Chapter 137 - Chapter 134: Episode 132 - What I Wanted to Know, What I Wanted to Protect
Lee Shin-ah had been thinking about it ever since she saw the file envelope containing Seon-ah's personal information.
The fact that the child her eonni left behind was still alive.
Once she knew, she was torn over what to do.
She wanted to see the last trace her eonni had left in this world.
But when she thought about the burden it would place on him, she felt she shouldn't go.
It was certain he would feel overwhelmed if an aunt he'd never met suddenly showed up.
Yet, she didn't want to feel that regret again—the same hollow ache she'd felt when she failed to visit her eonni before she disappeared into the Demon World.
She wavered, agonizing over the decision hundreds of times over the course of several days.
In the end, I decided to look into the boy's whereabouts.
However, I intended to be cautious so as not to cause him any embarrassment.
At least, that was the plan until I entrusted the request to a private detective agency.
When I handed over a large sum of money to the agency—one famous among the major hunter guilds—to find Lee Seon-ah, the news I received changed everything.
My eldest daughter, Hyun-ah, had already put out a request to find him.
I hadn't expected her to afford the agency's steep fees.
Hyun-ah had seemed to give up after asking me, her mother, to look for him and finding no other leads.
Where did she get that kind of money?
All my predictions were wrong; Hyun-ah had found him.
Once I knew that, a wave of anxiety washed over me.
My heart began to race.
I was desperate to know why she had hired them.
'That kind, timid Hyun-ah couldn't have been stalking him, could she?'
But I realized I had no idea what my daughter was capable of anymore.
After being ranked S-Class, Hyun-ah had begun to show increasingly abnormal behavior, and I could no longer predict her actions.
She had started acting in ways completely contrary to her powerless days, like summoning executives to assert her influence or scouting people to support her.
I had even considered stepping in to stop her.
Though I'd agonized over it countless times and couldn't bring myself to do it, I finally felt I had enough justification. Lee Shin-ah...
I headed straight for the studio apartment where Hyun-ah lived.
And then, I saw it.
I couldn't believe the scene unfolding before my eyes.
My daughter had him tied up and was riding him, consuming his essence.
My niece and my eldest daughter were entangled.
To be precise, my eldest daughter was violating my nephew.
Lee Shin-ah wanted to believe this wasn't reality.
Desperate to turn away from the horror, I kicked my eldest daughter.
If she moved, if I untied him, maybe this nightmare would vanish.
But that hope was in vain.
As I kicked her off Seon-ah, a spray of fluid erupted from his abused member.
The sheer volume was unnatural, a testament to how severely he had been used.
It poured out, pulsing as if he'd been pumped full of stimulants.
The liquid splattered all over me. The fishy, pungent smell stung my nose.
Feeling the slimy mess on my skin, I finally snapped back to reality.
The slime and the stench were proof that what I'd just seen wasn't a hallucination.
It was horrific.
My eldest daughter, Hyun-ah, hadn't loved her cousin—she had raped him.
The kind, timid girl I knew was gone.
The kind Hyun-ah.
In her place was an arrogant, selfish monster, sprawled on the floor, driven only by greed.
Ignoring her, I moved to untie my only nephew, Lee Seon-ah, to save him.
But when he struggled, terrified of me, my heart shattered.
"Don't touch me... please... I beg you... don't do it..."
I knew exactly what this was.
The trace of my eonni that I'd sworn to protect—the fact that my nephew hated me felt like a skewer piercing my heart.
This was guilt.
Seeing him after I kicked Hyun-ah away...
Covered in the damp fluids of my daughter's rape, my emotions boiled over.
Why... why did I come for him so late?
Why did I fail to protect the things I claimed were precious?
Lee Shin-ah endured the agony and untied the ropes around Seon-ah's body.
Thud!
Suddenly, Lee Shin-ah's body was thrown to the side.
It wasn't a voluntary movement.
An external force had slammed into her, sending her scraping across the floor until she hit the wall.
No ordinary person could have done that, nor would they have the strength.
Lee Shin-ah looked up at her assailant.
It was her eldest daughter, wearing an expression she had never seen before.
Her face was twisted in rage, and the fist she'd thrown was trembling violently.
"Mother... why are you touching 'what's mine'? That's mine... why are you getting in my way instead of helping me!"
Seeing her eyes unfocused and wild, I knew Hyun-ah had lost her mind.
My heart tightened at her words, which seemed to pour out all the resentment she'd been harboring.
The attention I had given her...
The fact that I had withdrawn my attention for her sake, hoping she wouldn't collapse under the pressure.
I did it because I didn't want to burden her, but I realized now how deeply I had hurt her.
That responsibility was mine—I was the one who started it all.
Hyun-ah had once admired the mother standing before her.
The image of her mother she'd held since childhood.
She was a superhuman who saved countless people from Gates and gave them hope.
Her mother had achieved so much.
She had solidified her position by resolving every major Gate incident, not just in South Korea, but across the globe.
'Someday, I'll become a hunter like Mother and save people too!'
The words she'd said as a child, back when she still had her mother's attention, echoed in her mind.
It was a memory that had faded the moment her mother's attention vanished and she began to face the criticism and glares of the world.
Back then, her mother had stroked her hair, looking so happy.
But that was no longer the case.
To do her part as a hunter, she needed that man.
After her mother's attention disappeared, he was her only hope to become the strong hunter she had once admired.
Now, the mother she admired was trying to take that hope away.
She was trying to take Lee Seon-ah away from her.
To her, her mother was no longer an object of admiration.
She was just an enemy blocking her path.
Once she thought that, her perspective shifted.
She remembered a rumor from a sponsor that her mother had cast aside her own eonni in her youth to secure her position.
The idea that her righteous mother could never do such a thing crumbled completely.
She began to suspect that her mother, noticing her own rising abilities and feeling threatened, was interfering.
In Hyun-ah's mind, that suspicion was hardening into certainty.
"He's mine... I said he's mine! I can't give him to anyone! You're trying to take him away from me on purpose, aren't you? Because you're afraid your position is at risk. You're afraid that if I become stronger, I'll take your spot!"
With her focus shattered, Hyun-ah kicked off the ground again, swinging her fist at Lee Shin-ah.
She swung with all her might, forgetting even that she was in her own room.
It was a lightning-fast attack, but Lee Shin-ah, honed by a lifetime of hunting, predicted the path and dodged.
Where the fist landed...
Concrete dust exploded as the wall collapsed and crumbled away.
Lee Shin-ah's condition was already compromised from the earlier surprise attack.
She had barely dodged that blow.
Realizing that if she hadn't, she would have ended up like the wall, she decided to use her full power.
She drew upon her gravity manipulation, twisting the paths of gravity around Hyun-ah to neutralize her.
She wrapped Hyun-ah in pressure, increasing the force to dozens of times the norm.
Hyun-ah's body felt the weight of a planet, yet it didn't seem enough.
Indifferent to the crushing pressure, Hyun-ah overcame it and attacked again.
Lee Shin-ah tried to push her back with her ability, but she couldn't block it.
More than the fact that she couldn't unleash her full power on her own daughter, the real problem was that Hyun-ah's durability and strength were simply able to withstand the gravity.
And so, Hyun-ah drove her fist into her mother's stomach.
"Ugh!"
Lee Shin-ah had offset some of the power, but for someone who wasn't a physical-type ability user, it was a fatal wound.
Feeling as if her internal organs had burst, Lee Shin-ah trembled.
With eyes that felt like they were closing for the last time, she took it all in.
The daughter who had struck her with everything she had.
The light reaching out from the hand of Lee Seon-ah, who had been watching from the side.
Watching that, Lee Shin-ah felt her consciousness slowly fade away.