The Shadow That Devours
Asera? What are you staring at like that?
“...Huh? Ah, it’s nothing. Just...”
“Is there really something in this forest worth losing your mind over? Did you see a rabbit with three legs or something?”
Lien glanced around, tossing out the absurd question, but Asera could not answer her. She herself had no idea why she was reacting this way.
It feels so strangely familiar… and yet so longed for.
Beyond the great forest. What could possibly lie in the direction she kept watching?
“Anyway! We’re done, right?! Ugh, I’m soaked in sweat all the way up here…!”
Lien flopped onto the grass and kicked off her sweat-drenched leather boots. Her red-and-white uniform had long since become a mess of dirt and mud.
“Just like Velpi said, the beasts really have turned savage, haven’t they? This area is right on the village outskirts—it was always supposed to be a safe zone.”
“...It does feel that way. They seem far more ferocious than before.”
Asera flicked the blood from her blade into the air and slid it back into its sheath with practiced ease. The wolves’ movements had indeed been strange. It was as if something had been chasing them in a panic.
“Ugh, I just want to get back and wash! I think I smell like animal all over…!”
“Here, Lien. Some water.”
“Hehe, thanks. What would I do without you, Asera?”
Lien took the canteen and soothed her parched throat. A comfortable smile soon bloomed on her lips.
The two of them had left their homeland long ago and traveled together through the Allied Kingdom for years. Because of that, even though they never chased fame, their names had become well-known inside the guild. Of course, the rumors about them were not all good.
“Ah. Now that I think about it, I suddenly don’t want to go back.”
“That’s new. Weren’t you the one saying you wanted to wash up right away?”
“The dispatch leader is just going to pester you again. All that talk about the family this, the family that.”
“...I’ve gotten used to it by now.”
The hero of the continent. The prestigious swordsmanship house of Abelleo. A name so great that it was harder to find someone who hadn’t heard it, no matter the nation. The clan of the hero who had reached the pinnacle of the blade and brought peace to the land. Part of the reason their fame had spread so far was undoubtedly Asera’s own name, tied as it was to that bloodline.
“....”
A heavy shadow fell across Asera’s eyes. Asera Le Abelleo—she wanted nothing more than to cast that name away. Hero, renown, family. Those glittering shells were nothing but useless ornaments to her. It would have been better if they had never existed at all. Only blood connected her to that place; there had never been a seat for her there.
Where exactly should I exist, you ask? What a trivial question.
Why don’t you simply disappear on your own? That is what it means to be unable to inherit Abelleo’s black sword energy.
The swamp of her dark past began to rise again from beneath her feet. The stain of Abelleo. The terrible nickname that followed her everywhere she went.
Asera’s breathing slowly grew ragged. Those pitch-black gazes that seemed to crawl over her once more—
“...Asera, are you all right?”
Suddenly, Lien’s warmth reached her. She had gently laid her hand over the back of Asera’s own. Only then did Asera realize her fingertips were trembling.
Had Lien truly caught even this tiny tremor?
“...Yes. I’m fine.”
Lien. The only person who appeared at the moments she needed her most and supported her through every hardship of their long journey. As long as she could continue this path with her, that would be enough.
“If it’s too much, tell me. That’s why I’m here.”
“...Thank you. I really am all right now.”
Asera pressed her lips together and steadied her wavering heart.
She would prove herself. Without being swayed by the family name, she would prove her own worth.
Their eyes met in the air. They exchanged the kind of smile only the two of them could understand.
“Right! Mission’s over, so let’s hurry back and eat lunch!”
“Yes, if we head back now—”
—She stopped dead.
“Hm? Asera, what’s wrong?”
“...Lien, don’t you smell something strange?”
A scent. The wind blowing from deep inside the forest carried an alien presence at its edge, and she had caught it.
“Smell…? Wait, do I really stink that badly?!”
Lien seemed to have misunderstood completely. She panicked and buried her nose against her own body, sniffing frantically.
“No, it’s different. This is…”
Asera’s gaze turned toward the far side of the Pielses Great Forest, toward the unpleasant presence mixed with a twisted fishy odor and the stench of rancid oil.
The shadows hanging between the dense trees felt unusually dark and viscous.
“That direction… should be where the village near here lies.”
The map Velpi had shown her that morning suddenly flashed through her mind.
Olpia Village. A small settlement on the edge of the Pielses Great Forest, populated only by civilians.
Why would something like this be coming from there…?
The revulsion was far too strong to be a normal presence from the area. Even when she tried to ignore it, an oppressive discomfort crawled across her skin like gooseflesh.
Asera’s eyes slid toward Lien. The trembling hands, the wounds from earlier—Lien did not look fit to move quickly. At this moment, only Asera could afford to hurry.
“Uhh… Asera? Your face is scary… I’ll wash properly when we get back, I promise…!”
“Lien.”
“Y-yes…?”
“Go back to the carriage first. I’ll check the village nearby and catch up right away.”
Asera readjusted her grip on her sword. Her feet turned toward the depths of the great forest she had been watching so intently.
“What?! The guild carriage is about to leave soon??”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take a quick look and run straight back!”
“Wait, that’s not—”
The desperate shout chased after her, but it could not catch the ankles of Asera, who had already kicked off the ground.
With every step, her senses sharpened.
It’s close. This isn’t the smell of beast blood.
As the wind rushed past her, the stench stabbing her nose grew thicker still.
This Pielses Great Forest was known as the safest zone in the entire Allied Kingdom. Yet right now the air here pressed down heavier than anywhere else.
Why?
A short while ago, the far side of the great forest where her gaze had lingered as if possessed. Her intuition whispered that this repulsive, sickening presence stretched exactly toward that place.
Deep in the forest’s thick darkness, silver-white hair whipped wildly at tremendous speed. It looked like a comet streaking across the night sky.
Clank. Clank—
The silver-blue armor gleamed, violently tearing apart the forest’s silence.
“Haa… haa…”
Her running legs screamed with exhaustion. She was better off than Lien, but the morning’s mission had already drained much of her stamina. Still, Asera had no attention to spare for her body’s condition.
It was dark. Abnormally, unnaturally dark. It was hard to believe this was the middle of the day.
Something is wrong. I’ll just check the village nearby and turn back.
—Screeech. Squeak!
At that moment, an animal cry scraped across her eardrums.
“—!”
She stopped instantly and turned toward the sound.
“A deer…? And… what is that?”
What filled her vision was a grotesque scene unfolding in the middle of the woods. A bizarre shape like a black shadow was coiling tightly around a single deer.
It moved like a living whip, yet each strand was as thick as an adult man’s torso. The deer was being crushed, its entire body constricted to the breaking point.
“...Just in case.”
Swoosh—slash.
Asera’s sword drew a clean arc through the air. The sensation at the blade’s edge was strangely light.
Splat. Splat—
The black shape vomited thick oil along the severed cross-section, then lost its form in an instant and seeped into the ground.
“This is a Blaim.”
Blaim. A lesser monster that fed on the gases and oils of animal carcasses. Normally it was round and sluggish like a slime, a bottom-tier creature that even passing wild animals would tear apart.
“Why does a Blaim look like this…? A new variant…?”
Questions multiplied, but then she felt a gaze upon her.
“...Ah.”
It was the deer she had just saved. The creature had already backed a good distance away and was staring at her with large, round eyes. Was it trying to thank her?
She offered a faint smile and waved lightly.
—Grab!
Suddenly the forest’s deep darkness twisted and swallowed the deer whole.
“—!!?”
A pitch-black shadow. The shape writhed as it covered the spot where the deer had stood. Right after, only the sickening sounds of bone and flesh being pulverized echoed through the silent woods.
“What—”
Asera froze where she stood.
“...No. Way.”
She had simply thought the forest was unusually dark. That had been a mistake.
The pitch blackness that swallowed her vision, the thick darkness filling every gap between the trees. Only now did she understand that the massive curtain enveloping the entire Pielses Great Forest was actually the enormous body of something else.
“It can’t be… the whole forest is wrapped in it…?”
—Gurgle. Crack, crrrk.
Its feeding seemed to have ended. No trace of the deer remained. Soon, something horribly familiar began to creep across the surface of that vast darkness.
“—!”
The tentacle as thick as a man that she had cut moments ago. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a single hair from the creature’s hide. The moment the thought struck her, the sword in her hand began to tremble.
Just what was she facing right now?
“......”
Asera clenched her teeth. The shaking hilt was steadied at once.
Because I must prove myself.
The fear seeping in—what could she do about it? There was no reason to stop. Trembling in fear would solve nothing.
To illuminate this journey, she raised her platinum greatsword high—
—Grab!
—Crack. Gurgle.
The silver-blue knight was swallowed into the pitch-black shadow.