59 . Secrets revealed (1)
It is unfamiliar.
What the hell is that expression?
I’ve never seen children get angry. These are the kids who always smiled in front of me and didn’t say a single harsh word. I didn’t even know that I could make a face like that.
Until now, there was nothing that would cause the emotion of anger to appear on their faces, except for when each other secretly ate a snack they had saved. Even that often ended in quarrels at the level of aegyo.
That expression was a lifeless expression, as if he would commit murder at any moment if he only had a knife in his hand.
Unknowingly, I swallow saliva.
My mouth finally falls apart after I put saliva on my parched throat.
Are the children in front of me right now the children I knew?
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Fear, that emotion restrains my actions. Your instincts warn you not to treat your children the way you normally would.
If you don’t come to your senses….
These are my children whom I raised. What the hell are you gonna do if I get scared? I cautiously approached them, reached out and called out to the children.
“Guys?”
Only then did the faces of the children look at me with their bodies trembling, a different sense of bewilderment than before.
That reaction, I am sure. They know it too.
The expressions they just made did not contain ordinary emotions.
Olivia didn’t even reprimand me for anything, but she was taken aback and made excuses.
“Oh, nothing. The moon just got a little strange….”
Don’t you know that it’s not a matter that can be passed over by saying it’s nothing? Otherwise, such a reaction would not have occurred.
Why? The words rose to the top of his throat.
Those words that seemed like they would spill out without even realizing it if I opened my mouth, I tried to pour out my true feelings to them, but soon I closed my lips by biting my teeth.
You don’t have to interrogate the children now. After all, the truth was right in front of us.
Everything was within reach now.
I picked up the luggage that had fallen on the floor and put it back together, then opened my mouth in a low voice.
“… Let’s go.”
Sometimes, without saying a word, I cast my gaze at the children following me. The happy expression he had shown when he left home had already disappeared.
It wasn’t a trip I had originally planned for pleasure, but I didn’t expect it to go this way.
Witnessing that one facial expression, I couldn’t even understand how my feelings changed in an instant.
I know in my head that I have to trust my children, but my instincts are still warning me.
Between reason and instinct, my spirit at the crossroads was on the verge of collapsing.
Rihanna approached me before I knew it and asked me a question.
“Are you okay?”
Rihanna, who is usually friendly with her children, might be surprised, but her expression was much calmer than I thought. She was right next to me, so maybe she didn’t miss that reaction?
Putting the question aside for a moment, he finished his short answer in a rather dry voice to Rihanna.
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
In response to my reaction, Rihanna didn’t ask any more questions and started moving her steps away from me.
After the short chat, which was embarrassing to even call it a conversation, I moved my legs silently with my gaze fixed in front of me again.
The children, who would normally cling to me like leeches and chatter, took a step back and followed me quietly.
It’s much better that way now. It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to calm down if he was just talking to me from the side or if he showed me the friendly side he used to.
Since there was no clock and no sky, I could only feel the time passing slowly. It’s fortunate if it feels slow, but as time goes by, there was me who became more and more insensitive.
The only thing I felt was the coolness I felt as the sweat that ran down my forehead and down my cheek blew and dried right away, that was all.
Because I couldn’t see the monster that was my biggest worry, a feeling of complacency was about to sprout in a corner of my heart. The most dangerous emotion in travel.
Once indolent, the mind also affected the body. The burden, which had only felt light until now, felt heavy and cumbersome. My legs were sore, and my back seemed like it would collapse at any moment.
Eventually, I stood in place for a while, straightened my back, and relaxed lightly.
Crunchy sounds from the joints – The sound would normally have been pleasant, but now it felt like the joints were bending in a bizarre way.
I straightened my back and looked at the sky for a while.
The red moonlight coming through the trees created a much more gloomy atmosphere than expected.
I even felt like someone was watching me from all over the place. I wanted to get out of this eerie forest as soon as possible.
Rihanna, who would normally have whined to me to go after resting more, was also poking my back with her fingers as if telling me to go quickly.
Even in this situation, the four children behind me were the only ones who maintained a normal appearance.
Their eyes weren’t looking at me. A little farther away than that, eyes that seemed to penetrate the essence of the forest.
I couldn’t stand those eyes. The moment I was about to stretch out a bit, Stella came next to me and carefully opened her mouth.
“Dad, let’s go now.”
“Yes.”
Unlike usual, he answered briefly and picked up the load he had put down.
Without having a conversation, how long did you walk?
The red moonlight that filled the forest was slowly fading, and the pure light was spreading its roots in the earth.
In the forest, which seems to have regained its original color of dawn, the gloomy energy disappeared before I knew it, and a warm calm like a mother’s arms settled down.
It was the first time I saw the light, but I could tell at a glance.
The World Tree, the mother of all elves and the heart of the continent.
In other words, it meant that this was the great forest.
I was overcome with such emotion that I forgot all the hard work I had done until now.
I wanted to step into the entrance to the Great Forest right in front of me, but there was no way to enter because a huge tree root was blocking the entrance.
As I looked around and looked for a way to enter the Great Forest, the sound of cutting wind stopped me.
Hook! An arrow pierced right in front of my toe with a sound.
If I had gone forward just a little further, my instep, no, my head would have been pierced. Of course, even my small movements were calculated and shot as arrows for the purpose of threatening.
As if to prove that my thoughts were not wrong, I heard a clear voice right away.
“Outsiders, go back.”
You can’t see it, but you can hear voices from all directions.
The leaves tremble and fall one by one in front of my eyes.
As I watched the scene as if petals were falling, I heard the elf’s voice again.
“I won’t harm those who have lost their way. Go back the way you came.”
I couldn’t go back after coming this far, but I couldn’t use my courage against an invisible enemy.
I couldn’t prepare for an arrow that might come from nowhere, and it could take my life in an instant.
In that fleeting moment of dilemma, Stella came next to me and opened her mouth, as if she had accurately penetrated my troubles.
“Dad, hold on… We’ll fix this.”
Standing in front of me before I knew it, Olivia looked up at the top of the tree where I couldn’t see the elves and said.
“Do you remember us?”
An incomprehensible silence ensued, followed by the sound of something jumping on the trees.
“Now, wait….”
Before long, I heard panicked voices from the elves that were clearly different from when they warned me.
After those brief words, silence came again.
The roots of the tree, thought to be closed tightly and never to open again, wriggled and moved sideways, revealing the hidden entrance.
You say it opens so easily?
I blankly looked at the profile of the children.
At that moment, my doubts became certain.
The reaction of the elves, it wasn’t the reaction you get when you see the same elves.
Children must have other secrets.
A big secret that I couldn’t even tell you for 4 years.
One step forward. If you go through that entrance, you will know the secret.
With short words to the children to go, I put myself into the entrance of the great forest with my mouth wide open like a monster’s prey.
There was neither the honor of being able to see the village of the elves, which had only been rumored by humans, nor the curiosity of exploring unknown places. At the same time as I set foot in the great grove, a noble elf in loose-fitting clothes that showed quite a bit of flesh ran up to me, and in a blink of an eye grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up.
The ground and feet were separated in an instant, but looking at the elf’s expression, no words came out.
Her expression was full of horror, fear, confusion and hatred, and it was clearly directed at me.
I swear I’ve never harmed elves, and I’ve never been near the great grove. There was no reason for her to look like this at me.
She didn’t let go of me, and started screaming viciously, splashing saliva in my face.
“You, you!”
But in a fit of rage, she couldn’t even utter her words.
Eventually, she let go of my collar only after the other elves around her grabbed her arm.
“Elder! Pin it!”
Apparently I couldn’t hear the cries of the elves, but the woman called the elder still had a vein around her neck, pointed her finger at me behind me and raised her voice.
“What the hell… Why the hell are those guys here!”