Chapter 10 - Forest
My legs pumped furiously, forcing my small, undeveloped muscles to drive through shifting dirt and a chaotic web of tangled roots. Inside my chest, my heart was slamming against my ribs like a caged animal.
Why did I have to blow up at her like that? Why did I let my frustration get the better of me?
I slapped my face once.
Idiot. Idiot. Why did she take it so personally? N-no shit sherlock! Of course she did! Anyone that get yelled like that would obviously take it personally!
Jagged brambles whipped violently across my bare arms. Sharp leaves snagged the fabric of my sleeves, tearing at the threads. I didn't slow down for a single second.
"Paul, you absolute moron," I muttered to myself, invoking the name of my past life with pure venom.
Every single time I blinked, I saw her face. I saw that exact, agonizing moment her lower lip began to quiver, her desperate attempt to bite it to keep from crying. I heard the echoing crack in her voice when she screamed that she didn't need magic to be strong.
I didn't mean it like that. I just...
A thick, hidden root nearly caught the toe of my boot. I stumbled hard, my momentum carrying me forward, but I managed to awkwardly throw my weight to the side and catch myself before eating dirt.
That was when my eyes locked onto the ground.
Blood.
A dark, violent splatter marred the vibrant green grass. I skidded to a sudden, agonizing halt, my boots digging deep furrows into the mud. My eyes widened in sheer panic as I dropped to one knee, frantically brushing a large fern leaf aside to reveal the hidden ground beneath.
There was another heavy smear. Then, a distinct, continuous trail. Dark, oxidized red streaks painted the foliage—some completely dried, but others still glistening, terrifyingly wet.
The volume of fluid is far too substantial to belong to a woodland rabbit, my analytical mind calculated, a cold, heavy weight instantly dropping straight into the pit of my stomach.
"Tch.."
She must've fought something... What if..? No. No, no! before my thoughts could stretch, I heard a scream, faint, but I heard it. It was a high-pitched voice that was echoing through the trees. And I recognized it instantly.
I heard her voice, "Lyra!"
I bolted. My heart raced at an unsustainable RPM, my feet pounding against the forest floor so hard the earth felt like it was fracturing beneath my heels. I cleared a massive fallen log in a single, desperate leap, rounded a crumbling dirt ridge, and immediately forced my body to slow its momentum.
Voices.. I could hear them. Distinct, rough, adult voices were traveling on the wind.
I dropped into a low crouch, creeping silently toward the protective edge of a dense briar bush. I breathed through my teeth, taking calculated, shallow breaths, ensuring not a single twig snapped beneath my weight.
I parted the leaves slightly, and my breath hitched.
Six men stood in a wide, sun-dappled clearing. They were dressed in ragged, filth-encrusted black garments, their faces concealed by coarse woolen scarves, their heavy leather boots caked in grimy mud. They were currently hauling the massive, heavy carcasses of three black wolves onto the flatbed of a creaky wooden wagon.
Each beast was monstrous, covered in coarse, dark fur, bearing the unmistakable marks of a savage, desperate struggle. Blood matted their hides, but the entry wounds themselves were clean, deep, and remarkably precise.
Just a few feet away, Lyra sat unceremoniously tied to the thick base of an ancient oak tree. Her arms were bound tightly behind her back, the coarse rope biting into her skin. Her cheeks were heavily smudged with black dirt, her bare knees scraped and bleeding from the previous skirmish. Her weapon; a rust-bitten, archaic steel sword she had coerced from the village boy, lay discarded a few paces away in the tall grass, entirely out of her physical reach.
"Hey! Let me go, you cowards!" she screamed, thrashing her torso violently against the constraints. "Those were my kills! I hunted them down!"
One of the larger bandits tossed the final wolf carcass onto the wagon bed with a heavy thud, wiping a layer of greasy sweat from his brow. "We appreciate your exceptionally generous donation, little girl," he said, flashing a smug, yellow-toothed grin. "Black wolves. The pelts and teeth alone will fetch a remarkably fat coin purse at the border markets."
Another mercenary leaned lazily against the wooden wagon wheel, crossing his arms over a stained leather chest piece. "Boss," he grunted, nodding his head toward the thrashing girl. "What's the play with the brat? Do we leave her?"
A figure emerged silently from the deep shadows of a crooked pine tree. He casually lit a rough cigarette with a match, the sulfurous flame flaring a bright, sudden orange against the dimming green hues of the forest canopy. His dark hair was swept back cleanly, heavily streaked with iron-gray at the temples, and a wicked, jagged scar ran vertically down his left eyelid. A beautifully crafted, professional-grade broadsword was strapped securely across his back. His voice was low, incredibly calm, and dripping with experienced authority.
"We transport her with us," the leader said simply, snapping the match contextually out with a sharp flick of his wrist. "If we release her now, she sprints directly back to that local village. They'll immediately go on high alert. And our entire raid plan? Completely burned before it even launches."
One of the flanking men let out a dark, guttural laugh. "Or we could always have a little bit of fun before we haul her off. She's got a feisty look to her."
"She'd command a premium price on the eastern slave blocks, too, especially for the Varellos nobles, they sure love young girls." another added, his twisted grin missing several prominent teeth.
"Rghh! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Lyra roared, her voice trembling with a sudden spike of pure rage.
The leader exhaled a long, lazy stream of gray smoke, his cold eyes drifting slowly toward the wagon bed where the three black wolf corpses rested. "Honestly, it's quite impressive. A girl of your exact age and physical development managing to cleanly terminate three mature black wolves solo? What exactly do they feed you people in that backwater settlement?"
One of the thugs, a lanky, repulsive man with greasy, unwashed hair and twitchy, nervous fingers, turned and took a deliberate step toward her, a sickening, predatory grin stretching across his gaunt face. "Maybe we ought to get a bit closer and inspect the merchandise ourselves," he muttered under his breath.
The man pulled out his sword from his waist. The reflection of Lyra's face is visible within the silver sword.
The scar-faced leader didn't even bother to glance back. "Enough. Load the remaining gear. We move out within the hour."
Lyra's breathing turned sharp, ragged, and shallow. Her small wrists strained desperately against the thick ropes binding her to the oak trunk.
"Hey! Keep your dirty hands off me!" she barked, a distinct note of raw, human panic finally rising in the back of her throat.
The greasy bandit continued his slow approach, his long shadow falling over her small form like a suffocating curtain. "Or what, brat? You going to yip at me like those dead mutts over there?"
"I said, don't come near me!" Her voice cracked, a volatile mixture of fierce fury and childlike terror.
The man's grin widened. "Aw, look at that. The little apex killer is finally getting scared, huh?"
Her brilliant, sky-blue eyebrows knit together as her golden eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She violently turned her face away from his approach, blinking rapidly as her chest rose and fell in a chaotic, hyperventilating rhythm.
"Don't move now around now or you'll sliced, that tree bark is thick. I'll get you out of there soon enough.."
She could feel it creeping in; that sick, suffocating, clenching weight deep within her gut. It was the absolute, awful truth that she had desperately tried to outrun. She couldn't fight her way out of this. Not like this. Bound, weaponless, and entirely outmatched by numbers, her physical strength meant absolutely nothing.
"P-Papa... M-Mama... Kyro..."
Her fragile whisper trembled into the empty space between the trees.
Thunk.
The greasy bandit flinched as a clump of dirt smacked him square in the temple.
"Ow.. The hell?"
His gaze snapped instantly toward the thick tree line. But I wasn't waiting for him to analyze the trajectory. I was already sprinting at maximum velocity directly toward him.
"Who—?!"
I ducked incredibly low to the earth, sliding across the damp grass to bypass his guard, and slammed my open palm directly against his unprotected abdomen. A concentrated, massive reservoir of refined mana had already gathered at the focal point of my hand.
Wind, blast, push..
GALE!
BOOM.
A sudden, focused gust of wind erupted from my hand, launching the bandit backwards like a ragdoll. He flew across the clearing, smashed into a tree trunk with a sickening crack, and slumped to the ground, coughing.
His sword landed just next to Lyra.
Orange aura shimmered faintly around the bandit as he staggered to his feet, rage twisting his face. "Ughh! You'll pay for that, brat!"
The remaining bandits froze in absolute, stunned shock.
"What the—?!"
"Where did he come from?!"
"He's just a kid!"
One of them, broader and meaner with jagged teeth and a crooked nose, hefted his axe. "Don't matter. We gut him, grab the girl, and go."
I didn't waste time. I rushed straight to Lyra as my heart pounding.
"Kyro!" she called out, stunned, and for a moment, relieved. I dropped to my knees beside her and grabbed the ropes binding her wrists. My fingers brushed the coarse, fibrous texture.
It's Tree bark. It's tough, but organic. Good! That's good!
I took a sharp, stabilizing breath, forcing my volatile mana to steady itself despite the pounding headache forming in my cranium. I bypassed the vocal components entirely, utilizing Wordless Casting to activate a highly specific decay spell. Wither.
A dark, concentrated pulse of mana surged through my neural pathways and poured into my fingertips. The organic bark rope immediately began to hiss softly as its cellular moisture was violently extracted. The fibers shriveled, turned a brittle, decaying charcoal black, and instantly crumbled into a fine dust within my hands.
She blinked, stunned. "Huh?"
But then the recoil hit me. A wave of dizziness slammed into my skull like a hammer as my knees buckled.
"H-Hey! This ain't the time to sleep!" Lyra caught me by the shoulders just before I slumped to the ground.
I let out a weak chuckle, trying to shake the fuzz from my vision. "S-sorry... just... kinda overdid it a little..."
"KYRO, LOOK OUT!"
With a violent surge of adrenaline, she savagely yanked my small body toward her torso. My face collided heavily into her chest just as a lethal iron-tipped arrow thwacked deeply into the solid pine trunk, right at the exact spatial coordinate my head had occupied a microsecond prior.
I blinked, my vision slowly clearing. "Ow... what the hell was—?"
Lyra's golden eyes flared with a brilliant, terrifying fury as her fingers closed tightly around the hilt of the bandit's discarded iron sword, scooping it up from the grass. "It's that bastard leader!"
The scarred leader stood at a distance near the edge of the clearing. He calmly lowered his shortbow, a thin, elegant trail of gray smoke curling upward from the cigarette still clenched firmly between his teeth. "That kid possesses some remarkably dangerous tricks," he muttered coldly to his men. "But his interference just made the acquisition process significantly worse for both of them. Eliminate the boy, and secure the girl."
The remaining five bandits began to close the distance, their weapons drawn, their eyes locked onto us like apex predators cornering wounded prey.
Lyra's signature, defiant grin slowly widened as she adjusted her stance, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her blade with both hands. "Heh... beautiful. I was honestly starting to get bored anyway."
What the absolute hell is wrong with this girl?! I thought in pure disbelief. She is seriously considering a direct fight against five armed adults?! She was literally just crying bound to a tree!
"No!" I grabbed her wrist and yanked her back. "You won't last five seconds! There's six of them!"
She blinked at me, shocked. "What?! You seriously want to run?!"
But I was already moving, grabbing her arm as I muttered, "Think fast or we both die!"
"Rghh, I hate when you're right!" she hissed, reluctantly pivoting her body as we turned and bolted at a full sprint into the deeper, unmapped sections of the western forest.
Behind us, a chorus of heavy curses erupted from the clearing as the bandits immediately gave chase. Their synchronized, rhythmic footsteps thundered against the forest floor like the drums of an advancing war party. Sharp branches whipped past our faces like claws of bark; jagged leaves slashed at our exposed skin as we navigated the dense undergrowth at maximum velocity. Our leg muscles burned with lactic acid, our young lungs screaming for oxygen, but halting was mathematically non-viable. They were right on our heels. Heavy leather boots pulverized the flora behind us, their shouting echoing through the dark canopy.
Phhwww~!
Two separate arrows thunked violently into a nearby mossy trunk, just a mere two inches away from our skulls.
"Move, move, MOVE!" I shouted, violently tugging on Lyra's wrist as we simultaneously ducked beneath a massive, low-hanging oak branch.
Suddenly, a blinding blur of sharpened steel slashed downward from above—a heavy, vertical axe strike. We barely managed to alter our trajectory to avoid deceleration. Lyra instinctively twisted her entire torso, hoisting her iron sword upward to parry the incoming blow.
Clang!
A brilliant, sharp blue Aura violently flared around her form upon physical impact, sending a shower of bright sparks flying into the shadows. The sheer kinetic feedback of her blue energy staggered the heavy axe-wielder just enough, throwing his balance off and granting us a few critical meters of additional lead.
"They're gaining!" Lyra gasped.
"We're smaller!" I panted heavily, my vision blurring at the edges. "We must take advantage of that!"
We abruptly veered off the main path, darting directly between a cluster of tightly packed, ancient trees, slipping effortlessly through narrow physical gaps that were structurally impossible for fully grown adults to navigate without slowing down. Behind us, furious growls and curses erupted as the bandits were forced to violently veer around the obstacles, losing valuable momentum.
But not the leader. He was gone from the group, probably somewhere in the woods, he'd broken off, moving silently and methodically. We didn't notice, because we were too focused on trying to survive.
Another bandit suddenly leapt out from the flank, a wicked hunting knife gleaming in his hand. Lyra parried the strike entirely on instinct, her blade sliding along his steel to slash his wrist aside before ducking low beneath his counter. "Keep moving!" she shouted, shoving my shoulder forward as the man grunted in intense frustration behind us.
I rapidly scanned our immediate surroundings as we sprinted through the dense fog of the lowlands. Then, my eyes widened in realization.
"Over there!" I yelled, pointing our heading downward.
Ahead, the ground sloped steeply downward. It was a natural down-hill, slick with moss and lined with roots. And at the bottom, half-hidden by bramble and time, was the hollowed trunk of a fallen tree, massive and open like a tunnel.
We didn't slow down as we jumped in feet first.
"RAGH!" A pursuing bandit lunged forward, his outstretched fingers narrowly missing the tips of Lyra's long, sky-blue hair by a mere fraction of an inch as gravity violently pulled us down into the dark abyss of the log.
The interior of the hollowed trunk reeked of damp rot, stagnant moisture, and decaying wood. The rough internal bark scraped violently against our sides and backs as we tumbled chaotically through the darkness, completely losing our orientation.
SPLASH!
We violently impacted a deep body of water at the exit of the log. It was freezing cold, thick with mucky sediment, and exceptionally deep. Far too deep, in fact.
I rapidly surfaced, coughing up stagnant water and gasping for air. "Lyra?!"
She thrashed beside me, panicked. "K-Kyro! I can't—!"
She didn't know how to swim.
I lunged forward, catching her firmly by the wrist and pulling her thrashing torso close to mine. My internal mana reserves were dangerously close to absolute depletion, but they weren't entirely empty yet. I had just enough for one more spell.
I focused my mind, bypassing the vocal matrix once again to utilize Wordless Casting. I targeted the fluid dynamics of the surrounding water. The freezing liquid shimmired faintly with a pale light, resisting my magical commands initially due to my lack of elemental affinity, but my precise conceptual understanding of hydrodynamics forced the molecules to comply. The water softened, parting fluidly around our bodies and easing our physical drag. Utilizing a minor kinetic pulse against the current, I manipulated the fluid to propel us forward, dragging her heavy, soaked form onto the muddy bank.
We collapsed entirely onto the wet, squelching shore, violently coughing up silt and shivering from the acute hypothermia, but our biological signs were stable.
"We... we actually managed to create distance..." I wheezed between ragged breaths, my vision spinning. I slowly picked myself up as Lyra still laid, coughing next to me.
"No," a cold, calm voice resonated from the shadows directly behind us. "You didn't."
I began to turn my head, but a fist as solid as solid granite slammed with terrifying velocity directly into my exposed ribcage.
WHUMP.
"EUGHH!"
The entire universe spun violently on its axis. A blinding explosion of pure agony detonated through my chest cavity as the sheer kinetic force launched my small body completely off my feet, sending me crashing backward right into the freezing pond. I barely even registered the cold liquid swallowing me whole as a frantic cloud of bubbles escaped my mouth.
It was absolute agony. I could not trigger my respiratory system. My diaphragm was completely paralyzed. My arms wrapped tightly around my shattered chest as my body instinctively curled into a helpless fetal position beneath the surface.
H-help! I-I can't breath..!
The bandit leader stepped smoothly out from the deep shadows beneath the weeping willows, casually cracking his knuckles. The hand-rolled cigarette was still clenched perfectly under his smirk, completely dry.
"You kids honestly almost impressed me out there," he murmured, looking down at the water.
Lyra staggered unsteadily back to her feet on the muddy bank. She was completely soaked, panting heavily, her small frame shivering violently from exhaustion. "Y-you—!"
With a final, desperate surge of physical adrenaline, she lunged directly at him with her iron sword, her sharp blue Aura flaring to life one last time with blinding intensity. But the leader simply stepped sideways with terrifying, military precision. He bypassed her guard effortlessly and drove his reinforced knee straight into her unprotected abdomen.
CRACK.
Her brilliant blue Aura shattered instantly into a thousand dissipating fragments, like fragile glass catching a hammer. She choked violently, coughing up a mixture of saliva and bile as her body completely crumpled to its knees, her iron sword falling limply into the thick mud beside her.
The swamp around us fell completely silent, save for the soft, rhythmic ripples of the disturbed water... and the slow, heavy approach of leather boots crunching against the wet earth. The leader exhaled a long plume of gray smoke, his eyes entirely calm, almost amused as he watched Lyra struggle to maintain consciousness on her hands and knees.
"That was a good attempt to escape," he said, his voice low, casual, and entirely devoid of empathy, "but unfortunately... you're out of luck."
I let out a weak, pathetic groan, desperately trying to force my uncooperative limbs to sit up. My arms and legs felt like heavy, leaden logs; my chest was tightly constricted, burning with pure fire with every single microscopic pocket of air I managed to drag into my lungs.
My fingers clawed uselessly at the thick mud of the pond's edge.
L-Lyra... That was all I could think.
She was trembling violently, soaked to the bone and severely bruised, trying desperately to hoist her torso up from the dirt, but her internal mana circuits were entirely burnt out. Her blue aura was completely gone. She had absolutely nothing left to give. The leader calmly reached down, his fingers calloused and brutal as he grabbed a massive handful of her long, sky-blue hair.
"You are one remarkably fiery little brat," he muttered, violently pulling her upward by her scalp until she was forced to look at him.
Lyra gasped, her teeth clenched in rage and pain.
"From what I've seen... you're already an Intermediate-level swordsman. Impressive, for a kid below ten." He tilted her face toward him, his cigarette trailing smoke beside her cheek. "Your village must be hiding some serious talent."
Behind his position, the heavy crunch of leather boots resonated through the clearing. The remaining five bandits had finally caught up, navigating the descent to surround the bank.
"They're literally just children, Boss," one of them muttered, spitting a glob of phlegm into the dirt. "Let's just slit their throats and get the wagon moving."
"No," the leader countered sharply, his eyes narrowing. "If a mere nine-year-old brat can execute martial arts at an Intermediate standard, that settlement must be hiding some exceptionally powerful high-tier warriors. We haven't just stumbled across a simple raiding target... we may have just struck an absolute goldmine of valuable targets."
One of the men grinned, "You know what they say, the stronger the village, the greater the loot."
Y-you fools.. What kind of saying is that? This ain't a video game.. I gritted my teeth.
He violently yanked Lyra higher by her hair, lifting her small frame completely off her feet. She kicked her legs wildly, her voice caught in a deep, feral growl of pure defiance, a golden fire still burning fiercely within her eyes.
I forced my hands deep into the wet mud, using every ounce of my remaining physical willpower to push my upper body out of the water. I coughed up a reservoir of stagnant fluid, my lungs finally beginning to re-engage their primary mechanical functions, dragging in desperate pockets of air.
Move. Please... just give me enough power to move...
"Over there! S-someone's coming!"
The leader slowly turned his head toward the southern brush, his expression cool.
One of the bandits stepped forward, sword drawn. "I'll handle it." He didn't take more than three steps before a flash of steel carved through the trees.
SHHK—!
The bandit's eyes went wide. A clean slash opened across his both of his knees, and he dropped. He groaned in pain but his face was immediately kicked.
An absolute, deafening silence blanketed the swamp.
Then... slow, deliberate footsteps are heading us. Out from the weeping willows stepped a tall, imposing figure. His dark leather travel coat was torn slightly at the left shoulder, his naked steel blade dripping a steady, rhythmic stream of fresh crimson blood onto the grass.
It was none other than Saul.
His piercing, analytical gaze locked directly onto the bandit leader's face. His facial expression was completely unreadable, devoid of anger and devoid of hesitation.
"Put the girl down," he commanded. "Now."
[End]