Taming The Villainesses

Chapter 445: Human

When I opened my eyes to a surge of wrenching pain.

I had been thrown into a barren desert.

A scorching sun blazed overhead, and dry sand stretched endlessly around me. All I could see were rocks and sand.

I couldn’t understand why I was lying in such a desert, but my biological instinct screamed that I had to survive.

“Hah...”

A dry breath escaped through my cracked lips, and sweat dripped down my forehead. The thirst was unbearable. If only I had a single mouthful of water to moisten my burning tongue, to escape this sweltering heat.

Desperately, I began searching for any sign of water.

Endlessly.

I had no idea how much time had passed.

Eventually, I reached a rock and began to move my hands frantically beneath it—like a burrowing beast. I dug through the sand with both hands beneath the stone.

Shff, shff.

Then, in the once completely dry ground, I felt a trace of moisture. As I dug further, something like a small puddle began to trickle forth.

“Yes!”

I couldn’t help but shout aloud in joy. It was only natural—I’d miraculously found drinking water in the middle of a desert.

Still, I felt a little embarrassed, wondering if someone might’ve heard me. I glanced around.

But all I saw were the footprints I’d left in the sand behind me.

Whooo—

Even those vanished when the wind blew. I was the only one in this vast desert. A desolate loneliness began to soak through my chest, so I shook my head vigorously and focused back on the sand.

“There’s water here.”

I had no idea how I’d sensed the hidden puddle between the rocks and sand. But somehow—instinctively—I’d felt the presence of moisture.

Maybe because I’m a half-fairy...?

Half-fairy.

Right, I’m a half-fairy. The murderous heat and burning thirst had dulled my thinking, but as I wet my body with a little of that water, my head cleared a bit.

I was a half-fairy.

And I’d been fighting, fiercely, with everyone.

...Everyone?

Were there others besides me?

I knew I had lost something. But I couldn’t recall what it was.

So I wandered the desert aimlessly, trying to recover what I had lost.

The scorching sun eventually sank, and night arrived.

I encountered strange, unknown lifeforms.

When hunger and thirst had begun to feel like old friends, I looked up at the desert moon—and suddenly, like finding an old letter in a drawer, I remembered.

“I had a family.”

The ladies’ faces and names, their voices and warmth—they all returned to me, vividly.

It felt like my dead nerves and mind were being splashed with cool water.

My dried-up memories and emotions revived rapidly, and the sudden flood of emotion caused me immense pain.

“Everyone... What happened...!?”

We were fighting the giant.

But I had been deceived by the false illusion the giant showed me. By the time I snapped out of it, my wives lay collapsed, gasping for breath before my eyes.

Even Mirna and Narmee, the twin ladies, and Professor Stella were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know what had happened, but I could guess what was going to happen.

“...Everyone is in danger.”

I couldn’t just stay still. If I left things as they were, they would all be lost—without a doubt.

I had to find them quickly. Help them escape. Heal their wounds.

With those thoughts, I staggered through the desert. But around me, there was only the wind brushing past my body, the sand, the rocks, and the sun.

No warm hands. No familiar voice calling out to me. No tickle of fingers waking me.

Just in case, I turned around.

As always, the footprints I’d left on the sand dunes had already been erased by the wind.

Where the hell is this place—?

How long have I been here—?

Countless questions slipped through my fingers like sand.

I just kept walking.

I pushed my foot forward, laying the ball of my foot down gently on the burning sand.

The sensation of the sand beneath my foot traveled up my ankle, shin, and thigh. Then I stepped forward with the other foot the same way.

One step.

Ten steps.

A hundred.

A thousand.

Ten thousand.

Counting the steps I took somehow made me feel better. Because it was the only thing I could focus on.

If I let my guard down for even a moment, like water crashing through a broken window, all kinds of fears and worries would flood into me. So I focused only on walking.

But at some point—

Even counting my steps lost all meaning. No matter how many steps I counted, this desert had no end. No matter how much time passed, I could never escape it.

Only the burning sun continued to blaze overhead.

Still, walking during the day was a little better. When the sun set and night arrived, I had to fight endless loneliness and regret.

Where were they now, and what were they doing?

I had no doubt that they were still alive, somewhere.

Even now, if I closed my eyes, I could feel their warmth, their voices.

That’s why regret ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) rained down on me like a storm.

“AAAAAAAH──!!!”

Once, I had everything.

But because I reached for something else—I let everything slip through my fingers.

Every night, I thought about what I had lost. I fell asleep imagining the day I would hold them again.

***

The pair of shoes that had been bothering me for ages finally fell apart. I thought they’d last a few more years, too.

I buried them carefully in a sand dune and offered a quiet blessing.

“Rest well.”

Ssshhh.

Without them, the sand slipped freely between my toes. I caught a strange bug crawling nearby and placed its shell against my foot.

Tied with string, it made for a passable substitute.

I’d realized recently that I wasn’t alone in this desert. There were quite a few creatures living here. Horrific, grotesquely twisted things.

They had jagged shells, horns, and teeth sharp enough to tear me to pieces. But I couldn’t just die easily.

When I came across their dead remains, I turned their parts into daggers, spears, even cloaks. There was nothing useless about a monster’s corpse.

Bones, claws, muscle, tendons, meat.

“Ugh.”

The meat tasted like chewing a wet rag—absolutely vile.

But with luck, I sometimes found bugs that tasted like shrimp. Though I couldn’t even remember what shrimp really tasted like anymore, roasting them made them tolerable.

“......”

When I watched the water boil atop a monster’s shell, I thought of that red broth. The ramen I ate to the point of disgust. I no longer recalled the taste—but I remembered us eating it happily, together.

However—their faces, their voices—I couldn’t recall at all.

As I walked through the desert, memories and emotions scraped past me dryly, like the sand soaking into my skin. Suddenly, I became curious about the face reflected in the boiling water.

My once-red hair had long since turned black. The red mana within me had vanished, and along with it, the color in my hair.

“Who are you?”

Even without that, the face was unfamiliar. Patchy beard stubble clung to my face—hardly befitting a half-fairy. My jawline and cheeks were sunken from long hunger.

My face was unrecognizable. There was no trace of who I had been.

Then again, maybe it had always been like this. Whenever I looked into the mirror, it had always felt unfamiliar. My past self, who smiled sometimes even through pain—I couldn’t remember that person at all.

What did it feel like to have a conversation with someone else? I think I used to talk to others without much trouble.

But now, I wouldn’t even know what to say if I met someone.

“Ah.”

I said it aloud, staring at the flickering campfire.

Sure enough—

After being silent for so long, even my own voice felt unfamiliar.

“Tomorrow, I’ll cross the sand dune.”

Maybe because of the unfamiliar voice—

It felt like someone else was speaking to me.

“There’s a big monster guarding the dune. I won’t stand a chance in close quarters. I’ll need a weapon I can throw from a distance.”

That’s a good idea.

***

“I ponder what moves a human.”

Water? Protein? The tight coordination of muscle and brain?

Those are part of it, but I think the answer is emotion. People move based on emotion. If they feel nothing, they’ll just lie there like rocks.

“I move because of emotion.”

What drives my legs now is emotion, like an awl stabbing out from my pocket. It’s a form of vengeance. Vengeance against whoever threw me into this damn endless desert.

I couldn’t remember who it was.

But I wouldn’t be satisfied until I drove an awl into their smiling face. That was the only feeling that burned within me like a furnace—pushing my legs and arms forward.

There was a villain.

Someone who forced me into this long, agonizing pain.

Until I drive a stake into their heart—I cannot stop.

But first, I had to escape this desert.

“Still, I think I’ve figured out how.”

It wasn’t like I’d spent this endless, dreary time doing nothing.

This desert—it was a dumping ground. A place where failed would-be great beings were discarded.

I didn’t care about the philosophy.

All I wanted was a way out.

And finally—I understood. A phrase buried deep in my long memory surfaced.

It was something I saw at the Door.

Words I had never shared with anyone else.

“To obtain something new, you must lose what you have.”

If I wanted to leave this place—I had to lose it.

To gain something new, you inevitably have to let something go.

And I had a lot to lose.

Precious memories I had desperately protected for so long. Only by losing them—only by letting myself become a blank slate—could I escape.

My memories.

My past.

Everything I’d carried.

Everything I was.

“I offer it.”

It’s not memory that moves humans—it’s emotion.

Emotion is what moved me—what brought me full circle to stand here again, at last.

“What moves humans—”

━━Hioooong....

I lifted a spider into my hand. It made a strange, familiar sound, but I couldn’t recall anything more about it. It didn’t matter.

“—is emotion. But I don’t need it anymore.”

I am an arrow.

Once released from the bowstring, an arrow doesn’t need to think. It only flies. And pierces.

So I set the spider gently back on the ground, then drew the dagger from my belt.

The fang that had claimed so many lives in this desert.

As I gazed upon its well-honed edge, a woman lying on the ground spoke to me. A blonde woman with striking hair.

I felt like I should remember something—but I turned away.

“You are...?”

“A hunter of villains. Nothing more.”

I, who am nothing, gripped the dagger tight and ran.

Ran and ran, leaping atop what once felt like a massive mountain—its body, its head—and drove all my long years of pain, held in reverse grip, into its forehead.

“But my blade hurts like hell.”

The countless footsteps I’d left in the desert. The countless nights I’d spent remembering this moment.

I had survived for this.

I buried my dagger—my revenge—into the monster’s skull with all my strength.

FLAAASH—!

『━━───!!!』

The giant shrieked with a thunderous scream, its body trembling violently.

“Fate can be changed.”