Chapter 3
The young man set his bag on the ground and removed his right glove. Seeing the revealed black hand, the boy flinched in surprise, eyes widening—but he didn’t stop talking.
“B-bad people are chasing me. Please help me, please…”
Ignoring the boy’s pitiful plea, the young man placed his black hand on the boy’s head without hesitation. He expected the boy would collapse lifelessly, just like every other living thing that had touched his hand before.
But—
“Um… hello?”
Despite his black hand clearly making contact, there was no change in the boy whatsoever.
The cold intensity in the young man’s eyes vanished instantly, replaced by curiosity.
He bent down to stare intently at the boy and tilted his head. This way and that, he examined the boy’s face carefully, then spoke.
“Why aren’t you dying?”
At the young man’s casual question, the boy blinked, then his face crumpled.
It had been hard enough to escape and find someone to ask for help—but unfortunately, this person was just as merciless as his pursuers. Asking why someone begging to be saved wasn’t dying? How could anyone say such a thing?
Overcome with despair, the large tears that had been gathering in the boy’s eyes rolled down his cheeks in thick streams. Yet even seeing this, the young man continued gazing down at him with eyes so innocent they seemed almost childlike.
Just then, multiple presences could be felt approaching from the direction the boy had come from. With all the sounds of dry leaves being trampled ruthlessly, it was clear that quite a few people had entered the forest.
Deep darkness fell over the boy’s face. Looking utterly hopeless, all he could do was clutch the young man’s clothes tightly while trembling.
He wanted to run further, but his legs had no strength left. His feet were a bloody mess from running barefoot through the thorny forest, and his body was covered in bruises and scratches. What little stamina he’d prided himself on had been depleted long ago after three days of constant fleeing.
Seeing the many thugs approaching, the boy stopped crying. He gave up on begging the young man to save him, too. Like someone who’d surrendered everything, he sat listlessly on the ground and bowed his head low.
“I’m sorry…”
The boy swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut.
“They might kill you too. Run away… I’m sorry.”
The young man was strange.
Menacing-looking thugs were running toward them, each gripping clubs in their hands, yet he showed no alarm whatsoever. Instead, like someone completely unaware of how serious the situation was, he crouched beside the boy and simply stared at his downturned face. Like he was looking at some curious animal.
Meanwhile, the thugs had already reached them. Seeing the boy collapsed as if all his energy had drained away, they cursed viciously.
“Damn brat!”
“Let’s break his legs first so he can’t run away again.”
At the sight of them, the boy’s shoulders jerked and he finally raised his head. Looking at them with visibly trembling eyes, he still tried to push the young man’s arm away.
“Run away quickly. Sob—I’ll, I’ll somehow hold them here, so p-please…”
The boy was pushing with all his might, but the young man wouldn’t budge. If anything, he seemed fascinated even by the small hands pushing at him, and he stroked the back of the boy’s hand with his black palm.
The confused boy now faced a different kind of fear—the thought that this young man might die because of him.
While he trembled, one of the thugs roughly grabbed the boy’s golden hair.
“Get over here, you little bastard!”
“Ahhhh! Let go!”
Pain like his hair was being ripped out by the roots made the boy let out a high-pitched scream and thrash wildly. Then another man drove his fist hard into the boy’s stomach. Tremendous pain hit along with breathlessness and spinning vision. Unable to breathe properly, he kept coughing, powerless.
Just as he thought he might pass out, the boy looked up with a grimace to see a thug grab the young man by the collar.
“Who are you? Did you help this brat?”
“The intel didn’t mention any accomplice.”
“Maybe he’s just passing by?”
The thugs stared intently at the young man before letting out unpleasant laughter.
“He looks pretty good. Might be useful.”
“Didn’t that northern noble say to contact him if we found anyone slender and dark-featured? Perfect timing.”
The men scrutinized the young man with lewd eyes, evaluating him. Among the shady work they primarily dealt in was procuring slaves for various purposes, so they couldn’t help but be pleased with this young man who looked quite valuable.
But the man who appeared to be their leader—a large, imposing figure—had no intention of taking the young man.
“Kill him. We don’t know what the brat might have told him.”
The boy, gasping for breath while slumped over, desperately shook his head.
“N-no—cough! No… this man has nothing to do with…”
The boy’s voice was too faint. The leader didn’t even seem to hear as he walked toward the young man, swinging his menacing hand axe back and forth, glaring.
“Shame, but I’ll take your head.”
He seemed to think the young man’s unusual calm meant he was mentally disturbed. That worked in his favor—it meant a clean kill.
The leader swung his hand axe to behead the young man. Seeing this, the boy screamed with every ounce of strength he could muster, but the man didn’t even pretend to listen.
Just as the sharpened edge of the hand axe was about to cleave through the young man’s pale neck in one strike—
The young man dodged with a nimble movement that made his earlier docile demeanor seem like a complete lie. At the same time, he lightly tapped each of the two thugs beside him with his black hand.
The focus instantly vanished from both thugs’ eyes. Their breathing stopped and their eyelids, which had been twitching slightly, dropped lifelessly. Soon their knees hit the ground with dull thuds.
The two fallen thugs looked almost as if they were sleeping. As if someone had used a fast-acting sedative.
“What the hell?!”
The leader frowned and swung his hand axe at the young man again. Still wearing the same expressionless face, the young man nimbly avoided the weapon—and his black hand was already in front of the man’s eyes.
The man saw the red pattern inscribed on the young man’s black palm glowing faintly.
A moment later—
The forest, which had been filled with rough breathing and loud voices until just moments ago, suddenly became as quiet as a grave.
Among the many fallen thugs, not one was breathing. They all lay with peaceful expressions, as if they’d drifted into gentle sleep. Among them, only the small blonde boy was taking labored breaths.
The black-clad young man approached the boy, who sat gasping with shocked eyes. The boy flinched and looked up at him with a stiff expression.
The young man crouched down to the boy’s eye level and raised his right hand. The black hand that had so easily taken the thugs’ lives touched the frozen boy’s head with a light tap.
As expected, the boy only tensed up greatly but didn’t stop breathing like the others.
The young man tilted his head again, studying the trembling boy.
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t die…”
The boy couldn’t help but feel hurt by the young man’s insensitive words.
“Is it wrong for me to be alive?”
The boy’s eyes, which had seemed completely dried up, gradually filled with moisture again. Though his stomach hurt terribly with each sob, he didn’t stop talking.
“I just—hic—I just want to live too… sob Is that so wrong…?”
The tears that started flowing again thoroughly soaked the boy’s face. Though he wiped his eyes repeatedly with hands dirty from soil and blood, the tears wouldn’t stop—they only flowed more freely.
“Who wants to die… sob… I don’t want to die…”
The boy suddenly began wailing loudly. He didn’t even try to wipe his eyes anymore, just cried out.
The young man stared at the boy for a while, then looked around. He retrieved a small bag that had fallen among the thugs and pulled out a dried potato.
“Sob…?”
The boy, who’d been sobbing uncontrollably, blinked as he received a round object that was hard to identify because of all the dirt covering it.
