Chapter 119 - Chapter 116: Episode 114 - Reunion with Ye-na
Seon-ah reflected on his wretched life.
He needed time to process the women who claimed to be his mate or wife.
For him, those women had started as nothing but ill-fated connections.
Yu-rin, his first love in this world, had pounced on him and stolen his lips the moment they met.
Because he'd easily overlooked the mistakes of a young Yu-rin, he'd been dragged around by her whims once she grew up.
In the end, he had no positive feelings left for her, especially after she drugged him, filmed those sick videos, and treated him like a sex slave.
His first love, with whom he'd spent fifteen years.
The thought of a relationship that had ended in such a catastrophic, obsessive nightmare was horrifying.
Then there was Miel.
The creature who had delighted in Yu-rin's jealousy and toyed with his very mind.
Of all the women who had been intimate with him, Miel was the most malicious.
Recalling her vicious behavior—altering his most precious memories to suit her whims and wearing a sadistic smile while she watched him struggle—made him shudder.
He could never forget that final memory of being chased by her mother, only to be handed over to Yu-rin and forced to sleep with them both.
And Sophia.
The woman who had used his mother's body to force a contract upon him, all to satisfy her own greed.
Although they had lived as a married couple for the longest time, all that remained were scars on his heart.
Nevertheless, if he were honest, that had been the happiest period of his time with the three of them.
He didn't feel only hatred for her; she had genuinely tried and devoted herself to him.
It was something he could have brushed off as a momentary mistake.
During the years she spent trying to win him over, she hadn't treated him as recklessly as the other two.
Besides, even before he left his parents' house for the last time, he knew why she had brought him there.
Even though his mental state had been regressing, he remembered everything.
She had tried to take care of him, even going so far as to imitate his mother—whom she hated so much—just to look after him while he was acting childish and mentally unstable.
She was the one who had turned her back on the Demon World she was supposed to rule, coming to Earth just to make up for her mistakes and look after him.
She was also the only one of the three who didn't treat him as a mere object to be locked up and drained of semen, like Miel or Yu-rin.
When he was with her, at least there was freedom, and she respected him.
'Suddenly... I'm starting to feel sorry...'
He didn't have only bad memories of Sophia, unlike his memories of Miel or Yu-rin.
Furthermore, it wasn't Sophia's fault that she had ended up in his mother's body.
It was a dilemma that weighed even heavier on him because he knew it was caused by the First Elder of the Council—who had threatened his mother using him as leverage, and who was now dead by Sophia's hand.
He thought that, unlike the others, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to give Sophia one more chance.
As he continued to walk while recalling his memories with them, he finally arrived at his destination.
The place where he first encountered his first love, Yu-rin.
The place where his daughter was—Yu-ra's house.
Even though quite a long time had passed since his last visit, almost nothing had changed.
There were still signs that the vast garden was being properly maintained.
Memories of his school days, when he frequently visited to play with Yu-rin, came to mind.
'It was really good back then...'
She was someone who had now become an ill-fated connection.
Since she had drugged him and even filmed those videos, she was surely living in prison by now.
Thinking of that, he also felt worried for her mother, Yu-ra.
Park Yu-ra... When they first met, she would look at him as if he were cute every time he called her "Executive Director" in his young voice.
She was a woman with upright and correct thoughts, just like his mother.
When he visited to play with Yu-rin, it was usually on weekdays, so she wouldn't be home, but whenever she invited his family over on weekends, she would welcome them warmly and was especially fond of him.
As he recalled how she treated him like family, he realized that there were indeed memories of his that would never fade.
With that thought, he pressed the doorbell.
Someone's voice began to be heard through the intercom.
"Who is it?"
There was a bit of static, so the sound wasn't clear, but he knew the owner of that voice perfectly well.
It was the voice of his daughter, Yena.
"Yena?... Is that you, Yena? It's Appa... Just like I promised... I've returned now..."
"Appa?... Appa!"
Hearing the voices through the intercom, the father and daughter recognized each other and responded with joy.
The lock on the main gate clicked open, and he could see the front door of the mansion beyond the garden opening.
He saw his daughter, Yena, running out without even wearing shoes, tears and snot streaming down her face.
Seon-ah smiled at the sight of Yena and started running toward her, but suddenly stopped.
He couldn't help but freeze when he saw a woman following behind her.
Her appearance was that of one of the women he had been thinking about.
The woman he had been in a relationship with for the longest time.
The woman who left him with painful memories of being toyed with and forcibly violated while drugged.
That woman was none other than Yu-rin.
Even though Yu-rin was behind her, Yena was running toward him with her in tow, as if it were only natural for her to be by her side.
.
.
.
Yena felt that the moment she had longed for so much had finally arrived.
The voice coming from the intercom was definitely her father's.
She wanted to go to him in her original form, but because of Yu-rin behind her, she held back, opened the front door, and ran out to greet him.
At first, her father had been running toward her smiling, but then he suddenly looked toward her with a cold expression, as if he had seen something he shouldn't have.
After watching her father's face for a while, she realized that his gaze wasn't directed at her.
When she looked where his gaze was lingering, she saw the new family member right behind her—the woman she had thought of like a mother.
Her father was looking at Yu-rin.
However, Yu-rin was looking at her with a puzzled expression.
That questioning gaze was strange.
The expression on her face, as if she weren't happy to see him even after seeing her father, was not at all joyful, even though her wish to meet Seon-ah again—which she had been talking about all this time—had come true.
It was an expression as if she didn't recognize her father.
No... rather than not recognizing the father in front of her, to be precise, it was an "expression of not noticing that a person was there at all."
Only after noticing that sense of incongruity did she understand.
What had happened to her while she was on the expedition to the Demon World.
Among the mental magics of the succubi, it was the most famous, curse-like magic.
The fact that she had been hit with the Curse of Unrecognizability...
.
.
.
Seon-ah recalled what the Succubus Lord had said at the moment he last saw her, seeing that Yu-rin had no reaction even though she looked right at him.
The words that Yu-rin would never be able to see him again.
At first, he thought it was just a figure of speech, but he had no choice but to fully realize the truth of it.
Even though he was right in front of her, Yu-rin was looking around here and there, turning her head diligently to find him.
The moment he realized that what the Succubus Lord had said was true, he wasn't afraid of her.
Holding Yena's hand, he ignored Yu-rin, who had been looking around to find him, and walked quickly to enter the mansion.
He sneered at seeing Yu-rin, who had been searching for a long time, asking Yena where he was.
He thought it was the punishment that suited her best.
He had wished that she would get to taste even a fraction of the pain he suffered because of her, and that wish had been granted.
As he entered the house, Yu-rin's mother, Yu-ra, was standing in the open entryway.
Seeing Yu-ra's expression, as if she were stunned and couldn't believe it even after seeing him, he smiled brightly and greeted her.
"It's been a while... Have you been well?"
"Seon-ah..."
Yu-ra had thought that Seon-ah might not be able to come back.
She had been suffering day by day, wondering if Yena was just a phantom-like existence showing her what she wanted to see.
However, upon seeing Seon-ah in front of her, tears poured out.
Her thoughts about Seon-ah, who had suffered because of her daughter, hadn't been forgotten for a single day since the day he was dragged into the gate.
He was a child who often came to play at this house to see her daughter, and he was a child who could practically be considered family.
That was why she had even submitted the video evidence to send her own daughter to prison with her own hands.
Because of her guilt toward Seon-ah.
But now, she was so happy that the child she thought had died had returned alive.
Unlike the immense hardships he must have suffered in the Demon World, Seon-ah's face was exactly as it had been at twenty.
Yu-ra, who didn't know that his physical age had been fixed to his early twenties through re-awakening, couldn't help but think that way.
"Welcome back... You had a hard time, didn't you?..."
Yu-ra, bursting into tears, hugged Seon-ah.
"No... It wasn't hard... And thank you for... taking care of Yena..."
Seon-ah only felt gratitude toward Yu-ra.
If there hadn't been anyone he could trust to take care of his daughter, Yena, when he sent her to Earth, he might not have been able to see her with his own eyes like this.
Thinking about that, it wouldn't be enough to thank her even a thousand times.
At the moment of their emotional reunion, they embraced each other with joyful hearts.
Yu-rin couldn't understand what on earth was going on as she watched her mother stretching her arms into thin air as if to embrace someone.
"Seon-ah... Come inside... I have so many stories to tell you..."
"Appa, me too!"
"Actually, I felt the same way..."
The door closed along with the harmonious voices of the three people.
Yu-rin, standing in the garden, could only stare at the closed front door.
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Her heart pounded, and she felt something strange.
An illusion, as if she alone couldn't see Seon-ah.
No... she felt that it might be something that was actually happening.
The more she stared at that closed front door, the more it began to approach certainty.