IDMV 03

Chapter 03

At that moment, his gaze met mine.
A chill seized my very core.
My body wouldn’t move, as if something heavy were pressing down on it.

Staggering slightly, he muttered toward me.
Behind him, a dark crimson haze rose up—an ominous mass of heat, like something dreadful compressed together.

It was such an unfamiliar experience that I wondered if I was seeing things. I blinked hard, and that was when I heard it.

“…Didn’t they say you were hovering between life and death for three days? You look perfectly fine.”

A strong smell of alcohol mixed with the metallic tang of blood drifted from him.

“Who… are you…?”

I asked quietly, though in truth, I already knew who he was.
His face, height, and overall presence bore an uncanny resemblance to Yeom Horyeong.

Yeom Hopyeong.
The eldest son—and Jeok Heerin’s fiancé.

Strangely enough, just meeting his eyes made it sound like frantic drums were pounding beside my ears.
No—this was my heartbeat.

A deep, seething rage still throbbed within Jeok Heerin’s heart.
I deliberately suppressed my emotions and observed the situation.

Yeom Hopyeong was grinning.
Unlike the gentle-looking Yeom Horyeong, his face had a sharp, cutting impression.
The twisted curve of his lips was especially unsettling.

“So, you lost your memory, huh?”

He looked at me with the expression of someone already broken.

“Don’t tell me you made up that lie just to run away from me?”

“….”

The words wouldn’t come out easily. Perhaps irritated by that, Yeom Hopyeong raised an eyebrow.

“Why don’t I check for myself?”

He strode toward me and reached out.
My body froze solid under deeply rooted fear.

I’m going to die!

I wanted to run, but he was faster.
His hand clamped around my throat.

Even the sensation of his skin touching mine was revolting.
My vision filled with nothing but his horrifying face.

“Kh—!”

My throat tightened, and a groan escaped me.
The murderous intent pouring out of Yeom Hopyeong crushed the air from my lungs.

“Answer me. Why did the Demon Dog save you? Since when have you been connected to that bastard?!”

…Demon Dog?
Was he referring to the one who had saved me at the lake?

Yeom Hopyeong’s face, staring straight into my eyes, was horribly distorted.
I instantly recognized the emotion embedded in that expression.

A vicious inferiority complex.

His madness-filled eyes weren’t aimed at me—they were fixed on someone else inside me.

“I thought you were scheming with my little brother, but were you secretly colluding with that Demon Dog instead?”

The veins in Yeom Hopyeong’s eyes bulged.
I didn’t know why, but it was clear that this “Demon Dog” was a being that stirred his inferiority complex.

“No matter what you do, you can’t escape. You were mine from the beginning.”

The hand around my throat tightened. My breath started to cut off.

If I were Heerin, I wouldn’t have been able to resist at all.
But I was different.

“…Let go!”

Locking eyes with him, I gathered what little breath I had left and shouted.
I needed to throw him off balance and create an opening.

At that instant—

Everything stopped.

Yeom Hopyeong’s foul breath, the killing intent vividly transmitted through his hand, even the cold flow of air around us—all of it froze.
The world lost its color, blanketed in lifeless gray.

And in that stillness, I instinctively tore his hand away from my neck and realized—

Only I could move in this silence.

I didn’t know why.
Whether it was my power, or a secret hidden within this body.

But I knew one thing for certain: this moment was fleeting, and I couldn’t afford to miss it.

Without another thought, I kicked Yeom Hopyeong’s shin with all my strength.

At that very moment, the colorless world shattered.
Gray split apart, colors rushed back to life, and the sounds of the surroundings returned.

And—

Thud!

Yeom Hopyeong fell backward, smashing his head against the threshold.
Caught completely off guard, he hadn’t even managed to defend himself.

But just when I needed to flee as fast as possible, my body suddenly went limp, as if something had been drained out of me.

“Hah… hah….”

A dull ache spread around my heart, and my breathing grew ragged.
My legs gave out, and I collapsed where I stood, struggling to steady my breath.

My throat hurt, and my ankle throbbed from kicking his shin so hard, but more than that, the strange exhaustion and breathlessness kept me from standing up right away.

Only after a long while could I finally move again.

Yeom Hopyeong…

Fortunately, he still hadn’t gotten up. He seemed to have lost consciousness after hitting the threshold properly.
There wasn’t blood pooling around his head, and he was still breathing—so it didn’t look like he’d die like this.

To others, it would seem as though he’d simply fallen on his own while drunk.
That was the result of quick calculation.

I had kicked his shin after precisely estimating where his head would strike.

Should I just kill him now?

It’s best to eliminate obstacles quickly.
But this was inside the Yeomhwa household.

If suspicion toward me grew, my actions would be restricted. It was better to stop here.
Besides, Yeom Hopyeong would be lying there for quite some time anyway.

He really was drunk, so when he eventually woke up, he might even mistake all of this for a dream.

Leaving him behind, I returned to my quarters.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I calmed my wildly pounding heart.

What was that?

What happened when Yeom Hopyeong grabbed my throat—time had definitely stopped.

Could it be…?

I clenched and unclenched my unfamiliar palm.
Could that have been a special ability Jeok Heerin possessed?

I was certain that among the countless bits of information I’d known in the past, there had been nothing like this.

Suddenly, I grew curious about what kind of person Jeok Heerin had been.

Were there clues about her among the things she used?

In the bedroom, there was nothing but an old mirror and faded clothes—no traces of her.
So I widened my search to the small study attached to the room.

On a desk in the corner, stacks of calligraphy practice sheets lay piled up.

She really wrote a lot.

Having been confined all this time, she likely had nothing else to do.

As I flipped through them, I discovered a notebook tucked deep inside the desk drawer.

Fragments of Jeok Heerin’s life were recorded there.

Records of birthdays she spent alone each year.
Dialogue written without any responses.
And sentences cut short.

Over time, the entries grew fewer, and the thoughts recorded became sparse.
Her handwriting, once straight and neat, gradually fell apart, until the final entries looked as though they’d been written with trembling hands.

The last hastily scrawled sentence revealed her state of mind at the time.

Once the wedding is held, I will disappear completely.

Thinking back to my encounter with Yeom Hopyeong earlier, it was easy to see how horribly she had regarded him.
He must have always treated Heerin with violence, just as he had today.

Could it be that the one who killed Heerin was…

The moment that thought crossed my mind, her final memory surged forth.

A cloudy sky.
A vast lake.

And Heerin, barefoot and covered in wounds, standing at the edge of a cliff.

In front of her stood Yeom Hopyeong, his face twisted.

“You’re mine anyway. You should listen to everything your husband says, shouldn’t you?”

With nothing but his murderous glare, he seemed to be slicing Jeok Heerin to pieces.

“Go back quietly to your quarters. If you just keep your mouth shut, I’ll dote on you enough to be satisfied.”

The moment she heard those words, Jeok Heerin’s heart—thrashing like a fish pulled from water—fell completely silent.
Strangely, she felt no fear at all as she faced Yeom Hopyeong.

“Shut that filthy mouth.”

She replied with a twisted, mocking smile.

“Let’s never see each other again.”

As soon as her lips closed, her body descended toward the lake.
White foam rose up as the water welcomed her, swallowing her whole.

A venomous smile lingered on her lips.
Jeok Heerin thought it was better to die than to marry Yeom Hopyeong.

And so, without hesitation, she threw herself into the lake.

That was where the memory ended.

But she could never have known—
that something would happen to her body as it sank beneath the water, and that I, Cheongrin, would come to dwell within it.

I don’t know how such a thing was even possible.
But one thing was certain: in place of her, who wished for death, I—who wished to live—remained here.

“Heerin.”

I called her name in my heart.
There was no response.

It seemed the original owner of this body had completely vanished.

“Jeok Heerin.”

Trapped in a place like a prison, she never truly had the chance to bloom.
After losing her freedom to the Demonic Cult, she lived like a bird in a cage, and in the end sought freedom through death.

Your death gave me life.

Even knowing she was already gone, there were words I wanted to say.

From now on, I’ll live as you.

I would not waste the life I had been given by this miracle.

Having inherited her life, there was something I had to do.

Revenge.

Not only those who killed Baek‑a, but also those who drove you to your death—I won’t forgive any of them.

Those who ordered Baek‑a’s murder would be torn to pieces, and those who captured Heerin and forced her toward death would be cast into the abyss.

The moment I made that vow—

A presence I thought would never return stirred faintly at my solar plexus.
It was an unsettling, chilling energy.

Startled, I quickly sat cross‑legged and carefully examined the energy inside my body.

The inner power I thought had been completely severed twitched faintly.
It was thin as a thread, but it undeniably existed.

My inner power wasn’t completely gone!