Translator: Nox

Chapter 2

# Chapter 2: A K-Child Arrives in the Villains' North

About a week before the "Sudden Northern Return Incident of Iri."

In the most splendid room of Marquess Melissa's residence in the South.

The room was filled with the tearful cries of the white-haired grandmother, Marquess Melissa.

"Oh dear, my baby. Oh dear, my baby."

"Ham...muni...."

"My baby, you're all skin and bones. This worries your Hamuni so much."

"Hammuni... I'm fine...."

Lying on the bed was a five-year-old child whose chubby cheeks looked ready to burst.

Her name was Iri Ortejo.

Iri's maternal grandmother, Marquess Melissa, spoke in a voice laced with worry.

"My baby, you have a fever and you've lost so much weight. Doctor, could my baby have caught some terrible illness?"

The attending physician, who had been standing like a limp sack of barley next to the two dramatically wailing away, finally spoke up.

"Uh, Madam Marquess. The young lady simply seems to have overeaten."

"What? What nonsense is that? My baby only ate ten turkey legs for lunch. She's on the verge of starvation. Look at these sunken cheeks."

The doctor muttered under his breath as he eyed Iri's cheeks, which jiggled tremulously with every breath due to their extreme plumpness.

"N-Normal children can't even eat one turkey leg, Madam."

Thoroughly enraged, Marquess Melissa pointed accusingly at the doctor.

"That's not the point right now! Besides, our baby has been hearing strange voices nonstop since yesterday."

"What kind of voices do you mean?"

At that moment, a voice that only she could hear resonated in Iri's ears like a divine revelation.

[Purifier who will save the world, Iri.]

Delirious with fever, Iri rolled her eyes around.

*What does this mean?*

[To you who lives in the present, I reveal the past and future. Uncover everything and save the world.]

*Save what?*

At that instant, something flickering and glitching began to appear before her eyes.

Iri stretched out her chubby hands toward the vision floating in front of her.

"Th-this is... what?"

"Oh no, even her arms are like withered, twisted branches. Give me back my puppy!"

With her grandmother's sharp cry, Iri fainted dead away.

Soon, the pitch-black darkness of Iri's mind began to replay the [Past].

* * *

Iri had been a nine-year-old girl named Arin living in a country called 'Korea.'

Curiously, she had been raised not by her parents but by her beloved grandmother there as well.

But after her grandmother passed away early, Arin was sent to an orphanage.

And Arin's hobby was—

*Punish the baddies!*

The little justice warrior Arin was the youngest leader of the demonstration team at her taekwondo dojo.

She particularly enjoyed thrashing gangs of evildoers lurking in dingy alleyways.

"Hey, gimme just one bite of that tanghulu skewer."

"B-but it's mine... Big bro...."

Her targets were the kids who committed misdeeds despite wearing the dobok personally given to them by the master himself.

They wore yellow belts.

And Arin wore a poom belt.

In taekwondo, that was the difference between heaven and earth.

Five whole ranks higher, no less!

The moment she spotted their belts, Arin dashed into the alley faster and more uniquely than anyone else.

"As a martial artist, show some manners!"

"U-uwaaaack!"

She lived boldly, vanquishing naughty children like that... until

*She got her hands on a mysterious novel!*

She secretly read the novel that Teacher Lee Ah-reum from the orphanage was obsessed with fanning over: 『Monster Family of the Northern Snowfields』.

*Teacher Lee Ah-reum was so cool, I wanted to copy everything she did.*

The novel, perched atop the tallest desk, was far too cruel for a nine-year-old to read.

But Arin devoured it in no time. The child in the story felt just like her.

The novel's protagonist was Iri, the youngest daughter of a wicked villain family.

Having lost her mother to the evil 'Demon's Mist' enveloping the entire North, she had been sent to her maternal family in the South.

She was fated to live her whole life in the South...

[In truth, Iri was the sole purifier capable of healing the wicked energy permeating the North.

Any 'being' that came into contact with this little girl could completely escape the magi.]

But the story revealed long after that no one knew Iri was the purifier.

[The magi in the North eventually invaded the South as well.

Iri in the South dies without knowing her own power.

Even her grandmother, Marquess Melissa, who loved her fiercely.]

The moment Arin tilted her head after closing the book.

New letters began to engrave themselves on the back cover.

[This is not merely a book.]

"It is though? You're definitely a book!"

[......A future not far off. The tale of this book shall remain in your 'present' for long and aid you.]

What?

As Arin stared at the words for a long while, her mind grew faint.

And...

Nine-year-old Arin awoke once more as five-year-old Iri.

The doctor and her grandmother watched over Iri, who had snapped awake from a long nightmare, with worried eyes.

"Oh dear, my baby. You kept your eyes closed for a full ten minutes."

"She seemed to be asleep. Her breathing was steady."

"Quiet! My baby, get up quick. You need to drink ten liters of milk."

But despite their bickering, Iri was dazed.

*I was Arin for such a long time?*

Was the dream too vivid?

She was so confused about whether she was the nine-year-old taekwondo girl Arin from Korea or the five-year-old chubby-cheeked Iri.

* * *

Iri spent the next week in a daze.

After much philosophical pondering unbecoming of a five-year-old, like "Who am I?"

Iri finally realized a crucial fact.

*This world is doomed, and Hammuni and I die?*

Tucked snugly in her beloved grandmother's embrace as always, terror dawned in Iri's eyes.

*Calm down! I'm no longer just a five-year-old toddler trailing after Grandma anymore.*

She was a nine-year-old martial artist, after all!

Having long since sorted her resolve over the week, Iri tightly gripped her grandmother's wrinkled hand.

Her grandmother had given her so much up to now.

Foods packed with mugwort and beans that Grandma made herself.

Clothes knitted by Grandma herself, covered in tiny floral patterns.

Iri knew well that all of it was love.

*So I'll live happily ever after with Hammuni! All I have to do is save the world!*

Bundled deep inside a floral-pattern sweater and shorts in her grandmother's taste.

The five-year-old girl, having steeled her resolve, spoke gravely.

"Um, Hammuni, I think I'm..."

"Yes?"

"...a hero destined to save this world!"

At that moment.

Marquess Melissa's eyes rolled back.

"Yes, yes. Uh-huh, of course. Our puppy will become a hero. Now, now, let's eat more meat."

"......?"

"To be a hero, you need to fatten up that bony body and grow at least two meters tall, my puppy."

And so.

Iri's first "hero confession" went up in smoke.

* * *

But Iri Ortejo, currently age five.

Was a child who knew no surrender.

"I'll become a hero and go to the North."

However...

"Oh no, my baby. The North is far too dangerous a place for our Iri to go. Promise you won't go, and I'll give you your favorite bean powder cookies~?"

Marquess Melissa, currently age fifty-five, was equally unyielding as a grandmother.

Bean powder cookies.

Iri's ultimate favorite snack, raised pampered and plump in her grandmother's hands!

It was tremendous temptation.

But the extraordinary hero Iri wiped away the drool trickling from her mouth with effort.

"Right now...! Bean powder cookies aren't the priority. I have to go to the North. I have to go to the North and save the world!"

At those words, Marquess Melissa's expression wavered.

"If you go to the North, you won't see this Hammuni anymore?"

"That's..."

The warm South. Delicious food. A happy life with her grandmother.

Giving up all that was sad for a five-year-old Iri.

"It's okay. It's what a hero has to do."

But nine-year-old Arin was determined!

At Iri's spirited words, her grandmother Marquess Melissa's face grew even more complicated.

"Why exactly..."

Why was she speaking the exact same deathbed words as her own daughter had in the past?

Marquess Melissa recalled the time before Olivia died.

The final conversation with her daughter, who had hurriedly come down to the South cradling the tiny sleeping child.

"Mom, please take care of my daughter Iri. And listen to me."

"Olivia?"

"When Iri turns five and says she wants to go to the North, you must send her alone."

"What are you suddenly..."

"Remember this. Never forget my words. ...And I love you."

Confused, Melissa muttered disjointedly.

"She has to go alone? Is it okay for the baby to go all lonely by herself?"

Iri knew well from the book in her past life as Arin.

*Grandma's power is the complete opposite of magi, so she dies quickly.*

To live long with her grandmother, she understood she couldn't stay together now.

"Hammuni. True brave heroes don't travel with their grandmas. They protect their grandmas instead!"

That was the case in the anime she'd seen in her past life, 『Hero of Justice Regent』.

"Right, right. Will our little poop puppy need just one day? Hmm?"

"I-I'm a very great hero, but one day is a bit..."

"Baby."

"Yes."

"A week should be plenty, right? No more than that, really. Our baby, do you know how dangerous that place is?"

"I know it very well! But I'm not scared."

Her sparkling purple eyes shone with cleverness.

Marquess Melissa quickly calculated in her head the time before Iri would suffer magi damage.

"One week."

"Yes."

"Exactly 168 hours."

"......"

"Too short..."

"No more than that, our little poop puppy."

This time, Marquess Melissa would not yield.

Thus, Iri obtained permission to visit the North.

For exactly one week.

* * *

...And so, now.

*Whoooosh.*

Before the massive snow-capped mountains of the North.

Ortejo Grand Castle in the North.

Iri, wrapped head to toe like a round yarn doll in a sweater covered in tiny floral patterns...

Having stuffed her arms with all sorts of food her grandmother had packed...

The great baby hero who would save the North had arrived.