*29 years after the Battle of Heroes*
Even at home, where she was born and raised, Rie never received the kind of attention she does now. Both at home and in the places where she later lived, she was treated like trash and pushed around. But now she was cherished as if she were a princess, and they went to extraordinary lengths to ensure her comfort.
Because of where she lived, it was not easy for her to have the opportunity to take a bath. When she lived at home, she bathed with all her siblings in a small, leaky wooden basin, which was not very healthy.
Here they had put her in a bathhouse, the incense filling the marble-clad bath with the scent of roses.
At first she was irritable. She refused to be washed and refused to spend any more time here, but then, for some reason, she began to let two clowns wash her. One of the clowns was fat, almost obese, and so tall that Rie's neck ached looking at his masked face.
The other clown was much shorter than the fat and tall one, emaciated. The fat clown's hair was not visible, but the short and thin one's long blue hair was greasy and tangled.
Just like the other clown, the skinny one had a mask on her face. Her mask was a cheerful face, while the fat one's mask was a face of sorrow. They addressed each other as brother and sister.
Sorrow was the big brother and Joy was the younger sister.
Because of the life she had lived so far, Rie's body was dirty, covered in dirt and had a sour smell like spoiled fish. She had not had an easy life after all, but these two clowns washed her until her whole body smelled like the most beautiful, precious flowers.
When her body was washed, her beautiful white skin was revealed. Her face shone after the bath. Rie was like moonlight, and it was already clear that when she grew and blossomed she would make every man who saw her fall in love with her.
During her time here, the clowns bathed her every day, and she felt so good after her bath that she thought she could live here for the rest of her life.
But the attention she received today was even more special. Her body had been meticulously cleaned and perfumed, her hair neatly styled and she was dressed in an expensive silk dress that under normal circumstances she would not have been allowed to touch.
When Rie looked in the mirror, she realized for the first time how beautiful she was.
She was wearing a one-piece white dress, with no sleeves and a skirt that came down to her knees. On top of the white dress, a red leather sash was tied around her waist. Her brown hair was like the dress she was wearing, like silk. It fell over her shoulders and she wore a crown of pink magnolias on her head.
Rie touched her hair, it was soft and fragrant. Then she opened her mouth and looked at her teeth, perfectly arranged, like pearls.
Except for the crown on her head and the silver ring on her finger, she was unadorned. Before the clowns took her away, she turned around and looked in the mirror one last time.
“If the word ‘beautiful’ ever existed, it existed to describe me,” she thought. “I look like a moon in the sky, maybe İselle loves me.”
During the few days she spent here, her stomach was always full, they fed her with things she would never have dreamed of eating on the street.
Hot meals, sweet fish, spicy meats, lemon cakes, fresh fruit, cold sorbets.
These were nothing compared to the days she spent on the street. On the street, the best she could hope for was dried pieces of bread. It was so hard for her to get a hot and fresh meal that she had to either cooperate with her friends to steal and risk a beating if she was caught, or beg for it to be given to her by one of the benevolent servants of the generous and kind-hearted god Azer.
Living on the street, both stealing and begging became a necessity for the survival of a small, weak child like Rie. Even if she didn't like doing them, it wasn't about being a good or bad boy. It was about surviving and making it through another night without going hungry.
She was not the only child living on the streets, and when she did somehow find a few coppers to buy food or a simple loaf of dry bread, she fought, and often lost, to keep them from being stolen by those who were bigger and stronger than her.
After a while this even became a daily routine, with the stronger children often coming up to Rie and beating her and stealing what belonged to her.
They brought Rie into the kitchen for today's dinner. Sorrow acted as a bodyguard while Joy brought her food on a golden tray.
Rie sat at the table and waited for the food. She was happy and felt safe. They were such good people, they would do anything for Rie. When Joy put the food in front of her, Rie opened her mouth in surprise.
“That's it? Why is there no food today?”
There was a glass of water and a piece of bread on the golden tray. She closed and opened her eyes again and again, but the tray remained the same, just water and bread.
“Today is a special day, young lady, and you must eat a little as you will be appearing before our master in a little while.”
Joy spoke with more kindness than one might expect from her appearance. She was always so polite and respectful to Rie.
Still, it would have been much better if her voice hadn't sounded like a snarling animal, but it would have been a shame to say so. Rie didn't want to upset the people who cared about her.
So she took the bread she could eat in one bite and popped it into her mouth, then drank her water in one gulp.
“Thank you, Joy. Thank you.”
Even though she didn't bother to prepare a meal and only brought a small piece of bread, she had to be polite. They valued her like a princess and she had to behave like one. And she used to go bed hungry, so one day without meal was not a big deal.
After the meal, they walked out of the kitchen and into a corridor.
The place where Rie was, was a mountain. A huge temple had been built inside the mountain for people to live in. There were many kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, prayer rooms and the princess room where Rie stayed.
There must have been many more rooms, but Rie was only in a small area and did not know the rest of the temple. The temple was beautifully lit by countless torches and the interior was large and felt spacious.
There were two other girls who had been brought with Rie to the temple carved into the mountain. One of them was Miki, a close friend with whom she used to hang out on the streets. She had been brought here with him on the back of a cart.
The other girl here she didn't recognize. The last time they had stood side by side as they entered the temple and all three of them had not spoken because they were scared, but when she looked at the appearance of the other girl, whose name she did not know, she thought she might be the daughter of a rich merchant or a nobleman because she was immaculately dressed while Rie and Miki had come here covered in mud and dirt.
Yes, it was embarrassing to remember now, but the first day they came here, the first day she didn't know that the people here were good people, she was scared and she wanted to run back.
She had tried to run away from here, just like she had run away from the disgusting smiled old man's house where her father had sold her for a few pieces of silver.
She hadn't even spent an hour in the old man's house because she got lucky and one of the man's servants helped her escape, but she couldn't find anyone here to help her.
Every time she tried to escape, she was stopped by a young woman with hair as white as snow, and all her attempts were failed by the same woman.
The clowns treated the white-haired woman with respect and were afraid of her, although Rie did not understand why.
Rie was not angry with them for being afraid. At first the white-haired woman struck great fear in her little heart too, and Rie was afraid to look into her golden eyes.
White-haired women often featured in horror stories told on the streets. They were frightening, young and beautiful, but their beauty was poisonous. If you were fooled by their beauty and approached them, if you chose to be near them, you would face a catastrophe.
Witches, with their eternal youth, their mesmerizing beauty, their long hair as white as snow, were frightening. A witch's face could be the last thing a person saw before death.
But Rie no longer believed all the nonsense she had once been told. At first she was afraid of her, but now she realized what a kind and good person she was. Rie and the other two girls were probably scared of the witch too, but they understood, as Rie did, that both the clowns and the witch were very nice people.
They had spent five days in the temple in the mountain and they had only seen each other once in those five days, when they had first come here.
Tonight things were different. Tonight all three girls were gathered together. Like Rie, the other two girls had been washed beautifully and had skin as radiant as moonlight, perfumed with floral perfume, their hair combed, magnolia crowns on their heads.
She didn't know anything about the other girl, but it was the first time she had ever seen Miki, whom she had known for some time and who was a close friend of her, look so sweet. In fact, she was just now realizing that she was actually very beautiful, just like her.
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“H-hello.”
When the clowns brought Rie into the hall where they were, Rie felt obliged to say hello, but her voice was timid and low because something inside her told her it would be very wrong.
Neither Miki nor the other girl returned Rie's greeting. Except for Rie, both girls had their heads down. Rie waited for a while and when there was no answer, she bowed her head too.
“She's calling.”
A few minutes of silence were broken by Sorrow’s deep voice. Rie had heard no one, but Sorrow claimed they were being called by someone.
“Ladies, follow me.”
Joy spoke after her brother. The two girls, except Rie, suddenly stood up and moved behind Joy. Rie also suddenly found herself behind Joy, she couldn't remember when she had been behind her.
They moved forward, Joy in front and Sorrow behind. They entered a hallway Rie had never seen before and came to the front of the long staircase.
“Rie.”
She turned to her friend, who had called out to her when she heard her name called. Miki had red eyes like Rie and the other girl she had never heard of. Unlike Rie, she was dressed in a red outfit with a white sash around her waist.
Unexpectedly, Miki grabbed Rie's hand tightly and pulled her to him. Her hands were trembling slightly.
“There's nothing to be afraid of, Miki. Miss Witch and Mr. and Ms. Clown are extremely kind people. They want for our good, all three of them have been good to us.”
Did she believe what she was saying? After she spoke, she stopped and weighed the truth of what she had said, she could not be sure. They had to be good people. If they wanted to harm them, why had they shown interest and sought their comfort in the first place?
“Let's go upstairs.”
Suddenly a voice behind them made all three little girls' hearts jump and their hair stand on end. The witch was suddenly behind them, and Rie turned around and locked eyes with her.
“Miss Witch is so beautiful,” Rie thought. Rie envied the witch's hair, her hair was down to her hips, while her own hair only reached to her shoulders. The witch's eyes were golden yellow and beautiful, but she had a mournful look that did not suit her beautiful eyes. The witch's face was thin and her thin red lips curved downwards.
Both the girls and the clowns obeyed the witch. Her words penetrated their brains and made it impossible to refuse, they had no choice but to listen to her.
The stairs led to the top of the mountain. The mountain they were on lay between the Kingdom of Ethalot to the east, where the people nobody liked lived, and the Kingdom of Mora, where Rie had been born and raised in a remote corner. There were many mountains here and Rie could not see which one they had entered on the way. The temple they were in was an old building, she had heard that from the clowns talking.
“Ancient,” This is what Rie called the temple in her mind.
She hadn't thought about it before, but now, even though the temple was unimaginably large, Rie began to find it strange that only six people were here, including her friends and the clowns and the witch.
Inside her chest, her heart beat with an anxiety that had never existed before. As they walked up the wide staircase, the walls of which were lit by torches, Miki squeezed Rie's hand tighter and tighter, finally causing Rie pain.
Miki's hand was sweating and Rie felt uncomfortable with the sweat on her hand. Her hand was shaking violently and when she looked up to relieve her anxiety, she saw that her cheeks were coloring with fear and her lips were trembling.
Miki had been on the streets much longer than Rie. While Rie had only been on the streets for a year, she had belonged to the streets since she was born and she was a much, much braver girl than Rie. Anything Rie was afraid to do, Miki could do without blinking an eye.
Rie had a hard time understanding what scared Miki. Miki was not a girl who would be afraid when Rie was calm.
“You really do~n't need to be scared, Miki,” Rie said. Contrary to her words, she was starting to feel the fear too. It was as if Miki's fear was contagious.
Miki was ignoring her, and Rie felt her fear growing as she looked at her. She didn't want to pay attention to her anymore and turned to face the other girl next to her.
This strange girl was much calmer than Miki. She had wavy blonde hair and red eyes, and looked incredibly pretty in the blue dress she was wearing and the golden sash around her waist.
“She must really be the daughter of a nobleman,” Rie thought. She wanted to talk to that pretty girl, to forget the anxiety that was slowly growing inside her.
“What's your name? Mine's Rie,” she interjected.
She glanced at her out of the corner of her eye and waited in silence for a short while, and just as Rie was beginning to think she wasn't going to speak either, she finally gave her name.
“Beth.”
“Do you know what happened here?”
Beth shook her head no in response to Rie's question and sank back into her old silence.
They climbed the rest of the stairs without a word and when they reached the end they found a door. The fat one of the clowns stepped forward and opened the door.
With the opening of the door, a wild wind blew in, extinguishing all the torches on the walls, blowing their hair away, and the light of the crescent moon invaded the stairs, replacing the fading light of the torches. Rie could smell the smell of rain-soaked earth.
The witch encouraged them to go outside and they passed through the door.
They came to a large garden carved into the mountain. There were fences around the edges of the garden to prevent people from falling and rolling down the mountain. The grass on the ground had grown long and it was time to cut it.
The garden was decorated with trees whose pink leaves danced in the breeze, and overlooked a small town in the Mora. The town's lights dimmed.
And in the center of the garden were three stone beds, no, three altars!
Seeing the altars, Miki immediately fell to the ground, hugged her knees and began to shake and cry like a madman. She buried her head between her knees and pretended that if she didn't see her surroundings, they wouldn't see her.
Rie was about to comfort her crying friend by hugging her and telling her that everything was okay when Miki pushed her hard and Rie fell on the grass. Immediately afterwards, Miki stood up and jumped towards the door through which they had entered.
The witch was there to hold her. Although Miki was quick as lightning, she easily grabbed Miki by the armpits and lifted her into the air.
Miki had no intention of stopping. As she screamed for her to let her go, she pounded the witch's stomach with her feet and her hands on her shoulders and face, trying to break free.
Even though the witch's face began to bleed and it was obvious that she was hurting, like Miki, she persisted and would not let go of the girl she was holding.
“Shh... Calm down, child. Everything is fine, there is nothing to be afraid of. You are safe here, you are safe with us.” The witch's gentle, soothing voice ripped all the worry from Rie's chest and Miki, the child who had been crying as if she would never stop, was suddenly silent.
As Rie watched the scene with Beth and the clowns, her ears caught the voice of someone she had never seen before.
“What a good girl you are...”
Rie glanced around the garden. When she had come here she had seen no one but themselves, but now someone was speaking and the voice created a tense atmosphere. It was an eerie voice, but gentle at the same time.
It had such a dangerous effect that Rie felt that things were going in a very bad direction. The effect of the witch's gentle voice just now was instantly lost with this dangerous voice.
“Danger.” Rie could find no other word to describe the tall man she saw. He sat on the fence, his darker-than-black hair blowing in the breeze.
The man got up from his seat and started walking towards the altars. The brown boots he wore had a tall heel, as if they belonged to a woman, and they gave off a full sound as he walked. He was wearing a green dress embroidered with golden roses that fell from his shoulders to his ankles. His black hair hung down to his waist and beneath his black hair were yellow eyes that shone like the sun.
His eyes were kind, but the nature of the creature in front of her was too terrible for her to suppress, no matter how kind he was. The man's handsome face wore an eerie, knife-like smile.
“Natalia, may you bring them here? And also I don't need you two anymore,” a gentle but frightening voice carried the words. It was through this voice that she had learned the witch's name first time.
"Yes, master," Natalia said, her voice full of acceptance.
As Natalia led the three of them to the altars, the clowns went through the door they had come out of and left the garden. Miki reached for the altar more gently than Rie had expected her to, as if she wasn't the child who had just cried.
Beth also was calm and confident. Rie couldn't help thinking, “How can she be so calm if she doesn't know what's going to happen here?”
When it was Rie's turn, she lay down on the altar without resistance, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The altar was completely flat and hard because it was made of stone. When her skin touched the altar, Rie shivered with the cold of the stone.
A cloud had passed in front of the crescent moon and the moon's light was barely reaching them, and Rie's heart raced with fear as the wind picked up.
“Let's begin,” the dangerous man smiled. His smile was by no means ugly, but the beautiful smile on his face managed to be terrifying. The man's golden eyes turned red as befitted a demon, the dangerous man was enjoying.
The moment his eyes turned red, Rie felt as if she was caught off guard, her whole chest swelled with fear. Her hands, knees and lips, every part of her body trembled as if it would never stop.
Fear, fear, fear.
All she felt, all she could feel was fear, Rie was afraid. Fear was coursing through every fiber of her body, every cell she had, at an incredible speed. She wanted to run away as the demon's smiling mouth opened wide and the black smoke poured out of it and rushed into the bodies of the three little girls.
Why had she given up her attempts to escape in the first place? She was just like Miki before. She was crying, screaming and making a tremendous effort to escape while punching and kicking her captors.
This was a place where she absolutely shouldn't be. She knew it, she knew it as if it were the only truth in the world that he shouldn't be here.
So why did everything start to feel normal? Both the clowns and the witch were extremely frightening. Why was it that at first she was afraid of them, but very soon she began to see them as if they were her friends? How could she have been so stupid to think that they were harmless people? How could she believe that such scary people could be good people?
“No, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! NO!!!”
Rie cried out, using all the strength in her small body to get up from the altar, but she couldn't. It was as if her body was nailed to the altar. Tears were splashing everywhere as she tossed her head from side to side.
Miki and Beth's situation was no different from Rie's. Both girls, like Rie, were in the grip of deep terror. They were struggling, screaming and trying with all their might to escape, but no matter how hard they tried, it was futile. They, everyone here, were little insects caught in a spider's web, and with the spider's venom coursing through their veins, they had no chance of escaping the fate that awaited them.
As the black smoke from the demon's mouth traveled through Rie's body, she felt as if a spider was crawling over her body on its small, slender legs.
The odorless black smoke did not stop at enveloping Rie's body. It entered through the girl's nose, who was already breathing hard, and filled her lungs as if it would burst them. She opened her mouth to scream as her lungs burned and the black smoke wasted no time and entered her mouth as well.
The outside and the inside of her body were covered in black smoke, and the curse that had seeped into her began to burn her cells. The burning was so intense that Rie felt her body was hotter than the stars.
Now, surrounded by black smoke, she could neither move nor scream nor breathe.
Her eyes, her nose, her lungs were burning and her mind was drifting in and out of darkness. She felt that if she surrender her mind to the darkness, if she let it sink into the darkness, she would be doomed.
As Rie struggled with her situation, her ears heard a loud explosion from Miki's location and the right side of her body was covered in hot blood and flesh. Rie didn't even think about it.
“It's a shame, although it looked like she was going to make it.” The demon spoke cheerfully.
The same sound that had just come from Rie's right side soon came from her left side. The left side of her body was covered in blood and bits of flesh, just like the right. Rie didn't care about that either, she didn't have the luxury to think about anyone but herself.
Rie's torture continued for several minutes.
Finally, when the clouds cleared over the moon and the moon's light fell on Rie, the black smoke disappeared.
What was left behind were the pieces of flesh of the two girls who had been alive a few minutes before, a demon smiling in satisfaction, a witch watching the events with a sad face, and a little girl whose hair once had been as brown as soil. Now her hair was white as cotton.