The Beasts' Mealtime
"……"
In a yard where even the wind held its breath, Elara finally spoke.
"This forest was originally a land of deadly poison where no life could survive."
Her voice did not waver.
"I was born to purify that toxic miasma… something like a fragment of the forest. I suppress this forest's deadly poison with the life force inside me."
The reason the magical beasts had avoided her. The reason the curse in my body had settled.
All the questions I had carried until now began interlocking, linking into a single shape.
"Do the cult bastards know that too?"
At my question, Elara nodded bitterly.
"Yes. They've lost their true miracles. When their divine power ran dry and the sect's authority began to shake, they decided to wring out my life force to make Holy Water."
Elara looked down at the inquisitor's corpse sprawled on the ground.
"And to the rest of the world, they lie that they've gone to purify an evil witch who spreads deadly poison."
Fabricating the truth under the banner of a righteous cause. Making an innocent scapegoat into a sacrifice to keep their power intact.
Rage surged up from deep in my chest. Because my past self seemed to overlap with hers.
Me, coughing blood while carrying Isolde's curse in her place — Julian and the northern nobles had branded me a drug addict corrupted by black magic.
The knights who swallowed that propaganda began to despise me, and the woman I had risked my life to save simply stood by and watched within that political arena.
Whether it was the Sun Sect bastards who claimed to save the world, or the northern pups who cried out about pride — the ecosystem of those who trampled others to fill their own bellies was identical enough to make me want to vomit.
"They'll keep coming."
Elara hung her head low. Her slender shoulders trembled faintly.
"I can't put you in danger any longer, Cassian. I should leave this forest…"
Instead of answering, I kicked the man's corpse that had been lying on the ground.
Clang.
A fairly decent silver longsword, pinned beneath the body, came into view.
I discarded the old axe with its chipped edge and clotted blood, and picked up the longsword.
Not a bad balance.
When I gave my wrist a light turn, the blade cut through the air with a sharp whistle.
"If you run."
I turned my head and met Elara's eyes.
"If you run away, who will cook my herb soup for me?"
"What…?"
Elara lifted her head, her eyes going blank and wide. I sheathed the longsword as I added:
"Being framed with absurd charges and despised — I don't want to go through that twice in one lifetime. Just keep preparing the herbs. I'll protect my own sanctuary myself."
That night, a peace no different from before settled over the cabin.
I did not sleep. I made my way to the forest's boundary line, where darkness had already settled in.
The Sun Sect's advance party had been annihilated, and even their communications cut off.
Even for those stupid fanatics, it was obvious they would send elite forces here within a few days — the Holy Knights, for instance.
No reason to just sit around and offer up my neck.
I drew the cold night air deep into my lungs and mapped the forest's terrain in my mind.
The Forbidden Forest. Even with Elara suppressing it, this place was still a death zone crawling with vicious poisonous magical beasts.
Those bastards wouldn't know the forest's paths properly. If I used that, an interesting picture would emerge.
I dragged the tip of the longsword along the ground as I walked toward the forest entrance.
Slash. Scrape.
A dark forest where even moonlight did not reach.
I cut down without hesitation the nameless poisonous thorn bushes growing at various points along the path.
Thanks to the herbal decoction Elara boiled for me every day, I barely felt the curse's pain. Because of that, the sharp senses from my northern days had fully returned.
I smeared the sap of the cut poisonous bushes onto the wound sites of the corpses I had dragged over. Then I tossed the still-bleeding bodies conspicuously into the middle of the path where the cult's main force would likely enter.
Smelling the bait I had thrown at the forest's entrance, by tomorrow morning all sorts of magical beasts inhabiting the forest would flock to this path.
Magical beasts are sensitive to the smell of blood, after all.
The moment the Sun Sect's Holy Knights set foot on this path, they would first exchange a warm greeting with the magical beasts.
And if any persistent bastards survived breaking through those creatures—
"Then I'll cut their throats with my own sword."
A chilly night wind brushed past my cheek.
Rustle.
Then a cautious presence came from behind me.
"Cassian. You haven't gone to sleep… what on earth are you doing out here?"
When I turned my head, Elara, wearing a thin cardigan, was looking at me with worried eyes. Her olive-green eyes, catching the moonlight, shone clear and bright.
"I was setting some mousetraps."
I replied indifferently as I approached her.
"Mousetraps…?"
"Yeah. Some very large and disgusting ones are expected to take the bait, so I set out a meal for them in advance."
Elara tilted her head as if she didn't understand my idle joke. Instead of kindly explaining, I pointed toward the cabin.
"The night wind is cold. Go inside and sleep. I don't want to skip tomorrow morning's herb soup."
At my blunt scolding, Elara smiled gently and nodded.
Only after confirming her smile could I finally loosen the tension that had hardened my shoulders.
No matter how fierce the coming storm, it would not be able to ruin this quiet and gentle night.
Thud—!
The head of the last remaining magical beast split in two, fragments scattering.
"Hah, hah…!"
At the far edge of the northern border, the long bloody battle with the magical beast horde that had broken through the defensive line had finally ended.
But the reality that the surviving main force of the Black Knights faced was not the joy of victory — it was a hellscape where corpses formed mountains.
One-third of their forces.
Without Cassian, the Black Knights had lost thousands of knights in just a single breakthrough.
"Your Grace…!"
The blood-soaked knight commander approached and dropped to one knee. The wrist gripping his sword trembled as if convulsing.
"The men's fatigue has reached its limit. The formation has collapsed, and there are too many wounded."
He pleaded desperately.
"Please… please, we must regroup the forces for even just one day! If you force the march like this, half the troops will die of exhaustion!"
They needed the bare minimum rest for survival. Even for the elite Black Knights, running day and night without rest was a brutal demand.
However.
Isolde did not even turn her head at the knight commander's counsel.
Without looking down at her bleeding subordinates, she gazed only at the southern sky.
"…You want to rest?"
Sssss.
Isolde drew from her breast a blood-soaked scrap of black cloth.
The shirt fragment Cassian had left behind.
She brought that scrap, which carried the scent of rotting roses, to her nose.
"Hnn…"
Drawing a deep breath as if quenching a thirst, she tucked the shirt fragment back into her breast as she thought of Cassian.
Then, putting force into the hand gripping her demon sword, she barked at the knights.
"Those who wish to rest may rest here forever."
"Your Grace…!"
"March."
Isolde raced ahead alone before the soldiers could even compose themselves.
Neither the safety of her domain nor the lives of her subordinates mattered to her. Only the twisted desire to pay the price of her sins to Cassian remained in her chest.
"…All forces, march!!"
With the knight commander's despairing cry, the half-destroyed Black Knights began forcibly lifting their feet.
The southern forest in the early morning was blanketed in fog.
I sat with my back against the thick branch of a massive ancient tree, leisurely watching the comedy about to unfold.
"So a witch is hiding in this stinking beast den, is that it."
Silver armor with a pure white cloak bearing the sun's emblem. The cult's elite — the Holy Knights.
Pushing in the main force the moment radio contact with the advance party was cut — they were diligent, at least. The problem was that only their bodies were diligent while their heads were empty.
The gleaming armor they wore was an excellent target advertising Here I am in the dark forest.
"Captain! Over there, that is…!"
One of the knights walking in front discovered the inquisitor's corpse I had thrown in the middle of the path and approached.
A corpse reeking of stench where poisonous bush sap and blood had clotted together.
"Th-this is the heretic inquisitors' uniform! Good heavens, what on earth was done to them…"
The moment they crowded around the corpse in confusion, the forest's shadows began slowly approaching.
Kyaaaaak—!
With grotesque screams, dozens of red eyes flashed within the fog.
They were the southern poisonous magical beasts that had been starving, intoxicated by the blood scent all night.
"M-magical beast horde! Form defensive positions!"
The Holy Knight commander urgently drew his sword, but it was too late.
The beasts pouring out from all directions instantly overwhelmed the knights. Steel armor crumpled like clay, and the sound of flesh being torn apart shattered the forest's silence.
"Kyaaaah! My leg! My leg!"
"Hold the formation! Draw divine power— gah!"
That fine god who supposedly bestowed grace apparently hadn't come this deep into the forest.
Arms crossed, I looked down at the proud Holy Knights being reduced to the beasts' breakfast.
Main course wrapped in shiny tin cans.
It was quite a spectacle of a banquet.
Still, a few of them are holding up pretty well.
Even a rich man takes three years to go completely broke, they say — even rotten, the cult's elite were still elite.
A few of them exploded their divine power to smash the beasts' skulls and barely broke through the encirclement, leaping free.
"Hah, hah…! Quickly, out of the forest…!"
The blood-soaked knight commander and three knights came fleeing, gasping for breath, beneath the ancient tree where I sat. Their eyes were already dead with terror, the light gone from them.
I gripped the longsword's hilt and leaped down from the branch.
Thud.
"…!"
At the sudden appearance of a guest, the commander's shoulders jumped hard.
"Wh-who are you! How dare you before the Holy Knights of the cult…!"
I showed them a false smile.
Over the blade of the longsword slowly drawn from its scabbard, the sword aura that had swept the northern battlefields rose up.
"I set a mousetrap, and some fat piglets walked right into it."
Watching their faces turn deathly pale at my presence, I adjusted my grip on the longsword at an angle.
"The beasts' mealtime is over."
I aimed the tip of my sword at the knight commander's throat and added:
"Now it's time to feed dessert to my blade."