubbed MK-Ultra were being carried out again as MK-Ultra Omega. Meanwhile, in Japan, experiments on racial improvement were being conducted using the eugenics data obtained during the Nazi alliance period.
In Europe, there was military research on the use of evil spirits, while in South America, human sacrifice rituals were being secretly conducted. In Africa, criminal groups went around engaging in horrific acts fueled by the bizarre superstition that “a virgin can cure AIDS.” In the Arctic and Antarctic, wizards formed an “Ice Alliance,” claiming that all of it was due to global warming, seeking to bring about an ice age.
Moreover, there were also groups destroying livestock, claiming that meat stirred human violence and thus causing wars, or criminal organizations setting fire to farmland worldwide, provoking food shortages, and even wizards planning terrible acts to create a war-free world under the control of machines. There were also insane mercenaries obsessed with anarchism who assassinated world leaders.
The entire world was going insane.
Jinseong had lived through all manner of crazy scenes in this mad world.
Thus, he never thought that Ella would suffer from mental shock. After all, in his mind, it was common sense that someone wouldn’t be mentally affected by something so trivial. Moreover, the fact that Anastasia was using Ella’s body, who had seen and heard all sorts of filthy things, was tough and optimistic, made it all the more difficult for him to consider PTSD.
In his mind were lingering images of how in the future, Danbi would gaze at the massive Skull Tower built by Unified Korea and remark, “It smells.” Or how upon seeing the horrific ruins created by a cult she’d say, “How pitiful.” Even having nearly melted alive at the hands of a monster born from human experimentation, she could be seen chuckling and eating the corpse of the monster that tried to eat her.
‘Then, it would be fine to just send those two away.’
Jinseong gestured reassuringly to his sister and approached Ella.
Ella was sitting on the bed, half-giving up as Anastasia wouldn’t fall off her back. When she saw Jinseong approaching, her fatigue seemed to evaporate, and she greeted him with a bright smile.
“Ah, Hair Park! What’s going on?”
“I was wondering if you’ve contacted Frau Winter’s master.”
Ella looked troubled as she responded to his question.
“I did try contacting her. But…”
“Was there a problem?”
“What happened to me was too surreal… It seemed hard to believe over the phone.”
That was understandable.
To summarize what happened to Ella in a neat package:
She went to Russia to study abroad, only to be suddenly kidnapped by a crazy diviner who wanted to use her for human sacrifice. Fortunately, her friend’s brother, who was a shaman, intervened in the ritual, saved her, and helped extract her sister, who had been known as a teratoma in her body, thus revealing a sister she never knew she had.
Just the thought of all that was enough to knock the wind out of anyone, not to mention all the spicy details added on.
Jinseong had been transforming his voice to deceive the Great Witch and had been extracting items based on information about a person known as “Hans,” known only to the Great Witch. It was a grand effort to rescue her during the human sacrifice ritual.
Yet at the center of that grand effort stood Jinseong, a mere child who hadn’t even reached adulthood.
Also, he was a shaman from Unified Korea, known as the unholy land of magic, and a self-taught shaman, not a disciple of any famous shaman.
If a passing shaman had saved her, it might have made it easier to explain things. But doing that would erase Jinseong’s contributions. Living by the phrase, “Kindness is repaid double, and enmity fivefold,” taught by her master, Ella could never deceive her conscience.
Thus, she had to tell the truth, but…
Why was that truth even more unbelievable?
“My master adamantly insisted that she wouldn’t come here. No matter how much I told her, she just couldn’t understand, and said we needed to meet face-to-face to gradually understand. Even when I told her it would be fine, she insisted on coming…”
Jinseong smiled brightly at that.
“That’s great.”
“Eh?”
Jinseong pressed Ella down on the bed and then levitated Anastasia, who had been staring at him from Ella’s back, to sit next to her. Then he spoke to them with a kind smile.
“Right now, you two need mental care. The mind is like a tissue. It’s hard to notice when it’s breaking down, but once it does, it’s tough to fix it. Frau Winter and Frau Lentz might not realize it, but they are surely mentally exhausted. At times like this, family can be a great support.”
Jinseong paused for a moment before glancing at Anastasia.
“And there’s also the issue with Frau Lentz. Even if I gave her a name, it doesn’t mean it’s recorded in any system. Frau Lentz is currently a stateless person, officially nonexistent in this world. There’s no way to prove her identity.”
“Ah…”
Ella seemed to finally grasp the situation, her eyes widening in surprise as she looked at her sister.
“A child. A stateless person. No way to inquire about her identity. Plus, with her beautiful looks, she’s the perfect target for bad people. Moreover, considering it’s still dangerous Russia, she’d be even more at risk. There’s nothing better than going back to Germany with Frau Winter, but as I said, having no identity means it’s impossible for her to have a passport. And trying to smuggle her in would be too hazardous.”
“Y-Yeah.”
“So we need Frau Winter’s master’s power.”
To be precise, they needed the power of the Great Witch Odilia A Reich.
The powerful strength and connections of Odilia, who owned a world-renowned cosmetics company.
“There are many ways. With enough connections and money, nothing is impossible. We could slip her onto a refugee list to make her a German citizen, or bribe an orphanage to manipulate the paperwork and adopt her, granting her a legal identity. If that doesn’t work, we could buy a new identity and make her name change. There are options like claiming she’s a victim of crime or a hidden love child, but since that could draw interest, it’s better to avoid those methods.”
“Uh?”
Ella’s eyes widened at the colorful methods spilling from Jinseong’s mouth.
“And, you know… even beyond the issues of mental health or Frau Lentz…”
Jinseong looked at Ella with concern.
“Are you really planning to go through such an ordeal without even a bodyguard? Given that you have both money and connections, refusing a bodyguard is reckless. While you can’t have one forever, isn’t it better to have one for at least the duration of your stay in Russia?”
Caught in his gaze, Ella nodded like someone possessed.
“Y-Yeah. That sounds good?”
“Then it seems there is something to be done now, yes?”
“Eh? Y-Yeah. Ah, I’ll contact her. I’ll reach out!”
Flustered, Ella grabbed her smartphone and started frantically scrolling to contact her master, Agnes. Meanwhile, Anastasia, filled with curiosity, glanced at her contact list, only to turn her gaze away with a mix of pity after noticing how few people were on it.
“If she’ll come right away, I think she’ll probably arrive in Russia soon. Frau Winter, Frau Lentz, please enjoy some precious time with family.”
Jinseong, who was being watched by Anastasia, turned his attention to Iserin and Iarin.
“I’ll spend some time, too.”
