Chapter 86 - Chapter 83: Episode 81 - Confession
Three months had passed since Yena began living in this house.
That day, Yena had endured a terrifying ordeal at the hands of Yu-rin, but Yu-ra had managed to mediate between them.
For a moment, she thought Yu-rin had realized Yena was Seon-ah's daughter, but due to her own delusions, Yu-rin had convinced herself that Yena was her own child.
Watching that, Yu-ra couldn't bring herself to reveal the truth.
She was terrified that Yu-rin, who had finally returned to some semblance of sanity, might snap again.
She feared the situation could spiral into something even worse than before.
As if she sensed Yu-rin's fragile state, Yena couldn't bring herself to tell her the truth, either.
Quite some time passed in that delicate state.
Yena craved the maternal love she hadn't received from her own mother, finding it instead in Yu-ra and Yu-rin.
At first, Yena had acted in ways far beyond her years, but as she gradually opened her heart, she began to act spoiled toward them.
Now, she didn't even push back when Yu-rin played the role of mother.
In fact, she would call her "Mom" and actively seek out Yu-rin's affection.
Whenever she was asked about her own mother, her face would crinkle and she would sigh, clearly haunted by painful memories.
Seeing Yena like that, Yu-ra could roughly guess why she was so desperate for maternal love.
It was obvious her relationship with her biological mother had been toxic.
That was the state of things, right up until the day she discovered Yena's true form and the full, ugly truth of everything...
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Yena was counting the months since she had last seen her father, Seon-ah.
She hadn't forgotten the instructions he'd given her when he sent her to Earth through the Gate.
Go to the police, ask for help, and then find the house where a woman named Park Yu-ra lived.
Hide her true identity.
Keep her mother a secret.
Three simple rules.
She recalled the last time she saw her father, who had given her those orders.
From his sad expression, she could feel how much it pained him to send her away.
The reason Seon-ah had no choice but to send Yena to Earth was the same reason she hated her mother.
Her father had sent her away to save her, as she had been chosen as the new vessel for the Demon King.
Her mother, the Demon King, didn't treat her like a child.
She regarded her merely as a vessel to house her own soul.
The things her mother did to her were too horrific to put into words.
To accelerate her growth, she used bio-magic to force her body to mature, causing agonizing growing pains, and violently injected magic power into her to force an awakening.
Her father would wail as he watched her suffer, but that demon she called "mother" treated her like a tool, subjecting her to all sorts of biological manipulation.
Because of that, the body she had now was already close to that of an adult.
The mere fact that her body was changing under the influence of bio-magic was terrifying.
She could believe her mother's claims that there were no side effects—after all, she wouldn't want the vessel she intended to use for herself to be ruined.
Yena had dropped her mimicry magic for the first time in a while, returning to her original form.
Since Earth was a place where magic power barely gathered, she needed to revert to her true form occasionally to collect energy, all while avoiding the eyes of Yu-ra and Yu-rin.
She knew she shouldn't get caught, but returning to her original body made her feel like she could finally breathe properly.
Although it was a body warped by her mother, it was far more convenient than the small, child-like one.
Thinking of that, her father came to mind.
It was a thought filled with hope, a stark contrast to the misery of the past.
She imagined that if her father could escape her mother's clutches and make it to Earth, she wanted him to enjoy these happy moments with her.
Lost in that daydream, Yena didn't notice who had come up behind her.
She hadn't even realized that Yu-ra had approached, wearing a look of pure shock.
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Yu-ra had once wondered if Yena, who looked so much like Seon-ah, would resemble him when she grew up.
It seemed natural, given how much Yena looked like him.
However, in a way, Seon-ah's face resembled his father, Hyeon-tae, and his mother, Min-ah.
If she had to choose, she thought he looked more like Min-ah.
And so, that idle thought—that Yena might resemble Min-ah—turned out to be true today.
Yu-ra, who had come out to the living room for water in the middle of the night, heard rustling sounds from Yena's room and opened the door slightly.
She had intended to approach carefully to comfort Yena, thinking she might be sad and missing her father.
However, what she saw through the gap was a set of 5-year-old girl's clothes lying on the bed, and the figure of an adult woman stretching her arms high above her head, as if showing off her naked body.
When Yu-ra opened the door in surprise and entered, Yena spotted her, and both were left speechless.
Since Yu-ra knew Yena was a monster, she had been confident that nothing could surprise her.
But a monster that could change its own appearance? That was a situation she hadn't even imagined.
Yena, too, couldn't help but be startled by Yu-ra's sudden entry.
Yu-ra always made a point of being considerate of her, so this was the first time something like this had happened.
As they both stood there in stunned silence, Yu-ra spoke first.
"Yena... what is that appearance?..."
"This is my original form... I'm sorry for hiding it until now."
Yena had hidden her true appearance because she was following her father's instructions.
Seon-ah had worried that if Yena arrived on Earth in the body of an adult instead of a 5-year-old, Yu-ra would think she was crazy or refuse to take her in.
Since only five years had passed, having a body that looked over twenty was proof she was a monster, and Yu-ra, a hunter, might have tried to kill her on sight.
Because Yu-ra only knew Seon-ah, she didn't know about monsters that could mimic him.
Therefore, Yena had no choice but to hide her true form.
Yena eventually began to tell Yu-ra the things she had kept hidden and the reasons she had come to Earth from the Demon World.
However, she didn't reveal the specific details about her mother—the things her father had strictly forbidden her from sharing.
Yu-ra's expression hardened as she listened to the story.
She heard about her body being forced to grow through bio-experiments.
She heard about the agony of being constantly injected with magic power.
She heard about her father wailing as he watched, begging her mother to stop.
And she heard about the precious memories she shared with her father.
Yena told Yu-ra all of it.
Morning dawned, and she heard Yu-rin calling her from the living room.
She wanted to say more, but Yena promised to tell her the rest later, using her mimicry to return to the appearance of a young child.
She walked out to the living room and nonchalantly greeted Yu-rin, who was looking for her.
Yu-ra was left in a state of confusion, wondering if the shrewd monster she'd just seen was the real Yena, or if the young child currently in Yu-rin's arms, craving love, was the truth.
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Five years ago, in the Demon World.
The First Elder stood between two bars.
"I'm busy right now. Call the interrogator; I don't have time to handle this myself."
Two prisoners were held captive.
Min-ah had been captured because the First Elder ordered an investigation into why the human armed group had invaded the Demon World.
To get the full story, they had kidnapped Min-ah, the expedition leader.
Sensing the pure, massive amount of magic power swirling inside Min-ah, the First Elder decided she was the perfect vessel for the Demon King.
She instructed the interrogator to extract information without inflicting physical pain on her.
The interrogator pondered how to proceed.
Usually, you broke a prisoner by inflicting pain, but being told to interrogate someone while ignoring the basics was absurd.
However, he soon learned that the beautiful human male trapped opposite her was her son.
Based on their conversation, he devised a new strategy.
The most important part of an interrogation was to coax the target, not just break them with torture.
Many surrendered to pain, but those who ended up in the Council's interrogation room were usually rebels or nobles who wouldn't easily betray their own.
This time, however, the situation was different.
He had only been ordered not to harm the woman.
There was no such rule regarding the man.
The interrogator looked closely at Seon-ah's face and body.
'He's a delicious-looking one, isn't he?'
He licked his lips, savoring the thought.
A "brilliant" torture technique occurred to him.
'I wonder if she'll still keep her mouth shut when she watches her own son get brutally raped right in front of her.'
The interrogator gathered soldiers he knew within the Royal Castle to carry out the torture, fueled by his own dark, twisted desires.