The Witch of the Sleeping Forest (2)
Before the spring of planting, a farmer’s work begins in winter. It is the act of turning over frozen fields and paddies with a hoe to remove weeds and ensure crops can easily take root. Usually, this involves plowing with the strength of an ox. But this plow was exceptionally deep and massive. What would be impossible for all the able-bodied men of a village to accomplish, Caroline performed alone with her magic. She did not intend to bury weeds; she intended to bury people, to fatten the earth with their blood.
Kugugugung!
From the finely tilled soil, sprouts emerged after the spring breeze. They were not, however, the wheat sprouts that would turn into a rich, golden harvest by the time the cool autumn winds blew. What rose from the ground were vines. Instead of the small leaves typical of such plants, they were covered in sharp, pointed thorns.
"That’s one hell of a greeting!"
Hansel narrowly avoided being dragged into the earth along with the soil where he had stood just a moment before. He swung his twin daggers, slicing through the vines that approached like a swarm of snakes. These were not vines that could be easily cut with ordinary steel. The first time he struck, instead of the clean shuck of a blade cutting through plant matter, he felt the jarring sensation of a blade embedding itself into a thick, hardwood tree. He had to pull with all his might to wrench it free.
The second time he swung, his blade was imbued with light. The starlight Tinkerbell had awakened within him. The light-clad blade sliced through the unnaturally twisted vines as if they were paper, and Hansel’s agile footwork carried him quickly past the ground, which had transformed into a dangerous trap zone that would swallow anyone who hesitated for even a second.
At this, Caroline furrowed her brows. 'What is that light that can instantly sever those thorn vines, which even a decent master-crafted sword could barely scratch? And how is such a shadow hiding beneath the feet of the one who wields that light?'
Caroline could not see the protection of the Dawn Star that Tinkerbell had bestowed upon Hansel and Gretel. However, she could see the shadow hidden beneath the siblings—a shadow Tinkerbell had failed to notice. Even when looking at the same object, people see different things, and they believe only what they have seen themselves. Instead of the hope for the future that Tinkerbell and Robin Hood had entrusted to them, Roselia saw only the deceptive darkness hiding behind the shield of light. She intended to annihilate them right here using the power of the cursed forest and the earth.
Vines like whips and grasping hands erupted from the ground, reaching toward the darkness hidden beneath the light. The vines Hansel severed were buried into the fluid, shifting soil, only to become part of other vines that surged up from the ground near Hansel, Gretel, or Pinocchia to strike at them.
While Hansel was busy hacking through the vines to reach the giant tree-lizard Caroline was riding, Pinocchia and Gretel had formed a pair.
"I am not well-suited for enemies that require bladed weapons, so I am a heavy burden to you."
Pinocchia, whose physical output differed fundamentally from that of humans, could mimic a semblance of swordsmanship by swinging and thrusting with the edge of her hand, but it was, in the end, merely a mimicry. The tough vines did not snap under her hand-blade; they bent precariously, hanging by a thread before rejoining moments later.
"Ha, seriously. Want to borrow a knife? Oh, wait—what about your gun?"
"I am out of ammunition. From fighting you, and then Robin Hood."
Gretel held a small crossbow in her right hand and a dagger as a sidearm in her left. She fired the crossbow at the lizard or Caroline one bolt at a time, while busily hacking and slashing at the thorn vines with her dagger.
"We have to help Hansel get closer to that lizard."
"Then I shall run and draw its attention. Please provide cover. Give me a dagger."
"Do you know how to use one?"
"I know how. I simply don't use them because pure martial combat is more suitable for me. But for now, I will use a flexible, human-like approach."
"Then do it."
Gretel threw the dagger. It passed precisely through a gap in the thorn vines, and just before it could graze Pinocchia’s cheek, Pinocchia snatched it, gripping it in a reverse hold. After spinning in the air to adjust her grip, Pinocchia began to sprint through the vines. She stepped only on the stable parts of the ground that were the slowest to crack or flip.
If the footwork of Hansel and Gretel, who endured the shaking, splitting, and vine-erupting ground, was a dangerous, acrobatic tightrope walk, then Pinocchia was a solid tower. A tower that could have its top, bottom, left, and right inverted at any moment. She did not collapse, even if she swayed from the cracks and tremors of the earth. All sorts of internal mechanical devices, including the gyroscope that replaced the vestibular system and semicircular canals that maintain balance in human bodies, whirred incessantly. Despite the inversion of her posture and the chaotic changes, she felt no nausea or visual blurring. She found the optimal path with precision, cutting through vines and approaching the tree-lizard faster than Hansel, who was advancing bit by bit.
"To think that something not human would reach me first. Crush her, Zympis!"
"Grrrrrrr!!!"
At the call of its master, who stood atop its head, the giant tree-lizard—which had served only to silently carry her—let out a roar. From the junction of its neck and head, skeletal, branch-like fingers extended long toward the back, and dark-brown, withered leaves sprouted to serve as a mane.
Pshushushushuk!
From among those leaves, which replaced the hair of the mane, countless small, black grains poured toward Pinocchia. A barrage of black grains falling with a strange, buzzing noise. It was something akin to a hail of bullets created by the power of nature. It was an accelerated version of flesh-eating insects. It was a curse of dark, painful death where the insects would pierce the skin, devour the muscles and blood vessels, and consume a person from the inside out. To those who didn't know the principle, it looked like a dark curse where a person hit by the black hail would painfully melt away until only bones remained, but in reality, it was a curse of flourishing life where flesh-eating insects fed voraciously.
Whether it was darkness or life, it looked like nothing good to be hit by, and with nothing to use as a shield, Pinocchia changed her direction, bypassing the impact zone where the black hail was pouring down. The small black insects that fell to the ground, perhaps because they could not reach a moving target to feed on, struggled for a moment before ceasing their life activity and burying themselves into the pulsating earth to vanish. They were not living creatures; they were something closer to biological projectiles that, if they missed, simply embedded themselves in the ground. And that wasn't the end—they became nutrients for the thorn vines that Caroline summoned from the earth. From the caster's perspective, it didn't matter if they hit or missed. Whether she knew she was standing in a lose-lose situation, Pinocchia ran, dodging everything to buy time for Hansel—or perhaps Gretel.
With her machine-like processing power, Pinocchia easily evaded the three threats: the insects, the thorn vines, and the treacherous earth that tried to swallow her. Finding a small moment of respite, she glanced over. She needed to see what Hansel or Gretel were doing. She had to know what they were doing to coordinate her actions.
"Huh."
Before she knew it, both Hansel and Gretel had vanished into thin air. Caroline and the giant tree-lizard Zympis. Hansel, Gretel, and Pinocchia. The three of them had been facing the two, but suddenly, she was left alone. Abandoned. The thin chain of connection, forged by the blood and pleasure of Robin Hood and joined by bodily fluids, had snapped more easily than a thread.
Facing this shocking and filthy act of betrayal, where allies abandoned their own in such a situation, Pinocchia froze, struck by a sense of absurdity and emptiness she had never felt before. Not missing that opening, Zympis struck Pinocchia with its tail.
Koo-oong!
"Ugh!"
As Pinocchia was sent flying, her world spinning upside down, thorn vines surged up to bind her, and the black barrage poured from Zympis’s mane. Just before the thorn vines could wrap around her ankles and the thorns—dripping with venom that maximized pain—could pierce her, Pinocchia’s feet found a narrow safe zone between the thorns on the vines and landed there without a single error.
"Haaap!"
She had managed to find a gap between the thorns of the undulating vines, landed on it, and used the strength in her soles to leap. She dodged the entire hail of black insects and fired the wire from her left hand toward Caroline. Perhaps it was because it was the first time someone had used a similar attack against her, or perhaps she was simply surprised to see a wire with a sharp hook fired from the hand of something that looked like a human, but Caroline’s reaction was delayed. The large leaves floating around her were a beat too slow to deflect the hook.
Ting!
The hook at the end of the wire, deflected by the leaf shield, failed to reach Caroline and instead embedded itself into the top of Zympis’s head, right where Caroline was standing. It was a missed attack, but it was enough. Pinocchia swung her left arm, connected to the hand that had fired the wire, in a large circle to generate momentum. The wire wrapped several times around Zympis’s head and lower jaw, with Pinocchia’s left shoulder as the pivot point.
"Krupp! Kruuuuurpp!!!"
"Cheap tricks!"
Despite the clear difference in size, the wire wrapped several times was incredibly sturdy. Zympis couldn't even open its mouth wide enough to snap the wire, and it began to thrash about, forgetting that its master was on its head. Its mouth twitched, struggling to open.
As a result of wrapping the wire around Zympis’s head and lower jaw and tightening it to the maximum, Pinocchia ended up hanging beneath Zympis’s jaw. It was a blind spot, hidden beneath the lizard’s head—the very platform Caroline was standing on—where no magic could accurately target her.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Hanging there, Pinocchia stowed her dagger at her waist and began unleashing a barrage of uppercuts beneath Zympis’s jaw. The withered wood shattered and broke away under her powerful fists. The blows rained down beneath the jaw, and the impact traveled all the way to the teeth inside the lizard’s maw. Zympis thrashed and shook its body violently. While the area of impact and damage was small, teeth were areas where nerves were concentrated in all animals, and the common knowledge that pain was extreme if problems arose there applied even to the monster Zympis, which took the form of a giant lizard made of plants. However, this was not a decisive blow; it merely eliminated one of the enemy’s vanguards and did not become a blade directed at the true enemy, Caroline. And the role of that blade was...
"Haaap!"
"Die!"
A strange phenomenon where only the sound of a battle cry could be heard, though the siblings were nowhere to be seen. Along with the synchronized cry, Hansel and Gretel, who had stealthily hidden themselves, leaped toward Zympis, which was thrashing with Pinocchia hanging from its jaw. Gretel held a dagger in one hand and a small crossbow in the other, coordinating with Hansel. It was a design meant to catch the enemy off guard with a follow-up attack from Hansel or Gretel if they were distracted by the first arrow. The starlight-infused blades of their daggers extended further, and the intersection of the diagonal lines drawn by their tips was where Caroline stood.
"Did you think I wouldn't know just because you hid your forms? I can feel every step you take on the ground!"
They had tried to use a strategy of focusing the enemy's attention on the one left behind while the other two hid and launched a surprise attack, but the problem was that their opponent already knew where the two hidden ones were. The leaves floating around Caroline merged into a single greatsword made of pure green light. The hilt alone was half the height of a person, and the width of the blade matched the distance of her outstretched arms. With a single swing, a green gale of blades erupted.
"Damn it!"
The first arrow she fired was crushed before the gale of pure force, and then the siblings were swept away.
"Slam your jaw into the ground!"
Since Zympis couldn't shake off Pinocchia, who was clinging to it like a leech, Caroline gave a new order. Just slam its jaw into the ground. Zympis raised its body, looked upward, stood at a nearly 70-degree angle, and became a hammer that slammed into the earth.
Kuuuuuuung!
A massive scar appeared amidst the swirling dust.