Chapter Text
The world was trapped in endless chaos. Hae-In can no longer remember the face of her parents, her family or her small group of friends in the track and field club. Even a day without magic or monsters or fire running in every direction and gray skies covering the sun was a foreign concept.
Despite the negatives, she still managed to bring about some positives in her life. The hunters— the awakened were the only ones that survived through this, and they were kind themselves in their own way. It seems like the apocalypse has reunited people once again in a small group, with unspoken peace until the war is over. At least, that was what her group constantly set out to do.
Sokcho, it was the refuge where the last survivors of all South Korea existed, as far as they were aware. It was close to North Korea in case other refugees wanted to come or in case they had to leave. The place was near a large body of water, the east sea. There they could purify the water with the healers' abilities. Their home was in the depth of a man-made tunnel, reinforced with the carcasses of bugs in order to not let other scavenging insects inside.
Cha Hae-In was 13 when she awakened. She still remembered the day when it happened. Something in the past that has been unable to leave unlike the rest of the cryptid memories. A lot of the younger ones suffered some collateral damage to the point where their bodies have been given scars. They said those represented the new powder that they've been injected with. Byung-Gu had lost the feeling of touch in both hands, Jong-In had been left with permanent burns over his arms and one that scarred his face from the left eye to the nape.
With Choi Jong-In, a past university student in economics, she learned how to distribute the food, the rations and often heard boring stories that lured her to sleep among the nightmares.
Min Byung-Gu had a calm aura around him. He told more fun stories during the fire, about the Joseon dynasty, about the general who defeated pirates and invaders alike, about the mother bear, about the Reaper that lurks by.
Baek Yoon-Ho was a firefighter before. Cha Hae-In often giggled when it came to the quarrels he had with Choi Jong-In. She remembered wrapping around him when the ice elves came near… It wasn't a kind memory, but she couldn't help remembering how much Jong-In held onto his fur even when the blood dripped off his chest.
17 year old Cha Hae-In met Lim Tae-Gyu on the coast of Shinjuku after escaping to Japan. More S ranks , A and B ranks had reunited by that time, led by an S rank known as Reina Nanami, the one who unified her S ranks to battle against the giants and conquer their small land again. Now that the so called 'Monarch' had died by the hands of the angelic beings. The war aside, Lim Tae-Gyu and many other hunters from east Asia befriended each other, found a small comfort in being alive, being strong enough to do so in the apocalypse. Tae-Gyu and she liked sports and were competitive when it came to their kills. With the same heritage, same carnage and backstory lost in the waves of the indecent years, they made a good pair.
She met Tawata Kanae and Goto Ryuji at that time too, but she got to know them during the third Plague of Wasps. At 20 she had no other choice but to walk the forests and mountains of China alone. If she wanted to live that is. The ones who had made it out so far were few and in between, and Hae-In had been one of them.
A God or so they said, that there was a man far stronger than the 'Monarchs' out there in China, in India, in the USA. Those messages had only come from the magicians reading said runic writing in the walls. Testaments of old orcs writing to each other how hard it is to get rid of them. But in due time, in due time they said, they will fall to their powers.
He got to understand Kanae's hotblooded temper enough times to not get burned by it. He got to know just what small history the cold blooded Goto had with his former teacher and friend. They wouldn't let on much, but from the murmurs of the night or she watched the lone figure stay up to watch the moon fall, she got it. A case just as fragile as the ones she had seen before.
And at those dark times when they watched the moon be destroyed, Hae-In felt a small relief that she had never known what it was like to fall in love.
Yes, she thought about the death of her parents, yes only buying them was more than enough.
It was quiet one day. Very quiet. When Hae-In went out to look for food to steal or a beast to slay, she stumbled out of the wasp's nests and headed to the exterior of the burned forest. Overnight a dragon had passed, the idea of being lucky enough to not be burned hadn't phased her in the least considering the amounts of luck it already took to reach 23.
Around the place she took a few vines and started piercing old armor that had survived on her. With the black dragon wildcat's claws she cut loose the remaining vine and placed the loose strand over her hair. The blond strands looked more like a bush of wheat than actual combed hair. She couldn't really get rid of it considering it kept her warm in frozen landscapes, so the best choice was to hold it all up and tie it, roughly, so as to not be bothered by it.
A matter of hours later she entered a former battlefield. Her first reaction was: Run, run away.
Her second reaction was: Breathe, look around, see if you can eat anything.
And she did. Hunger got the better judgment despite knowing that, unless one wanted an instant death, they shouldn't enter a battlefield between the bright angelic army and the dark monsters from the gates. With careful steps, tiptoeing down the carcasses she looked for anything remotely good.
The place was a tomb of ash, only a few things creeped up from the ground. No trees or clouds gathered, the gray mist extended its arms to the outer edges of the world. Water vaporized upon its fall, the terrain crumbled as its last mercy for holding up so long. Bones spread out among each other. Bones told stories. If the monsters won they could cleanly eat up the angelic army and gather their bones to create mountains upon mountains separate to each other. If the angelic army won their trophies would be the powdered bones of the deceased, whom they would crush and pour salt over their bodies. One A rank had called them Romans for the way they wished to erase every last bit of the monsters’ existence.
That A rank was right, for not even a name was written for them.
They were only ‘enemies’.
Like others before her who lived seconds after, the amount of armor— broken or bloody, but at times untouched even by the ash— laid on the ground was like a goldmine in front of someone who only held copper, paper even. Not one human could resist grabbing them. Unpolished silver, human shaped gauntlets, bizarre crested plates, the breastplates held an obscene amount of patterns or stayed purely clean, all discarded like ragged toys. She grabbed a helmet off the ground, one big enough– but not too big— in order to boil some leftover ice and drink it at noon. How long has it been since her lips had touched that kind of substance?
The sun was powerless against the red clouds. Who knows how many days passed, but she heard once that humans can not survive without drinking water for 3 days, no? Min Byung-Gyu was the one who often told her to hold a batch. She looked at the ground. The hands with cuts and scratches never heal like before. “Five…. hours.” Hae-In opened her mouth after a week, each letter stuck on the dry throat.
Wrong. It had been six weeks, but time was of no use anymore, especially to a being that had lost its humanity years beforehand.
She went silent once again, Hae-In turned to the rest of the mist. Nothing here, nothing there. Her stomach flipped, her whole body tensed up, the chill ran until all the hairs in her body stood upright. No matter what her eyes saw, Hae-In breathed in and dug into one of the bone mountains.
Holding on to the helmet and looking through the small holes of the eastern side, she watched as a procession of monsters came by.
”The Demon Marquis have made us gather the remaining pieces again?” One of the soldiers with bronze like armor said as he walked next to the other.
“It's the only thing they see us to be good at.”
“Still. Even if we do find something useful among the wreckage, what would we gain from it? The Radir princess may give us a good compliment if we are lucky, but nothing else.”
“...What are you suggesting then, Balzir? Do you wish to keep the loot you find?”
“Maybe. We can sell it and have enough money to run back to our dimension.”
“...Do you miss Albernaugh already?”
“I miss not having to deal with the pesky angelic army all the time. Do you want to stay here Milaous?”
The demon of copper and one horn tilted downward pondered.
“Maybe. I don't mind us dying on the battlefield. As long as I reincarnate back into my family tree then I can die here and enjoy my youth again in Albernaugh.“
“Why not live for just a bit longer? I mean you are only two dekalts my age.”
“Even better, it means I don't have much to lose in this timeline. Maybe this is why you are afraid, no? You hoard so many things, but for what, you will die in the end too. Also you already have that fancy cup, what more is there for you to steal?”
The demon made some kind of smile. “You are right, one day I'll die and my soul will pass to another body...But not here. At least I want to choose this life where I rest—”
The demons both whipped their heads to the sound of a fallen bone.
“Who—!”
The sounds of sliced up parts falling to the ground, metal and blood alike was heard a second later.
A galloping horse came to see one standing soldier among the wreckage.
“You! Soldier!”
The soldier bowed to its master while a headless corpse laid naked next to another sliced up soldier.
The one on top of the horse sneered and looked to the side.
“Tch, burn your comrade and write a letter saying that another demon has died at the hands of a human.”
The demon kept its pose lowered until the demon and its horse galloped away.
Hae-In stood straight again, her eyes upon the small satchel that one of the soldiers had gathered. Curiosity got the better of the blonde starving cat as she moved her claws through the piles of trash and gold. Some runes are useless for a fighter like her, and others like… like this goblet…
“I wonder what they were talking about…”
Hae-In grabbed the cup, adorned quite nicely, she brushed things up and some writings were seen in it, not that she could read them but they were quite pretty anyways. Like the holy grail from a story she once heard, a cup so beautiful that upon gazing at it one couldn't help but be greedy and steal it.
SLICE!
Hae-In dodged the blade at the right time. Instead of her head having been cut off, only a small head scar was made on her cheek as it dribbled on the cup. Without both demon or human noticing, the cup had begun to shine, just dimly so.
“Tch.” Another aim for her left arm, her leg, the hip and the head again. Hae-In graciously dodged them as she grabbed the knife in the demon’s belt and sliced her hand in one go.
“Shit you are one of those gifted humans!”
She couldn't understand a single thing as the demon with golden armor and a red mane shrieked in pain and backed away. Getting her weapon ready, Hae-In plunged forward once more but the demon shrieked again as she placed both hands forward.
Huh.
They know fear.