The Outcast Writer of a Martial Arts Visual Novel

The sun, ending a tumultuous day, vanished, casting a reddish twilight for those concluding their day’s work.

In the secluded shantytown of Chilgok County, even such sunlight was not fairly bestowed. Usually, only a handful of twilight and damp shadows sprawled on the shantytown’s floor.

But that day, the shantytown of Chilgok County was splattered with blood, redder than the sunset.

“Ugh.”

“We must escape, even if we are crawling!”

“Save me.”

“My leg!”

Beasts who nonchalantly preyed on people more worried about their next meal than their future were in a frenzy.

The screams of the Cheongsapa, who sucked the blood of the poor, echoed throughout the shantytown.

Thirty inhuman snakes, instead of the sunset, crawled on the ground, staining the shantytown floor red.

“Yun-ho is.”

The sole standing woman, having completed her declared task, spoke.

“You nearly made him unable to walk.”

She approached the snakes, each still having a leg or two, with her sword.

“Damn it!”

The remaining snake, mustering its strength, lashed out with its fangs.

But like a farmer unafraid of a snake’s fangs, she skillfully deflected the incoming blade and cut off the snake’s limbs.

“Please, save me!”

“Spare my remaining ankle! Ahhh!”

The Heavenly Death Star, like a fishmonger slicing fish, began severing the unnecessary legs of these inhuman snakes.

“Yun-ho. Because of you. He hurt his arm.”

She recalled his arm, disheveled while protecting vital parts.

The hand that shared food with her. The arm that tied her up, offering reassurance. The shoulder that looked strong, despite its weakness, when trying to protect.

Those precious arms were harmed by such trash.

“Ahh!”

“My arm, my arm!”

She wandered around, crushing the palms of the Cheongsapa with her foot or severing the sword-holding hands.

“Why. Did he. Have to get hit by you?”

She was turning people into literal mollusks, meticulously crushing the arms and legs of the Cheongsapa.

“Better to kill me! Kill me!”

“Ahhh!”

The bandits, tormented by her brutal torture, cried out in agony, but her revenge was just beginning.

“There was blood on his head.”

The Heavenly Death Star, who had seen Kang Yun-ho’s condition, gazed at the blood on her palm.

‘Yun-ho’s blood.’

She brought her palm close to her face, pondering how much he must have hurt, how much he must have suffered.

Some people lose their memories from head injuries. What if he had lost his memory of her due to a head injury? Could she have borne that?

‘Who… are you?’

The Heavenly Death Star imagined him losing his memory and failing to recognize her.

‘Ah, ah, ah.’

The thought was unbearable, unimaginable, such torment, intolerable.

‘So-hee, don’t you remember your brother?’

She recalled the day they first met.

‘So-hee used to…’

‘When I was young, I did this to So-hee…’

Every time he looked at her, his expression was one of longing yet pain.

Ah. So, this was how he felt, experiencing this torment every day.

She couldn’t bear such feelings again.

The Heavenly Death Star glared at the vermin before her with a face full of rage. These wretches had almost made him, made her, lose his memories.

He had nearly forgotten her forever.

[Let’s kill them.]

Those worm-like beings. Smash their shoulders, tear their arms apart, rip open their bellies, pull out their intestines, hang the intestines around their necks while they were still alive, gouge out their eyes, and cut off their tongues. And then…

‘…No.’

The Heavenly Death Star suddenly clutched her head and staggered.

‘Just now. That was.’

The murderous intent of the Heavenly Death Star.

Cheon So-hee realized, even if just for a moment, the dormant murderous intent of the Heavenly Death Star had surfaced within her.

‘I must retreat.’

She had grown complacent, thinking that her murderous intent had not surfaced until now.

Having slain only people for missions, she believed she had control over her murderous intent, but it surged unexpectedly. She had to leave immediately. If she did not withdraw then, engulfed in boiling rage, she might succumb to the murderous intent again.

She should quietly practice Qi cultivation and introspection in a secluded place.

That would be the rational decision.

‘But what about my revenge?’

Her murderous intent was subtly peering inside her, yet she didn’t want to back down. She could control it, couldn’t she? Wasn’t all her martial arts training for moments like this?

She longed to exact her revenge.

If she retreated now, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

But how?

‘The scent of Yun-ho’s blood.’

In her turmoil, the Heavenly Death Star suddenly noticed a scent tickling her nose and looked at her palm.

The blood of Kang Yun-ho on her hand.

It was the blood that had gotten on her when she examined Yun-ho’s head, a wound that nearly brought her an unbearable situation.

The Heavenly Death Star unconsciously brought Kang Yun-ho’s blood-stained palm to her nose, inhaled deeply, and smelled his blood.

‘Yun-ho.’

She took in his scent with her nose and engrained his pained face into her heart. The rage boiled within. But as Cheon So-hee’s anger rose, so did the murderous intent of the Heavenly Death Star.

This was not enough.

Cheon So-hee licked her palm.

She felt his presence. Then his tender voice echoed in her mind.

‘So-hee.’

Wait. She would have her revenge and come back. A cold rage for a man quenched the murderous intent flaring in her heart.

It was not the Heavenly Death Star who would be doing the killing.

It was for revenge.

It was Cheon So-hee.

“The pain Yun-ho endured. Now, slowly. I’ll return it.”

That was enough.

Now it was time to slaughter the snakes.

“Please, save me! Cough!”

“Damn it. Damn it!”

“Hehehehe.”

One. Two. Three.

Cheon So-hee began to systematically deal with the members of the Cheongsapa one by one.

Was it the fifth? Or the seventh? Her methods gradually became more cruel.

After ten, she was no longer just slicing up the Cheongsapa but brutally dismembering them.

Her cold rage had disappeared, now replaced by an ecstatic smile drenched in pleasure.

‘Was it the 29th?’

Ankles. Arms. Legs. Intestines. A severed neck. What’s missing? Ah, the heart. The Heavenly Death Star slit open a man’s belly and reached in with both hands. It felt warm. Pleasant.

The Heavenly Death Star pulled out the man’s heart through his torn intestines, crushed it, and smeared her face with the blood-drenched hand.

“…Mother.”

The man, weakly resisting, bore the pain without a sound, even when deliberately injured.

‘Why did I kill these people?’

The scent of blood was too enticing. The Heavenly Death Star brought her fingertips to her nose to smell the blood. So good. No perfume could be more intoxicating than this.

‘Why did I kill?’

The Heavenly Death Star tried to remember why she had killed these people.

[Why do you need a reason to kill someone?]

Right. There’s no need for a reason to kill. Why should there be? Killing someone is…

[Because it’s fun.]

Yes. It’s fun. The screams when crushing an ankle. The feeling of the saw biting through bone when severing a hand. Severing joints isn’t fun. It’s more satisfying to cut through the bone and hear louder screams.

It felt warm to insert your hands and pull out intestines. Like being wrapped in a mother’s embrace.

“Mom. Mom.”

The voice of the man, who awkwardly resisted until the end, could be heard. Now, like a child, he cried for his mother as his arm was sliced and bone shattered.

[Mother?]

It seemed to have something to do with a mother. What was it? A sad memory. A memory she wanted to erase. Someone precious. There seemed to be something like that.

[Smell the blood.]

She inhaled deeply. It was fragrant. It felt like entering her mother’s womb. Yes, that was why she had been looking for her mother.

[Not enough.]

‘Not enough.’

She wanted to kill more people. This was not enough to quench her thirst. Rather, the more she killed, the thirstier she became.

[It was dull.]

‘It was dull.’

They were untrained ruffians, only third-rate and second-rate warriors. This wasn’t enough to quench her thirst.

She needed a thrilling murder.

Like the time she had waited under the bed for three days and nights and pierced the heart of a careless expert. Assassinations gave her the thrill of murder. They quenched her thirst.

The thrill was lacking.

She wanted to commit a murder that made her heart tingle.

[Kill them all.]

She spread her Qi perception wide and sensed people trembling and hiding in silence inside the house. Would killing them all be enough?

“Not enough.”

Whether she killed one or ten, it was a dull murder. Such things wouldn’t quench her thirst.

She took another deep breath. Amid the stench of blood, she detected a faint but familiar scent.

His scent.

A kind face. A smiling face. A face pretending to know her, whom she didn’t know. It seemed like that was the face, but it was faint.

“Who is he?”

She couldn’t remember, no matter how hard she tried.

The more she thought of him, the more suffocated she felt. Tormented. Why did she feel this way?

But, strangely, she remembered his blood scent being intoxicating. She licked her lips, recalling the sweet taste of his blood.

Would killing him make this suffocating feeling go away?

Would she feel ecstatic if she ripped out his heart?

[Kill him.]

‘Let’s kill him.’

Killing him seemed like it might quench this thirst.