The Secret Hidden in the Forbidden Forest
The man's roar split the air as his blade slashed straight for my neck.
"You trash who sold your soul to the witch! I'll carve you into pieces first!"
It was a sharp strike, infused with a trace of northern power. Yet to my eyes, it moved as slowly as a child's clumsy prank.
After three years of surviving the brutal northern winds and the claws of monsters, how could a pathetic swing like this end my life?
I stood motionless, only twisting my upper body slightly.
The blade whistled past my face, slicing empty air. The man's eyes widened in shock. My axe handle shot upward from below.
Thud!
The sound was light and dull, much like splitting firewood.
"Kuk...!"
The inquisitor's jaw twisted at a grotesque angle and flew into the air. Blood sprayed across the grass like a crimson rain.
"This, this bastard!"
Two more inquisitors charged from both sides, driven by rage over their comrade's death.
I gripped the bloodied axe lightly and slammed my foot into the ground.
Light. As if the shackles that had bound my ankle for three years had finally snapped.
Every movement in my vision read like a clear trajectory.
Slash. Crack!
I crushed the left man's knee joint with the axe haft and severed his neck in one stroke. Spinning my body, I drove the axe blade into the right man's chest.
"Kueugh...!"
Only three axe strikes.
Three corpses lay writhing at my feet, necks broken and chests caved in.
"H-hee...!"
The leader, who had been shouting to burn the witch just moments ago, let out a strangled cry.
He staggered backward, trembling violently, his blood-soaked body shaking. The sword in his hand slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground.
The last remaining subordinate collapsed, legs giving out, and even urinated himself in terror.
"W-what are you...?! A monster who sold your soul to the witch!"
The leader shrieked in panic.
Monster after the witch.
A pitifully impoverished imagination.
I wiped the dripping blood from my axe blade and stepped close to the man.
"I clearly told you."
I stomped my foot onto his chest plate. A crunching sound echoed as the armor crumpled and he let out a dying scream.
"Shut up."
I slung the bloodied axe over my shoulder and looked down at the terrified man.
Now that I've plucked the wings off these bothersome flies.
It was time to open their mouths.
"Speak."
I pressed down with my foot. The crushed chest plate mercilessly crushed the leader's ribs.
"Kuk, kueugh...!"
"What kind of place is this forest that even the noble temple people would crawl into the depths of it?"
The leader spat blood from his mouth while glaring at me with mad eyes.
"Y-you damned bastard...! The worst southern wilderness, the heart of the Forbidden Forest... how dare you ask that after crawling here yourself...!"
The Forbidden Forest.
The fragments swirling in my mind snapped back into place with a single breath.
Fierce monsters spewing purple poison. An eerie, suffocating silence that sealed off all directions. Somehow, it had felt strange even for an ordinary forest.
The scroll had hurled me into this place, not a warm southern resort, but the most infamous death forest on the continent.
I swept my chin and asked.
"So, the girl living in this Forbidden Forest is controlling the beasts?"
"That wretched thing is the source of the disaster spreading poison across the south! We must purify that evil witch...! Only then can we stop the poison from spreading across the south and save the world... Kuaaaak!"
I added more weight to my foot. The leader's voice came out as nothing more than a choked gurgle.
A grand cause to save the world. It was a familiar yet unwanted justification.
The fraud saint who had pushed the real savior out of the north and pretended to be a holy man.
And these fanatics who hid in the forest and wanted to kill the girl by pinning the label of witch on her, all under the pretense of saving the world.
Their ecosystem, which casually discarded others in the name of the gods, was just as creepy at the edge of the continent as it was here.
"...Did the word 'salvation' really have to be barked by anyone?"
I looked down at the man.
"If the salvation your cult preaches means burning a girl who hides quietly in this forest..."
My bloodied axe handle slid smoothly toward the leader's neck.
"Wouldn't it be more sacred if my axe cut off your neck?"
"W-what...!"
The moment fear flooded the leader's eyes, I didn't wait for his reply.
Slash.
With a clean severing sound, the breathing that had been echoing in the courtyard fell silent. Even the last remaining subordinate, who had been barely alive, rolled his eyes and fainted before I could even approach.
The scent of blood lingered as silence spread across the courtyard.
I lowered the dripping axe and slowly turned around. There stood Elara, her face frozen in place.
Corpses with limbs severed, blood pooling in the courtyard, and a murderer standing among them.
Even a pure-hearted girl would scream and flee upon seeing such a sight.
"How short-lived this peace was."
I swallowed the bitterness and silently waited for her to turn away from me.
"..."
The silence stretched long.
I loosened my grip on the axe and lowered my gaze.
Expectations always fed on betrayal. A lesson learned from a lifetime of grinding in the north.
The girl who had saved me without asking for anything in return. Perhaps because the warmth I had felt beside her had been too warm.
I had unconsciously hoped this short peace would last a little longer.
But the corpses scattered before me and the blood puddles woke me to reality. I was still the northern mercenary king who had to live covered in blood.
'Turn away. And run.'
Waiting for her scream and the look of disgust that would surely come, I swept away the last remnants of attachment.
Tap.
At that moment, a small footstep landed on the blood-soaked puddle.
Tap, tap.
The footsteps approached steadily, at regular intervals.
I startled and looked up.
It was Elara. She glanced at the corpses, then approached right in front of me with a desperate expression, showing no fear at all.
"Lord Cassian!"
Without hesitation, she reached out and grabbed the bloodied sleeve of my shirt.
"Are you hurt? You didn't get injured anywhere, did you?"
In her eyes searching mine, there was not a trace of contempt or fear.
Only pure concern and relief for me.
"You... aren't you afraid of my appearance?"
A trembling voice slipped out of me.
I was holding an axe that had just severed a man's neck, and the smell of blood was all over my body."
"Afraid?"
Elara gripped my sleeve tighter and asked with a puzzled expression.
"You got covered in blood while trying to protect me."
"..."
"And the bad ones are those people, not you, Lord Cassian. They're chasing us while brandishing their swords so menacingly. Should we just stand there and take it?"
It was too clear and innocent logic.
The label of murderer meant nothing to her.
In her world, the only thing that mattered was that I had protected her.
With a dull thud, something inside my frozen heart cracked.
"H-here, let me have it."
Elara carefully took the axe from my hand and set it on the ground. Then she covered my bloodied hands with her small, warm ones.
"Your hands are cold again."
Still holding my hand, she blew warm air on it as if melting frozen flesh.
Warm.
The strange warmth radiating from her palms spread through my veins and throughout my body.
The sharp, tense mind gradually melted away like melting snow.
"Are you calming down now?"
Elara looked up at me and smiled brightly.
The understanding and kindness I had never received even once, even while gnawing at my life for Isolde in the northern winter.
I tightly held her hand that was supporting me.
In the middle of the blood puddle, I finally held true salvation for the first time in my life.
***
Crack!
The head of a massive wolf-like monster was crushed to pieces, blood spraying into the air.
"Kuaaaak!"
"Maintain formation! Raise shields!"
On the rough wasteland at the northern border, the narrow pass leading to the empire's center was completely swallowed by thousands of monster hordes that had broken through the weakened northern defense line.
The Black Knights' main force clashed head-on with the monster wave in a desperate battle.
"Push them back! Those who can't break through will die at my hands first!"
In the center of the battlefield, Isolde swung her sword with blood soaking her body and roared with madness.
Every time her sword slashed through the air, a dozen monsters were cut down, but the number of monsters showed no sign of decreasing.
Instead, the knights' formation was collapsing in several places because of the reckless charge orders.
"Your Highness! Charging blindly like this is impossible! The damage is too great!"
The knight captain shouted from the front of the line, deflecting a beast's claw.
The Black Knights' battles had never been like this. When facing a monster horde, the man had always been at the very front.
The mercenary king, who had led the charge into the enemy lines even with his broken body, had been the one who shattered the monsters.
By drawing all the monsters' attention and collapsing the formation, the knights could then safely mop up the survivors through the gap.
It had been the winning formula that had held the northern defense line firm for years.
But now, the man who had been their sturdy shield and sharp spear was gone.
The empty spot where he had always stood, taking death upon himself, was painfully empty.
After he disappeared and the blood wind began to blow, the knights were being torn apart by monsters without restraint.
"Kuaaaak!"
"The formation is collapsing! Hold on!"
Screams and dying words of subordinates erupted from all around. The knight captain bit his lip while gripping his sword with a trembling hand.
'If only Lord Cassian were here...!'
Such a meaningless death could have been avoided.
Everyone in the north had despised and mocked that man, but he had been the pillar who had saved and supported the lives of the Black Knights several times.
Only now, after he left and the blood rain fell, did the knights realize the truth at the cost of blood.
Slash!
While the knight captain was lost in remorse, Isolde's sword split another monster's waist in two.
Her uniform was already soaked with the blood of beasts.
She should have glanced at her fallen knights, but Isolde's gaze never left the south where Cassian was.
"Get out of the way."
Her glittering eyes were fixed only on one place—the southern sky where Cassian was.
"I'm coming, Cassian. I'll come pick you up myself."
No matter how much blood I splattered, no matter how many corpses of subordinates piled up like mountains.
The dark qi spewing from Isolde's sword swallowed the battlefield once more.
The regret that I had to pay him back somehow drove the knights into the jaws of death.
***
The courtyard in front of the cabin still reeked of blood, though the curse's influence had faded under Elara's touch.
I pulled Elara's hands away from mine.
"Step back a little."
Then I picked up the axe she had set down. There was still work left to do.
I approached the last remaining man foaming at the mouth and unconscious in the corner.
Slash.
Without hesitation, I brought the axe down on his neck. With a feeling of something catching on my fingertips, the man's breath finally stopped.
It was right to cut off the sprouts that threatened the peace here.
"I'll clean it up."
Elara tried to roll up her sleeves to wipe the blood-soaked floor, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her.
"Rest. Cleaning dirty things is my specialty."
"But Lord Cassian is also a patient."
"A patient doesn't cut people into pieces."
At my meaningless joke, Elara let out a light laugh.
The smile she gave to the murderer who had just been cutting people into pieces was far too bright.
I kicked the weapons and armor of the fallen men into a pile with my foot.
I planned to throw the corpses deep into the forest before the forest monsters could smell the blood and come running.
Crack, crunch.
At that moment, a sound came from the leader's pocket, whose head had been half severed.
I twisted the silver chest plate's seams with the axe blade and peeled it off.
From the priest's robe soaked with blood inside the chest plate, a blue communication stone emitting faint golden light rolled out.
[...Respond. Vanguard, respond.]
An old man's voice came from beyond the communication stone.
[Two days have passed since entering the Forbidden Forest. Has the witch spreading poison in the south been purified? Are you asking if the beast's lifeline has been cut?]
I picked up the communication stone and let out a laugh.
The end of the continent and the northern grudge had somehow entangled all the way to this sanctuary I had found for the first time.
[Why no response? My transmission isn't coming through...]
"The barking is quite noisy."
As soon as I heard my voice, the old man on the other side of the communication stone sucked in a sharp breath.
[W-who is it! How dare you...!]
"The flies you sent were all crushed by me just now."
[...What?]
Listening to the man's panicked breathing, I casually wiped the blood dripping from the communication stone.
"If you send even one more cult member to this forest... I won't just cut off the neck. I'll go straight to the cathedral and rip out your heads myself. Remember that."
[...W-what?! How dare you... against the cult...!]
Crack!
Just as the priest's agitated voice was about to continue, the communication stone in my grip was crushed by my grip strength.
I brushed off the fragments on my hand and turned around.
Elara was staring alternately at the broken pieces of the communication stone and at me.
She hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth carefully.
"Lord Cassian."
She bit her lip tightly and said in a resolute voice.
"Now... I'll tell you everything. About this forest and about me."