That Harem, I'll Take It Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Third Life, Please Stop

---

A person who breaks their nose just falling backwards?

Someone like that truly does exist.

That person is me.

I had such rotten luck that it seemed unbelievable.

Birds always flew by to drop their poop on me, and whenever I felt uneasy and looked down, I’d inevitably step right in dog poop.

It’s not like I was blessed with good relationships either.

I didn’t even have the fortune of good parents.

Some might curse me for complaining despite being born with a silver spoon, but my family was like a Korean soap opera come to life, so I can say this with confidence.

I was the illegitimate child of a chaebol family. And I was unlucky. Painfully lonely.

On my 10th birthday, I saw my father’s face for the first time.

Saying she’d show me my dad for my birthday, my mother frantically dragged me to some grand mansion.

My wrist hurt from being pulled so hard, and I was scared by how aggressively my mother was waking.

Pushing past people to enter the house, there was a man waiting inside. In an expensive suit with a sleek figure, he looked just like an actor.

Then, my mom sneered and said to the man:

“What? Does seeing my face here make your legs weak? That’s why you shouldn’t have cut off my credit card! If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have resorted to this kind of stunt!”

“Who was it that spouted nonsense to reporters? There’s a limit to shamelessness. This is why low-class people are...”

The man who had this vicious exchange turned to look at me, our eyes meeting.

I could tell right away. His eyes were cold and full of disgust.

My shoulders instinctively hunched.

I wanted to go home.

As I mumbled, my mother suddenly shoved me from behind.

My forehead hit the man’s solid leg, but the words raining down like lightning were even more painful and frightening.

“Are you insane? Take that child away right now. How do you think my position will be affected if people see her?”

“Ha! That’s your problem. And you call that talking? My child? Hey, did I have this kid alone?”

“It was an accident. You admitted it, and I fulfilled my duty. All the luxury goods and extravagant lifestyle you’ve enjoyed until now, where do you think it all came from? Wasn’t it my money?”

“...T-that’s.”

“Seems you’ve forgotten about the child support I’ve been faithfully depositing. Where did this audacity come from, telling me to take the child now that you’re remarrying?”

He was my biological father, and I was the commodity they were negotiating over.

Me, their child.

I watched their argument with cold, hardened eyes, quietly clenching my fists.

My cold, stiff hands didn’t feel like my own.

“You’re both so noisy.”

That fierce fight ended with the appearance of a grandmother, seemingly summoned by someone.

She was my paternal grandmother, my father’s mother, and the ruler of the insufferable Ha chaebol family.

Exuding a fierce aura despite her small frame, grandmother appeared and looked at me once, then at my father once, and finally at my mother.

“We’ll take that child in.”

“Mother!”

I was the parasite.

“But there’s a condition.”

Grandmother approached me.

Maybe she’ll be different.

A glimmer of hope surged, but it was instantly shattered.

“Ow!”

“You.”

My grandmother did not welcome me.

I wanted to burst into tears, but no one in that room seemed like they would comfort my crying.

I slowly held my breath.

“Remember this. You are a nuisance that must be hidden. You must not expect anything.

If you can do that, I’ll take you in as my son’s child.”

All I could do was nod my head frantically.

And so I was left in that terrible house.

My mother took a hefty sum of hush money and left without looking back.

My father, needless to say, never once fulfilled his paternal duties, and I lived in that house like an invisible person.

I could finally breathe when I became an adult.

Though it may have seemed like a shabby storage room to them, I moved into a single room accommodation without hesitation and became independent.

I didn’t want to be associated with those people from that house, which was worse than any daily soap opera.

If people knew, they’d be shocked - if I wrote their story as a book, I’d instantly become the queen of Korean drama novels.

Those insufferable people.

I’m free now.

That’s what I told myself confidently.

But, as I said before, I really had rotten luck.

And I didn’t realize that they were not the kind of people who would ever do what I wanted.

---

“Y-you bastard.”

The coughing fit that erupted sounded completely powerless even to my own ears.

It really hurt like hell.

So much that I couldn’t even scream.

I turned my trembling eyes to see that there was no one around.

Considering this was usually a bustling alley in a busy area, I wondered how this could be.

“Or maybe, they targeted me.”

I had heard that my second uncle and his wife had died in a mysterious accident, and my youngest aunt’s son had become half-paralyzed in an unfortunate accident.

I heard that I was practically the only remaining heir, but I didn’t think they would seek out the illegitimate child they so despised.

However, what I failed to consider was;

Eliminating all possibilities.

It probably wasn’t my father.

Most likely, it was my youngest aunt’s doing.

She must have stubbornly believed that if her son couldn’t have it, her hated brother’s daughter shouldn’t either.

Ah, I don’t know.

My head was foggy.

Through my hazy vision, I could see my attacker grinning.

Are they just going toleave like that?

“That bastard.”

I wanted to vow revenge, but I had no idea who they even were.

It was chilling, exhausting, and I just felt sleepy.

My eyelids slowly grew heavy.

Soon all strength left my body and I couldn’t form any thoughts.

And so I died, stabbed in front of a trash can in a shabby alley.

---

Try to describe how I felt when I opened my eyes again after dying like that, only to find myself as a wailing baby.

I was just dumbfounded and incredulous.

I was so incredulouls that I momentarily forgot I had actually been a normal twenty-something named Ha So-yeon in South Korea, and I really wet my diaper with warm urine like a young child.

‘What i the world is going on?’

At first, I couldn’t understand the language of the unfamiliar people.

I was a young baby suckling at some woman’s breast.

Probably my mother.

Soon, the splitting headache passed, and my vision cleared as I slowly began to understand the unfamiliar language.

The woman who was probably my mother was muttering something.

Her fragmented words were hard to make out clearly.

The reason I say she was probably my mother is because she was soon murdered, so I never got an explanation.

Before I could properly taste the warm, bland milk, the woman collapsed from a sword that flashed by like lightning, and I tumbled helplessly to the floor.

Damn it all.

“Waaahh!”

Rage welled up.

You bastard!

If you’re going to kill me, do it cleanly!

Even as I bawled my eyes out, I glared at the villain trying to stab me with his sword as I flailed my body.

It seems I had been reincarnated, but to face death right after being born -what kind of crappy situation was this?

“Uwaaah!”

“...”

My eyes met directly with the blood-soaked man’s.

In that instant, the sword stopped.

Right in front of my little heart.

A stinging sensation told me the delicate skin had been nicked.

Am I going to die?

Die like this again?

Damn it, another...sword?

“You’re interesting.”

I wasn’t interesting at all.

“Amusing.”

Even now, I don’t know.

What action of mine had piqued his interest.

“I’ll let you live.”

The father I met in this new world I was born into killed my mother, and was about to kill me, but on a whim, decided to take me in as his child.

But that doesn’t mean my life improved or changed.

Since I had no attachment to the mother I’d only glimpsed once, I didn’t harbor burning hatred for my second father, but no matter how you try to spin it, my second father was not a good person.

He was the leader of villains.

He always reeked of blood, and had a nasty personality.

H taught me strange things, and during that time I came to the horrifying realization that the world I was born into seemed to be some kind of martial arts world.

“Why do I have to learn this?”

Since a baby’s life wasn’t easy, I had to ask in a consistently lisping voice, babbling earnestly.

My father was the kind of terrifying person who was equally cruel to all living things.

I wanted to live.

“It’s simple.”

“What is?”

“I see potential.”

“In who?”

“In you.”

“I see...”

“So become an excellent assassin.”

“...”

What a lunatic.

That’s when I realized one more thing.

The cruel truth was that this crazy father had taken me in not because I was his daughter, but solely based on some expectation.

So if I failed to meet his expectations even a little or became useless...

Gulp.

“You catch on quick.”

As I swallowed dryly and stared at him, pale-faced, he grinned back at me.

It was so chilling that even now, thinking about it makes my legs weak.

“So do well.”

“...Yes.”

In conclusion, I struggled and tried my hardest with all my might, and ultimately failed.

‘...’

Unable to achieve the greatness he wanted by then, I had to leave the demonic sect.

Well, it wasn’t surprising.

But it was daunting.

Still, I tried everything I could to survive.

At least until the damn rumor spread that my cursed father was the sect leader that the righteous sects wanted to tear apart, and that I was the demonic sect’s precious daughter.

“Daughter of the evil demon!”

I died falling off a cliff, pushed by those righteous sect bastards crying out for justice.

It was a miserable death that I absolutely cannot say was better than my first one.

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