Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
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Only Jade, Saf, Ruby, and Seth were left again. Jade was suddenly overcome by a sense of silence, a chill running down his spine.
"The presence of those two was greater than I realized."
Jade muttered.
Ruby coldly released Saf's hand that she had been holding and spoke.
"Just so you know, I don't know much about the elves' forest either."
"You're saying that 'now' isn't 'in advance'?"
Jade pointed out.
Ruby shrugged to dodge the response.
Saf spoke cautiously.
"Can't we just ask the elves to guide us? They seemed to understand our language earlier."
"Asking the elves... Even something so simple feels like it's out of a fairy tale."
Perhaps dealing with elves who could communicate would be better than dealing with the nomadic Kun who couldn't.
Jade nodded and continued.
"You're right. Ultimately, we need to reach the elves' harbor. Meeting a friendly elf might be the way to go."
"What about the Guardian of the Dark Forest? We're here to fight demons, so maybe they'll help us?"
Saf asked.
Jade tilted his head.
"Who knows? What do you think, Ruby? Will the Guardian help us?"
Jade turned his gaze to Ruby.
Ruby crossed her arms and closed her eyes.
"No idea. For starters, I don't even know if it's an elf."
"Of course it's an elf... You talked to it, but didn't see what it looked like?"
Saf asked.
"Not at all."
Ruby continued, her pride clearly hurt.
"But in exchange, I have some memories of the forest coming back bit by bit."
"That's great! Tell us."
Jade said, genuinely pleased.
"Don't get your hopes up. It's just fragments of knowledge."
"Better than knowing nothing."
"Let's talk while we walk."
Ruby got her bearings and started walking. Saf and Jade followed right behind her.
Jade wanted to hold Saf's hand, who was still anxious, but gave up, thinking he'd end up leaning on her instead.
After walking all night, riding horses, and now marching relentlessly through the forest path, he was exhausted to the point of collapse.
"Strictly speaking, the Dark Forest isn't the elves' forest."
Ruby explained in a monotonous, drawn-out tone.
"It's the border between the human world and the elven world. I don't remember how much farther we have to go, but if we keep heading north, we'll exit the Dark Forest and enter the real elves' forest. They call that place Elf Forest."
"For us, is the Dark Forest like the Mediterranean, marking the boundary between the eastern and western continents?"
Jade asked.
"The Mediterranean? Good analogy." Ruby spun the Guardian's arrow between her fingers and continued.
"The Dark Forest, like the Mediterranean, is a place where people without experience struggle to get their bearings. Even sailors can lose their way in a small sea like the Mediterranean if they're not careful. Elves can get lost in the Dark Forest too. Those six elves we saw earlier might actually be wandering. In simple terms, we're in the middle of the ocean without a nautical chart or compass."
"But you can find the way, right? You're an explorer who's been everywhere in the world."
Saf said hopefully.
"To use a metaphor, this place is an impossibly vast forest to humans, but to me, it's like the woods behind a village. But even you—do you think you could navigate the woods behind your village without getting lost? That's about it. So stick close and don't lose me."
Jade suddenly remembered and asked.
"You said to look ahead, which reminds me—are we okay with those thugs who tailed us from Fairbank?"
Saf belatedly remembered too and asked.
"We've forgotten about them since meeting the Tyrant. Maybe they didn't follow us from Fairbank?"
Ruby replied with a smirk.
"I never forgot and kept checking. There were signs they were following. But now that we're in the Dark Forest, we don't need to worry."
Ruby paused briefly, turned around, and warned in a tone that was hard to tell if serious or joking.
"Now's not the time to worry about behind us. I said it again—look straight ahead. I can't guarantee your safety from anything big here."
Ruby took the lead again, and Jade and Saf stuck close behind her.
Around the time Jade recalled the pursuers he'd briefly forgotten, they had already reached the edge of the Dark Forest—right at its entrance.
Alisa removed her hood and let out a long sigh, not advancing any further.
"Someone explain it to me. In what situation did I do well enough to avoid this failure?"
Alisa muttered, touching her lips in self-reproach.
One of her subordinates said.
"We moved without rest tracking their traces but still couldn't catch up. It wasn't a misjudgment."
"That stake where the Kun hunters were captured... When we found it, we could have increased our pursuit speed."
There, Alisa learned that Jade had encountered a demon from the plains. Seeing the demon's bloodstains indicated a battle had taken place, and a Kun hunter had joined them.
"But I didn't speed up. Jade had some unknown bodyguard, and I hoped he wouldn't notice our tracking. Instead, I believed they'd stop at least once."
Alisa continued in a self-blaming tone.
The subordinate comforted her.
"Kun nomads are obsessive about hosting guests—they'd sell their tents for it. 'We' saw the stake and demon blood and guessed Jade's group had rescued the Kun hunter. It was correct. To that hunter, Jade was a big guest who wouldn't be neglected. The judgment at the time and the slow pursuit were right."
"Fine, we weren't wrong there... Then what? I thought the hunters would guide Jade to Gran. And I boasted to you all proudly, 'A big city like Gran makes it easy to sneak in, slit throats, or poison food.' But they went to a small tribal village."
That place was an odd village. Kun nomads didn't usually live gathered like that.
"The prediction they'd go to Gran wasn't that off-base. And if they'd just stayed in that tribal village instead of Gran, we'd have had our chance. But the village was attacked by something, and by the time we arrived, it was almost empty. Predicting that was impossible."
Pretending to be a lost traveler, Alisa asked one of the remaining tribal villagers and heard the absurd story: 'Demons kidnapped the children, Jade's group went to rescue them, and worried tribespeople followed.'
Seeing Alisa still regretting, another subordinate interjected.
"From there, we pursued with full effort. The trail was clear, so we hardly got lost midway. Nothing wrong there."
In the middle of the plains, they encountered Kun nomads returning with about fifty children. Alisa believed Jade's group was mixed in, hid her subordinates, and approached.
She was prepared to ambush if needed. But Jade's group wasn't there.
She asked the nomads what had happened.
The child kidnappings, the plain's monstrous beasts, Gotking's death...
They described Jade's group as if they were saviors, exaggerating wildly. Thanks to that, Alisa gleaned some valuable info.
One: Someone in Jade's group had the power to annihilate demons. Another: The red-haired boy's formidable combat skills.
They already knew the latter from Fairbank's scouts, but they hadn't known he could defeat even a demon called the King of the Plains.
"After that, we tracked them all day. Did we ever stop once?"
Alisa asked.
"No."
"Was there room to go faster?"
"No. Any faster and our horses would've died. Theirs were hunters' horses accustomed to the plains."
"Then we made no mistakes."
"Yes. They were just lucky, and our caution backfired. If we'd abandoned caution, we'd have died instead of Gotking."
Alisa shot a glare, and the subordinate慌ted and bowed his head.
"Of course, not you, Lady Alisa—our lives."
Alisa sank back into thought.
Continue the pursuit or give up?
The past day felt more regrettable than the month combining the time from Luna Duchy here and waiting near Fairbank.
"If it's okay...
The subordinate who'd been listening to her self-reproach suggested.
"Shall I pursue alone?"
"No. The Guardian would spot you. And he wouldn't let us come and go freely."
Hearing her subordinate's eager proposal actually made her want to give up.
"We're turning back."
She mounted her horse again.
"The Duke will be disappointed."
"No choice. Besides, entering the Dark Forest at a time like this means they have no chance of survival. Same for us."
"What do you mean 'a time like this'?"
"From what I know, the Dark Forest is at war right now. Even if they pass the Guardian safely, they'll plunge into the middle of a battlefield."
Alisa turned her horse eastward and galloped off.
"...And if their protective luck runs out, they'll come to us for sure."
♦
"Um, just now...
Saf looked around and asked.
"Didn't you hear a child's voice?"
They'd come north of the Kuman Plains, so it should be cold, but surprisingly, it was warm. The forest's humidity made their bodies sticky.
"Huh? What sound?"
Already exhausted, Jade had depleted even the tiny bit of stamina left while walking a forest path with no proper trail. He hadn't properly heard Saf's words.
"A child's voice."
Jade wiped sweat and strained his ears, but only occasional bird calls came.
"I don't hear anything. Ruby?"
Ruby stopped walking too and looked up at the trees.
The trees were so tall Jade could barely see the tops. The sun hadn't set yet, but it was so dark they might need torches.
Saf listened longer, then said.
"Sorry. Must've been my mistake. It's fine now, Ruby."
But Ruby didn't move.
"Wrong time, wrong place..." Ruby muttered something nonsensical. Jade, catching his breath, thought he'd missed it. Saf approached and asked on his behalf.
"What does that mean?"
"The Guardian of the forest said something to me, and I've been pondering it."
Ruby whipped his head toward Saf and asked.
"Come to think of it, Saf, didn't you say from the plains that you smelled some foul stench?"
At Ruby's question, Saf's shoulders trembled slightly—like a cat jumping in surprise from its spot.
Saf bit her lip in panic and couldn't speak.
Ruby asked again.
"Still there? That stench?"
"Yeah. It is."
Saf answered cautiously.
"Which direction now?"
"I... don't know."
Saf continued with difficulty.
"I thought it was Ramathus's stench. It got stronger as we entered the plains."
"Ramathus is dead. It should be gone. But it's still there, right?"
Ruby pressed.
"Yeah. So then I thought it was the Tyrant's. The smell got thicker as we neared the Dark Forest."
"But the Tyrant is dead too."
"Even if you remove the smelly thing, the smell doesn't vanish right away. Trash, food... The Tyrant might be like that."
Saf said, as if making excuses.
Jade, who'd been listening silently, spoke cautiously.
"Saf, you can tell the truth. No one here will connect you sensing demons to you being one."
As Saf slowly nodded, Ruby asked incredulously.
"What? That's what you were worried about? You little coward. Spill everything you know already!"
"...Okay."
"If the Tyrant and Ramathus are dead like you say, the smell should be fading at least. Is it now?"
Ruby asked.
"It's getting stronger."
Emboldened, Saf spoke a bit louder.
"But the direction isn't specific. It just feels like the whole Dark Forest reeks of it."
"Yes! That's what I wanted to hear!" Ruby climbed onto a slightly higher rock and raised both arms high.
"I can't smell stench like you, Saf, but I feel something bad. From the whole forest! Jade, doesn't something feel off to you? Even you should notice, no matter how dense."
Jade shook his head in reply.
"I don't know what's off."
"You dense idiot!"
"What do you want? Fine. It's dark and damp here. I get that. But isn't the Dark Forest supposed to be like that?"
"Humans fear the Dark Forest, but not me. There was no Guardian or whatever back then. And Batillan alone came and went through the Dark Forest like any dense woods, learning strategy and tactics from the elves."
Ruby fiddled with the shackles on his wrists—like warming up before a fight.
"Still, I don't get it."
"Maybe it's normal not to know, like you. You have no experience. Surprisingly, Saf sensed it with smell, not experience. This is a battlefield. Even Saf's luck couldn't avoid it."
"Battle... field?"
Jade looked around in a panic.
"If it's like the scene you saw earlier, Ruby, then that demon Buffalo Lord who abandoned the Tyrant is fighting the forest Guardian! Let's get out of here quick!"
"No."
"You want to jump into their fight? Save your battle lust for when we're not around."
At that moment, a thunderous roar echoed.
Jade thought the sky had cracked. But the vibration came through the ground. He couldn't pinpoint the direction or see what happened next.
Ruby suddenly turned and charged toward Saf and Jade.
He shoved Jade with one hand and scooped up Saf, leaping away. Jade rolled several times on the ground, and Saf ended up in the mud as Ruby practically threw her down.
A massive tree crashed right where Saf and Jade had been.
Dust and grit like fog covered their vision. The tree snapped with deafening noise, leaving their ears ringing.
Jade rolled several times, then lifted his head.
Ruby stood atop the fallen tree and said.
"Sorry. That was the only way to save you both safely at once."
It was an apology in words, but not in tone.
"And I wasn't speaking metaphorically or figuratively about a battlefield."
Ruby let the chains on his wrists dangle long.
"This is literally the middle of a battlefield where armies clash. Just like the Guardian said, we came to the wrong place at the wrong time."