5. Bread and dagger (17)
The dry land was cold and dark.
The land cursed by the evil spirit could not conceive any life. In order to live on it, they had to adapt to the cold and starvation.
All creatures in the coniferous forest followed the rules of the evil god, Omerus.
The strong prey on the weak, the weak deceive the strong, and do not stop fighting and fighting to prolong life.
There was no room for morality and law to intervene in this merciful law of survival.
Those who do not adapt to the Northern way are culled, and their corpses are reduced to another meal of life.
There were no exceptions to that endless cycle.
When the Yurdina family, the losers of the north, arrived in the north, they embodied the laws of the north.
That is how humans have dominated the continent.
It was a race with outstanding adaptability and potential than any other species.
After a long war, the elves had no choice but to acknowledge the superiority of mankind.
Cruel and evil, but they were strong.
They did not hesitate to abandon even their beliefs and traditions in order to survive.
Driven to the steep precipice of life, the elves eventually had to make a choice.
Will they be weeded out like this, or will they emulate the human race they hated so much?
In fact, they had only one option to choose from.
Whoever chooses the former will die, and only those who choose the latter will survive.
It was the privilege of the living to shape their destiny.
And it was the living who had to bear the weight of a tough life.
In the middle of the coniferous forest, torches stood side by side.
The expressions of those who lit up the surroundings like perches were all dark. Every time the reddish fire shadow passed, the gloomy eyes scattered into the air.
All of their ears were pointed.
They were elves driven to the north.
A man was standing around them. He was an impressive figure with hideous melted burn marks.
It was impossible to guess even his age because his skin was tangled.
Only the man shouted, forcibly opening his half-closed eyelids.
“Oh, guys… Thank you for participating in this painful ceremony today. Unfortunately, we are imprisoned in the prison of our bodies. The spirits bestowed on us by the heavenly beings are free, but we, who are bound by the shell of the body, are in so much pain and suffering.”
The man spoke like that in a sad tone.
His old, tattered priestly robe fluttered in the night breeze. The wind from the north might have been painful, but the man didn’t show any signs of distress.
No, maybe it was the other way around.
Burns and melted skin all over his body always made him suffer. It’s always painful anyway, so even if you felt a new pain, it might not be obvious.
What best represented his feelings was his voice.
The burnt flesh and skin did not function properly.
He continued speaking in a voice full of despair.
“We are sinners! I have sinned and been imprisoned in the flesh, and I suffer to pay for it… The reason we live our lives is to be forgiven of our sins committed by the heavenly gods. Only after paying off all those sins can we regain true freedom of spirit!”
As the man’s speech continued, the eyes of the elves got lower and lower.
The figures of the elves with their heads bowed were like tombstones at the side of a grave. A sad and solemn ceremony unfolded in a blizzard.
It was then that the man raised the torch in his hand.
It was as if he was praying.
Tears streamed down from his eyes.
“But sometimes the celestial order is like a blade, bringing down trials that are too painful for us… Fine. Pain is short, happiness is forever. If we go through all the pain we will experience in life, if we are happier that way, then we must save our brother!”
After that, he pointed the torch in his hand somewhere.
Then another figure buried in the night was revealed.
It was an elf who was trembling in fear.
It was unique in that it had a hunched back and bumps on its back, making it look quite ugly, unlike its peers who usually looked beautiful. At first glance, it seemed difficult to move.
Behind him, an elf, presumably the mother, was sobbing with her eyes closed.
The humpbacked elf couldn’t even vomit proper language, as if his intelligence wasn’t perfect.
“OMG… uh, mom me, i’m scared… … .”
In the end, the female elf could not stand it and collapsed.
Unable to control the tears that flowed helplessly, the elf pounded on his chest and groaned. The expressions of the elves watching the scene were gloomy.
The man was also silent for a while, as if his heart was full.
He just tapped the female elf on the shoulder and offered her an apology and consolation.
“Sorry Sorry… However, your son has lived a very painful life so far. You will have to live like that for another 400 years. Compared to those long years, the next few minutes are like a fleeting moment.”
“please… … .”
The female elf choked and grabbed the hem of the man’s clothes.
“Please, don’t let my son get sick.”
I didn’t know if it was a request or a renunciation.
However, it seemed true that the man deeply sympathized with the words.
Tears flowed incessantly from his heated eyes.
Some of the elves couldn’t stand it and let out a light cry.
The man promised in a firm tone.
“… … I will finish it as soon as possible.”
Then he trudged and approached the hunchbacked elf. The humpbacked elf let out a frightened sound as he instinctively split his head.
The man looked down at him with sad eyes.
“Eat.”
He rummaged in his bosom and handed him a piece of bread.
No grain grows in the North. There were numerous elves who couldn’t even get a decent meal, let alone grain.
Not to mention the humpbacked elves who couldn’t stand on their own.
The hunchbacked elf’s eyes, exhausted from a long period of starvation, had a dim light. Even so, the man hesitated as if he was afraid, but the man smiled patiently and benevolently.
In the end, the humpbacked elf couldn’t overcome his instincts.
He ate the bread in a hurry. It was possible to choke on a meal after a long time, but the humpbacked elf’s meal was over in an instant.
And that moment when the humpbacked elf looked up at the man again with an expectant gaze.
Puck, the humpbacked elf’s jaw turned.
The humpbacked elf put on a dumbfounded expression as he couldn’t understand the situation for a moment. After collapsing on the cold ground, the hunchbacked elf felt a burning pain.
One unfortunate elf howled.
“Ooh, ah, uh… aaa!”
Hearing the scream, the elves around them turned their heads. The humpbacked elf’s mother was shedding tears as if she were clinging to the ground.
The man who was the one who hit the elf with the humpback just quietly crossed his arms.
“Lord, forgive me… … .”
After that, one-sided violence followed.
punched and kicked.
Blood and flesh splattered with a pitiful scream. However, the immature elf couldn’t resist the mysterious man with superpowers.
In just a few minutes, the humpbacked elf was reduced to mush.
Only a faint moan proved his survival. Tears filled with pain flowed from his eyes.
Only then did the man stop the assault.
There were bloodstains on the priest’s clothes, and white steam was rising. Even so, the man’s breathing remained undisturbed in the slightest.
He put his hand on his chest with a sad look on his face.
A dagger is pulled out from the bosom from which the bread was taken out.
“This is enough. Even the gods will forgive you… May you be happy, young soul.”
Then, with a deep breath, the dagger dug into the elf’s neck with its humpback.
The humpbacked elf reacted violently and grabbed his head. However, there was no way to control the flowing blood.
Kek, kek, the dying words flowing out in the distance.
That was the end.
The hunchbacked elf’s head, which had been convulsing, fell powerlessly.
It was a sign of death.
And from that point on, an amazing phenomenon occurred.
Bloody gas began to permeate into the place where the blood of the humpback elf was pooled. And the gas that sucked in the blood soon took shape and grew into a tree.
Wood-deuk, fast-deuk.
The sound of the humpbacked elf’s corpse rotting and being nourished was heard. And as if it were the sound of a bell, several elves hurriedly raised their heads.
The small tree, which grew rapidly in a matter of seconds, had a disgusting appearance.
It was as if the human body had been twisted to create a repulsive work of art. However, the elf who cared about that fact did not exist here.
All I could do was stare at the chunks of flesh on the tree.
The man, who had been watching the tree with dark eyes for a while, let out a long sigh and said:
“… … You may eat.”
And with a brisk walk, the man left.
At first, the elves showed a slight hesitation. Even so, it would have been difficult to recklessly reach out to a tree that had grown from eating the corpse of a fellow tribesman.
However, the moment when someone’s stomach rumbles.
The elves turned into hungry beasts and charged into the trees. In the meantime, he didn’t care if a mayhem broke out.
Even the humpbacked elf’s mother stood up with tears in her eyes.
Leaving behind the turmoil of the night, the man shed another tear.
“Immanuel… … .”
The northern night was still far away.
**
The night I interrogated Avian, I received a letter from Delphine.
It was short and plain.
‘Help me.’
I looked down at the words without saying a word, then left the room again.
Avian’s tearful appeal caught my heart.
The elf girl cried and appealed.
‘Elf, we elves are going crazy… If I don’t send the money, they’ll even kill my brother! Because cults sacrifice the most useless elves first… … .’
Did Avian have a younger brother?
It was uncomfortable to see Ned’s appearance overlapping for no reason. It was truly useless pity.
Avian was an elf, an enemy of the Empire.
So she was also my enemy. It was a person who should not have sympathy hastily.
I knew.
I knew it, but I couldn’t help but keep getting stepped on in my eyes.
In the end, I decided to clear my head and swing my sword.
It was me who had repeated arduous training since childhood.
Of course, I only knew how to relieve my mood and move my body. For me, swinging a sword was both a training and a hobby.
However, after leaving the room, I had to greet an unexpected guest.
“… … Senior Ian.”
It was a girl who was still wearing bandages all over the place.
Now I could tell just by looking at the gray hair. It was Seria, my favorite junior and the illegitimate daughter of the Yurdina family.
Before I could even say a worried goodbye to her.
“Can I ask you to teach me something?”
Seria politely bowed her head and asked, and I had no choice but to pause.
There was fighting spirit in those aquamarine-like eyes.
Looking back, how long has it been since you crossed swords with her?
I remember being defeated horribly the other day. I managed to get a blow at the end, but the overall result was my crushing defeat.
So what now?
I couldn’t contain the fierce smile that secretly formed on me.
I didn’t have an expression to show in front of an injured junior, but I answered in a deep blue voice.
“… … Okay, let’s open a game.”
I thought it was going well when I was in trouble.
After all, there was no way to cleanse a prosecutor’s brain as cleanly as a battle.