Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 14.1 - Chapter 4.08

8. Forest

The black forest spread out before them.

It was a forest, and the leaves were a verdant green if you looked closely, but the dense trees blocked out the light of the sun, leaving a darker impression.

The trees of the Shadow Forest were all so thick and tall that they seemed unreal.

The whole forest seemed like a giant monster that transcended human knowledge, and it felt like it might move at any moment.

“Is it safe to go in there?” Ranta asked cautiously.

“Tch, tch, tch...” Wezel’s shoulders shook with laughter. For as gloomy as the guy seemed, he could be pretty jolly. “How could it be? The Shadow Forest is a natural fortress.”

“Man, you’ve never been to Arnotu before, have you?”

“No.”

“You know the way there?”

Wezel shrugged. That could be either a denial, or a confirmation.

“Wait, which is it?” Ranta demanded.

Wezel entered the forest without ever clarifying.

What was with his personality?

It was still before noon, but the forest was pretty dark. The ground was covered in moss. The earth was barely exposed at all. Some of the mushrooms and ferns that grew everywhere were luminescent, and the place was pretty in its own way.

Winged centipedes, jellyfish-like creatures that floated in the air, butterflies or moths that scattered phosphorescent dust as they fluttered by, and apes with a spider-like number of arms jumping from branch to branch. There were many unique creatures that stood out.

Wezel would proceed one way, turn back, then proceed another way before turning back again. There were rifts they couldn’t possibly jump over here and there, and when they ran into one, all they could do was detour around it.

Still, it was dark.

It had been dark since they’d entered the forest, but this was way too dark.

He couldn’t tell the direction of the sun. There was no way to check, because the trees blocked it out, but sunset was clearly approaching.

Had they walked that long? They must have. If they were actually getting closer to their destination, he was willing to walk as much as it took.

“Hold on, are we lost?” Ranta burst out.

“Yeah.”

“No, not ‘Yeah’! What are we gonna do about it?”

“I have a way...” Wezel said. “It will require preparation.”

“Then do it without me having to bring it up!”

“It will take two days.”

“Yeah, whatever. —Wait, two days?! That’s quite a long time, y’know?!”

“I must focus. Protect me.”

“Sure, that’s fine... No, it’s not fine, but still. I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“No.” Wezel set his luggage down, and started on his preparations.

All he did was lay a woollen mat down on the moss, sit cross-legged on it, drink some kind of drink, close his eyes, and stop moving. He was just sitting there.

“Oh, come on,” Ranta protested. “Here I was expecting you to do something amazing, and it’s just meditation?”

There was no response.

Ranta sighed, then leaned his back against a nearby tree and crossed his arms. “In a forest this big, you’d expect there to be some damn scary beasts around...”

They couldn’t afford to be careless. Ranta decided to focus, too.

He’d spent a long time having people after his life. He’d even would up in a situation where he couldn’t move, sitting put for over a day telling himself, I am a rock, while not moving so much as a finger. It went without saying that, during that time, he hadn’t slept a wink. His eyes had been as wide as saucers, his ears constantly perked up.

He didn’t mean to boast—no, maybe this was boasting—but he could endure just about anything.

Ranta had experience, which gave support to his confidence that was never shaken by little things.

The secret to how Ranta endured, though this may seem paradoxical, was not enduring.

If he kept steeling himself, thinking, I have to endure, I have to endure, I have to endure, it only made it harder. He instead went, I’m not enduring, I’m not, no sirree, ho ho ho, I’m not enduring, this is no big deal.

At some point, Ranta felt someone’s breathing. It wasn’t a sound, to be precise. If he were to use an existing word to describe it, it was a presence.

The breathing had been approaching from somewhere for awhile, and it wasn’t entirely clear where it was. Still, the breather was there. Diagonally to the right behind Ranta, it was hiding in the shadow of a tree and watching them.

Ranta couldn’t make out the shape of whatever was breathing. It was completely hidden.

Wezel was totally engaged in meditating.

Ranta deliberately looked towards the tree where the breather ought to be.

He put a hand on the hilt of his katana, and the presence disappeared instantly.

Was he imagining it, maybe? No. That wasn’t it.

It hadn’t vanished. He could feel it, just slightly. That presence had simply thinned. It was still there.

Fine, then.

In a contest of wills, he wouldn’t lose. He couldn’t possibly.

Ranta didn’t look away from the tree where the presence was hiding. He kept his eyes fixed on it.

The forest brightened a little. The sun must have risen.

Ranta did not budge. Nor did the presence.

Wezel took a sip from his water bottle.

In that instant, there was a sound. The guy had left.

Ranta took his hand off the hilt of his katana, but if his tension was a string, it was still pulled taut. That presence could come back any time, so he kept searching for it.

Wezel was meditating.

He sure likes his meditation. Well, I guess he’s not doing it because he likes it. Yeah, of course not.

It got dark again.

In the darkness of the night, the presence appeared once more. This time, right behind Ranta. Was it trying to attack him from behind?

There was no doubt about it. Ranta was confident. It was the same presence.

Wezel’s breathing was labored. His breaths were awfully shallow. He groaned in discomfort from time to time, too. What was with that? Was it bad news?

Guess I’ll lure it in, Ranta decided. Deliberately show an opening, and have it attack.

Then he rethought it.

No, whoever loses their patience first loses. If it’s not coming, then fine. I’ll wait as long as it wants.

Wezel took a swig from his water bottle. He was gulping it down. It looked like he drank the very last drop.

Wezel threw the bottle away, and drew his knife. He was drawing something on the ground with it.

The presence had apparently moved. Ranta felt it in the shadow of a different tree from before.

Not satisfied with just using the ground, Wezel started carving wounds into his own body with the knife, too. What, was he suicidal? Well, there was probably some reason behind it.

Wezel slid the knife over the fingers of his left hand, its palm, and the back of it, and then the fingers of his right hand, the palm, and the back of that hand, too. Then he rolled back up his sleeves, wounding his left arm, right arm, and even his face. If it weren’t so dark, he’d have been a horrifying sight to behold with all the blood that must have been flowing. Ranta squinted and tried to make it out despite himself.

Suddenly, the presence was growing thicker. Was it finally coming?

It... wasn’t?

The presence vanished at dawn.

There was a rumbling in Ranta’s stomach, as if it had just remembered about food. He had been drinking water occasionally, but hadn’t eaten a thing since they’d entered the Shadow Forest.

Wezel sat in a position with his legs crossed, his back hunched, and both hands holding his head, rocking his body back and forth constantly.

Was he saying something? Ranta couldn’t hear it. His mouth was moving, though. It might be something ritualistic he was doing.

Ranta cautiously walked around the area, looking for anything that seemed edible. His stomach was empty, and he felt like he could eat anything now, but he couldn’t actually. He pressed his tongue against grasses, mushrooms, and fruits, but all of them caused intense numbing or tingling sensations. If he was going to hunt, he’d need to move away from Wezel. That was a bad idea.

“Guess there’s no choice,” Ranta muttered, resorting to his final option.

It wasn’t hard. They were everywhere. He found some in no time.

There was a line of ants marching across the mossy ground.

Ranta snatched one up, put it on his palm, and poked it with a finger. It was a large, green ant, about a centimeter long, but it didn’t fight back.

He stuck it in his mouth, used his tongue to keep it from getting away, then chewed it. The characteristic sour taste of the ant was refreshing, and it had a slight sweetness, too. It was pretty tasty.

He caught ants and searched for other foodstuffs while remaining alert to his surroundings until the sun set again.

When it got dark, Ranta crouched next to Wezel, his hand lightly on the hilt of his katana.

Wezel was continuing his ritual, as before.

Eventually, the presence returned. Though it didn’t show itself, of course. The presence was almost right behind Ranta and Wezel.

It wasn’t a wild beast. No matter how clever it was, no animal was this patient. It was a human, elf, orc, or some other highly intelligent creature.

Like he had up to this point, Ranta didn’t panic, didn’t make a fuss, and just waited. Not doing anything unnecessary.

It was harder than you might think. For ordinary people, that was. For a giant star like Ranta, it was a cinch.

Dawn was approaching.

“Phewwwwwwwwww...” Wezel let out a big, long breath. He finished exhaling.

The next moment, the guy’s presence moved.

“Personal skill...” From his crouched position, Ranta sprang backwards diagonally. He spun in midair, drawing his sword, and looked down at the guy.

The guy looked up at him in shock.

He was a logok tree man—or was he?

His trunk-like body had arm and leg-like branches growing out of it, and he reminded Ranta of the race of trees that had turned into people, or people who had turned into trees, that they had encountered in Darunggar.

However, this guy only resembled one. He wasn’t a logok. He was closer to being human. He was a creature that was like a human with bark for skin.

“Blade of Shadow!” Ranta shouted.

Landing behind the guy, he then jumped with Leap Out. If the enemy was behind him, he’d get behind them and launch an ambush. That was his personal skill, Blade of Shadow.

Ranta’s blade closed in on the guy. The guy turned around, but didn’t avoid it.

Why? Why wasn’t he trying to dodge?

Because he didn’t have to.

Some branch-like, tentacle-like things grew out of the guy’s body, and wrapped around the guy in an instant.

The hell? How was that even fair?

Ranta’s katana went, Boing, and bounced off those tentacle-y things. They weren’t hard. They were highly elastic.

“Whoa...?!”

And that wasn’t all. They didn’t just defend; they wrapped around Ranta’s katana like snakes. The cheeky things were trying to ensnare him, were they?

“Damn it!” Ranta immediately used Exhaust to jump back.

Tens of those branch tentacles stretched towards him.

Ranta backed away further, striking away the branch tentacles with his katana. But, as expected, he couldn’t cut them. All he could do was bat them away.

This was no good. It would only let him buy time. In which case...

“Personal Skill, Lightning...”

Ranta jumped to the right, then after shaking off the branch tentacles, he went forward, then left. Moving in the shape of a square bracket at high speed, he sprang at the guy.

“...Fast-strike!”

“...!” The guy jumped to the side, evading Ranta’s slash.

Well, wasn’t he speedy.

The guy rolled and got up, then gathered the branch tentacles at the end of each of his arms to form swords. He then came in slashing with both branch tentacle swords.

“Just what I wanted!” Ranta shouted.

Katana and branch tentacle sword violently collided. The guy’s branch tentacle swords were highly elastic, and the knockback on them was insane. Each time it struck a branch tentacle sword, Ranta’s katana was pushed back hard. It felt like it was jumping around. Ranta was a battle-hardened veteran, but he couldn’t control that recoil easily.

“This’s... hard! But...!”

Ranta switched from slashes to thrusts. Not just ordinary thrusts, though.

“Personal Skill, Evil Spiral Stab!”

It was a twist. He used quick, twisting thrusts, one after another.

Those repeated twisting thrusts couldn’t pierce through the guy’s branch tentacle swords, either.

However, the twisting thrusts didn’t get knocked back as badly as the slashes had, so his katana didn’t go astray, and he could keep attacking.

The guy was forced onto the defensive.

He was pushed back by Ranta’s vigor, got overwhelmed, and would eventually be forced into a corner.

“Koh...!” The guy let out a sound like the cork being pulled from a bottle, and countless branch tentacles grew from his body at once.

It was done in an instant. The guy was wrapped in branch tentacles. His defense was perfect now, or so he must have thought.

Ranta smirked beneath his mask. “O Darkness! O Lord of Vice! Demon Call!”

Something like a blackish purple cloud appeared. The cloud rapidly formed a vortex. The maelstrom solidified as he watched, taking on a familiar form.

It looked like it was wearing a suit of armor made of dark purple bone, there didn’t seem to be even a single gap in it. The blade with the long grip that it held in both hands was awfully long and curved. “Extremely threatening” was the only way to describe it. If a child saw it, they would cry and scream and collapse on the spot.

The design of the armor, the shape of the weapon—nothing could be more shocking. It looked like a grim reaper, with a scythe to harvest lives.

“Sic ’em, Zodie!” Ranta shouted.

With that simple command as its master, the demon Zodie held its great scythe aloft.

“Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...!”

The guy must have determined the scythe was a threat. The branch tentacles he unleashed swarmed towards Zodie. A number of them did reach Zodie, but not enough to restrain the demon.

Zodie swung its scythe down. “Hehe... Ehehehehehehehehehe... Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...”

Zodie’s scythe split the tentacles, and the guy, in half.

The branch tentacles split by the scythe, as well as the ones left unscathed, all lost their strength at once.

The guy collapsed.

He’d been impressively bisected.

“Get embraced by Skullhell,” Ranta smirked.

“You, too... Ehehehehe...”

“Shut up, Zodie. Get lost.”

“Ehehehehehehehehe... No way...”

“This is the last time I’ll say it. Get lost right now, Zodie.”

“He... Eheheh... You’re just a Ranta... Stupid... Stoooopid... Ehehehehehe...”

Even though the demon complained, Zodie turned into a dark purple cloud and vanished.

The dawn was about to break.

“Ruwintimroti...” Wezel finally began chanting. “Ruwingwinbodoichiewiris... Yeruwifi... Imatebuimugaruwado... Machedowig... Yerah’ishinruiwodorezukoedowigod... Yendangosimiyefod... Tiwigodwigwafifihan...”

The forest filled with noise.

Despite there being no real wind, there was still a rustling in the leaves and grass.

Wezel looked up to the heavens, raising his hands up high. Moth scales rained down from somewhere, as if he had called them to him.

The scales shone and sparkled. Their glimmering drifted deeper and deeper into the forest.

“Don’t tell me...” Ranta was shocked. “They’re showing us the way? Through the forest, to Arnotu...”

“I used the Secret Art of the Forest,” Wezel murmured.

The elf looked emaciated, and his breathing was ragged. He was trying to lift his pack, but he was stumbling, and his hands were unsteady.

“It is an old technique, handed down in the Shadow Forest. I overstretched a bit. Normally, one such as I... could never use it.”

“Overstretched?” Ranta asked. “Man, what did you do?”

“Used secret drugs... to enhance my power.”

“You were doping, or something? There aren’t side effects or something, are there?”

“My life... will be shortened somewhat, that is all.”

“Good work,” Ranta said.

“Tch, tch, tch...” Wezel’s shoulders heaved with laughter. Was it anything to laugh about? Well, maybe it was so rough, all he could do was laugh.

Wezel crouched next to his luggage, then his eyes went to the guy’s corpse. “A treant? ...When?”

“You didn’t notice,” Ranta said. “I just murdered him. Maybe he was trying to eat us or something. He kept targeting us. You called him a treant, huh?”

“They say their race is older than the elves. That treant was likely... not young. The older they grow, the stronger they become.”

“Not strong enough to take me on, apparently,” Ranta smirked. “Should we bury him?”

“Either way, he will return to the earth... to this forest.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ranta easily hoisted Wezel’s luggage. “I’m getting pretty tired of the scenery around here. Let’s go sightseeing in Arnotu.”