"I am the mother who tried to kill her just-born daughter with my own hands."
A pause.
Then, with a smile that felt like ice across the soul, she added,
"But I failed."
Razeal, who had been standing upright, expecting some grand title or awe-inspiring introduction, froze.
The words hit him harder than any magic blast or blade ever could. His breath caught. His soul trembled.
What kind of introduction is this...?
His thoughts reeled. No one... no one introduces themselves like this.
This wasn't villainous it was beyond monstrous. His stomach twisted, and a chill ran up his spine as the image formed in his mind. A baby barely breathing, helpless and a mother, her own mother, trying to...
He couldn't even finish the thought.
Is this what I have to become, System? Is this the kind of monster I'm supposed to emulate to be a 'villain'? If it is... then I'd rather not. I don't care what this place is or how powerful she is get me out. Now. She disgusts me.
His voice echoed within the void of his mind, cold and firm.
[Hear her out fully, Host.]
[She must've had her reasons. No one does anything without one. That's your first lesson every action, no matter how dark, has a cause. Even the smallest moments.]
No. I don't believe any reason in the world could justify what she just said. I don't care if she's a god or demon. She's... repulsive. I don't want to be in her presence, let alone learn from her. He responded calmly now, not with fear, but cold rejection.
[You will understand—if you stop reacting like a child grow up. No one is born a Evil. Not even villains.]
Razeal gritted his teeth. His fists clenched tightly, the nails digging into his palms.
He closed his eyes. Breathed in deeply.
Calm down. Just listen.
When he opened them again, her voice had already resumed.
"I gave birth to my daughter. But due to severe exhaustion... I didn't wake up for the next four days."
A pause
"When I woke up... I didn't see my husband. Nor was I in the home we used to live in together."
"The caretaker told me I had given birth to a girl... and that my husband his family too didn't want a daughter."
"They told me to 'clean up the mess'... and come back home like nothing happened. Even my own mother said I should."
"I was weak... fragile... But I still went. I went to see my daughter for the first time. I picked her up in my arms for the first time."
"I don't know what I was thinking... I just stood there. I don't remember how long."
Razeal stood silently, eyes unmoving. But in his mind, an image formed faint, cold, heavy. Her words painted a scene he hadn't lived, but could almost feel: bitter air, fragile limbs, a child born unwanted.
His chest tightened. The feelings were complicated. Ugly. Real.
She continued, her voice steady... too steady.
"I didn't have it in me... to kill her with my own hands. I couldn't."
Her face was expressionless now only a silence that felt like it had lived in her for years. She was remembering. Something she'd never forgotten.
"So I took her outside."
"It was during the winter. The frost season. Cold enough to freeze thought itself."
"No one was home. They had all left me alone maybe thinking I'd do what they couldn't say aloud."
"That night, I left my daughter out in the cold. Naked. In the open snow."
"And I... I just sat at the doorstep. Waiting. Waiting for the moment she'd freeze to death."
"And somehow, I fell asleep like that... just sitting there."
Razeal's breath hitched. A cold ran down his spine, like snow soaking through his veins. His eyes twitched, but he didn't speak.
"When I woke up in the morning... I was afraid. I was terrified to go outside. Afraid to see what I had done."
Her voice didn't tremble. Not once. Not a crack.
"But when I went out..."
"She was there. Lying in the snow. Unconscious. Half-buried in frost, but still... alive."
"Her skin... she was blue from head to toe. But breathing."
At this, Razeal turned his head away. His expression tightened, as if trying to resist the very image clawing into his mind.
A baby. Frozen. Dying. But alive.
"...And I failed."
"I failed to kill my daughter," she said.
A pause. Then something changed in her tone softer, not gentler.
"But then... I thought if my daughter could fight death for a whole night... then why couldn't I fight for her, just once?"
"Why... was I so desperate to give up? Why was returning to that family more important than my own child?"
"What was I thinking... back then?"
"So I stood up," she said, casually yawning, "and killed the whole family. My husband, my mother, the in-laws... everyone who told me to kill her."
At that moment, the scene twisted in Razeal's mind like a snapped bone. The pity that had been gradually forming inside him shattered into sharp confusion.
What...?
He blinked, caught off-guard.
Just seconds ago, he was on the edge of understanding her. From sheer disgust to... pity? Sympathy?
Damn it... How the hell did that shift happen?
Am I seriously losing it? She still tried to kill her daughter. That fact doesn't change. I shouldn't be feeling this kinds of feelings for her.
But... back then, what could she even do?
The thought crept in, quiet but undeniable.
Does that make me corrupted too?
Razeal clenched his fists slightly, his chest tightening with unease. He couldn't figure it out, but he didn't interrupt her either. He just listened as her story continued.
"I started raising my daughter," she said. "In the middle of her growing up, I tried to gather some financial support. So I thought of opening a shop in the city using the last bit of money I had saved... back from my family."
Her voice was flat, but steady. A kind of quiet pride echoed in it.
"But then... some people came. Holy ones. Said I couldn't open a shop because there was a statue of their god next to it."
Razeal exhaled slowly.
Poor woman.
I know this bullshit trope too well "Holy crap" in novels always means someone suffers.
Now they'll force her to shut it down, leave her broke, make her suffer while claiming holiness… How original.
He sighed, already predicting her tragic tale.
"So," she added, blinking slowly, "the next day, I moved their statue to the outskirts."
Razeal stared.
A beat passed. Then he chuckled quietly, forcefully putting a hand to his face.
Gods... What was I expecting?
She's not the protagonist. She's a villain, bro.
Of course she did that.
Still, a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
Those pompous holy knights' asses must've burned hearing that.
"So they called me a witch," she continued, shrugging, "and said they'd exorcise me. So I killed them too."
"And it all continued."
She said it like someone recounting weather. Not drama. Not tragedy. Just... continuity.
"After some time, these little things kept happening. Then one day, some emperor's son tried to touch my daughter."
"So I killed him too."
Razeal blinked again. This time slower.
Wait, what...? That escalated
"Well... boring stuff. It all just continued. They came. I fought. I killed. I never lost. Not even once," she said, without even the slightest inflection of pride.
"And then I thought... why not help women with the same fate as mine? Let them get their own justice. So I taught them, too. How to get stronger."
"I've destroyed daughters. Sons. Grandsons. Grandparents. Whoever stood in my way."
She paused, then added with the finality of someone stating a weather report:
"In my lifetime, I have killed trillions of people."
She turned her gaze directly at Razeal now, her voice calm, as though everything she had just said was nothing more than a polite self-introduction.
"And my name is Zara Ravaryrn."
"That's all about me. Full introduction."
She finished and fell silent.
Razeal just stood there. dumbstruck Mind split.
What the actual fuck kind of introduction is that?!
She's been through hell, sure... but after that first incident, it sounds like her world flipped to goddamn easy mode!
He couldn't process it.
And technically speaking... she told me nothing. Not her age, her titles, her powers, her desires. No likes or dislikes.
Just a name.
And the fact she's killed trillions.
That alone should have been enough to stir fear, awe, or at least some form of apprehension. But in this moment, it only left a bitter aftertaste of confusion.
Razeal exhaled sharply, shaking his head with a sigh that carried both exhaustion and mild frustration.
'Forget it,' he thought.
Maybe... maybe her intelligence wasn't built for structured thought. Not in a conventional sense. Despite her power, perhaps reason was not her forte.
Clearing his throat, he straightened his back and decided to cut the conversation short.
"Well then... ma'am," he said, his voice now more composed, though still edged with dry restraint. "I'll be direct. What will I have to do... to convince you to teach me something anything that could help me grow stronger?"
His words landed heavy in the stale air. For once, he wasn't twisting them, wasn't playing noble or mysterious. He had wasted enough time dancing around formalities. There was no time left to burn.
He had to grow stronger here and now.
He still needed to get out of this place. Out into the world, where he could hunt and collect elemental cores the kind that only dropped from slaying true monsters. If he failed to do that…
He would fail.
And that was not an option.
She hadn't offered much about herself, so Razeal didn't said much either. Her indifference justified his own. Still… he couldn't deny it: in her strange, roundabout way, she had altered the lens through which he viewed certain things. A subtle shift. Small, almost unnoticeable.
But a shift nonetheless.
Even if… philosophy was useless to him. For now.
Without power, being a philosopher was no different from being a fool lost in his own noise.
Strength was truth. All else was noise.
The woman tilted her head, as if finally registering the weight behind his words. And then
"Oh, that? No. I don't have anything to teach you," she said flatly, smiling in a way that lacked even the pretense of warmth. "You don't look like teaching material."
Her voice curled around the statement like a lazy blade.
"And more than that" she leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. "I didn't see even a sliver of true respect in your gaze."
Razeal blinked slowly.
"You wanted to walk away before even listening to me fully, didn't you?"
Her words were sharp. Mocking. Cold.
"That's not the behavior of someone talented. Not someone worth investing in."
A pause. And then, just like that...
"Nope."
Final. Absolute.
Silence settled, heavy like a shroud.
'This… bullshit woman…'
Razeal clenched his jaw, eyes twitching.
If she intended to say no from the very beginning, why bother with the theatrics? Why waste his time with her meandering words? He could've been off earning the favor or secrets of some other villain by now.
Razeal literally wanted to curse this woman.
His hand twitched as the thought surged
System
But just as he was about to call it forth
Her expression changed.
Like a glitch breaking into a smile, her eyes sparked with something sudden and vile. A wide, wicked grin stretched across her face inhuman, predatory.
Something had clicked in her twisted mind.
'Wait… wouldn't he make the perfect experiment material?' she mused silently, pupils dilating with maddened excitement.
"I think… I do have something to teach you," she suddenly declared.
The shift in her tone was instant gleeful, volatile.
Razeal lifted his head slowly, caution knitting itself into his brow.
The moment their eyes met
He froze.
A chill gripped his spine, crawling down like black ice. His soul… trembled.
That smile
It wasn't human.
'What the hell is that smile…?'
Something was very, very wrong.
What… was she planning?
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