Barbarus.

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Herella is an ordinary Barbaros woman.

The first half of her life was the epitome of hundreds of millions of ordinary Barbaros girls.

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Born in an unnamed village near the realm of Nacre, Herrela's world has been made up of dusk gases and endless fear for as long as she can remember.

She waited ignorantly in the room heaped with loess clods, staring for her parents' return.

When her mother returned, she would touch her cheeks with her chapped hands, smile at her, and then turn around to cook porridge.

When she was a little older, she would take her sister by her and step on the mud pit road in the village, standing at the entrance of the village and looking into the distance, waiting for her parents to come home from farming.

In the distance, gas-shrouded mountains, vague peaks hidden in the shadows of the mist, inhabited by the true masters of the planet, my parents had said.

Herella was too young to understand why the lords could withstand these deadly gases.

When she was old enough to pick up a hoe, her parents took her to their own fields, where she picked up the hoe and cut the bitter clods one by one.

Her younger sister stood at the entrance of the village, continuing to look at her and her parents, waiting for their return.

The alarm bell in the village rang and night was approaching, and she ran back to their home with her parents, a little scared and a little excited.

Her life was lost in the cultivation day by day, in the breath of poison gas every minute and every second.

She had once walked boldly and curiously towards the end of the field, where the poisonous gas that had become thick was like a substantial wall, imprisoning the humans within.

Herrela raised a hand and carefully touched the poisonous gas that seemed to be alive, lightly eroding her fingertips, Herrela exclaimed, and quickly pulled out her finger, and the pale corrosive marks were visible on it.

Herrela didn't understand, on the top of that high mountain, on the high mountain where the poisonous gas was tens of thousands of times thicker and more intense than here, was there really life?

But that night she knew.

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When the gray night fell, the yellow air slowly climbed the city wall—

The puppets of the slave catchers tore through Herrela's impenetrable walls like paper, and creatures that were completely in defiance of the laws of physics, monsters that had been forcibly brought to life by witchcraft stood in the doorway, stitched eyes staring at her and her family.

The puppet, which was about two and a half meters tall, seemed to be sewn haphazardly from corpse parts, the black thick twine was roughly exposed in the air, the end of the knot soaked into the skin, and the pus and yellow cell fluid overflowed from the flesh, and the liquid climbed up the knot and formed a yellow scab in the air.

It pressed its bloated body against the door, cloudy eyes staring at Herrella with malice.

Her parents had fainted with fear, but they were still holding themselves and their sister in their arms, trembling.

However, it didn't work.

She was carried out of her warm and fragile nest like a chick, evaluated, and then put down—

She was too thin to meet the standard of the Lord's test material to be strong.

Parents and sister were picked up and evaluated in turn, dad was put down, and sister was also put down.

Mom was caught.

Mom stared at Herella in despair and breakdown, she had been completely defeated, her tired eyes were now overflowing with tears, and Mom looked at them, as if hoping that they would continue to live well, and as if hoping that they would come to her rescue.

However, Herella, her father, and her sister were completely defeated by fear.

There is no hope.

Threatened with death, her mother began to struggle violently in the puppet's hands, and she danced her limbs wildly, hitting the giant hand that held her in vain.

As if seeing something interesting, the puppet's ugly face twisted away into a strange and cruel smile.

Its other hand, which was stained with slime, reached out easily and casually, and directly twisted off the limbs of the bottom layer in turn.

Blood, flesh foam, red blood, white bone spurs pierced out, and those red dots fell in the black dimness, instantly gray and deteriorated under the touch of the mist.

Mommy was screaming.

in convulsions.

Herrella fainted.

When she woke up, there were only three people in their house.

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Life has to go on.

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After that, Herrela took her farming tools every day, followed her father out to farm in the early morning, and then ran home every evening with the sound of the bell.

The walls she had thought would protect their village were useless, villages were just as dangerous as the wilderness, but she would still run back with the people when the bell rang.

I'm used to it.

She came home, touched her sister's face with her chapped hands, smiled at her, and went to cook porridge.

Her mom hadn't taught her how to cook, and her dad was just a vague and silent silhouette in her life.

The porridge that had been cooked for the first time boiled and burned her hands.

It's okay.

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She's going to die.

Will die like mom.

It doesn't matter, everyone is like that.

It really doesn't matter.

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When the evening screams began again, Herrella hugged her sister tightly and huddled in the cupboard at home.

Her dad was already insane by the time the screams rang out.

Perhaps recalling the tragic situation before his mother's death, my father broke down, and the gray-haired man in his twenties opened the door of the house and ran out like crazy.

He wanted to escape, but it was only to his death.

Herrela wanted to save her father, but she couldn't.

Only death.

The barking pus-bag hounds on the village road quickly pounced, blood splattering.

It doesn't matter, everybody's going to die.

She hugged her sister tightly.

But Herrela wanted her sister to live a little longer, and she wanted her to see the world beyond the village, even if it was a barren land.

Herrela gently patted her sister's head, whose hair, like hers, was dull and messy under the corrosive effects of the poisonous gas.

"Shhhh

My sister was crying, and she was pulling Herella.

"Don't go, okay, let's be together, sister."

Herela pulled away her sister's hand,

"Be obedient and live well."

Then Herella started running, and she didn't look back.

She started running, her calves shaking, her heart pounding, her lungs twitching,—— she was going to die.

She ran down the road desperately, and the pustule hounds who were biting at her father's corpse saw her, and her father's flesh and saliva were dripping from his skin-wrapped lips.

The fangs were aimed at her.

Herella wanted to scream, to shout something, to tell them that she wasn't afraid of death.

But she was completely seized by fear, which slowly ran over her bones and tore her flesh apart.

She couldn't control herself anymore, she stopped, trembling, unable to take another step.

No, I'm brave, I trade myself for my sister's life.

I am brave.

Herrela thought desperately, but as if it had pierced all her bravery and pride, the hounds drooled and looked up—

Running in the direction of their house.

No!!!

Her sister!! Lyza!! No!!

Herrela wanted to run, she wanted to save her sister, she wanted to save her sister!!

She wants to save her sister, she wants to save her sister, she wants to save her sister, she wants to save her sister, she wants to save her sister, she wants to save her mother, she wants to save her sister, she wants to save her sister......

She couldn't save anyone.

She had lost everything she could rely on, she had no reason to live, her life was a meaningless mess of gloom, she never did anything, she never achieved anything, she just lived and then died meaninglessly and worthlessly.

It's okay, Herrela, everybody is going to die.

It's okay.

Tears and snot crawled all over her face, and Herrela felt like she was broken, she had gone mad, and she fell to her knees in despair, her hands clasping her face so tightly that her eyes were obscured by her hands and tears.

Nothing is useless anymore.

She doesn't care about all this anymore.

Come eat me, come and shred me.

I'm just a useless piece of waste, and even my sister doesn't have the courage to protect it.

She was tired.

She gave up.

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However, she did not hear her sister's screams.

The sound of the wind cutting through the flesh of the blade was heard, the pus-bag hound whimpered and barked violently, and the muffled sound came—

Herrella was no longer capable of comprehending all this, and she continued to cry in despair.

"Don't cry."

A hand reached over and gently removed hers, carefully wiping her face full of tears and snot.

"Your sister is not dead, you coax her."

"Don't cry, you two, we've killed these hounds."

Herella was sobbing so violently that she couldn't stop sobbing.

She looked up.

The young man was holding her sobbing sister in one hand, his face covered by a gas mask, but he was indeed smiling.

He turned against the light, and the white light outlined his figure.

The man crouched down with a scythe in his other hand.

"You were brave enough to sacrifice yourself to get the attention of those hounds, didn't you?"

"Brave girl, join us and defend your family together."

"By the way, my name is Hades, and I'm a death guard."

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This is the story before Herrela joins the Death Guard.

It's also the story of Herella's regaining hope.