Beneath the brilliantly shining moonlight, the man died helplessly.
At the hands of a terrifyingly beautiful man.
Without even blinking once, beneath that man’s feet.
Like a blade melting away.
***
I feel completely refreshed!
I suppressed the urge to start jumping around.
God, I almost wanted to grab someone and ask.
Do you people always live with bodies that feel this refreshed? What the hell does that even feel like?
I’ve only been in this forest for a few weeks, and I’m already feeling a kind of happiness I never could’ve imagined......
“Haaah.”
The feeling of dirt beneath my bare feet tickled the soles of them. Soft, damp, cool earth mixed with tiny grains thoroughly massaged my feet.
On the first day I entered the forest, the old apothecary asked me, “Would you like to try walking barefoot?” Ever since then, I walked through the forest barefoot every single day. The first day had hurt so badly it felt like the bottoms of my feet were on fire, but after a few days it began to feel as though that burning heat scattered into the soil.
No, maybe the dirt was absorbing it.
Anyway, even my episodes had noticeably decreased, so honestly, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it.
What if... my illness actually gets cured like this?
Gulp.
I swallowed hard and blankly stopped walking.
A cool breeze swept over my head. Leaving my scattered hair alone, I looked up at the sky. Bright sunlight spilled beneath the tiny patch of sky blocked by the towering trees.
***
Ren first started feeling that something was strange around three weeks after entering the Forest of Aked.
One night, while listening to the starlight rising overhead, the flower petals quietly drifting beneath it, and the whispering breaths of the trees scattering through the darkness, he suddenly looked up and found the face before him strangely unfamiliar.
‘Who was this person again?’
The hand holding his spoon slowed, and Ren stared fixedly at the man.
Silver armor touched by fragments of sunlight. Eyes sharp as a well-honed blade. A stiff expression.
As Ren silently stared at him, the man spoke.
“Lord Lucia. Is there something you wish to say?”
Even the voice sounded terribly unfamiliar.
It was definitely a voice with traces of familiarity in it, and yet......
Ren’s lips twitched before stopping.
He couldn’t answer carelessly.
Something squirmed beneath blurred afterimages, as though someone had crushed up his memories and smeared them apart, but he could not pull them out no matter how hard he tried.
The knight saw the confusion trembling in Ren’s eyes, yet pretended not to notice.
“Eat more. You’ll need to build your strength.”
Since it will be a long journey.
The knight quietly added the last words.
Ren swallowed down his confusion along with his meal.
After finishing dinner, Ren skipped his usual walk and lay down early instead.
What did he mean by a long journey?
Did it mean they would travel far after leaving this forest?
Lucia?
Was that really my name?
I guess it must be. Otherwise it wouldn’t sound so familiar to my ears.
More importantly, why am I this sleepy?
Just as Ren thought sleepiness was crashing over him, he felt his consciousness suddenly plunge into darkness.
“Physician.”
Right then, Veron appeared. Once again, he carried a large armful of something in his hands. Freshly cut grass fluttered carelessly in the wind.
Veron’s gaze briefly lingered on the sleeping Ren. When Veron looked back at the knight, the knight spoke first.
“I’ll go make contact.”
Without waiting for a response from the old apothecary, the knight strode away.
By now, they had moved to the western edge of the Forest of Aked and settled there.
While crossing the forest, they had never encountered another person even once.
At first, the tightly wound knight had thought that was extremely fortunate, but as time passed, he realized it had only been his misunderstanding.
There was no way such impossible luck could continue over and over.
They had not encountered even a single beast.
The Forest of Aked, which erased traces after one remained inside it for a month.
A month could be considered long or short.
But considering the mysterious power that supposedly erased all traces, it was an extremely short amount of time.
There was no way one could spend merely a month here so easily.
Only the forest’s mysterious power was widely known.
There were no stories about what happened inside the dark forest, what kind of power hunted down and killed the pursuers who entered it, or how people emerged from the forest afterward.
Whether that was because everyone died inside the forest, or because they erased all traces of themselves and were reborn anew, no one knew.
However, after seeing far too many skeletons and bloodstains to dismiss, the knight guessed the truth was probably the former.
No one knew how the blades stuck to the ground like hardened sugar might transform in a single instant. The world held many mysterious powers beyond mere magic.
The knight recalled authority flashing across the sky, then immediately buried the thought.
That was not something for him to concern himself with.
All he needed to do was safely erase that boy’s traces and complete his mission.
The knight suddenly faltered mid-step.
He remembered the unfamiliar gaze Ren had fixed on him.
Ever since entering the forest, Ren had become unusually cheerful and often treated him familiarly, but that expression had been the first of its kind.
Those eyes, groping desperately for familiar traces like a lost fawn searching for its herd, remained burned into his memory.
Though Ren had seemed to accept the name “Lucia” after hearing it repeated almost hypnotically, the confusion lingering on his face had been unmistakable.
Proof that the forest’s mysterious power was taking effect.
No one truly knew what it meant to erase every trace of oneself. Since there were no accounts from those who left the Forest of Aked, only wild rumors existed.
But the knight felt as though he vaguely understood.
The world one belonged to gradually faded, and all those memories were erased.
Through that, one would gain freedom.
Likewise, one’s traces within the world would fade and eventually disappear entirely.
And through that, perfect freedom would finally be complete.
The knight looked up at the brilliant sunlight piercing through the trees.
It resembled the boy’s blond hair.
Then once he safely escorted him, fulfilled every required day, and finally left the forest—
Would he forget that boy as well?
Pointless thoughts.
None of that was for the knight to concern himself with. The only thing important was carrying out his mission flawlessly.
For the mission to truly be perfect, he too would need to forget the boy.
And yet the knight could not erase one lingering feeling.
That he would never forget the boy’s gaze, blurred faintly like a rain-streaked window.
The knight emerged from the forest in one swift motion and pulled a small crystal orb from inside his coat.
Though it was the highest-grade crystal orb, perhaps because he still had not fully escaped the forest’s domain even after leaving it, harsh static crackled through it.
A land without shadows welcomed him.
“My lo—”
“Lord Giselle.”
At the voice coming from within the orb, the knight lifted his gaze from the ground. Bowing his head, he spoke.
“Everything is proceeding smoothly.”
“There must not be the slightest mistake. Every procedure must be carried out without omission.”
The calm voice flowed out from the crystal orb.
“Yes. I will remember that.”
The communication ended quickly.
Giselle’s face inside the orb had been too blurred to see clearly.
***
The light of the crystal orb vanished.
Giselle lowered the orb in his hand and lifted his head.
Outside the window, the sun was beginning to rise.
Far away, red light slowly stained the blue dawn. Yet the sun had not fully risen yet.
Which meant Giselle still had more arrangements to make.
“Lord Giselle, you summoned me?”
A servant quietly bowed before him.
Within the silent sleeping royal palace, Giselle gave the servant a secret order.
The servant who received Giselle’s command hurried away.
The order he had received at dawn was one he could not understand.
A sinister premonition briefly brushed across his chest, but the servant did not question it.
After all, how could the pillar of the royal castle, the person closest to the king, the indomitable Hero respected by all, possibly have ulterior motives?
The servant completely erased the suspicion that had crossed his heart and instead blamed himself.
How dare I think something so disrespectful. Lord Giselle is an extraordinary person. Nothing can be hidden before him.
If that man were to ask whether he harbored improper thoughts, the servant swore he would immediately kneel and beg forgiveness for his sins.
Crossing through halls washed in blue light and past windows flooded with dawn, the servant exited the royal palace.
Perhaps because of the dawn light, the servant’s face looked terribly pale.
The servant headed toward the knights’ quarters.
Approaching a detached building located at the very innermost section, the servant reached out without hesitation to knock.
Click.
His fist froze midair.
The door had opened before he could even knock.
The servant slowly raised his head toward the shadow cast over him.
The man he had come to find was staring down at him.
“What brings you here?”
Though his face appeared gaunt, his eyes burned sharply alive.
Swallowing hard, the servant pulled something from his coat and held it out.
“This is Lord Giselle’s order. Find this person......”
Whoooooosh.
A fierce wind blew.
Yet it no longer carried any coldness.
Within the warm wind, the servant’s words scattered away.
Silently, the knight looked at the boy on the sheet of paper the servant held out.
The boy on the paper possessed the kind of face impossible to forget after seeing it once. It almost felt as though he were staring directly back at him.
The servant pulled out one more object from his coat.
A sphere filled with mysterious light.
***
And so, after more than a month had passed and summer arrived, unexpected news reached the kingdom together with reports of victory.
What arrived alongside the letter was a hastily recovered corpse.
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