Her life, when she looked back on it, had never once been kind.
Her name was Tsuareninya Veyron.
She once had a younger sister—Ninya.
If she had any memories she could call warm or bright, they belonged to that small village where the two of them had lived together. Those days were the only time in her life she had known anything resembling a human existence.
Then one day, a depraved local lord abducted her.
Torn away from her sister, her life plunged straight into hell.
The noble kept her as a concubine—no, a toy.
From that day onward he used her however he pleased.
She endured treatment no human being should ever experience.
Every night she was handled like a thing—touched, violated, hurt.
But that, she would soon learn, had only been the shallow end of hell.
When the noble eventually tired of her body, he disposed of her—selling her to a brothel operated by Eight Fingers, the criminal empire that rotted through the kingdom.
That was when true hell began.
To prevent escape, they cut her Achilles tendons.
Every day, she was subjected to the obscene whims of oily, powerful men.
Not a single night passed without fresh wounds.
She was beaten while being violated, spat on, treated as something beneath livestock.
There was no dignity, no humanity—nothing left but pain.
Days passed—
Weeks—
Months—
Until her mind and body eroded.
Food no longer went down her throat.
Sleep became impossible.
Her body grew frail.
Diseases festered within her.
Eventually Tsuareninya became little more than a living punching bag, beaten until her consciousness flickered like a dying candle.
Then finally—
pale, thin, feverish—
she collapsed.
They tossed her into a body bag.
She had seen others thrown into that same bag.
Women who had endured what she endured.
Women who never returned.
She understood what it meant.
Ah… so this is the end for me.
Tsuareninya felt relief.
Death meant escape.
Death meant the end of hell.
Death meant she would never again be touched by those hands.
In the moment she realized that, she felt genuinely grateful.
Her body was carried.
Jostled.
Then—
thrown onto a hard stone road.
Her limp form rolled from the bag.
A breeze brushed her cheek.
A cool, gentle breeze—nothing like the stagnant air of the brothel.
She forced her eyes upward.
Stars.
Faint, trembling stars in the night sky.
She had not seen the sky in so long.
She knew she was lying before the brothel's entrance.
Yet the air felt clean.
The faint starlight was beautiful.
She inhaled deeply, though her broken ribs stabbed her lungs.
Ah…
It was so far from the sky she had seen with her sister.
But it was enough to stir memories.
And then—
No…
Like a flood, memory surged through her:
Her sister.
Her village.
The day they were dragged away.
Every humiliation she had endured.
Her heart felt a faint pulse—
A feeling so primal it startled her.
No… no…
Her entire being whispered:
I don't want to die.
I don't want this.
I'm scared.
It was a pure biological instinct.
An animal's fear.
A human's fear.
I want to live.
Even like this—
I want to live.
The realization shocked even her.
She had believed she wanted death.
Yet now that it stood before her, she grasped for life.
Someone… anyone… God…
She knew this world.
She knew it was hell.
She knew prayers rarely reached anyone.
But still—
still she prayed.
Her mind filled with memories:
The small warm home.
Her little sister's laughter.
The scent of their mother's cooking.
The earthy smell of the fields.
The songs villagers sang at dusk.
Her everything.
Someone…
Someone… please… help me…
If she died—
Would she vanish entirely?
Would she cease to exist?
Would the part of her that remembered her sister disappear?
She didn't want that.
She didn't want to disappear.
Her fingers twitched—
and touched something cold.
A boot.
That sensation—so clear, so real—was the last thing she felt.
And then—
her consciousness faded.
She Awoke
She woke.
A bed beneath her—soft, gentle.
A blanket—warm, clean.
Her body felt light.
She sat up slowly, confusion clouding her vision.
She looked around.
A room she did not know.
Clean.
Neat.
No clutter.
Morning light filtered through pale curtains.
Her body... her body had strength.
No pain.
No fever.
No bones screaming beneath her skin.
She stared at her hands.
Her clean hands.
Her unbroken hands.
Then—
"Looks like you're awake."
"—eh?"
She hadn't noticed.
A woman sat in the chair beside her bed.
A woman she had never seen.
Her voice was beautiful.
Calm.
Gentle.
Tsuareninya turned—and froze.
Time stopped.
The woman was beautiful beyond belief.
Long black hair cascading like silk.
A pristine white dress that looked almost divine.
A serene smile that seemed to radiate sacred warmth.
She looked like—
An angel.
Pure.
Beautiful.
Holy.
Tsuareninya's throat tightened.
"—h… hi—hic… kh…"
Tears spilled.
Big, round tears spilled from her eyes before she could stop them.
She clutched the sheets.
Her shoulders trembled.
Her lips quivered.
The warm room.
The gentle atmosphere.
The angelic woman watching over her—
It could only mean one thing:
I'm dead.
This is the afterlife.
She's an angel sent to receive me.
And she wept.
She wept with relief.
She wept with joy.
She wept with grief.
She wept with bitterness.
She wept with pain too old to name.
The storm of emotions broke inside her, and tears poured unchecked.
Her life—
her hell—
was finally over.
She never became anything.
Never achieved anything.
Never even had the chance to begin.
Her end had been miserable and cruel.
Yet somehow—
she felt peace.
The beautiful angel—Albedo—
gently embraced her.
"—u… uua… ueee… uaaaahhhh!!"
Tsuareninya sobbed, clinging to her savior.
The embrace was warm.
Soft.
Kind.
So unlike the hands that had hurt her.
Something inside her—something stretched thin for years—
finally snapped.
She cried until exhaustion swallowed her.
Until her tears ran dry.
Until her consciousness dimmed.
And Albedo held her gently, silently,
until she drifted once more into sleep.
Later
"Was this… really the right choice…?"
After laying Tsuareninya back into bed, Momon sank into the living room sofa, burying her face in her hands.
Regret tinged her beautiful features.
She rubbed her temples.
(Using a Master Potion on her… was that too wasteful…?)
On the table before her sat a second vial—faintly glowing with phantasmal light.
The Master Potion:
A miraculous, irreplaceable elixir that could cure any bad status instantly.
She had obtained two from the moss growing on the great monster tree Zy'tl Q'ae.
And she had just used one.
Yes—on a stranger.
True, she owned scrolls for healing diseases—but they required a cleric class to activate, and she couldn't use them.
She could have taken the woman to a temple, but…
If Eight Fingers learned that the brothel was annihilated on the same night a dying prostitute was brought to a temple, suspicion would land on her.
That was unacceptable.
And Tsuareninya's injuries—physical wounds could be healed by her own mid-tier potions.
But the woman's multiple advanced venereal diseases were beyond normal healing methods.
She had only two options:
• Let the woman die
• Spend a miracle-level potion to save her
And she chose the latter.
But…
Her hand had shaken when she poured the potion into the woman's mouth.
(It's like spending a fortune to take a stray kitten to the vet… and then buying a cage, litter box, and cat food on top of it. Why am I doing this to myself…?)
And as if that weren't enough—
This entire building was an emergency rental.
Last night, after destroying the brothel, she couldn't exactly bring a diseased woman back to her luxury inn.
So she bought her way into a freshly cleaned house in the high-class district.
More expense.
More hassle.
Momon dragged a hand down her face.
"Why did I even do this…"
Because she had picked her up.
Because she couldn't look away.
Because she knew what could have happened to her.
Because she feared that fate.
Because she still had a piece of Suzuki Satoru inside her.
And now she had a woman to care for.
"Haah…"
A long sigh.
Tsuareninya's future was now her problem.
This—
this was why she avoided helping people.
It created complications.
Entanglement.
Responsibility.
But she had chosen this.
And there was no going back.