Hic... hiic....

A village where the fierce blaze had died, with only embers drifting here and there.

In the ash-heaped ruins, a woman clutched her son’s corpse and sobbed in grief.

Why had Heaven taken her young son first?

Had she known bandits would raid and burn the village while she was out foraging greens, she wouldn’t have scolded him so harshly that morning.

She wouldn’t have shouted at him to get out and work the field.

She would have cooked him a warm bowl of rice.

“Huuuuu....”

Her weeping rang through the village where only ash swirled.

There was no one to help, no one to come and worry—when,

Trudge. Trudge.

Indifferent footsteps drew near.

The woman, bawling as she hugged her burned son, lifted her head at the shadow falling over her.

She winced against the pitilessly sharp sunlight that reddened her swollen eyes, and hid her gaze in the shade to escape the glare.

But with the sun at his back, the man’s face could not be seen.

All she saw was a mane of vividly red hair.

“Why do you weep so bitterly?”

The man bent on one knee and sat before her.

Only then did the woman see his face.

A sharp-featured man, not so old.

Yet an unknown pressure flowed from him.

“Tsk, tsk... how pitiful....”

With a sorrowful face, the man stroked the cheek of her dead son.

“He must have known deep pain and suffering. Who will mourn this tender being’s death?”

Though clearly a stranger, the woman did not stop him.

No—she could not.

Seized by something she could not defy, she only stared blankly at the man.

“Was he your son?”

Unthinking, the woman nodded.

“Tsk, tsk... pitiable indeed.... I have heard your wailing. I shall grant your son a new life.”

“C-can you bring him back...?”

“If I say yes, will you obey?”

The woman bobbed her head in a rush.

His lips curved in a gentle arc.

The man gazed at the woman’s dead son for a moment.

Then he rose to his feet.

“...?”

Wordless, the woman just stared as he stood.

Then—

Ssssss...

“Good heavens!”

The son who had lain in her arms as if asleep startled her by rising to his feet on his own.

“Th-this is... this....”

Struck dumb with disbelief, the woman gaped, staring at her son, who had returned to life.

Ash sifted from his body and blew away on the wind.

As the man moved, her son moved after him.

Amazingly, he truly lived again—and began to walk.

“W-wait a moment...!”

At her call, the man halted and turned his head halfway back toward her.

“Who... are you...?”

Behind wind-tossed red hair, redder lips curved deep.

“I have come to raise those sunk in grief and despair. The world shall be dyed in my red Blood Qi.”

“...”

“Follow me.”

Leaving those unknowable words, the man stepped forward again.

Her son followed him.

The woman, staring blankly as the two drew away, hurriedly ran after them.

Ssssss—

Wind blew; ash scattered.

The village, blackened and burned, held not even a trace of human warmth and slowly dissolved into the air.

Book 3 — Chapter 1: The Girl Who Lost Her Memory

“I’m telling you, Mister Jang gave me four and gave the girl next door five! How can a person be so unfair, huh?”

At the woman’s question, Seolhwa smiled slightly and nodded.

“Right? You think so too, don’t you?”

The woman sat on the porch for a long time, airing her complaints about Jang, the charcoal seller.

As Seolhwa stacked the firewood she’d brought down from the mountain, she nodded now and then to the woman’s words.

After a while, both the grumbling about Mister Jang and the firewood stacking reached a stopping point.

“But can you carry all that at once?”

Seolhwa tightened the knot and nodded.

“Goodness—so strong, aren’t you. You could beat most grown men! And you work so neatly—everyone’s scrambling to stock up on the wood you sell!”

Seolhwa brushed off her hands—tak, tak—and straightened up.

Before her lay a pile of firewood that would be a burden even for a stout adult man, just as the woman said.

A shadow of pity settled in the woman’s gaze on her.

“Are you hurting anywhere?”

Seolhwa looked at her.

“Are you at least eating properly?”

Seolhwa nodded.

“That’s... good....”

The woman, too, nodded in relief.

“S-so your memory is the same as before, right?”

One day, a girl had suddenly drifted down the river.

The villagers had rushed to haul her out.

Her body was cold, her lips blue, but thankfully she still breathed.

They warmed her and kept watch over her day and night in turns.

Thanks to that, the girl regained consciousness and recovered quickly—but the problem was, she remembered nothing.

Not her name, not her age, not where she had come from, not why she had fallen into the water.

She remembered nothing at all.

The villagers repaired an abandoned hermitage halfway up the mountain and gave it to the girl as a place to live.

They taught her how to split wood so she could support herself.

They showed her so she could at least gather fallen branches and sell them, but—

Their worry that a frail girl might not manage was unfounded; # Nоvеlight # her wood-splitting skill was astonishing.

With a few swings of the axe, she felled trees, and as if slicing tofu, she cut logs into even lengths with ease.

Before long, she was supplying firewood for the whole village.

So it went for about two months.

The girl still sold firewood.

She didn’t talk much; now and then she would stare blankly at the sky, lost in thoughts no one could read.

The villagers thought she was unconsciously longing for home.

Pitying her, and proud of how steadfastly she lived, everyone in the village liked the girl.

“Good grief, I came to bring you rice cakes and only blathered nonsense!”

The woman dusted her skirt and stood.

Seolhwa looked at her.

“I—I left some cakes, so when your mouth gets bored, grab one now and—”

She waved her hand as if to say don’t bother seeing me out and stepped off the yard—when—

“Oh, right! Listen to me!”

“?”

“We’re building you a new place. When you’ve got time, pack your things!”

“?”

“Bandits have been rampant lately, you know? This place is too remote—it’s dangerous. There happens to be an empty house in the village; we’re fixing it up, and it should be ready soon.”

Seolhwa stared at her in puzzlement.

“Just so you know—don’t come out—!”

Having said her piece, the woman practically ran away.

The hermitage where Seolhwa stayed sat high on the mountainside, far from the village.

The woman hadn’t trudged all this way to bad-mouth Mister Jang or because of the rice cakes.

Not wanting to burden her, she’d saved the real purpose for last and then fled; Seolhwa watched her retreat for a long moment, then turned toward the woodpile.

She set her hand on the stack to slide thin twigs into the gaps among the bundled wood—when—

A familiar black snake poked its head out from between the logs.

Seolhwa looked at the snake for a moment; without surprise, she held out her hand.

The black snake naturally slid along her hand, coiled up her arm, and settled at the nape of her neck.

Seolhwa tapped the snake’s head—tok, tok—then went back to arranging the firewood.

“...”

The black snake had first appeared when, after settling in the village, Seolhwa went into the woods for timber.

Seeing a snake near the tree she meant to fell, she went to another—only to find the same snake there too.

After she moved on like that for four trees,

only then did Seolhwa realize the snake was following her.

From that day on, the black snake hovered near her.

When villagers came by, it hid; when Seolhwa was alone, it appeared from somewhere and stayed at her side.

Thanks to that, Seolhwa was not lonely.

Scritch— scritch—

“?”

At the rustling sound, Seolhwa lowered her gaze.

The snake was scrawling something on the hard-packed earth with the tip of its tail.

Seolhwa tilted her head.

The snake’s drawing was a straight line with round circles set along it in a row.

What is that?

The snake looked up at Seolhwa.

Its small black eyes somehow looked expectant, but Seolhwa could not tell what it wanted to say.

When she only blinked, the snake narrowed its eyes as if disappointed and slipped off somewhere.

Watching the snake coil on the porch and tuck its head in, Seolhwa shouldered the bundle of wood.

She meant to go down to the village, sell the firewood, and buy food.

Before stepping out, she glanced back at the snake.

With a brief look at it, still coiled with its face tucked in, she left the house.