It has been a year since I, the Mangja Seongnyeo, began fighting against the Ma Wang army, and the tides of war began to change. By the time two years had passed, we started to reclaim the land that had been taken from us by the Ma Wang army and the malicious entities.
The fallen mercenary kingdom of the south and the descendants of the eastern empire across the continent began to take up arms again as if they saw hope in humanity. After five years, we completely drove the Ma Wang army out of human territory.
The rebellious demon race members were all sent to the unidentified God in the sky without leaving a single one behind.
The Mangja Seongnyeo, who once cried and sought comfort from Menelapie, had gotten used to slaughtering Ma Wang forces alone on the blood-soaked ground by the fifth year.
“Send them to the God’s side. The rest is up to Him to decide,” I would murmur.
Isn’t that a bit too cruel?
Ah, I suppose it does sound that way.
At first, I also thought that the demon race might not have invaded human territory if it wasn’t to survive.
Could it be that humans had first oppressed the demon race or invaded their territory, sparking the war?
Aren’t they sentient beings just like humans; couldn’t we resolve things through dialogue?
But that thought vanished not three days after I joined the war.
There was no need to show sympathy or mercy to them.
The demon race was merely a terminal of a massive malicious entity called the Ma Wang.
And I am the Mangja Seongnyeo.
Even being in such an ambiguous position, I could console other souls and commemorate their spirits.
I had to attend significant religious ceremonies and commemorative events in the empire to deliver blessings.
I got sidetracked there, but there were no souls to console among the demon race.
It’s not that they were evil and had no souls.
They were simply the terminals of the Ma Wang, born without souls.
They had intelligence but lacked reason.
Without reason, there was no ethical sense or morals, no lines that must be upheld.
In fact, from the moment the demon race tore apart humans like toys in front of me, I felt a rage close to infinity towards the Ma Wang and its minions.
Anyway, by the fifth year of the war I had joined, along with Menelapie, the demon race was completely driven from the human lands. After a brief rest and a period of peace, a great war commenced again.
This time, it wasn’t the Ma Wang invading us.
We were going to eliminate the Ma Wang!
The Ma Wang’s behavior pattern is simple.
Gather strength. Gather forces. Lure and sow discord among humans, then come to reap when the time is right.
It’s said that even before I awakened as the Mangja Seongnyeo in this world, that cycle continued.
Humanity resisted, but tens of kingdoms and countless lives were lost, and Menelapie’s empire was said to be almost the last bastion.
Later, Menelapie remarked that if I didn’t exist, he might have truly become the last emperor of humanity.
Whether that was a joke or true, it was still too early to relax, thinking we had defeated the Ma Wang’s forces.
Even as the scars of war had not yet healed, and many people were injured or dead, everyone knew it.
Now is the time when the Ma Wang is the weakest in history.
If we miss this opportunity, the Ma Wang will again gather strength and torment humanity.
So, while we appeared to enjoy a brief peace on the surface, underneath, all of humanity was preparing for a new war against the Ma Wang, and that was when I met Teresa.
Ah, I often talked about Menelapie, but… it’s the first time I’ve talked about Teresa properly, isn’t it?
As for Teresa…
Her full name is Teresa Kaitlyn.
As I mentioned before, Teresa is a witch.
But she’s not just an ordinary witch.
Menelapie was called the strongest swordsman and hero, while Teresa was regarded as the strongest and mightiest witch.
Not just any witch, either; she was a wicked black witch who practiced forbidden spells and magic, referred to as the Ma Wang’s finger.
Because Teresa was not a human ally at all; she was close to the Ma Wang, having seized the most land under the Ma Wang’s command.
Some referred to her as the Witch of Destruction out of fear.
“Um, Shia?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t quite understand… Didn’t you say that this Teresa fought against the Ma Wang alongside you during the last ethical audit?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then why is she called the Ma Wang’s finger? Was she a human who betrayed humanity? Or did she betray after being one of the Ma Wang’s minions?”
Choi Bomi’s words involuntarily brought a smile to my lips.
Yeah, I think it does seem like the story suddenly took a turn.
Surely, it would be bewildering to hear that a witch who fought to kill the Ma Wang and save the world is suddenly the Ma Wang’s minion.
But my experience wasn’t a sudden plot twist; it was a continuous series of unbelievable days.
“Hehe, listen. I was going to talk about that now.”
Teresa was a witch.
From the start, witches were not treated like humans.
The species itself was categorized as ‘witch’ and was subjected to contempt and awe.
However, the Kaitlyn family did not face discrimination as witches.
The Kaitlyn family was quite an influential family in the empire, a noble house with a history spanning hundreds of years.
They even held a significant position overseeing supplies on the western front.
So, technically, Teresa was a noble lady.
However, before I awakened as the Mangja Seongnyeo, the Kaitlyn family was exterminated by Menelapie.
There had been accusations that the Kaitlyn family was colluding with the Ma Wang.
It was not just treasonous acts with foreign countries; colluding with the Ma Wang, the enemy of all humanity, is usually grounds for immediate execution.
In a horrific survival competition where one of either the Ma Wang or humans must die, someone siding with the Ma Wang?
If it ended with merely the extermination of the family or clan, that would be fortunate, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, the Kaitlyn family was not actually collaborating with the Ma Wang, but they were indeed researching forbidden spells.
And it was the Ma Wang’s work that those forbidden spells came from. The Kaitlyn family was on the verge of being traitors, enchanted by that magic.
From Menelapie’s standpoint as emperor, they were naturally something that needed to be eliminated.
Later, I heard that it was the Ma Wang’s plan to leak that forbidden magic to the Kaitlyn family.
By sabotaging the Kaitlyn family, which was guarding the west, it would make the invasion smoother.
In the end, the head of the Kaitlyn family, Teresa’s parents, were exploring forbidden spells related to the Ma Wang, and were ultimately exterminated by Menelapie. Teresa, who was traveling at the time, escaped that wrath and became the greatest minion close to the Ma Wang out of rage at humanity for her family being wiped out.
To express it in our terms, she would be one of the Four Heavenly Kings, perhaps?
In reality, Teresa captured one of the Ma Wang’s fingers by her own efforts, occupying that position and began offering up the land of humans to the Ma Wang.
That was when she even earned the nickname of the Ma Wang’s vile left hand.
Ah, if you just listen to this part, she sounds utterly insane, right?
An evil witch who betrayed humanity.
I thought so myself.
However, there were strangely many oddities.
Although she was the witch who delivered the most land to the Ma Wang, curiously, there was almost no one she killed.
The land she captured wasn’t particularly valuable from a human perspective.
It wasn’t rich in resources or fertile soil; it was mostly rugged mountains or desolate wastelands.
Large in size, but overall not a significant loss of land.
I found it peculiar and once asked Menelapie about it.
[A black witch would know countless methods to kill humans, far exceeding mere burdens. She could transform human blood into mercury, cause bizarre plagues by letting human cells grow into insects, use forbidden magic to pollute rivers and land, and countless ways to corrupt human souls.]
What Teresa controlled was neither the Ma Wang nor the demon race.
[The cursed doll army made by that witch was sewn together with all sorts of plagues and desecrated flesh, taking on a human form but possessing none of the human essence; an extremely grotesque army, impossible to approach, and I had never confronted them directly either.]
When they march, any living being is desecrated in its soul, making it impossible for humans to approach.
Just getting close would cause bodily transformations, causing even demon race members to die or twist without caring who was whom; unless one has entered the realm of superhumans like me or Menelapie, fleeing was the only option.
[And strangely, I never witnessed that black witch killing anyone.]
In reality, that was true.
Although Teresa was called the Ma Wang’s vile left hand, no one had seen her on the battlefield.
Countless wars against the Ma Wang’s army unfolded, and if Teresa had participated, humanity’s losses would have been far greater or we would have been overwhelmed before I even joined the war.
[She’s known as the Ma Wang’s left arm, yet what she actually does is, “We will invade that place at this time,” announcing it straightforwardly and just pushing in obediently.]
Due to the characteristics of Teresa’s doll army, with those honest announcements, all humans would flee from that area.
And once humans safely escaped, Teresa’s doll army would then occupy the vacant land.
[How many are dead due to the black witch until now? Would you believe that there was never a proper battle?]
[I’m not a fool. I have the discernment to distinguish the truth when someone blatantly announces, “We will invade here,” and even if it were a deceitful operation, we were prepared for that as well.]
[Yet, that black witch has never used a deceitful tactic, so it was only right to sense something strange at this point.]
And so, before the great war to behead the Ma Wang began, I started to personally investigate Teresa.
I couldn’t openly investigate as the Ma Wang’s eyes were everywhere.
A seemingly ordinary bird could be a monster controlled by the Ma Wang’s parasites.
It was said nearly every day that a minister who devoted decades to the empire could be a turncoat in league with the Ma Wang. Thus, if the news reached the Ma Wang that the emperor was trying to contact a black witch of human origin, it wouldn’t be good for either Menelapie or Teresa.
“But I’m not that clever. Unlike Menelapie or Teresa, I can’t think deeply and scheme well.”
So, I decided to do one of the few things I could do.
I disguised my identity and visited Teresa’s stronghold of pestilence alone.
As the Mangja Seongnyeo, I could penetrate Teresa’s pestilence barrier and doll army, seeking her out.
“It’s the first time a healthy person has come here. Would you care to knock? Unless you’ve completely disregarded manners.”
Surprisingly, Teresa looked completely fine.
“Wait, you’re not a person, right? Is it correct to call you the Mangja Seongnyeo?”
Since she was referred to as the black witch of plague and taboo, I assumed she would have a twisted face akin to an evil fairy tale witch, perhaps a grotesque old woman suffering from the plague. However, the Teresa I saw was truly beautiful.
Her bosom was similar to mine or even Menelapie’s; she wore a dress that was quite revealing, which she claimed was a magically enchanted ego dress, but I wasn’t so sure.
What I still vividly remember is her long, dark purple hair reaching her ankles and her evening dress that boldly exposed her thighs and cleavage.
Since her hair was swept back, I often called her “baldy,” and it oddly suited her.
Anyway, Teresa seemed unfazed upon seeing me.
She even said she expected me to come.
Originally, I had planned to subdue her and possibly kill her on the spot since she was a traitor who turned against humanity, plus a wicked black witch.
If there were oddities, I had already prepared to fight desperately if the reputation of that witch was real.
But upon seeing me, Teresa had a calm expression, as if she had anticipated my arrival, crossing her legs and sipping tea.
“What are you staring at? If you’ve come, then do what you came to do.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
“You probably came to kill me.”
No, she was not just calm; Teresa was acting as if it was natural for her to die.
“After you kill me, take that vault over there. Inside, you’ll find internal information about the Ma Wang army, their abilities, weaknesses, land maps, and other irregularities about the Ma Wang.”
“How can I trust that it’s true? What if you’ve put a plague inside? And all that information must surely be a deception?”
Clang!
When I questioned her skeptically, Teresa immediately twisted her beautiful brow and threw the teacup she was holding.
“Then don’t believe me, you fucking bitch.”
Honestly, that was the first time I’d ever been cursed at in this ‘previous world.’
I never imagined I’d receive such vulgar language from someone so beautiful.
“Damn it. Even with your help, it’s still a mess.”
“What… uh…?”
“If you’re upset, then why don’t you break open that vault? If you need verification, go ask your emperor. That’s not my problem, damn it…”
At that moment, I couldn’t think straight; Menelapie had always spoken kindly to me no matter what mistakes I made. He would say things like, “Shia, you shouldn’t do that,” treating me gently like a parent. But suddenly being met with such sharp swearing in our first meeting threw me completely off guard.
Isn’t she supposed to be a noble lady?
I’d heard she was the last noble lady of the Kaitlyn family, yet those rough curses flying out of that face was utterly unadaptable for me.
“Ugh, if you’re going to kill me, just get it over with. I have no lingering attachments…”
But I am the Mangja Seongnyeo.
I possessed the ability to discern lies.
There was not a single lie in Teresa’s words.
The detailed information about the Ma Wang army was indeed true, and her claim of wanting to die without attachments was also true.
So, I asked Teresa.
Why are you doing this?
Didn’t you betray humanity?
You declared yourself a traitor, yet now you feel guilt?
“The Ma Wang bastard is so awful; I’m going to blow everything up. What are you, dissatisfied?”
“…….”
“It’s just that when I traveled and returned home, my family was destroyed because of that Ma Wang bastard. Those fucking useless parents were all toys of the Ma Wang, and noble ones at that, all ended up dead under the supreme no-pants emperor. Is the world so terrible that I can’t live…? Hehe…”
Saying this, Teresa seemed to mock her own situation, laughing self-deprecatingly.
“What’s the reason I became the Ma Wang’s finger? Because I thought there was no hope for humanity.”
That was not a lie.
“What, the emperor without pants? He’s strong enough to be deserving of caution, but on his own, he wasn’t enough. Do we only recognize the Ma Wang as the enemy? There’s a bunch of humans, a bunch of traitors, who during wars will happily rob their own kind while serving the Ma Wang. Even those who wanted to fight until the end couldn’t unite; it was such a disgusting situation that no matter how hard the no-pants emperor tried, there were limits.”
That too wasn’t a lie.
Menelapie was indeed fighting desperately, bleeding to protect humanity until I had joined.
Now that I think back, it was foolish of me to have not grasped his hand a little sooner and fought alongside him…
“So, I thought, if I couldn’t break through from the outside, then I’d become a bomb on the inside to dismantle everyone.”
Indeed, from the moment Teresa entered the Ma Wang’s ranks, she planned to infiltrate the underground and the Ma Wang Palace and every possible land of the Ma Wang. She crafted magical circles to burst the channels and disrupt circulation, even researching methods to banish the Ma Wang to another world.
Inside the vault was a spell that could blow up the major rally points of the Ma Wang army all at once with just a bit of tweaking.
It was possible because the Ma Wang, satisfied with the vast lands Teresa had relinquished, didn’t interfere too much with her.
“Yet the timing ended up being horrible, and that red-thumbed saintess showed up?”
“…Red-thumbed saintess?”
“That’s you, damn it. Trying to act innocent, huh? Hehe…”
While Teresa restored the broken teacup with magic, she giggled.
“Do you know what I’m good at? Taboos and research.”
Strangely, I could feel both sadness and resentment in that laughter.
“Even if it rains and washes away, the sun rises and sets. While the wasteland turns to muddy ground, flowers bloom and die again; during all of that, I was judging whether humanity had any chance of winning against the Ma Wang army. I researched, even if it meant breaking taboos, looking for any sliver of possibility, but the outcome was always the same. The no-pants emperor struggled hard but ended up alone in the end, and humanity would go extinct; that was how it always ended.”
Teresa said the future of humanity before I arrived was always the same.
Defeat, ruin, extinction.
The land of the living transforming entirely into the malignant land.
“But the moment you showed up, that conclusion began to shake.”
Crash!
Teresa broke the teacup again.
This time, it was not by dropping it; she smashed it with her own hand.
It felt like there was fury, sorrow, and resentment surging within her.
Teresa’s snowy white hand was bleeding from being cut by the shards of the cup.
“Why didn’t you come sooner?”
“……..”
I couldn’t confess it was because I was afraid.
There was a hint of tears in Teresa’s eyes.
She knew she had crossed a river that could no longer be uncrossed.
At the very least, she wouldn’t deliberately kill humans out of remorse; she had even generously warned humans to flee due to her proclamations.
Yet, the fact remained that Teresa was a traitor who had contributed countless lands to the Ma Wang.
It was too late to turn back.
If I had shown up even a bit sooner and reversed the war… could Teresa have avoided casting her lot with the Ma Wang?
“…What’s the point of saying it now? Speculating on ‘what if’ is the most useless thing…”
Saying this, Teresa raised her chin to make her neck easily visible.
“It’s fine. Just kill me now. Can’t you manage a clean decapitation? What if the emperor wants to torture me? That would be troublesome… I doubt I can die nicely anyway. Dammit, even dying isn’t easy.”
Though Teresa outwardly maintained composure, I sensed deeply that she was incredibly sad.
She didn’t wish to betray humanity at all.
The evil black witch she became wasn’t her desire; she had wanted to blow up the Ma Wang army from the inside-out if possible.
Already, she had long given up the thought of preserving her life.
While Menelapie sought to protect humanity under the sun, Teresa yearned to eradicate the Ma Wang army as a wicked black witch.
Was that a decision one could make with a sane mind?
A witch who wished to save humanity by becoming the villain and demon was likely to be forgotten by everyone.
If Teresa’s plan had succeeded, and humanity managed to survive, the witch who saved them would only be remembered as, “The wicked black witch who betrayed the Ma Wang.”
To shoulder infamy and villainy for over a thousand years, she had indeed made that determination sincerely.
“Alright, I’ve made my decision.”
“What? You’re going to kill me here? Oh, thank you, so merciful, it’s making me cry.”
In truth, there was no reason to hesitate.
I intended to do as I pleased.
“…What are you doing?”
“Healing.”
“Are you stupid? Are you telling me to die with a pretty appearance? Or did the imperial torturer suggest they’d prefer a complete body to torture more mercilessly?”
That was indeed how I felt.
I wanted to reach out to Teresa, just as she had once reached out to a cowardly fool like me.
But I wasn’t as eloquent as Menelapie, nor did I possess a way with words.
“If you’re going to throw away your life… will you do me the favor of giving it to me?”
“…What?”
So, I simply spoke what came to mind.
“Hey, you bitch… are you serious?”
“I’m a war hero, you know. They say I’m more popular than the emperor.”
“So, what to do, damn it?! It’s not like…”
“So, I’m asking you. I’d do anything to save you.”
“…….”
Maybe she read my sincerity from my face, as Teresa’s expression shifted from shock to one of bewilderment, as if to say, ‘What the hell is this?’
That face was genuinely funny…
“If unable, I’ll just cause a ruckus by force. How does humanity plan to fight the Ma Wang army without me?”
“This crazy woman…”
“And… humanity could gain a double agent with an intimate familiarity with the Ma Wang army. You’re the only black witch trusted by the Ma Wang. Strategically, you hold high value.”
Once she realized that my words were on point, Teresa fell silent from that moment on.
No, it felt like she hadn’t expected that someone would want to save her at all.
“…I never expected this at all… Damn…”
“And I like pretty women. If you die, it could be a national loss, right?”
“Wow, so you’re a fucking pervert? I thought you were a saintess?”
“Call me whatever you want. But I truly don’t wish for you to die.”
That was my genuine sentiment.
While healing Teresa’s wounds, I lifted her up from the seated position.
“I’m just not that smart.”
“…I can see that. You look as dumb as a big red thumb.”
“I have a strong body, but my mind goes here and there, struggling like a stupid fool, unable to take decisive action like Menelapie or you.”
“And that matters?”
“I hope you’ll help me.”
In most cases, it was a good outcome.
“I need you.”
“……”
“Will you stay by my side?”
That was the first meeting between Teresa and me… and Teresa never rejected my hand.
That answer was all that mattered.
Don’t call it romantic.
Thinking back, it feels extremely embarrassing.
What kind of lines are these? Ugh…
