Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Conquering General Skipher
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Three hundred years ago.
General Skipher of the Rom Empire was a brilliant commander who claimed victory regardless of whether the battlefield was forest, sea, or desert. Across the southern sea, on the distant continent, he crushed General Kalleon's "Invincible Elephant Legion," and on the waves, he sank the grand fleet led by "Pirate King" One-Eyed Jack.
Leading the Rom legions, General Skipher charged unhindered across the continent, and every nation knelt before him.
The barbarian tribes that had plagued Rom for centuries fled without a fight, and the Kingdom of Gran of the Kun—once called devils incarnate—surrendered on the mere promise not to harm their children.
Finally, Skipher marched into the Dark Forest.
To conquer the Dark Forest—a realm of mystery and terror to humans—and the northern lands beyond it, and to rule over the legendary elven cities: that was his final ambition.
'Seimurasha, Teimon, Toroshimo, Meimmei... I will plant the banner of the Rom Empire there and force even the elves to swear loyalty to Rom's emperor!'
But the moment he entered the Dark Forest, General Skipher encountered difficulties. The forest was deeper and more treacherous than he had imagined.
Jet-black trees blotted out the sky, letting scarcely any sunlight reach the ground, and the floor was slick with moisture and moss, making it hard for the horses to move.
Not only massive trees but saplings too grew thickly, complicating efforts to maintain spacing between units.
And there were other vexing issues aplenty. Yet Skipher had always overcome such obstacles in his wars.
But this time, there was one problem he could not surmount.
The forest was haunted.
"Do you hear anything?"
General Skipher asked his adjutant.
The adjutant listened carefully but shook his head.
"What sound do you mean?"
Skipher listened again himself, but aside from the horses advancing and the soldiers trampling grass, there was nothing.
"Just... a strange sound."
Skipher couldn't bring himself to tell his adjutant that he had heard a woman's laughter.
To humor the general, the adjutant replied,
"It sounds like a distant waterfall. The insects here do make truly odd noises. Earlier, one soldier said it seemed like the flowers were talking, and another claimed the mushrooms were walking around. Did you hear something else I missed?"
"That's..."
Skipher felt like a fool. But then the laughter didn't stop—it became a distinct voice.
"You're persistent, child of man."
This time, there was no mistaking it!
Skipher halted his horse and bellowed,
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
The nearby soldiers stopped in unison. Voices of confusion rose, and he felt eyes staring at him oddly. All the more desperately, Skipher scanned the surroundings for the source of the voice.
A woman's whispering voice asked,
"How many more failures, how many more soldiers sacrificed, before you give up?"
Skipher was going mad. Nowhere in his sight was a woman's form, yet the whisper came from right beside him!
"You witch! Think I'll yield? Bow your head before the word of God! Soon I'll tear your foul flesh limb from limb, nail it to a cross, and burn it!"
Skipher, who had never shown anger toward an enemy in over a decade, now screamed with veins bulging in his face.
The woman laughed and said,
"You're the ones who invaded. What if we struck your kingdom? Would you just accept us meekly, watch us trample your lands? You'd fight. We're no different."
"Don't try to sway me with a witch's voice. I will plant the Caitlic Star Cross here and let the word of God echo forth."
Skipher shouted back without yielding. The woman stopped laughing and said,
"Then your emperor and holy father will fatten their bellies with the spoils plundered from us."
"Silence, witch! Oh God! Drive this witch's voice from my ears!"
"Your god must teach that any differing opinion is a witch's voice. Or perhaps you're just blaming your own kind on him. I know well that words of persuasion don't work on your sort. So I won't try."
The woman's voice grew increasingly menacing.
"I warn you, Skipher. Leave this forest. Stay on your lands, worship your god, live with your king. Otherwise, I will spill your blood to nourish this forest."
"Think I'll fall for a witch's poisoned words? No matter the hardship, I will cross this forest. I don't know what vile sorcery you've used to bedevil us thus far, but soon you will crumble beneath my army's spears and arrows."
Skipher bellowed at some directionless tree.
Still, her voice reached only him.
"Sorcery? What are you talking about? I've never used magic once until now. I've only stepped forward today because I wanted to spare you."
Chills ran down Skipher's spine. Her voice faded.
"I no longer have faith I can persuade the Dark Forest's guardian. And you can't either."
"Persuade? Guardian?"
"Even if you're guilty, what sin do your soldiers bear? But since you won't listen anymore, I have no choice."
"Dark Forest guardian or witch! Stop hiding like a coward and come out!"
Skipher roared.
"Heh heh heh, how amusing. One against a hundred thousand, and you call the hundred thousand cowards?"
With that laughter, no more words came.
"Dark Forest guardian? One?"
Skipher muttered, then recoiled in shock.
"What did that witch just say?"
The Dark Forest conquest war, ongoing for three years, had been strange from the start.
At first, soldiers simply got lost. They began with scouts to map the dense forest terrain, then committed small units step by step to seize ground progressively—but entire units vanished wholesale.
Skipher chalked it up to the procedures of campaigning in unfamiliar terrain.
Sacrifices were inevitable.
Yet they encountered no enemy to face. That was maddening.
Without a single battle, their forces dwindled bit by bit, and morale plummeted. They hired renowned forest experts to probe the Dark Forest, but to no avail.
No one crossed it. Whether patrols died or survived, they gained no information either way.
Only after a year did Skipher realize his army was being picked off unit by unit. Rumors of ghosts and curses spread among the troops.
Occasional skirmishes left survivors, but they didn't know who they'd fought. Survivors from the same battle claimed wildly different things: one said ambushed by tens of thousands of elven archers, another by terrifying magic, yet another didn't know why their unit had retreated.
As these tales spread, army morale plunged.
Skipher took drastic measures. He set fires with oil and unleashed ferocious hounds. But the flames died in under an hour, and the hounds returned tame. The perpetually damp, misty forest resisted fire—that was understandable—but the hounds' behavior was bizarre.
They lost their hunting instinct, growing only more affectionate. Some even wandered into the forest afterward and returned fed by someone, as if turned from hounds into pets.
Better if their hides had been flayed, meat dangling upside down. Soldiers feared they'd suffer the same.
Finally, today! Skipher led the full army himself. Advance no matter what!
Addressing reports of constant disorientation, he used sailors' compasses tied to reeds floated in water to find north and pressed the army onward. But eventually, the needles spun endlessly without stopping.
They lost all sense of north.
As fear crept into Skipher too, the witch's voice had spoken.
And she spoke as if one person had toyed with his hundred thousand-strong army for three years.
'A lie. The witch seeks to shatter my faith and strategy...'
Right after her voice faded, the attack began.
Arrows flew from an unknown direction, sowing chaos among the soldiers, and inexplicable noises made the horses bolt. Already tense troops broke formation, seeking escape routes.
Skipher recalled countless defeats that began this way. And with defeat in his mind, he couldn't blame the soldiers.
Suddenly, a terrifying voice boomed across the entire forest.
"You have ignored my countless warnings until now."
This time, it reached not just Skipher but thousands of soldiers simultaneously.
It wasn't a soft woman's voice either. It was as if the forest itself spoke.
"The price for defiling the forest will come."
Something exploded in the center of the formation. The dense spear phalanx collapsed, packhorses flipped, and shield-bearers facing outward dropped shields and fell from blasts erupting beneath their feet.
Arrow volleys followed. Skipher had placed archers to the rear, figuring bows useless in such woods, yet enemy arrows pierced the thick canopy, raining down like hail.
The arrows snaked through trees like serpents.
"How is that even..."
Skipher gaped, too stunned to dodge.
"General!"
His adjutant urgently called for orders. But the general was speechless.
With no visible foe, how to reposition or counter? Arrows from between trees were one thing, but what weapon overturned wagons and burst the earth?
Skipher admitted it. The ones losing composure and judgment weren't the soldiers—it was him. Since hearing the witch, he had done nothing.
'Minimize losses now!'
Skipher told his adjutant,
"Retreat."
The adjutant echoed the order instantly.
"Retreat! Full army retreat!"
The command rippled down, unit leaders shouting retreat.
Skipher wheeled his horse too.
Then a black shadow descended beside the old general, yanking him skyward.
He couldn't even scream as he was sucked up into the trees. It happened so fast, even the adjutant shouting retreat beside him didn't notice.
The adjutant spotted the general's absence belatedly and scanned the ground—expecting a fall from the horse. But he wasn't there.
He checked the sky. Only dark, sky-obscuring branches.
"General!"
He shouted, but Skipher's ears heard nothing.
Skipher dangled from a tree nearly a hundred paces high. A thin rope crushed his belly, stealing his breath.
"Uaaah! Uuuh, uaaah..."
Skipher screamed, face drained white. But his hoarse whispers didn't reach the ground.
"Skipher."
A deep voice came from above, on the branch he hung from.
He wanted to look but couldn't turn his head.
"You... who... are you?" Skipher forced out.
"The guardian."
The guardian continued in a thick voice.
"I won't demand surrender, general of Rom. I'll face you as much as you like. If your son comes, if your grandson comes, it will be I—not my child or successor—who meets your army. But kill you here, and humans will challenge this forest again, forcing me to soil it with tens of thousands of corpses. So I spare you. Think not of petty revenge, but your people's safety. Ensure no human enters this forest again."
The guardian dropped the roped general. His fall slowed slightly at the end, but the impact was brutal.
The rope binding Skipher shot back skyward and vanished. He appeared as if materializing from thin air.
Soldiers mistook him for enemy and nearly speared him.
"General! Are you all right?"
The adjutant rushed over in shock. Skipher waved him off.
"I'm fine."
The pressure on his belly and wrists lingered.
'It's real.'
Skipher trembled, staring up into the trees in fear.
'If it can hoist just me for a warning and release... it could snipe commanders one by one with arrows. Facing a hundred thousand alone isn't impossible.'
Skipher asked his adjutant,
"Enemy attack?"
"Stopped, sir."
"Retreat."
He ordered as if entranced.
"Even though it's stopped?"
The adjutant confirmed.
"Retreat because it stopped."
Thereafter, the army escaped the Dark Forest without further losses. Even when nearly lost, strange lights guided them.
'It means get out, fast.'
After emerging, adjutants asked if he'd reorganize for another assault. But Skipher ordered full withdrawal, and all forces returned to Rom.
Humans never attacked the Dark Forest again.
♦
"...And upon returning to Rom, General Skipher declared, 'The Dark Forest is worthless land even if conquered,' insisting it was not defeat but withdrawal."
Jade finished the tale. Ruby asked,
"Fair enough for Skipher, but what of younger generals? Surely some thought they could succeed where the Conquering General failed."
"There were such commanders, but with Skipher gripping all military power, they fizzled out without his backing. And with his retirement, Rom's era of conquest ended."
Jade said.
Saf followed up.
"Sister nuns besides Father Danel spoke of the Dark Forest too. Occasionally, a traveler or two claimed to pass through to the elven cities, even bringing back truly mystical items. But as Caitlic artifacts, Rotican confiscated and destroyed them."
Jade addressed Barshu and Hur, who only listened.
"I've shared all I know diligently, but this is over three hundred years old. Does that 'Dark Forest guardian' still exist?"
"Whether it's the same guardian then and now, I can't say. But at least the one from my great-grandfather's time matches the one I know."
Barshu spoke while vigilantly scanning around.
Hur, checking the opposite side from Barshu's watch, added,
"We enter sometimes for fine herbs or costly mushrooms. Of course, we know all the legends and myths of the Dark Forest, including the guardian, so we proceed with reverence and utmost caution. Even elf-trading tribes likely don't venture this deep."
The hunters' unease infected Saf, who clutched her skirt tightly.
"If it's that scary, want to hold hands?"
Ruby offered his hand. Saf took it without hesitation.
Jade asked Barshu,
"Got any tales of the guardian you know?"
"My grandfather said he spoke directly with the guardian. It knows most human tongues—Kun, Rom, Pharens, and such. When asked why he entered the Dark Forest, he honestly said for herbs to cure his wife's illness. It ordered him to wait, then tossed down the exact herb. But he never saw its form."
"Sounds downright kind."
"To us, the forest guardian is... if I must put it, a mystical being, not something so terrifying."
"I know one too. Let me share."
Now Hur spoke.
"Criminals fleeing Pharens—thirty of them—raided a steppe tribe. The villains kidnapped a village woman as hostage, stole horses and food, and fled into the Dark Forest. A Kun woman named Surghetti cracked under threats and revealed the entrance. The criminals entered, thinking they'd shaken pursuit, and moved to assault Surghetti."
Hur's voice lowered.
"Then arrows rained from the sky, they say. Spared only Surghetti, hitting the criminals' legs precisely."
"Hitting just legs means it held judgment. Which side was worse? I'd do the same."
Ruby nodded knowingly, and Hur continued.
"Then the guardian appeared before them all. The criminals fell into terror at the sight alone. Surghetti told the truth, so it bound only the criminals and freed her. It asked her to keep its appearance secret. Surghetti escaped the Dark Forest and told everyone the tale. But to her dying day, she never described the guardian's form."
"It gives some vague sense of the guardian's criteria for protecting the forest."
Saf trembled but tried to judge the situation keenly.
Barshu pointed toward the way back and said,
"I don't know why you want to cross the Dark Forest, but truly, won't you turn back with us? By now, villagers are gathering for a feast to thank you instead. If we return without you, we'll get scolded for not bringing you."
At Barshu's words, Hur shook his head.
"Not us both. You'll take the blame alone."
Barshu asked, puzzled,
"Why?"
"You're the representative, aren't you? Rescuing two daughters trumps my one son—you bear greater responsibility."
Hur concluded coolly.
"Huh? Does it work that way?"
Barshu was genuinely flustered. Jade quickly interjected between them.
"We appreciate the invitation, but as I said, we'll press into the forest. If a few years from now is fine, hold the feast then."
"Understood. We'll await that day."
Hur hugged Jade once, then stepped back.
"Take care until we meet again."
With final farewells, the two retraced their path. The forest trees soon hid their figures.