Chapter 7: The Shape of Love, the Weight of Silence.

What defines the criteria for happiness?

Possessions?

Or the prestige that has been built up?

Or social status?

There may be several possible answers, but in fact, it may not be such a clear concept.

No matter how much money is in the family, no matter how many friends can be contacted right away, no matter how high a position in the community one belongs to….

In the end, happiness is just an emotion that is measured by each individual’s standards.

That’s why even though it may be a brilliant and enviable life to others, there are often cases where the person cannot bear the depression and commits suicide.

Again, in that sense-

Linesha Apelberry in her childhood… was a very unfortunate girl.

Apelberry Company. A large company that has grown with a focus on the high-tech military industry.

It enjoyed tremendous demand due to the outbreak of the Encroachment War, and has now grown into a global conglomerate encompassing various industries.

Although it is a capital based on the defense industry, it has already gone beyond its limitations, with dozens of affiliates and all of them are leading players in their respective industries.

The CEO of such an ‘Apelberry Company’ is Chairman Macklen Apelberry, the Iron-Blooded President.

He was also Linesha’s father.

“Useless thing.”

In her childhood, Linesha was called that more often than her name.

Thorough meritocracy. Under the slogan of selecting the grain from the chaff, Chairman Macklen’s children have always grown up with strict standards.

All the siblings had to prove their worth by any means from an early age. Because if they didn’t, they were likely to be pushed out of the family’s fence.

Just like Linesha at that time.

“You always disappoint me.”

The girl had been trying. But it wasn’t enough.

Talent, performance, education,
None of them were very bad… but they weren’t outstanding either.

Linesha’s father always harshly rebuked such results. The rule that she would be ignored until she brought results that were satisfactory to him. She was treated as if she didn’t exist in front of him if she was considered ‘chaff’. The repetition of the experience of being branded as worthless and being pushed out of her parents’ attention drove the young girl’s heart to the brink several times.

From that time on, Linesha developed an obsession with proving herself.

She had been trying to meet the standards of others by any means. The target was mostly her father, Macklen. But it didn’t work out well. As the repetition of various mistakes and failures continued, she could only not forget those indifferent eyes that looked at even his own daughter like a useless object.

As time passed, when magic was first manifested in Linesha, who had no talent in anything, she was very impatient. She thought that it might be the last opportunity given to her, who had already disappointed him in so many ways.

So-

“Ah…. Aaaah….”

Linesha remembers that time. A trainee mission, the depths of the contaminated area, the team members who had already been wiped out, the legs that were so injured that she couldn’t walk, the situation where she was left alone and couldn’t return… it was a disaster that had occurred because of her young and hasty heart.

In order to prove her talent, she pushed herself too hard and tried to carry out a burdensome mission, and eventually ruined everything.

She sensed that the last price would probably be her own life.

She was upset. She was scared but also angry. It was a life where she had been looking at other people’s faces all her life. If she had known this would happen, if she had known it would end like this, she would rather have done whatever she wanted at least once. Without being afraid of the fact that she was not loved, at least once….

At that time when she was realizing her own death in regret and remorse, the helping hand came in a really unexpected form.

『”It’ll be okay now.”』

He was a really strange person.

A former soldier named Seo Jin. Thanks to the fact that she happened to run into him, Linesha was able to survive.

She was curious. She couldn’t figure out why a non-ability user, for whom it wouldn’t even be profitable to hunt Encroachment species, was wandering beyond the defense line… No matter how much she asked, he didn’t answer.

But from Linesha’s point of view, who had been helped, it seemed that he was risking his life only to save people. It was an action that couldn’t be explained if that wasn’t the case.

However, even while doing such good deeds, the man didn’t receive any reward. He didn’t seem to care about other people’s reputation either. There were many missing people who had been rescued by him besides Linesha, but no one really knew his purpose.

Even if she revealed Linesha’s identity, he was a person who didn’t want any compensation. He was the first person who didn’t expect anything from her.

The girl who only disappointed her family was still the chairman’s direct descendant. When other people treated her, they mostly pretended to be kind.

But that was all because they expected something from the daughter of a chaebol family, even a little.

Even if what they wanted was a simple friendship, it was all due to the position that Linesha had from birth. Therefore, all those relationships were just a burden.

Because the obsession that she had to meet the standards of others was always gripping the girl.

She lived such a life.

She thought that was the only life that existed.

However, the existence of a person who had saved her life and didn’t want any compensation was… the first time.

There was no need to prove anything. The perfect unconditional goodwill that she felt for the first time was really unfamiliar but somehow, the more she thought about it, one side of her heart tickled and she became curious. She stubbornly tried to get closer to him. Because she wanted to know the strange person who had helped her a little more.

The more she got to know him, the more comfortable he was, and it was fun just to be with him.

The ordinary relationship that had been met like that, talked like that, and had been as light as it was unburdening-

Before she knew it, it had suddenly become too precious.

So… she wanted him to feel the same way.

So that she could hear at least those words, that she cherished him too, someday.

She wanted to become a useful person to him. For the first time, she wanted to prove herself that originated from her own will. She wanted to be recognized by only one person in this world.

But….

[Heroes of the Defense War, rest here.]

The man left the girl’s side too early. To a place that she couldn’t even hold on to anymore.

Linesha, who had belatedly come to find the tombstone with his name engraved on it, cried all day that day.

The next day too.

The day after that too.

It was just days of crying until she was exhausted and fell asleep.

After she finally came to accept reality, Linesha started killing monsters. She hated and exterminated those who had taken away her precious person.

She fought like crazy. Because it was so painful. Because she would rather die. She repeatedly pushed herself to the front lines while disregarding even her own life.

Then in the end, the war was over.

But Linesha was still alive.

With the addition of the reputation of being a hero and the proof of being a special-class ability user. Now everyone recognized her. Everyone came to recognize her.

Even her father, who had been so strict, praised his daughter for the first time.

He recognized Linesha’s qualifications and even entrusted her with the ability user guild directly under the group.

It was the result she had dreamed of so much in her childhood.

But to the current Linesha, it was all meaningless.

All that was left for her was regret…

Just a longing that was sometimes so hard to bear that it painfully seeped out.

Then one day, she found an unexpected clue by a really coincidental opportunity.

The truth she finally found after following the clues.

He is alive.

He had been alive.

Following the joy and relief that made her legs weak, an intense question welled up.

If he was this safe, why had he been hiding? While deceiving everyone.

Linesha had been so tormented all this time, but as she discovered him living so nonchalantly, there was resentment seeping out between her relief.

More than anything…. She was unbearably afraid.

That her existence meant nothing to him.

That he could live so nonchalantly even without her by his side, even after deceiving her as he pleased.
Perhaps Linesha was that much of a nuisance to him.
Perhaps she was unnecessary.

Perhaps she wasn’t precious….

‘Then am I….’

A life that is not affirmed is misfortune.
Just like the girl in her childhood.

But hope still remained.
The thought that he must have a reason, whatever it may be.

So she decided to ask him directly.

“Please answer me…. Why were you hiding like this, deceiving everyone all this time…? No matter how much I think about it, I can’t understand it. So… please tell me.”

“Please……. Please answer me.”

Linesha didn’t get an answer in the end.

Her heart ached. She was resentful.

In fact, she still wanted to believe that there was a reason for his silence.

But in the face of a reaction that was like a unilateral disconnection, she couldn’t help but recall her old obsession. She thought she had long since shaken off the memories of the sadness of not being expected….

In the end, she couldn’t bear it and came out.

“Sniff, sob… sniff…….”

Tears were dripping from Linesha’s blue eyes.

They didn’t stop dripping even at somewhere she stopped while walking, but flowed down in a stream.

She stood there blankly like she was lost for a long time, and barely swallowed the emotions that were mixed in a slush.

Bad thoughts kept coming to her mind.

If Linesha was really no longer needed to him….
If that was really the truth….

The tears had already stopped.

In the coldly cooled blue eyes, only one emotion was now in place.

That was a dangerously sharp… piece of love-hate.

‘…..You’re going to regret this, Teacher.’