CHAPTER 120………………………………
Her face had turned a deeper shade of pale blue. Because she struggled to continue speaking, I slightly loosened my grip.
Lichia, coughing painfully, let out a derisive laugh.
“If you want to know, I’ll tell you. You won’t understand anyway.”
“……”
“Your ancestors killed a god. Don’t think of it as unjust. Considering everything you’ve enjoyed until now, you have no right to. You shouldn’t… you must not….”
A large question formed in my mind.
If she were truly a traitor, she would not speak like this. On the contrary, this sounded like something only the opposite side would say.
The true guardians.
Suddenly, I remembered how she had always found me unpleasant simply for being from the kingdom.
I had assumed it was just prejudice against foreigners like many others in the empire—but if it was actually because she knew the secrets of a thousand years ago…
“I thought something was strange.”
I exhaled briefly and loosened my hand.
Lichia collapsed into the chair and coughed violently.
Only then did a delayed sense of guilt creep in. I had just harmed an elderly woman.
It was Hilda’s identity that reacted like this—not Ygraine’s.
“Seems you do know about things from a thousand years ago.”
After stopping her coughing, she lifted her head toward me.
“You speak like you know something, damn woman.”
What an unpleasant old woman.
I looked down at her with a grim expression and folded my arms.
“I probably know more than you.”
“Hah!”
Lichia laughed sharply.
“What could someone like you possibly know—”
“The kingdom is the land of god-slayers.”
At my words, Lichia shut her mouth.
I leaned forward, bringing my face close to hers.
My voice turned eerily cold and ominous—even to my own ears.
“The cursed—no, the ones who should be cursed killed the gods, stole their power, and enjoyed a thousand years of prosperity.”
A stolen abundance taken from the gods.
In exchange, the spirits were left in a state neither alive nor dead, forced to reside within the blood of humans who had devoured them.
I suppressed the rising anger, closing my eyes briefly.
I had no choice but to regain composure.
“So what are you, then?”
“……”
“How do you know about things from a thousand years ago that no one remembers anymore?”
I lifted her stiff chin.
“If you’re not a traitor, then what are you?”
If she bore even a trace of the traitor’s blood, I intended to pierce through her entirely.
Even if she did not confess, I would pierce every limb—leaving only the tongue intact if it could still speak the truth.
A cold, cynical feeling crept in.
At times like this, I realized Hilda’s memories were pushing me beyond human limits.
Whether the being in front of me was called Lichia or wore the skin of a human like me, I felt no hesitation in dealing with her.
“Hah… hahahaha…”
Lichia burst into laughter, sounding like she was choking on phlegm.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“……”
She stopped laughing and suddenly snapped.
“What right do you have to speak to me about traitors?!”
“……”
“A mere kingdom woman dares speak like that to me! A shaman of this land!”
Her face flushed red as if she might collapse, pouring out hatred. I looked at her coldly.
“You’re spouting things you’ve picked up from somewhere. Do you think I don’t see through your kind’s deceitful nature—”
“I can’t listen to this.”
I placed my index and middle fingers against her forehead.
A concentrated flow of my clan’s energy surged through my fingers.
The same pure, refreshing force I once felt when touching relics imbued with spirits and priests—now manifested violently at my fingertips.
“Ahh!”
Lichia screamed, her body trembling violently as if electrocuted.
I narrowed my eyes at her extreme reaction, as though she had touched something forbidden.
The white cloth covering her eyes turned red. Blood seeped through it.
Even in such a grotesque scene, I observed coldly.
“Confess your sins.”
Her convulsions worsened. One wrong move and she might die.
I clicked my tongue and withdrew my hand.
Lichia slid from the chair, gasping like a fish thrown out of water.
I approached her as she knelt.
Even without seeing my feet, she lifted her head immediately.
A white cloth soaked in blood, a red line cutting across her cheek.
This must have been how kingdom people imagined the strange beings of the empire.
I knelt on one knee to meet her eye level.
“Feeling better?”
Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at her disheveled state.
“I am not the ‘cursed human’ you speak of.”
“……”
“Now talk. What do you know?”
Whether she carried the blood of a guardian or a traitor didn’t matter.
I had a feeling I would find traces of the traitors here either way.
“How…?”
Lichia’s shoulder trembled. I frowned. Even after I had withdrawn my power, she hadn’t recovered.
“Lichia.”
I called her name.
She muttered hoarsely,
“How can a human’s energy…?”
Her voice wavered.
“No… are you even human?”
“……”
“You… you are… who are you?”
Her voice shook violently.
I sighed and brushed my hair back.
“What I can tell you is this—you are not the cursed human you think I am referring to.”
“……”
“A thousand years is a long time.”
Words I hadn’t intended to say slipped out.
“When corrupt magic has time to weaken….”
“……”
“The dead god has returned, Lichia.”
Her jaw tightened.
I looked at her pale face and sighed briefly.
“Now, will you answer my questions? Or do you need further proof?”
“Anything.”
Her voice trembled with excitement, like a pot boiling over.
“Ask me anything.”
She slowly bowed forward.
It was an extremely formal gesture of respect—one never given even to their emperor or Khan.
The unexpected reaction made my mind momentarily freeze.
‘…Why is she acting like this?’
What I had released was the power of water.
Enough for her to realize I was not an ordinary being—I had expected her attitude to change, but not this drastically.
“Sob… sob….”
She began crying without caring about dignity or age. I felt my skin prickle.
Even after a moment, the crying did not stop. I became flustered.
Eventually, I spoke.
“Why are you crying?”
“I never… thought a day like this would come…”
“……”
“At last… the day to cleanse this guilt has come…”
“Can you lift your head? I can’t see your face.”
The moment I said it, she snapped her head up.
“Is this better?”
I was speechless. The woman who had just been swinging a cane in rage was now meek as a lamb.
“Give me any command. Lichia, shaman of the desert, will obey all orders.”
I had many questions.
“So why did you change your attitude?”
At my question, Lichia looked genuinely confused.
“Didn’t Lady Ygraine say so? That she had returned?”
“……”
“Ah! You don’t understand. It’s because I failed to recognize Lady Ygraine and acted arrogantly…”
She suddenly noticed the cane in her hand and flinched, throwing it to the ground.
Then even tried to step on it, so I quickly stopped her.
She looked moved just from that.
It felt like worship—something from a thousand years ago.
After she finally calmed down, I seated her and sat down across from her.
“Tell me everything you know.”
Then, through her voice, stories of a thousand years ago—things I did not know, things that happened after my death—began to flow.
At the time the spirits were slaughtered, the shamans gathered and tried to undo the curse spread across the land.
“But there was interference.”
Lichia said with a dark expression.
“We didn’t know there was a traitor among us. Our ancestors believed he had been seduced by a woman of the kingdom and decided to abandon the clan and change his homeland. Otherwise, how could he turn his back on the spirits and the kin he grew up with like family?”
She clicked her tongue bitterly, then quickly lowered her head again upon noticing my gaze.
The sudden shift in attitude made me swallow hard.
‘This is getting… unsettling.’
“I apologize. I lost my composure…”
She cleared her throat.
“Anyway, we failed to prevent the day of tragedy, and were driven out of the land of abundance by the ungrateful Water Tribe.”
“That’s strange. Desert warriors are powerful. Why haven’t you reclaimed the kingdom?”
“Because only shamans now know of the traitor within the clan and the sealing of the spirits into human blood.”
Tyrin whispered suspiciously.
“Either way, these ones failed their duty as guardians. They might be lying.”
He still didn’t trust Lichia’s change in attitude.
And frankly, it wasn’t easy to trust.
I studied Lichia carefully.
“Then you hid the truth of that tragedy. Why?”
“First, to prevent chaos if it became known that our clan participated in god-slaying. Second, to care for those dying in the land of exile. Third, to preserve the kingdom as long as the sanctuary exists.”
“Sanctuary?”
“Referring to the central temple of the kingdom. The undrying spring. A thousand years ago, we were born from that spring.”
The image of a temple where red fish once swam leisurely surfaced in my mind.
Lichia said solemnly,
“The young spirits will return.”
“……”
“This has been passed down among shamans. The final will of our ancestors.”
“……”
“And despite our clan’s hardship in the kingdom, the kingdom itself must not fall until then.”
Her trembling eyes looked at me in awe.
“See? Lady Ygraine has come to us like this.”
