CHAPTER 01…………………………………………………
Hero Eleksena
“Ah—O God, please tell the unfinished story of Eleksena, who committed an unforgivable sin.”
A thousand years ago, there was a hero.
A woman named Eleksena, who was called the strongest hero of her time, surpassing countless male heroes of the age.
However, even Eleksena could not escape human fate and met a tragic death.
Before dying, Eleksena looked up at the sky and cried out:
“God, please acknowledge my unjust death. Make the land soaked with my blood so barren that not a single blade of grass can grow, and let no being ever approach where my body was torn apart and scattered.”
God granted Eleksena’s wish. Her blood covered half the world, and her body was torn into pieces and scattered across all continents.
Everyone thought Eleksena’s story had ended there.
But a thousand years later, Eleksena opened her eyes once more.
In the body of the foolish princess, Cardia.
Eleksena was now sitting blankly on the boundary between the underworld and the living world, lost in thought.
It had been over a thousand years since her death, yet she still had not gone to the afterlife.
The reason was simple. The noble god of the underworld had told her this:
—Your rage cannot be extinguished even by the rivers of the underworld, so I cannot allow you to enter.
“Rage, my ass.”
Eleksena twisted her face in irritation.
What a detestable god of the underworld. What would he even know to spout such nonsense?
As befitting the greatest hero of her era, Eleksena had a bold temperament. It meant that when she got angry, she dealt with it on the spot and moved on. There was no lingering rage left in her.
She stood up and kicked the space beneath her.
There was nothing there—it was simply a pointless venting of frustration. After letting off enough steam to feel slightly better, she sat back down at the boundary.
A wandering soul that could not rest could do nothing. Only exist in thought within an empty void.
Even that thought had become simple after a thousand years. What Eleksena had been thinking about recently were her past memories. She tried to figure out why she had been said to be filled with rage.
But no matter how much she thought about it, she could not recall being truly angry during her lifetime.
She had felt wronged right before death, but other than that, she had lived far too comfortably.
If something annoyed her, she simply beat it down. If something stood in her way, she removed it. She was not the type to carry emotional burdens.
“Maybe the god of the underworld just dislikes me and made it up?”
Eleksena knew that was a ridiculous thought. The god of the underworld always accepted the dead into the afterlife without issue, unless there was a special reason not to.
But if she didn’t think such nonsense, she couldn’t endure the emptiness of the boundary between life and death.
A desolate space where no one came, and nothing existed. The dead could not sleep, so they had to endure while awake.
Countless years passed like that.
And during that time, rage that had never existed in life slowly accumulated.
Because enduring an eternity where one is neither properly alive nor dead was a more horrific punishment than anything else.
About eight hundred years ago, when her mind was still somewhat intact, she would rampage at the entrance to the underworld.
“If you won’t let me in, send me back to the living world!” she would shout. She rampaged like that for nearly a hundred years, more or less.
She only stopped when she realized it was completely pointless.
Eleksena ran a hand through her hair roughly and stood up. She intended to inspect the boundary again.
This was something she did at least once a day.
Will I be able to enter the underworld today? Will I finally rest?
Or perhaps there might be a way back to the living world.
With such futile hopes, she would slowly search around the border.
A proper death or a proper life. She had spent far too long in the ambiguous boundary between life and death. If she could obtain even one of them properly, a thousand years would not feel wasted.
And as always, luck was on Eleksena’s side.
“Mommmmyyy… Mommyyy… where are you?”
Eleksena turned her head toward the sound.
A child.
A child’s cry echoed in the place that had been filled with silence for a thousand years.
“Mommyyy… I’m scared…”
Eleksena quickly ran toward the sound. It was the voice of a living human, something she hadn’t heard in ages. Though she had no heart, her chest tightened.
“Who are you?”
Eleksena grabbed the crying child and asked.
The child was very small—no more than four years old.
But that wasn’t important.
What mattered was that a human had appeared after a thousand years.
For the first time in a very long while, Eleksena smiled sincerely.
“Why are you crying here?”
The child looked up at her for a moment, then burst into even louder tears, now more frightened than before.
“M-Mommyyy…”
Seeing the child cry made Eleksena anxious. If this child disappeared, she would be left alone again in that hollow void.
“Stop crying.”
She awkwardly patted the child’s head. Aside from occasionally doing so to younger siblings long ago, she hadn’t acted kindly toward anyone in ages.
Despite her clumsy gesture, the child quickly stopped crying. With a puffed-up, tear-swollen face, the child looked at her. Even after crying moments ago, curiosity now filled the child’s wide eyes.
“Who are you, big sister?”
“You should introduce yourself first.”
At Eleksena’s words, the child pouted.
“I’m a fool.”
“What?”
“Everyone calls me that.”
At the child’s words, Eleksena let out a hollow laugh. It seemed that after her death, it had become normal to call children names like that.
The child secretly glanced at her, trying to read her expression. Though the child thought it was hiding it well, Eleksena, once the greatest among humans, saw everything clearly.
The child fidgeted endlessly, then grabbed Eleksena’s sleeve. She didn’t push the child away. After all, this was the first living human she had seen in over a thousand years.
“So, Fool. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see my mom.”
The child answered hesitantly, tears welling up again.
“They told me I should just die because I’m embarrassing. I… I said I’d do it because I wanted to see my mom too…”
“Your mother passed away?”
“Yes.”
The child answered in a fading voice.
Meanwhile, Eleksena drifted into thought again. That had become a habit since her death.
The child was probably not dead yet—only caught in a liminal state due to some severe accident. As proof, no gate to the underworld appeared before the child.
And with time, a path toward the living world was becoming clearer behind the child.
The living world…!
Eleksena’s eyes lit up at what she had longed for over a thousand years.
She couldn’t let this opportunity go.
This might be her only chance at a proper life—or proper death.
“Aren’t you angry? At the people who hurt you?”
Eleksena smiled like a predator.
The child was innocent. It seemed to think her words were comfort.
The so-called “fool” easily believed the lie. The child clung to Eleksena and began pouring out its grief. Eleksena gently stroked the child’s back with surprisingly practiced motions.
“I hate everyone. My dad only plays with my stepmom, my stepbrother bullies me. My little sibling calls me stupid all the time. And Tia keeps pinching me… she also gives me only bad food. And everyone talks badly about my mom. But my mom was kind. She used to tell me I was pretty.”
“So what hurt you the most was them insulting your mom.”
“Mm-hmm.”
The child sniffled without even properly answering.
“Don’t you want to make them pay?”
“I… I can’t.”
The child shook its head in panic. Eleksena wiped the child’s tears and gently held its cheeks, forcing eye contact. The child’s eyes trembled with confusion.
Eleksena smiled softly.
Manipulating an ignorant child was extremely easy for her.
“Shall I punish them for you?”
“H-how?”
Hope flickered in the child’s trembling eyes. Its anger was deeper than expected—deep enough to want revenge through a stranger.
Eleksena whispered gently:
“I’ll go into your body instead. Then I can punish them for you.”
“Th-then what happens to me?”
“You’ll go to the underworld and hug your mother.”
“I’ll do it! Please help me!”
The innocent child nodded vigorously, as if afraid she might change her mind.
The child quickly explained everything—who was the worst, who insulted the mother the most, and who bullied the child the most.
Eleksena listened with satisfaction.
A life that was neither dead nor alive—was finally ending.
Though she could not go to the underworld yet, she would return to the living world once more and live again.
