Cecilia's Defiance and the Forest of Blood
As the massive storm of mana from the insect's slaughter finally subsided, Cecilia's body, floating in midair, slowly descended to the ground.
"Ha, this is insane... I can't believe it."
The corners of the Royal Archmage Izakar's mouth twisted up in a sneer. His eyes gleamed with sticky fascination and greed, like a man who'd unearthed a diamond in a mud pit.
"To think a monster of talent like this was buried in a pigsty backwater like this?"
With one hand arrogantly shoved into the pocket of his exquisitely tailored ornate robe, he strode toward Cecilia.
"Pack your things right now. You're coming to the capital with me. Serve under me properly, and I'll propel you straight to the top of this kingdom."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was the natural, haughty decree from a young genius born at the pinnacle.
The village chief and townsfolk, prostrated on the ground, gasped in shock. A slum-born wench ascending in one leap to the royal court as the personal disciple of the greatest mage—it was an unprecedented miracle.
But Cecilia's response held not a shred of hesitation.
"...I refuse."
A heavy silence fell over the square, like a bucket of ice water dumped on a blaze.
"I'm not leaving this village. Because... there's someone here I have to stay by."
With those words, Cecilia cast a tender, sorrowful gaze toward me, slumped at the edge of the crowd on the dirt ground.
Her blind affection for me. But to me right now, that gaze was nothing but a sharp thorn, ruthlessly tearing into my fragile pride.
"...What?"
Izakar's leisurely expression blanked for a moment, then burst into incredulous laughter.
"Ha, you've got to be kidding me. In all my life..."
It was the moment the pride of a young, arrogant genius cracked wide open.
In an instant, his handsome features twisted hideously, and a bluish killing intent exploded from his entire body like a eruption.
"Can't grasp your place, huh? This isn't a proposal. How dare a country bumpkin bitch kick away my gracious offer?"
His booming roar unleashed a killing intent utterly unlike Cecilia's mana—something that crushed life itself, strangling the breath from your throat.
"H-Hiiik!"
Under that murderous pressure, the village chief and Kyle writhed on the ground, foaming at the mouth on the verge of passing out. Even I clutched my crushed chest, spewing ragged breaths laced with blood.
Powerless vermin like us could only prostrate ourselves, praying for this young monster's wrath to pass.
But Cecilia, standing at the epicenter of that horrific fury, was different. Her slender shoulders trembled, yet she refused to kneel or bow her head. Instead, faint pink mana rose around her once more, shoving back Izakar's overwhelming killing intent head-on.
Unlike me, who'd thrashed my whole life just to survive this hellish world, she stood tall, chin raised defiantly against the tyrant's rage.
The light radiating from the center of the square was blinding. Cecilia's back, unyielding before the young archmage's terror—everyone in the village held their breath, gazing in awestruck wonder.
But at the back of the crowd, watching from the cold dirt, a venomous sense of betrayal and thick inferiority coiled like a serpent in my chest.
She was light. Born with miracles in her veins, a noble, radiant light even that arrogant young royal mage coveted.
And me? A pathetic lump of meat, rolling in the beastly forest my whole life, spilling blood only to have my face shoved into the dirt by a mage's flick of the wrist.
'Stay for my sake...?'
Her blind love and devotion only gouged deeper into my wretched reality.
A woman with such vast, dazzling talent declaring she'd clip her shining wings, all to protect the flimsy pride of trash like me, and wallow in the mud.
It wasn't love. It was the cruelest, most violent pity.
"K-Kain...!"
Even amid the suffocating standoff with the archmage, Cecilia scanned the crowd desperately with a pleading voice.
Her frantic, beautiful eyes were about to reach the crowd's edge—
I pushed myself up from the dirt. Then, with bloodshot eyes, I turned my back on her gaze completely, my back gone cold.
"Kain! You're there, right? Kain...!"
Her heartbroken cry echoed through the square from behind me. But I never once looked back.
Her world, filled with noble light. My world, crawling in darkness, offering nothing.
Crossing that cruel, unmistakable line, I became a total outsider, fleeing into the shadows of the cold alley like a coward.
The night was deep, and I was holed up in my rundown shack, not even lighting a lamp. The searing shame and betrayal from the square still shredded my chest like jagged glass shards.
The misery of being mana-less, Cecilia's overwhelming talent that had deceived me all this time. I buried my face in my hands and groaned like a beast.
BAM...!!
Then, with a thunderous crash like the door might shatter, it flew open violently.
"Haa, haa...!"
A figure emerged from the darkness, panting harshly. I could hardly believe my eyes.
It was Kyle. The bastard who'd been brutally crushed by the inquisitor in the square that day, charging into my room covered in dirt and unwashed blood.
"Kyle...? What the hell are you doing here...?"
Before I could leap up and unleash my killing intent, Kyle lunged like a beast, seizing my collar roughly.
I instinctively grabbed his collar too. His eyes were bloodshot with rage and desperation.
"You fucking idiot!! This isn't the time to mope around like a corpse! Cecilia... Cecilia's been taken!!"
"...What?"
His words hit like a gut punch, my heart plummeting.
"That royal mage bastard's underlings barged in at night! Cecilia fought like hell saying she wouldn't go, but they knocked her out cold and stuffed her into the carriage like luggage! The village chief that son of a bitch blocked everyone, saying we can't piss off the royals, and let it happen!"
Kyle's bloodshot scream vaporized the petty betrayal and inferiority swirling in my head in an instant.
"I fucking hate it, but I can't handle those monster fucks alone. In this shithole village, you're the only dumbass crazy enough to risk your neck with me against those psychos!"
A desperate alliance from the guy who'd mocked and trampled me. No time to question why.
She'd been dragged off like an animal. My body moved before my head.
I snatched the battered hunting dagger from the corner and burst out like a feral beast, Kyle right on my heels, teeth gritted.
We plunged into pitch-black night without a torch, racing toward the forest.
Arrogant as the mages were, they hadn't bothered hiding tracks. Massive carriage wheel ruts stretched clearly from the village edge deep into the woods.
Branches tore flesh, jagged rocks gashed my feet bloody—but I chased like a madman, pain nonexistent.
How long did we run? Far beyond the Training Forest, in deeper, damper abyss, a flickering red glow caught my eye.
"Shh, Kain. There. Down."
Kyle pressed my shoulder urgently, shoving us behind a massive bush.
Peering through the foliage, breath held, I bit my lip until blood seeped from my gums.
In a campfire-lit clearing stood the ornate royal carriage from earlier. And at the base of a thick tree trunk a bit away, Cecilia lay unconscious, bound in layers of mana chains on the cold dirt.
Her once-noble white linen dress was filthy with mud, rough chains digging into her delicate skin, leaving red bloodstains.
Around the fire, three of Izakar's haughty mage underlings cackled, swigging from bottles.
Kyle, prone in the bushes, shoved the rusty dagger into my hand, growling like a beast.
"Mages are human flesh no matter how strong. Only way is to slit their throats while they sleep."
Two subordinates, drunk, dozed against the fire. The last paced near the carriage.
His words halted my breath. Murder. The vivid, horrific weight made my dagger hand tremble violently.
"B-But... killing someone... I've never stabbed anyone..."
My hesitation drew a savage glint from Kyle's bloodshot eyes. He yanked my collar, hissing low.
"Snap out of it, you moron! You think those unnatural monster fucks deserve mercy? If you don't kill them here, we're dead, and Cecilia's their plaything forever!"
He was right. But bone-deep terror of mages, etched from a lifetime of abuse, and the fear of taking life leadened my legs like iron.
"I'll draw the pacing one's eyes. You shove steel into the sleepers' throats. Got it?"
Kyle gripped his battered sword, not waiting for reply.
"One... two..."
His lips moved in death's countdown. My heart thrashed like it would burst my ribs.
"Three!"
With the count, Kyle exploded from the bushes. I tried to follow, dagger raised—but my body froze.
Like mired in quicksand, I couldn't budge. Instinctual revulsion to murder and utter powerlessness before mages held my ankles fast.
In that frozen instant of panting, Kyle's footsteps shattered the silence—one dozing mage's eyes snapped open.
"Who goes there...!!!"
Blue flames erupted sharply from the mage's fingertips.
Kyle, alone, became the target in a heartbeat.
"Sh-Shit! Kain! What the fuck!!"
Kyle belatedly summoned a wind barrier, but the power gap was brutally vast. The fireball shredded his flimsy gale, slamming his chest.
"GRAAAAAAAH!!"
Flesh searing screams tore the forest.
"Filthy trash. Where do you get off?"
As the mage sneered, closing to finish Kyle—
Burnt black, vomiting blood, Kyle's eyes blazed demonic as he kicked up from the dirt.
"Die with me, you bastard..!!!"
Kyle didn't dodge the second spell—took it full on his exposed bones, ramming his rusty sword deep into the mage's throat.
SCHLUK...!!
"G-Guhk...!"
Blood fountained from the mage's neck. Eyes bulging in disbelief, he toppled gurgling. Kyle, blasted by horrific magic, collapsed too—a mangled, unrecognizable meat heap.
"K-Kyle...!"
The bully who'd sneered and crushed me. But in his final moment, he'd baited in my stead, sacrificing everything. Before his gruesome corpse, I just trembled in the bushes, clutching the rusty dagger like an idiot.
My utter failure, my crippling incompetence, had wrought this disaster.
"Tch, persistent vermin."
The remaining two mages scoffed at their comrade's death, approaching. They prodded Kyle's charred, formless remains with their boots like roadside filth.
"Slum trash with no place daring a mage? Pathetic bug."
One stomped Kyle's pulped skull arrogantly, spitting.
That instant, something inside me snapped.
Kyle. The tormentor who'd treated me like dirt. But the village's only talent I'd secretly envied.
And these lofty mage peons mocked his valiant death, grinding it underfoot.
"...I'll kill you."
Terror evaporated. Pure crimson rage scorched my mind white.
"I'll fucking slaughter you...!!!"
I roared beastly, bursting from the bushes.
"What? Another rat... Huh?!"
The mage stomping Kyle turned late—I hurled the rusty dagger with all my might.
No aim for spells. But every dawn, through bone-crushing agony, thousands upon tens of thousands of strikes on tree trunks—my honed grip and arm strength. I trusted my body's sole instinct.
WHOOSH—THUNK!
"GRAAAAH! My, my eye!"
A miracle. The spinning blade speared his left eye dead-on. He clutched it, screaming, collapsing.
"You crazy fuck!"
The last mage paled, aiming his staff. No time for incantation—a massive flame blade erupted.
No dodging. I twisted instinctively, sparing vitals—but searing agony hit my left shoulder.
"Ngh!"
My left arm sheared off, flying. Blood gushed arterial from the stump, pain hammering my brain.
But I didn't stop. Agony drowned in adrenaline and murder-lust.
"Die! Die! Fucking DIE!!!"
One-armed, I pounced the stumbling final mage. He flailed in terror, but my gravity-forest crawl-forged strength overpowered him.
I snatched a fist-sized jagged rock from the dirt, gripping it savagely right-handed.
"Mercy, please! Spare me!"
"Shut up!!"
THUD! CRACK! SPLAT! SQUISH!
No fancy spells needed. I howled like a beast, smashing his skull—again, again. Until the haughty mage's face was pulp, cranium caved, motionless.
Until my face and body were drenched in his filthy gore, my wretched vengeance raged on.