The Revenge of the Soul Eater

Miroslav Sauzar ②

Miroslav Sauzar despises men.

If you asked her what made her that way, the first thing she would say would be because of her father.

Her family, the Sauzar company, is ranked as one of the top three major trading companies in Canaria Kingdom.

It was her father who built that big business in only one generation.

Going from a small clothing store on the corner of the streets of the royal capital to a huge merchant company in just 30 years, her father was undoubtedly a character of greatness in the merchant world.

However, as a father, he was a failure…No, he was the worst.

He always had women next to him. Moreover, the women’s faces were different every day. He was as energetic or even more so towards women than he was to his business.

Miroslav was the daughter of his seventh concubine.

Her mother was a traveling dancer; a passionate dancer with red, flame-like hair who gave birth to her.

The young Miroslav did not live in the main mansion of the Sauzar family, but in a cheap villa. The residents in the area secretly called it the concubine mansion.

She has no memories of her talking to her father from when she was little. While the children of his proper wives wore colorful clothing, she was dressed in shabby homemade clothes that were made in the concubine mansion.

Inside her home, her mom and the other concubines would put on makeup, polish their skin, and keep each other in check as they waited for her father to visit.

In the young Miroslav’s eyes, the sight of her mother was very disgraceful.

She thought to herself that she would never want to become like her mother.

That’s why she studied hard.

She aimed for the door for intellectuals, the sage academy.

She refined her knowledge to not become a woman who’ll need to sell her looks.

It’s just that, although academic ability can be achieved through hard work, she could not do anything about the exam fees as a child no matter what.

She had to reluctantly ask her father for it. Not as a freebie, but as an investment.

She got him to invest in her by telling him that if his daughter makes it in the sage academy, his company’s reputation will rise.

When she passed the entry exam, she cried tears of joy.

Like that, she had successfully escaped from the “Concubine mansion”.

However, even the sage academy that she worked so hard to get into could not become a home for her.

Her outward appearance was her first set back.

Miroslav at that time was not really interested in making herself look pretty.

She made sure that she was clean, but she did not care for her hair and her freckles would stand out. Even when she had bags under her eyes, she did not put on any makeup.

Makeup is for women who want to flirt with men. That was the idea Miroslav had.

Moreover, she had feared that she would become like her mother if she started to use them.

Since Miroslav was like that, she was not popular amongst the boys, and the girls didn’t try to get to know her.

But even so, she thought that she was fine by herself. If no one bothered her, then she could just completely focus on her studies.

In fact, she was an excellent student. Not only was her knowledge and skills on magic better than her seniors’, she was also proud of that fact and did not try to act humble.

As a result, she was isolated from her peers. It wasn’t only that, both direct and indirect harassment towards her began to take place.

The ones that were harassing her weren’t limited to the guys. Just because she wasn’t liked by the opposite gender, it didn’t mean the girls got along with her either.

Whenever girls her same age brought up talks about makeup or guys, Miroslav, who had gone through so much to make it in the academy, only saw them as idiots.

Her feelings were naturally conveyed to the girls around her by the way she acted around them.

The few acquaintances that she had left her one after another and before she realized it, there wasn’t a single person left in the academy that talked to her.

The days of chronic unhappiness continued for her.

It was not until when she went on an ecology research trip to research a certain monster that she reached the turning point of her life.

At that time, Miroslav was at the home village of Larz and Iria.

Larz, who was interested in the world outside of his village, was surprised at the fact that despite them being only one year of age apart, Miroslav was already a researcher. He came up with all kinds of excuses and followed her around.

Miroslav disliked it at first, but as she warmed up to the way Larz acted towards her regardless of her appearance and gender, she started to feel happy being around him.

It was also at that time that she found out that Larz was yearning to become an adventurer.

The sage academy is a place to research magic, but there are people out there who become adventurers after they graduate.

However, that was mostly for people who had poor grades.

The talented individuals would receive job offerings as a court magician or as a researcher at some state institutions.

As a matter of fact, she had her eyes set on that path. Her magic aptitude, for fire in particular, was at a level high enough to be the first person in five years who attracted people from outside the academy to keep tabs on her.

No matter how attracted she was to Larz, she couldn’t throw away her bright future for a guy that was one year younger than her.

Her fate with him should have come to an end there.

However, the situation suddenly changed.

Originally, Miroslav, who had finished her course two years earlier at the age of fifteen, should have graduated the academy as a prodigy.

But on the day of her examination, she did not show up at the designated place.

She was locked in an old library that was located in the basement of her dorm. Even if she tried to break the door open with magic, it would have been dangerous for her inside that narrow space.

Moreover, she was in a situation where she did not want to destroy the precious books in there.

The culprit was still unknown to this day. Miroslav explained the situation and complained for a re-test after she broke free somehow, but they did not give her one.

It was the result of her stepping on the royal family’s tail when they came to see the well anticipated prodigy but did not get to see her.

Thus, Miroslav did not receive any honorable duties and was forced to drop out from the academy.

She was originally a loner. Moreover, no one would help her and incite the royal family’s anger, so she became an adventurer in the end.

That had nothing to do with the existence of Larz.

The reason why she did not go to Larz right away was because she didn’t want him to see that unsightly side of her.

She could not tell him that she chased after him after she got kicked out from the academy.

She was the one who decided to become an adventurer. She decided that she would make a name for herself as one before going to see him.

… For Miroslav, who then nearly got violated after joining a party for the first time under such impatience, it might not be so unreasonable of her to develop such strong hate for men.

◆◆◆

And now, Miroslav was wondering just how many times is she going to be pushed into a corner by the existence called man.

Sora Mitsurugi had misunderstood just one thing about her.

It’s not that she didn’t understand the situation she was in. If anything, she understood that the situation could not get any worse, like she was going to be killed the way things were going.

At first she thought he was taking revenge on her for setting him up, like he was going to bring her to some place without people around and get violent on her.

But that thought was gone in a day.

Each time Sora took her lips, she felt something important was being sucked out of her. It wasn’t just once or twice she thought that she was going to die.

She tried to kill this man- No, this monster that was in front of her. He was something else in the form of a human. He had clearly repelled her magic when the Sora she knew was supposed to be level one.

However, this monster with Sora’s appearance was strong. She couldn’t escape and her life as a prisoner continued.

She also had the option to choose death. She warned him that, but Sora only lightly shrugged his shoulders at her in response.

It was either because he thought she wasn’t going to go through with it or it didn’t matter to him at all if she dies.

Perhaps it was the former, but it could also be the latter as well.

In short, he did not care that much about her being alive or not. He had no intention to kill her, but it didn’t really matter to him if she dies in the end.

After she was convinced of that, Miroslav stopped resisting. She didn’t want to die, she thought.

If she looked at him as a despicable criminal then she could fight back no matter how many times she’d need to. She would do something like sticking out her lips to pretend to kiss him.

However, there was no meaning in being stubborn against a monster she knew nothing about.

Each time he kissed her, she felt so disgusted that she wanted to vomit. But despite that, her body heated up from a strong feeling of pleasure.

Her mind and body did not match. She was about to go crazy.

She was already thinking of giving up on everything and not caring at all about what he does to her.

However, If she did that, the other party will probably lose interest in her.

Surely, she was “delicious” to him because she was alive. Being “alive” here has a spiritual meaning to it. A prey that has given up on everything and does not resist would not taste good.

In the depths of Titis Forest, inside such territory of demonic beasts, the reason he prepared a place that people could live in would be to prolong her life, even for a bit.

That’s why she has to act alive. She had no choice but to act as a “live” prey for the other side if she wanted to live.

Live prey. Right, she was just like some live feed right now, she thought.

She was kept alive to be delicious food for the monster.

Like Sora when he was once captured by the king of flies.

The one who set him up was her.

Sora probably also felt the same despair and horror that she was feeling.

He probably wanted to scream out “I don’t want to die!” like her.

…Although it’s too late now, she wanted to seriously apologize to him.

It wasn’t until she found herself in the same situation that she understood for the first time. Living like this is hell. A living hell.

If you let other people get a taste of this kind of thing, of course they’ll hate you, of course they’ll despise you. Even Miroslav would do the same.

Although she called Sora a monster, it was her that created that monster.

From the day those thoughts crossed her mind, Miroslav’s attitude towards him changed.

What the other side wanted her to do, she did it before she was asked to. Sora might have thought that she was trying to butter him up. In fact, she can’t say that she didn’t have that intention at all.

But the root of it came from her wish to atone. If she was going to be eaten by him, then it can’t be helped, she thought.

That moment was probably when Miroslav Sauzar was truely devoured.

Not her body or her soul, but something that was as important as those two things was devoured.

And so, Miroslav who had fallen so far down was able to see it for the first time, the true nature of the “thing” that captured her, that has been tormenting her and was now eating her.

The mythical creature that was extending out in Sora’s shadow.

◆◆◆

Five days after that day, Miroslav Sauzar was seen on the streets of Ishka.

She had disappeared for about a month. The guild’s staff, adventurers, and especially her party members, Larz, Iria, and Lunamaria, who had been desperately looking for her, all ran to her in excitement, overjoyed at the news.

That was when they noticed that Miroslav’s long, red hair that she was proud of had been shortened to her shoulder’s length.

A month had passed since she went missing. When they asked her what on earth happened to her, she strangely shrugged her shoulders and apologized to them.

She said that she was not satisfied with the guild’s house arrest and disappeared in protest of that.

She confessed that she left the room of her own accord and claimed responsibility for it.

When the guild’s staff heard of this, their faces went red in anger after a moment of shock.

It was only natural, since they can’t let her make a fool out of them anymore than that.

Miroslav bowed her head deeply and apologized to them. She told them she cooled her head after having some time alone and she will accept any punishment from them. With those words, the scene died down.

After that, she was taken to the guild for a sound scolding. But in any case, the situation has finally been settled.

The search for Sora, who was the heavy suspect in this incident, had also been called off.

That Sora returned to the city of Ishka ten days after that.

At that time, he brought a slave back with him.

There were only two people including Sora who knew that this slave would be the spark of a new disturbance at that point…