Jeong Min-Ah began encountering all kinds of misfortune once she was thrust into a free-fall from grace. Unbeknownst to her, it was only the beginning.

Starting as an F-rank Awakened, she had certainly put in her own kind of effort in order to reach B-rank. However, contrary to public opinion regarding such meteoric rises, her dedication hadn't actually been as top-tier as her gains.

In the past, she had operated with a comforting sense of relief and security she wasn't even aware of. She had been burgeoned by the deep-seated belief that Bae Seung-Woo would never abandon her, no matter what mistakes she made. That belief slowly ate away at her without either of them realizing it, and in the end, even when she tried and showed results, she could only reach about D-rank at best.

Of course, she thought she had done her absolute best.

On top of that, his absence began to hit her hard, as someone who had basically lost their lifeline. His existence had influenced her life in many ways that she hadn’t been able to realize back then. He had supported her countless times, only to be taken for granted.

Then came her affair with Park Ji-Hoon, which had felt like something straight out of a novel or drama. He was her prince charming, riding in on a white horse. She felt sure she could live out a story where someone with nothing meets the son of a powerful conglomerate family and turns their life around. Even knowing it wasn’t realistic, it was the kind of fantasy that still made people imagine.

Once he appeared, she didn’t let the chance slip away. While she certainly felt guilty at first, once she reached B-rank through Bae Seung-Woo’s efforts, she justified it to herself and chose not to miss the opportunity in front of her.

However, it wasn’t the golden lifeline she thought it was.

“Hmm. I’m sorry, but it looks like your card has been declined,” a cashier irritably told her.

“Excuse me? What are you talking about? Why would this get declined—”

“Look here, Miss,” they said with exasperation, turning the screen to face her. “It clearly says it failed.”

It didn’t take long for her life to fall apart. The card she had been told to use whenever she wanted was suddenly blocked. She had lived without worrying about money, not feeling the need to save anything.

With her head spinning from the situation, she tried to prepare to enter a gate just to relieve some stress.

However, she was met with the declined transaction in the middle of the busy store.

“So, what’ll you do, Miss?”

“I’ll... come back next time,” she softly murmured.

“Alright... Come again...” the cashier hesitantly said before moving on to the next customer.

After leaving the Awakened supply shop, she staggered toward the mansion she’d been staying in.

Alas, the hits kept coming.

“W-What’s going on?!”

Once she reached the entrance of the mansion, she saw her belongings scattered around like trash. She tried entering the passcode she’d been using, but it kept telling her it was incorrect and denied her entry. It was the house Park Ji-Hoon had gotten for her, so she desperately made a call.

- The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a—”

“Aaaahhh!!” Overcome with rage, she hurled her phone to the ground.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that, for whatever reason, Park Ji-Hoon had clearly caused the situation. The house was under his name, so if he wanted to, turning the situation around on her like that would be easy.

Yet, she couldn’t understand at all why he suddenly started acting like this.

Suddenly, Jeong Min-Ah recalled the girl she saw when she went to meet Bae Seung-Woo. “It’s that bitch! It’s because of her...”

‘Super Ribbon, was it? The oldest daughter of the Saint of Tionis.’

Jeong Min-Ah quickly concluded that the colorful girl was behind all of this, but she was also too scared to do anything about it. She couldn’t even imagine what would happen if she provoked her.

“Why are you doing this to me...”

In the end, she choked down her sobs, but nothing changed. And of course, more was to come.

* * *

“I did what you told me. Do you think it’ll be enough?”

“Yeah, it worked great.”

Willow had sent Chodan to act like she was on a date with Bae Seung-Woo as another step in the plan. Funnily enough, Chodan didn’t really understand what her actions meant, just following orders for a good time. Unlike Willow, she was strangely clueless when it came to romance.

“It’s a problem that started because of her. The Silla Guild stripped Park Ji-Hoon of his successor position. He’s enraged and now holds a grudge against both Bae Seung-Woo and Jeong Min-Ah,” Chodan explained.

“Figured as much.”

“Still, he can’t recklessly touch Bae Seung-Woo because of his connection to you. Jeong Min-Ah, of course, is a different story.”

She was already too far gone, in a downslide for the ages. Her relationship with Ji-Hoon had never been built on love like in some drama fantasy. To him, Jeong Min-Ah was nothing more than entertainment.

“Leave Park Ji-Hoon alone for now. Let him sit a bit longer, and he’ll rot on his own. More importantly, let’s deal with the poor girl caught between both sides first.”

Despite calling her ‘the poor girl,’ Willow felt no sympathy at all. Having grown up seeing Davey and his loving relationships with Perserque, Illyna, and Aeria, the three sisters couldn’t understand Jeong Min-Ah’s actions, nor did they want to.

Evangeline asked from the side, “What about Bae Seung-Woo?”

“He got too worn out and fell asleep,” Willow told her.

“How hard did you push him this time?”

“I figured he’d become pretty useful if I pushed him a bit more, so I called in the rabbits for good measure.”

She hadn’t focused only on Min-Ah and Ji-Hoon when interacting with Seung-Woo. All this time, Willow had been training him regularly, telling him not to throw his life away just for revenge.

Hearing she’d sent in some of those rabbits, Evangeline cautiously asked, “How many did you send after him?”

“Five.”

Evangeline silently offered her condolences to Seung-Woo, imagining him surrounded by five massive muscular rabbits.

Willow went on, saying, “He won’t be able to move today.”

If five of them beat him down, there wouldn’t be a single part of his body left unharmed.

“More importantly, what’s the latest news with Jeong Min-Ah?” Evangeline hadn’t heard the earlier conversation.

“The Silla Guild kicked her out. They knew that as long as she was there, they wouldn’t be able to make any offers to Bae Seung-Woo, and as you know, there’s also personal resentment involved.”

Especially from Park Ji-Hoon, who was grinding his teeth over Jeong Min-Ah. Technically speaking, it was his own fault, but he was taking out his anger over losing his successor position on her.

“If we leave her alone, she’ll collapse on her own. We’re done now.” Willow let go of the burden of revenge without hesitation.

A few more days passed.

No one knew what Jeong Min-Ah had gone through, but she now wandered in front of Bae Seung-Woo’s house, looking half-broken.

She’d never had any connections or future prospects before the whole debacle. From the moment Park Ji-Hoon abandoned her, she had nothing left.

Her only remaining lifeline, having once attained the title of a B-rank Awakened individual, didn’t help much anymore. With Seung-Woo’s amplification gone, her power was gradually returning to what it used to be.

While she might be stronger than before, thanks to the support from Ji-Hoon, there was a high chance her power would drop straight down to around D-rank.

Still, she wasn’t a complete fool. She seemed to realize where her strength had come from. Left with nowhere to stay, she’d rented a shabby studio and kept lingering around Bae Seung-Woo.

Every time he came out, she would show up in front of him, grab onto his legs, and beg.

She would go on and on about how wrong she was, and how they should just start over. She constantly reminded him of how good they used to be together.

She came up with every excuse she could think of, yet Bae Seung-Woo, who had been deeply hurt by her, couldn’t help but feel disgust at every word she said.

Of course, he would never accept her back. Knowing exactly why she had come back to him, even the sight of her only made him angrier.

She hadn’t been like that before, he remembered. She used to be upright and kind. He had a hard time understanding how someone could fall so far just from being worn down by the world, and it weighed heavily on him.

Once someone lived a fake, lavish life, it was extremely difficult to come back down to earth. She had lived a comfortable life thanks to Park Ji-Hoon, and with Bae Seung-Woo, she had grown while relying on a solid support system. To suddenly live a life with nothing left felt like hell itself.

Eventually, she started drinking heavily, to the point that anyone who saw her immediately labeled her an alcoholic.

“Hey... don’t you think it’s time to stop?” Seung-Woo said to Willow, feeling like the situation had already become terrible enough.

She just shrugged. “That’s up to her. But if this ends like this, what do you think will change?”

“What?”

“She left you, and you felt betrayed. Thanks to your special power, this outcome is inevitable. At least, as long as you don’t accept her back.”

“That’s...”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll definitely help you.”

If he wanted to forgive her, she’d help accordingly.

After thinking it over, he shook his head. “No. I was wrong to even suggest it. Seeing her be so self-destructive right in front of me must’ve shaken my head. It looks like Park Ji-Hoon’s side has been pressuring her nonstop. They’re using all kinds of excuses, apparently.”

“I’m telling you, humans can be the cruelest.”

It was true the three sisters had played a part in pushing Jeong Min-Ah so far down, but Park Ji-Hoon’s retaliation was on another level.

“It looks like he even sent some shady Awakened individuals to beat her half to death.”

It was no surprise that she ended up so downtrodden. In the end, she brought it on herself.

“So what now?”

“What do you mean ‘what now?’ Leave her be. It’s over. She’s just paying the price for what she did.”

Seung-Woo found it hard to accept. “Still...”

“If it were Dad, this wouldn’t be the end.”

Right now, Jeong Min-Ah had lost everything. Yet, as long as she truly wanted to live, she could still scrape by using her lower-rank abilities to slowly build herself back up.

Of course, whether she would do that remained to be seen.

“Don’t go meet her anymore. You’re too soft,” Willow scolded him.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I get it. Seeing someone you once loved fall apart like that—it’ll bother you even if you don’t care anymore.”

If Bae Seung-Woo had truly been left with nothing but hatred and resentment, he would’ve crushed her without hesitation. However, he wasn’t that kind of person.

That was why Willow decided to no longer interfere.

In the end, Seung-Woo refused to see Jeong Min-Ah again, and that was the end of it. He completely let go of everything related to her.

They were now nothing to each other.

After most of his revenge on her was done, Seung-Woo sat alone at a bar, drinking.

Super Ribbon, worried about him, came to keep him company. She comforted him, saying, “It’s okay. There are plenty of better women out there.”

“Sorry, Super Ribbon. For dragging you into something like this.”

“It’s okay. You helped me a lot, Seung-Woo. This is just me returning the favor.”

“How did things end up like this...”

When someone succeeded in revenge, a few emotions usually followed.

Relief.

Satisfaction.

And emptiness.

For him, he probably felt more emptiness than satisfaction.

“You cared about her so much. Enough to feel like she was your everything.”

“I did. Even though everything’s ruined now... I still remember how she used to be my everything.” 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

“Umm. Barkeep, could I get a glass of juice?”

“Huh? Juice?” the man asked with surprise.

“Yes, please.”

The bartender shrugged and nodded before returning to cleaning glasses.

“Drink up and let it all go. She just wasn’t the one. Half the world is women, man, you’ll meet someone better.”

Super Ribbon comforted him as she spoke, “And besides, there’s still something important left, right?”

Jeong Min-Ah aside, there was still the one who had ruined both their lives.

“He destroyed everything you cared about for nothing more than his own entertainment. Even though Jeong Min-Ah is still at fault for falling for his antics, that doesn’t make him any less guilty for starting it.”

He was, in many ways, the root of it all.

“Yeah...” Seung-Woo mumbled. “I’m sorry for asking this, but...”

“It’s okay. We said we’d help, right? So don’t feel burdened.”

Super Ribbon helped him up as he slumped over after finishing his drink.

“Oh, right.” She took a card out of his wallet and paid. “The juice is on you.”

She giggled, and he drunkenly nodded.

After leaving the bar, she was about to call a white rabbit to take him home.

That was when a chilling killing aura started pouring out from a dark nearby alley.

“This is all because of you... If you weren’t here...” Jeong Min-Ah staggered out of the alley with disheveled hair. After being tormented by Park Ji-Hoon and rejected by Bae Seung-Woo, she had reached her breaking point.

“I’ll kill you.” With a vicious glare, she raised the sword in her hand.

Two white muscular rabbits suddenly appeared beside Super Ribbon, cracking their knuckles, but she raised a hand to stop them.

“Kyuuu?”

“It’s fine. I’ll handle it.” She handed Seung-Woo over, and one of the rabbits slung him over its shoulder like a potato sack.

She then slowly walked toward Jeong Min-Ah. “You’re... really pathetic.”

“What... what do you want to say?! Just because you’re a little pretty, you think you’re better than me?!” Her slurred voice made it clear she was too drunk to think straight.

“Like Willow said, if you were truly sorry to Seung-Woo...”

Black flames flickered in her hand as four streams of light gathered, forming a mask. It was originally Willow’s power, but part of that power was hers too.

“...you shouldn’t have come here to whine again.”

As she walked forward in her mask, the ground around her began to freeze.

Jeong Min-Ah flinched, but soon pushed through her fear with liquid courage. “This is all your fault! If you weren’t here, it’d be perfect!!!”

She charged forward in rage, her speed merely typical of a D-rank Awakened.

While Super Ribbon didn’t originally have direct combat ability, she had picked up some skills thanks to Willow.

Thud!!!

Just before the sword could reach Super Ribbon, Jeong Min-Ah realized she had been slammed into the ground.

Super Ribbon had somehow knocked her down instantly.

“Does it hurt?”

“Ugh...” Jeong Min-Ah writhed around on the pavement.

“He was in more pain,” Super Ribbon coldly told her.

“Who are you to talk?! Who are you to interfere with us?!” she screamed from her place on the ground. “This is between me and Seung-Woo! You have no place in it!!”

Super Ribbon let out a small derisive laugh. “He almost died because of you.”

No response.

“He almost died after jumping off a rooftop. Then, he asked me if he could get revenge, if I could help him.

Bae Seung-Woo had been a kind person who helped Super Ribbon adjust to school life.

“Do you need to hear any more about the consequences of your actions?”

It seemed the fact that he almost died hit her hard. She covered her face with both hands and broke down crying.

Super Ribbon turned and walked away. She then turned to the two white rabbits approaching her and said, “Keep what happened today a secret from the others.”