Chapter 161: The Witch of the Night (2)

It was a frozen wasteland and a white world buried in snow, splattered with drops of crimson. The Witch of the Night let out a faint sigh as she looked down at the sword pierced clean through her stomach. Slowly, she toppled onto the thick layer of snow. Turning her head with difficulty, she looked at the gray-haired hero who had run her through.

The hero staggered closer, breath ragged and uneven. With a harsh pull, he yanked his sword free from her abdomen. Blood spilled out, soaking into the endless white.

The witch clutched her bleeding stomach and murmured, “It’s cold…”

The hero’s face twisted into a snarl. “Cold?”

The witch gave a faint nod, her breathing weak, her voice barely a whisper that trembled on the edge of death. “Yes. It’s very cold.”

A dry, mirthless laugh escaped the hero’s mouth. He glared at her with bloodshot eyes. “So, you can feel the cold, huh?”

The being who had created this frozen wasteland—the witch who had slaughtered tens, hundreds of thousands without a flicker of hesitation—was shivering from the cold? The thought was absurd enough to make him laugh.

“Yeah. I was cold. For a long time, I was… always… so cold.” The witch reached out a trembling hand toward him, almost pleading. “Just once. Please, just once is enough.”

Red tears, blood mixed with sorrow, trickled down her pale cheeks.

“I just… want to feel… warm.”

The hero smacked her hand away, grinding his teeth in fury. “You want to be warm? Just once?”

His lips twisted in rage as he gripped his sword tighter. “What a joke.”

Through clenched teeth, he yelled, “Freeze to death for all eternity, you damn witch.”

Then he drove the blade straight into her heart. Just like that, the witch’s long nightmare came to an end. And the hero’s long nightmare began.

* * *

I could clearly remember that day. It was the day I had killed the Witch of the Night, Laneige Maram. After endless sacrifice, after countless deaths and revivals and immeasurable despair, I had finally reached her and plunged my sword into her heart. To me, Laneige Maram was the embodiment of a nightmare itself.

I had wandered her endless blizzard for what felt like millennia. White snowstorms, a frozen earth that swallowed my legs up to the knees, and a cold that gnawed at my bones—the memories lingered deep in my chest, etched as a trauma that would never fade.

Yet now, the very witch who had scarred my soul, the monstrous murderer who had slaughtered millions, was sitting before me, curled up and crying like a child.

Tears dripped down her face, her shoulders trembling. “I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

My mind spun in confusion. Was I supposed to feel satisfaction? To think this was karma finally catching up to her? Or should I pity her? Was I meant to look at her and think, Even she once had a past like this?

Unable to decide, I was still lost in that tangle of thoughts when a calm, sharp voice cut through the tension.

“What do you all think you’re doing here?”

A silver-haired young man strode toward the group of cadets. It was Aaron Baek, currently the top-ranked fourth-year cadet and the direct descendant of Baek Seung-Hyuk, the Divine Spear, one of the Great Five Heroes. Behind him stood Bella Leonhart, the Spectral Sword, ranked second among the fourth-years and destined to become his lover in the future.

The group of cadets who had been surrounding Laneige instantly stiffened, their expressions twisting in panic.

“A-Aaron?”

“Why is Aaron here?”

They exchanged nervous glances, inching away from her.

“I asked what you were doing,” Aaron asked again.

“W-we weren’t doing anything!”

“It was just, uh, a small argument, that’s all.”

Aaron let out a low, cold laugh at their pathetic excuse. “An argument?”

His gaze sharpened as it swept across the group. “I’m pretty sure I told you before. Don’t mess with Laneige.”

“B-but…”

“She’s a witch! How are we supposed to take classes with the spawn of a demon?” one of them shouted.

Indeed, Laneige Maram was a half-blood, born between a human hero and a demon. While she carried neither dark mana nor the soul stigmata of the Demon God, the blood of a demon undeniably flowed within her veins. Moreover, it was not just any demon’s blood, but that of a powerful one who had once risen to the rank of Archbishop.

Aaron let out a weary sigh. “I get how you feel. I really do. But it’s not like she chose to be born that way.”

“That’s not the point.”

“And besides, we’ve got just one semester left before graduation. Why cause trouble now?”

“It’s because we’re about to graduate!” someone snapped, glaring at Laneige.

She lifted her head slightly to gauge the situation, then quickly lowered it again, trembling.

“In one semester, that witch will get a hero’s license! A demon’s offspring getting certified as a hero. Aaron, do you honestly think that makes sense?”

Aaron placed a firm hand on the cadet’s shoulder, his voice dropping low and cold. “Calm down.”

The young man froze. “M-my apologies.”

“Anyways, let’s not have anything like this happen again. We share the same classroom, remember? We’re supposed to be comrades.”

“Yeah.”

The tension slowly dissipated. In the cold silence that followed, Laneige Maram, the future Witch of the Night, silently wiped her tears. The group of cadets turned around with dejected faces and quietly filed back into the building.

Aaron exhaled a weary sigh and walked over to Laneige, who was crouched on the ground. He extended a hand toward her. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah. T-thank you.”

Just as Laneige nodded faintly and reached out for his hand, Bella, who had been watching from the side, kicked Laneige hard in the stomach.

Laneige groaned. “Kugh

!”

Bella glared at her, with an expression full of disgust, as though she were staring at the corpse of a crushed insect. “How dare a witch like you touch Aaron’s hand?”

Aaron, startled, turned toward her and shouted, “Bella! What the hell are you doing?”

“I know you’re too kind for your own good, Aaron. But…” Bella bit her lip and looked at him sharply. “At the very least, you shouldn’t be defending this witch, Aaron.”

“That’s not…”

“I’m leaving.” She turned and walked off briskly

Aaron hurried after her. “Ah! W-wait! Bella, hold on!”

When the two disappeared, Laneige slowly pushed herself up. She clutched her stomach where Bella’s kick had landed, her face twisted in pain. “Ugh!Ah, that hurts.”

Tears dripped down her cheeks. After a while of quietly sobbing, she staggered to her feet and began to walk away. At that moment, her eyes met mine. She froze, startled, then stepped back nervously. Her gaze flicked to the name tag on my left chest.

She murmured. “Third-year?”

Without a word, I simply stood there as she timidly approached.

“I-I’m sorry,” she said.

Sorry? For what?

“It. It was my fault,” she added.

Her fault? What does she mean by that? I thought.

“T-they’re not bad people, really!”

I just silently listened.

“So, d-don’t go spreading weird rumors or anything!” After blurting that out, Laneige quickly turned and ran off as if fleeing from something.

Left alone, I leaned my back against the wall and let out a deep sigh. “What the hell was that all about?”

Even after all these years of living, the world was still full of things I couldn’t understand.

***

The next day, I called Senior Sophia to the main building’s cafe, far from the others, hoping to avoid running into the fourth-year cadets.

“You’ve got some nerve, dragging your senior all the way out here. You haven’t changed a bit,” she said.

Grumbling that she had to walk more than twenty minutes, she ordered a caramel macchiato piled high with whipped cream, poured a ridiculous amount of syrup into it, and slurped it down.

“Isn’t that too sweet?” I asked.

“Sugar is an elixir for the brain.”

“At that point, it’s more like poison.”

She shot me an irritated glare before setting her cup down with a sigh. “What did you want to ask?”

“You mentioned before that you knew something about Senior Laneige Maram, right?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“I wanted to hear what you know.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’ve taken an interest in her?”

“Not so much interest, just curiosity.”

“Haah! Forget it. You’re better off staying away from her. Nothing good ever comes from getting involved with her.”

Despite saying that, she sighed again and continued, “Well, fine. I’ll tell you what I know.”

She set her cup down on the table. “Laneige Maram. Fourth-year cadet in the Mage Division. She’s at the bottom of the class.”

If she was ranked last, that meant her blessing hadn’t awakened yet.

“You’ve probably heard she’s half demon and half hero, right?” Senior Sophia said.

“Yes.”

“Her mother was a demon known thirty years ago as the Archbishop of Frost. Her father was a hero, one of the top five in the rankings back then.”

I already knew that, and I also knew why she referred to both of them in the past tense.

“They got married despite all the opposition and lived happily for a while, until…”

Until a tragedy struck.

“The Archbishop of Frost, Seria Maram, had a seizure. She killed her husband and went on a rampage, slaughtering countless people. Eventually, she was killed by a hero.”

Laneige Maram was left alone, having lost both her parents.

“How did she manage to enter the Hero—”

Before I could finish my question, Senior Sophia explained, “Her father was close friends with Headmaster Ryu. Headmaster Ryu argued that the child bore no fault for her parents’ sins, so he personally allowed her admission.”

She exhaled another sigh. “Honestly, from her perspective, it might’ve been better if she hadn’t entered at all.”

I recalled the sight of Laneige trembling in fear as the other cadets surrounded her.

“Do you know what happened between Senior Laneige and Senior Aaron?” I asked.

I remembered Bella’s words. “At the very least, you shouldn’t be defending this witch, Aaron.”

“You remember how I said the Archbishop of Frost went berserk and was killed by a hero?”

“Yes.”

“The hero who killed her was Aaron’s father. Aaron’s father died soon after from the wounds he got in that battle.”

“Then that means…”

“To Aaron, Laneige is the daughter of the woman who killed his parent.”

I couldn’t help but sigh, picturing the tangled mess of the threads of fate connecting the two of them.

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