The icy, rust-flavored sewage washing over her lips felt familiar—painfully familiar.
It was the taste of blood.
Not someone else's, but her own.
The girl had long since grown used to it. After all... it would heal soon enough.
If anything, this made her feel a little better.
The numbness from blood loss, coupled with soaking in the freezing puddle, slightly eased the bruised body that had been brutally beaten.
If possible, she even wished this bone-piercing cold could strip away her body heat entirely—along with her life.
But that was impossible.
Even though her body temperature had become unbalanced, even though she was so battered she could not move, even though there was a wound on her back that had nearly pierced through her slender body.
The girl knew very well that this alone would not kill her.
The Children of the Cursed possessed incredibly resilient bodies. Injuries of this degree were not enough to kill her.
To kill her, one had to at least crush her brain or tear her heart to pieces.
How did she know?
She had once had the misfortune of witnessing one of her companions being killed that way.
Though she had narrowly escaped disaster, thinking about it now, it would have been better if she had died alongside her friend back then.
Surviving severe injuries was a blessing to ordinary people, but to the girl, it was a misfortune.
Or rather, simply being alive was already an exceedingly painful thing.
Even now, she was not alive because of some vow, much less because she still had anything to cling to in this world.
It was merely because her body would not allow her to die.
The few remaining survival instincts she had, along with her terrifying regenerative ability, had forced her to cling