TDLHRH 1

A flock of jet-black crows, looking like flying number threes from afar, soared beyond the antique window frame. Behind them, the dark crimson sky blazed intensely, as if intent on turning everything to ashes. As they drew closer, the crows revealed grotesque gray eyes and writhing muscles beneath their feathers. Soaring like arrows, they flew straight through the window frame without slowing down.

Among them, a particularly massive crow circled the air, claiming the castle. As it briefly descended, a pale hand shot up from below and seized its muscular body.

“Why?”

Caw—

“Where?”

Caw, cawk—

“I’m going, so make sure no one gets in.”

The owner of the hand, Baek Horang, mumbled with slurred pronunciation, like someone intoxicated. She threw the now-useless crow against the wall and stood up abruptly. As if absorbing the crow’s color, Horang scratched her jet-black hair furiously, stretched her body fully, and swung her arms around for a quick stretch.

“Are you heading out again?”

“Yeah. A rift has opened on the 483rd floor.”

“When do you plan to return this time? I tried making that samgyeopsal you mentioned earlier.”

“I keep telling you, I have no plans to return. Don’t tell me you caught another hell pig and are insisting it’s samgyeopsal?”

“It’s not a hell pig; it’s called a Biredon.”

“It’s the hell pig’s fault for having such a fancy name despite being a pig.”

With a swift gesture, Horang swept the items scattered on the display cabinet into the pitch-black hole torn into the air. Once the cabinet was empty, she shut the subspace and cracked her neck with a series of unsettling pops.

At the ominous sound, the man with light blue hair, who had been standing rigidly nearby, adjusted his tuxedo and muttered, “She’s been doing that for three thousand years, and her neck’s still perfectly fine…”

“I don’t plan on coming back… but save my share of the hell pig.”

“As you command.”

Leaving the man bowing deeply behind, Horang approached the window with light steps, stepped onto the windowsill, and threw herself out. The tower was so high it made breathing difficult, and Horang’s ears grew numb as she fell straight down.

As her speed increased, seemingly unafraid, Horang clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth with an indifferent expression. At that moment, a black fissure appeared in the blood-red void, and through it emerged pitch-black bones. First came its head, then its back with massive wings, followed by its tail—undoubtedly a Bone Dragon.

As the Bone Dragon screeched and approached, Horang leapt onto its back, tapped its bones lightly, and gave an order.

“Take me to the 483rd floor.”

“Kieeek―”

“Warp sickness or not, I have to go. Do you want to get a full-body fracture again?”

“Kkeek, kkiing.”

“Just try following orders without complaint for once.”

Horang spoke in a calm voice, so gentle it sounded almost soft, her face expressionless, without even a furrow of her brows. Yet understanding the warning in those words, the Bone Dragon used even lightspeed magic to fly quickly to the warp point.

In the demon realm, where enemies could attack at any moment, it made no sense for there to be warp points connecting each floor. But the one who made such an absurd thing possible was none other than the current Demon Queen, Baek Horang.

Horang had suggested installing warp points across all 666 floors simply because she found it bothersome to destroy a floor every time she needed to reach a gate.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, aside from the lowest 666th floor she occupied and the floors where her loyal subordinates resided, the countless other layers of the demon realm were nothing but desolate, ownerless ruins. As such, the proposal was approved without much opposition.

As a precaution, the warps were designed to activate only with overwhelming demonic energy, like that of the Demon Queen. However, for Horang, they were nothing more than open doors to anywhere.

At the warp gate, which she reached at a speed that made her whole body tremble, not even a single fly was in sight.

In the meantime, Horang had pulled out one of the Bone Dragon’s bones, lodged it between its ribs, and leaned back. She then formed an ‘O’ shape with her fingers, held it to her lips, and blew a breath without any particular enthusiasm.

With just that simple action, darkness gathered in a circle formed by her thin fingers, as though capable of erasing everything. The vortex of demonic energy swirled and extended forward.

“Kieeeek―”

“Haven’t you seen me fire a breath attack a few times? My ears are splitting.”

“Kkiek, Kkieeek―!”

The black breath extending from Horang’s pale hand was so powerful that even brushing against it would annihilate most demons.

The Bone Dragon, despite having no pores, metaphorically broke into a cold sweat as the breath passed through its still-flapping wing bones.

Ignoring the trembling Bone Dragon, Horang clenched her fist and erased the remaining energy the moment enough demonic energy had charged to activate the warp.

“Wooooong―”

When the warp let out its ominous hum and the Bone Dragon hesitated briefly, Horang struck its bones with her clenched fist.

As a result, the Bone Dragon flapped its wings, crying like a pig being dragged to the slaughterhouse.

Upon arriving on the 483rd floor, with the help of the circling crows, she reached the fissure—referred to as a ‘gate’ on Earth—without needing to search the vast floor.

Looking at the gate, which resembled a thick line drawn across the crimson sky, Horang clicked her tongue.

Every time she stood in front of the narrow gate, like a cat’s pupil, she would imagine returning home. But today, that imagination felt more real.

Perhaps it was because her instincts had been ringing so loudly it shook her brain from the moment she woke up.

Feeling strangely sentimental, she muttered something aloud that she had repeated like a madwoman during her endless time in the demon realm.

“Baek Horang. 0X0518―4XXXXXX. Do you know Korea? Do you know Korea?”

After rolling the now prayer-like sentence around in her mouth, the pounding of her heart seemed to calm slightly.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling sharply, Horang gently closed her aching eyes.

The darkness before her eyes gradually brightened, and vague, blurred memories began to surface—scenes now no more than jumbled recollections.

Even though Horang had mastered the memory-storage magic, the reason her old memories were not clear was because the sole weakness of that magic was fatal to her.

Memory-storage magic records the caster’s memories vividly, like video files, from the moment it is learned.

And when Horang learned that magic, her memories of her family were already so worn away that only dust remained.

She was in a car, her father was driving, and she was sitting in the backseat, chatting about something.

Their loud laughter turned into screams the moment they saw a pitch-black hole opening its mouth beyond the car window.

After that…

Well, she couldn’t remember it clearly.

Ear-piercing screams, the car flipping over entirely, and her parents flying through the broken window—these were the last things Horang remembered before she plummeted into the demon realm.

With her last memory of her family being in such a state, her memories of Korea were even more lacking.

“Was the capital of Korea… Seoul?”

…This was the extent of what she could remember.

According to Horang’s magic teacher, who was also her butler, secretary, and retainer, forgotten memories don’t disappear; they simply sink deep into the unconscious.

He added that some sort of ‘trigger’ was needed to dredge them up, but those in the demon realm, who didn’t even know what Earth was, could never provide such a trigger.

The one fortunate thing was that Horang had been using Korean consistently since she fell into the demon realm ages ago, so she had never forgotten the language.

This was possible because demons of a certain ‘rank’ naturally possessed basic translation magic.

However, no matter how hard she tried, her memories of general knowledge or everyday life were gone. Honestly, Horang had no plan for what to do once she returned to Earth.

Her only goal was to find her younger sibling in Korea.

For that reason, Horang even forced herself to learn some English in the demon realm, something she never would have expected to do.

Of course, the only English she could say was ‘Do you know Korea?’

Nevertheless, with only those faint memories, Horang desperately wanted to return to Korea—to Earth.

She was sick of the suffocating air in this wretched demon realm, the tasteless demon food, and the emotionless monotony of every passing day.

What she hated even more was that this boredom was starting to feel less unbearable.

She feared that if she stayed in the demon realm any longer, even that feeling of ‘hatred’ might disappear.

So she made up her mind—to return to Korea, the only place where memories still gave her any emotions.

After Horang made her decision, she spent her days lounging on the sofa, then roaming through the layers of the demon realm based on information brought by crows that were everywhere.

According to Horang’s retainer, gates had begun opening in the demon realm right after she fell into it.

Unlike Earth, where something came out of the holes, these gates sucked in everything around them.

In other words, the gate that had sucked Horang in was the ‘exit’ of a gate that had been open in the demon realm.

Thus, she repeatedly scoured the demon realm, finding various ‘entrances,’ going through them, and coming back.

Why did she keep doing this? Well, Horang had a lot to say about that.

When she finally discovered a gate while wandering the 666th floor, she was overwhelmed with joy at the thought of returning to Earth.

Beyond the gate, strange creatures she had never seen before surrounded the exit she came from, trembling while holding weapons.

She was dumbfounded and angry.

Disappointed as well, Horang angrily gestured and burst them all apart before stomping back to the demon realm.

Reopening a gate that had closed after her exit was not particularly difficult for Horang.

However, even among countless worlds, there were only a handful who could do what she did.

Theoretically, it was simply about ripping open the seams of a space torn and reconnected with magical energy. But to do so required applying an immeasurable amount of power, neither too much nor too little, with precise control.

Even her butler and archmage—bearing a title in a realm where even infants are born with magical energy—explained that Horang’s exceptional magical capacity and control made all this possible, while openly expressing his desire to dissect and study her.

“…Bastard.”

Horang couldn’t hold back her anger and swore at that research maniac.

Anyway, despite countless ‘journeys,’ Horang had never once set foot in a place she thought was Earth.

Even when she encountered beings that looked human, they couldn’t understand her ‘Do you know Korea?’ and would only respond in languages so difficult that trying to mimic them might twist their tongues.

In her already irritated state, their behavior pushed her over the edge, and she ended up destroying hundreds of worlds.

For what might have been thousands or hundreds of years, Horang repeated this cycle, and now, she was beginning to feel utterly sick of it.

In such a situation, the instinct ringing in her head was enough to ignite a faint hope she thought she had long lost.

…Yeah, it’s about time I ended this ridiculous Demon Queen charade.

“Alright, time to go back. But what was my brother’s name again…?”