# Chapter 26
“Oh my, Arden.”
I had to stop abruptly when someone grabbed my arm. When I turned my head, Lucy was looking me over with worried eyes.
“What are you doing dressed like that?”
Behind Lucy, I caught sight of my reflection in the window glass. Disheveled hair and pajamas. Plus thin indoor slippers. I looked like a madman.
“Is something wrong?”
“…”
I glimpsed Ea behind Lucy’s face. Remembering what happened yesterday, I felt guilty. It was no different from threatening a child.
I slowly pulled my arm from Lucy’s grip. This wasn’t the time to leisurely reflect and feel guilty.
“Have you seen Rite by any chance?”
“Rite? No. I haven’t seen him.”
“If you happen to spot him, please let me know. Don’t try to catch him forcibly. Just let me know. Understood?”
After rapidly pouring out these words, I quickly passed Lucy and hurried on.
“Did Rite disappear?”
I heard Lucy shouting from behind, but I pretended not to hear and kept walking. I couldn’t ask anyone to help find the child. I had to find him myself.
Despite searching for a long time, I couldn’t find Rite in the village. If not in the village, there was only one place Rite could have gone. The Winter Forest. Ignoring the stares of people fixed on me, I headed back to the forest.
The snow was the problem. I couldn’t find Rite’s footprints, perhaps because he left before the snow stopped. Until just now, I’d thought it fortunate that the snow had stopped, but searching the forest made me wish it would start again. Then Rite wouldn’t have been able to go too deep, and above all, the forest monsters would be immobilized. This kind of weather was considered very bright and clear for the Winter Forest.
Before thoroughly searching the forest, I returned home to change out of my fluttering pajamas and into boots. As I gathered my compass, I also took a small flamethrower just in case, then left the house. The most desirable response when encountering a monster is not attack but flight. So I hoped I wouldn’t have to use this even if I came across a monster.
This was already the second time in recent days that I’d gone beyond the safety zone. Once when Rite became irrational, and now. After checking the direction of the house several times, I headed into the forest.
The forest had long since lost its original color. The snow-covered trees looked like white monsters. Leaves that had drooped under the weight of accumulated snow created a desolate atmosphere.
I moved quickly while trying not to make noise. Most creatures in the Winter Forest had evolved to be good at hiding. In an environment where hearing was more advantageous than sight for detecting prey hidden in nature and noticing approaching predators.
Naturally, the monsters’ vision had degenerated, but I was now the most noticeable existence in this forest. Moving conspicuously and jarringly among the snow-white trees, I needed to at least reduce noise to avoid potential danger.
As I was walking through the forest with all my senses heightened, I heard a faint crying sound from a distance. It was similar to a cow’s cry.
It was probably a white buffalo. It was a very large herbivore that fed on grass, with poor hearing and sight. But it wasn’t simply a docile beast. It lived in herds and immediately attacked any living being that wasn’t part of its group.
From the loud crying, it seemed like a fight had broken out. I became increasingly anxious. I kept thinking that Rite might be the target caught by the white buffalo herd. I needed to find Rite quickly, but it was overwhelming to think about how to find him in this vast forest. I couldn’t even tell which direction he’d gone.
Should I ask the villagers to form a search party? Even though a child was missing, it was questionable whether the villagers would willingly help search. Moreover, the location to be searched was none other than the Winter Forest.
Roaming the Winter Forest in groups was too dangerous. Monsters were sensitive to sound, so it was better to stay apart from others unless they were trained knights. But would an ordinary person have the courage to wander the forest alone?
Even if the villagers helped search, it would still be problematic. We didn’t know what state Rite might be found in.
“Ha…”
I felt overwhelmed and frustrated. I couldn’t decide what to do. With my hand against a solid tree trunk, I stopped and looked up at the sky. Although it was still midday, the gloomy gray sky was irregularly covered by tall trees.
“Huh?”
With a sense of déjà vu, I looked around. Even though it was the Winter Forest where it was difficult to distinguish one place from another, strangely, I felt like I had returned to a place I’d just walked through. Despite not having a memory good enough to remember the irregular arrangement of countless trees, the scenery felt familiar.
When I turned my head to look back at the path I had walked, I saw messily imprinted footprints. They looked like footprints that had been stepped on again after one person had passed, as if another person had walked over them. I got chills for a moment. I hadn’t seen anyone else’s footprints all this time. I’d only been walking on clean snow.
When I turned to look ahead again, there were more footprints. There were traces leading to the right from a large tree. Just to be sure, I lifted my foot to check the sole of my shoe. All the tracks imprinted here matched my shoe sole exactly.
Had I really been circling the same place? But I had kept moving forward until now. The sound of the wind in my ears seemed particularly loud. There was no need to pinch my cheek to check. My cheeks, frozen stiff from the wind, had been aching for a while.
Could I have fallen for a monster’s trick? I tensed up and looked around in all directions, but nothing suspicious was visible. No specific monster came to mind, but stories of monsters kidnapping lost people were already common enough to be familiar.
Even if that were the case, if I had truly fallen into a monster’s trap, escape would be impossible. Then I would have to continue wandering and searching for Rite. Nothing had changed. As bizarre as it was, I couldn’t waste time here. I moved in a direction where there were no footprints.
How long had I walked? The strange occurrences didn’t end. With another sense of déjà vu, when I looked around, I found footprints I hadn’t seen before. By heading toward the clean areas without any traces, I was able to escape from the places where I had been circling. I repeated this several times.
Just as I was becoming accustomed to these bizarre events, a scream came from somewhere. It wasn’t a human scream. My face automatically scrunched up at the sound of a hunted deer’s cry. There was a monster nearby.
From the sound, it seemed like an Achris had been caught. It was an animal that looked similar to a deer but had a snout so long it dragged on the ground. I didn’t know what monster had hunted the Achris, but there was one monster I definitely didn’t want to encounter.
The Hide-Behind. A monster with a skinny, elongated body that hid behind trees and watched. It would be fortunate if it just watched, but being a monster, it ate people. It was very fast, so if you encountered a Hide-Behind, you would have no choice but to die right there without being able to do anything. That’s why people sometimes likened the Hide-Behind to the Grim Reaper.
But it wasn’t like I had good countermeasures for other monsters either. I had no way to deal with the Torgaseok or Trolls, which were representative monsters of the Winter Forest.
The Izirak was also dangerous. It was a monster that flowed around like a soul without a definite form and could transform into any appearance. The only way to identify it was by its bright red eyes.
The common feature of all monsters was that they harmed humans. The reason why the Hide-Behind was most dreaded was that you didn’t even have a chance to struggle in terror.
After staying still for a while, hiding my presence, I continued walking. It felt miraculous that despite hearing crying sounds all this time, I hadn’t seen even a hair of a monster. It felt like I was receiving the blessing of the Goddess Artalis.
A strong wind blew. The accumulated snow swirled, blurring my vision. I raised my arm to cover my face and squinted. Cold snow crystals touched my skin and melted. When I opened my eyes again after the wind passed, I saw something through the dense trees.
“…”
My eyes widened in surprise. I wanted to exclaim in amazement, but even that was cautious. It was a unicorn with fur that shone bright white even in the pure white winter forest. Its single horn pointing upward and long, flowing tail looked elegant. I’d heard that there were bonakons in the Winter Forest, but never that there were unicorns. The Winter Forest was infamous as a cursed forest.
The bonakon, also called the unicorn’s shadow, had pitch-black fur unlike unicorns. Its fur was rough and thick without any luster, and its golden shining eyes were its characteristic. A monster that was said to bring depression, misfortune, and nightmares to those who met it. The Winter Forest might be a place for dirty and evil bonakons, but not for pure unicorns.
Could it be an Izirak? Just as I thought that, the unicorn looking at me turned its head to the side. Only then did I properly see its eyes, which were shining with a purple hue. Just like Rite’s eyes.
Its eyes weren’t red. It wasn’t an Izirak.
The unicorn began to move its long, stretched legs, heading somewhere. Trying not to get too close for fear of startling it, I followed behind. The trees felt unusually dense. At this rate, I’d easily lose it. No sooner had I thought this than the unicorn disappeared behind the lush trees.
I felt anxious, as if I had lost a guide. I quickly walked in the direction where the unicorn had disappeared. When I turned around the thick tree that I had followed, I discovered Rite.
