Failed Possession Chapter-102

## Ch-102.

—-

A Possessor cannot choose the body they inhabit.

The moment one achieves first place in the Hall of Fame, the game **Seronis** becomes a trap and devours the soul. Before the soul crosses from Earth to this world, it meets a Priest of Order in a waiting chamber and receives an explanation about possession.

It has been well over thirty years since possessors began appearing in this world.

Yuri still remembered the chaos when the Hall of Fame first opened. In those early days, clearing a hidden boss alone could place one at the top ranks of the Hall, and with only a little effort, one could quickly seize first place.

So the top rank changed several times a day.

And countless users were swallowed by the trap.

Haryeong’s mother—**Jeong Hui-so**—was one of those early possessors.

When she entered the Tang Clan as the Poison King’s concubine, she was younger than even the Poison King’s own children.

It was not unusual for an aged master who had regained youth through rejuvenation to keep a young woman—or man—by their side. That in itself was no scandal.

But if a child was born, it became a problem.

Even if the legitimate wife’s children had already grown, a young concubine becoming pregnant was bound to cause trouble.

And especially when that “family” was the Tang Clan that ruled the Salho gate.

And especially when the Poison King was a Poisoned Body—his veins carrying more poison than blood.

Such a man had conceived life in the womb of a young concubine.

That alone was enough to shake the Tang Clan from within.

“I do not know at what point my mother possessed.”

Even while speaking of her birth’s secret, Haryeong chewed thoughtfully on her skewer.

“But to me, she was always distant. To be honest, I can count on one hand the times I ever felt what could be called maternal affection.”

Like anyone else, Haryeong could not know in detail what had happened before she was born.

But she had heard enough while living in the Tang Clan.

The Poison King, who had developed excessive affection for his concubine, built a separate residence for her despite the murmurs within the clan.

A child the clan did not want.

A child bound to disrupt the clan.

Though he acted unilaterally, the Poison King knew what the existence of a late-born youngest daughter would mean.

“The Tang Clan’s martial arts require improving one’s constitution through the combined ingestion of elixirs and poisons. That is why children begin martial training at an early age.”

The Tang siblings were like that. From childhood, they consumed elixirs and poisons together, accumulating toxin within their bodies to refine their constitutions into Poisoned Bodies.

A Poisoned Body—whose blood, inner power, and toxin flowed together through the meridians—was a power granted only to the Tang Clan’s direct line.

Such Poisoned Bodies were fundamentally different from martial artists or mages of the same Rank.

“But I learned neither poison arts nor martial arts. That was the condition of my birth.”

The Tang Clan’s head was also the Salho gate’s leader.

Legitimacy mattered—but to sit at the head of a martial house and a sect, one must possess strength.

If the sudden appearance of a youngest daughter threatened the line of succession, the simplest solution was to teach her no martial arts at all.

“From a young age, I was perceptive, intelligent, clever, and quick-witted. I did not need anyone to explain that I had many enemies around me.”

Haryeong licked sauce from her lips and glanced at Yuri.

“So I behaved accordingly. Knowing many disliked me, I rarely left the separate residence. I stayed inside, pitifully playing alone with dolls.”

“…”

“When I turned eight, my mother moved from the separate residence to the Tang Clan’s thunder prison.”

She said it so casually, as if describing moving to the next room, that Yuri blinked before reacting.

“…Was she… discovered?”

“I do not know whether she was discovered or confessed herself. All I know is that the Tang Clan learned she was a possessor—and that she committed suicide only a few days after being imprisoned.”

Yuri and Estor could not respond.

Ignoring their stiffened silence, Haryeong shrugged.

“The Tang Clan did not kill her.”

“Are you… certain?”

“There was no need to disguise it as suicide. At the time, hostility toward possessors was at its peak. People were often killed merely on suspicion.”

“…”

“If a concubine who had penetrated the Tang Clan’s inner core turned out to be a Possessor, she could have been executed openly. But her death was ruled a suicide. And I was allowed to live.”

Haryeong resumed walking.

“Perhaps there was another conspiracy behind her death. But that is something I cannot know. So I do not think of revenge against the Tang Clan.”

“Judging by Tang Seou’s attitude, it sounds like they did things worth avenging.”

“That is true. That bitch Tang Seou once shoved centipedes into my mouth and stabbed needles into my arm under the pretense of antidote practice.”

Yuri stopped walking again.

His expression hardened as he turned to glare back in the direction of the departing Tang Clan.

“I should have beaten her too.”

“For my sake?”

“On second thought, I just didn’t like her face.”

“I’ll deal with that bitch myself later. Hurry up.”

After her mother’s identity as a possessor was revealed, Haryeong’s life changed drastically.

Instead of the comfortable separate residence, she was moved into a small storage room in the main compound.

“My father—the Poison King—sealed himself in an underground training chamber after my mother’s death and did not emerge.”

That was when the true contempt and harassment began.

She was not bullied by collateral branch children or servants—but by the direct line’s peers, led by Tang Seou.

“I remained in the Tang Clan until I was fourteen. I did not do servant’s work. I was simply treated like a ghost who could be tormented.”

She never once sat at the same table with siblings of her generation.

Whenever their paths crossed, they looked at her as though she were filth.

The child of a possessor.

That alone was enough to justify contempt.

“My life was already twisted and miserable. If I continued living like that and grew older, it would only become more wretched. So I learned martial arts.”

The Tang Clan did not teach her.

Most of what she learned, she stole.

She secretly listened as the young Tang Seou recited the verses of Vast Origin Art and entered the foundational method.

She placed her feet in the footprints Tang Seo-jin left behind during his footwork practice.

She observed the trajectories of dull-edged hidden weapons thrown at her like a straw dummy and learned hidden weapon arts.

“I first filled my dantian with inner power and reached the Second Rank at twelve. And the Dark King discovered me immediately.”

When she stood before the Dark King—whom she had never once called brother—and was interrogated about her martial arts, she trembled in fear.

Yet she was not scolded.

Nor did he look upon her with kindness.

He asked how she had learned.

When she admitted she had stolen the knowledge, he fell silent—and then nodded.

“I was sent to the Tiger-Slaying Gate at fourteen.”

There was no warning.

One morning, the Faceless Killer—the Tiger-Slaying Gate’s leader—burst into the storage room and took her away.

“I do not know the relationship between the Salho gate and the Tiger-Slaying Gate. Nor do I know why I was sent there. But for me, life in the Tiger-Slaying Gate was far better than life in the Tang Clan.”

Few choose to become assassins.

Most are raised from orphans.

Children without parents, without knowledge of how to live, who have not yet tasted the joys of life—are taught how to kill.

Haryeong trained alongside such orphans under the Faceless Killer.

Even that life was better than the one she had known in the Tang Clan.

“In the separate residence, I lived almost alone with my mother. But looking back now, I was neither happy nor joyful. I think… my mother did not feel any special affection for me.”

It seemed she had kept deliberate distance.

She could count on one hand the memories of having her hair stroked, being held, being read to, or hearing lullabies.

“At the time, I resented my mother deeply. But now I can roughly guess the reason. A Possessor is, in the end, merely a soul inhabiting another’s body. Perhaps she could not truly regard the child born from that body as her own flesh and blood.”

Would it not feel foreign?

As a possessor himself, Yuri could not help but feel a trace of sympathy at her words. When he had first possessed, every time he looked in a mirror, he had felt confused—was this really ‘me’?

“Perhaps my mother did not love my father. As I said earlier, I do not know at what point she possessed. It might have been after she became a concubine… or before that. She might have possessed earlier and deliberately approached the Poison King.”

It was not entirely absurd that a young woman might sincerely fall in love with the Tang Clan’s patriarch—old enough to have grandchildren—and enter as his concubine.

But if that woman was a possessor, one could not help but consider deliberate intent.

Especially nearly thirty years ago—during the early emergence of possessors—many had approached NPCs using knowledge from the game.

“What was the Poison King like?”

“He cherished me far more like a daughter than my mother did.”

Like Haryeong, her mother rarely left the separate residence. Instead, the Poison King visited often—quite often.

Each time he came, he brought gifts a young girl might enjoy.

“I do have memories of him as a father. Even if those ended around the time I was eight, I still consider him my father. That is why I said I would kill him.”

“…What?”

Yuri had already heard this shocking ambition back in Alderan, but for Estor, this was the first time.

Listening seriously until now, Estor choked and stared wide-eyed.

“Kill… the Poison King? Your father?”

“Yes.”

When she had said it before, she had insisted it was not for revenge. It was not driven by hatred.

He must be killed because he must be killed.

That was all she had said.

“After my mother’s suicide, my father secluded himself in the underground training chamber. He failed to overcome his inner demon—and was consumed by poison.”

At what exact point he was consumed, she did not know.

Even when the Sword Emperor—his longtime friend—came to visit, the Poison King did not leave his chamber.

To a man who had cultivated martial arts his entire life and achieved rejuvenation, learning that the concubine he cherished enough to bear a late daughter was in fact a possessor summoned an immense inner demon.

That inner demon led to deviation.

Yuri knew well what happened to martial artists who suffered deviation.

But compared to the Poison King, even the Blood Fiend’s deviation had seemed almost human.

“I was ten, perhaps. The Dark King summoned me to the underground chamber where Father was in seclusion.”

That sight remained etched in her memory.

The door to the training chamber plastered with talismans inscribed with dense spells.

The horrifying taste in the air that leaked through the narrow crack when the door was cautiously opened through complex procedures.

‘Call your father.’

Beyond the crack, what she saw was not something that could be called human—a mass of writhing poison aura.

Terrified, the young Haryeong called out again and again, as ordered.

There was no response.

Until she was sent to the Tiger-Slaying Gate, she was summoned several more times to that underground chamber.

“I do not know whether Father still remains there. But if he is—if he still exists in the same state I saw as a child… living on in a form where death would be preferable—would it not be kinder to kill him?”

Now Yuri understood.

Why she had rarely spoken of her past.

Why she deflected with jokes whenever asked.

Such a history was not something one could speak of lightly.

“Haryeong-nim.”

Yuri scanned their surroundings.

The street was crowded.

Several gazes lingered on them.

Beggars seated on tattered mats—members of the Beggars’ Sect, famed among the orthodox factions for information gathering.

“If you decide to go to the Tang Clan, I will go with you.”

The sudden appearance of the Poison King’s youngest daughter was enough to draw attention.

And if the Tang Clan had tried to take her by force, there had to be more beneath the surface.

The Beggars’ Sect, which scraped information from everywhere, would not overlook it.

“If you say you will go to the Tang Clan to kill the Poison King—”

“…?”

“To be completely honest, I cannot do that right now.”

He had reconsidered everything from the beginning after hearing her story.

The conclusion remained the same.

To kill her father meant preparing for open war with the Tang Clan.

“The Dark King will not say, ‘Welcome, please go ahead and kill my father.’ That means we would have to force the issue. And I do not yet possess the strength to force the Tang Clan’s full power.”

“Then… are you saying…”

Haryeong turned to him, eyes wide.

“That if I ask you to help me kill my father, you would?”

“Not now. But if someday it seems possible.”

“I had intended to grow closer to you, help you in many ways, and create a situation where soft-hearted Yuri could not refuse before asking.”

“We’ve already survived two life-or-death crises together. No—three, counting Panteleon. That’s close enough. And I am not soft-hearted.”

Haryeong blinked several times at his answer, then looked at Estor.

“This is a private promise between Yuri and me. You need not involve yourself.”

“What if I wish to?”

Estor grinned.

“I was quite shocked at first. But after hearing your circumstances… I want to help.”

“You may end up opposing the Tang Clan.”

“That will not be today. Having a clear enemy can even aid one’s training.”

Haryeong could only blink again.

After hesitating, she looked between the two of them.

“If anyone wishes to part ways and act separately, now would be the time.”

“Stop talking nonsense and start running, Aunt Haryeong.”

A palm smacked her back lightly.

They had decided to run toward the nearest city gate to avoid further entanglements.

It was a large city, and they were not moving at full lightness technique—so the gate was still far off.

“But are we really going to run all the way to Red Plains?”

“Aren’t we faster running than riding horses or carriages?”

Estor’s eyes wavered slightly at that.

As the young master of the Orsia Family, it was unlikely he had ever run long distances until his feet blistered.

“I can do it.”

Estor muttered with determination.