# Chapter 20
‘Was he lying?’
Turuan recalled the 21 outsiders who had entered the Shuranue slum. Since there was a child among them, they used him to threaten and torture the others, and eventually, they confessed their identities willingly. They were indeed residents of this shantytown and patients who had suffered from the Numinel disease.
Naturally, they asked how the disease had been cured. There must have been a clear reason why this incurable disease had been completely healed.
‘A young boy, the power in his left hand.’
They said they couldn’t see his appearance as he was wrapped in black clothes. However, judging by his voice and actions, he seemed to be a boy in his early teens, and there was testimony that he healed the disease simply by touching them with his left hand, without any special technique.
‘That must be the premium product.’
The blonde boy that the slave traders had missed, the little one with the miraculous “Hand of Life,” had visited this village and healed them.
Turuan had thought that after the residents of the shantytown left, there was a high probability that the boy would stay here. He was on the run, and there was nowhere else nearby where he could stay.
There was a possibility that he might have hidden in the nearby Black Forest. But the only living things there were the black thorny trees, rumored to eat corpses. It was a damp place where hardly any sunlight entered, a dead land where not even a single blade of grass could grow.
That wasn’t all. Knights who had entered the Black Forest in full armor to investigate disappeared without a trace the next day, leaving only their armor behind. The backup team was so terrified that they simply gathered the armor of the advance team and fled.
The Forest of Death, where anything with life dies without even leaving a corpse behind.
No matter how young he was, anyone in their right mind wouldn’t enter such a forest, and even if they did step in, they would only use it to hide temporarily before moving on.
‘So I was sure he was hiding here, but…’
According to the reports, the young boy was much more mature than his age and quick to assess situations. That’s why when his mother sacrificed herself to help him escape, he fled without hesitation despite witnessing her death right before his eyes. If it weren’t for his un-childlike composure and situational judgment, he would have hesitated even for a moment, and that brief moment would have been enough to catch him easily.
He had thought that a child of such caliber might have treated the patients of this place, made them leave the village, and then prepared a place to hide secretly for himself, but his guess seemed wrong.
‘Then how, where is he staying?’
The men who had completed the investigation of the village gathered around Turuan. Among them were subordinates who had been instructed to search widely outside the village.
One of them brought a round metal plate. On one side, there were clear marks of having been struck multiple times, and on the other, a handle was attached. It looked like a pot lid at first glance, but it was an object that even Turuan had seen before.
“Irpil’s shield?”
It was somewhat small to be called a shield. The overall width was just the size of a small pot or a salad plate, and the side was extremely thin.
Nevertheless, it was used as a shield because it produced a tremendous noise when struck with other metals. If one wasn’t prepared, it could temporarily deafen the ears, so it was often carried when ambushing with a small number of people.
But that was only necessary during ambushes or during war, and it was truly unnecessary for the people of a collapsing shantytown like this.
“It was found on the path leading to the entrance of the Black Forest. Judging by the metal rod that was found with it, I think it was used to send signals somewhere.”
“Signals…”
If they were using such an object to send signals, it seemed they wanted the sound to reach quite far. Estimating the approximate distance the sound could reach, there was only the shantytown or the Black Forest. Considering that the location where it was hanging wasn’t that far from this place, it didn’t make sense that the shantytown people would use it to signal their own villagers.
‘Then does that mean they were sending signals to the Black Forest?’
If they intended to send signals not just to the nearby entrance of the Black Forest but deep inside, then it made sense.
Having thought that far, Turuan ordered his subordinates to mount their horses.
“We’re going to the Black Forest.”
“Yes, sir!”
Led by Turuan, about twenty people spurred their horses vigorously.
From the shantytown to the entrance of the Black Forest was roughly a 20-minute walk for an adult. Naturally, those on horseback could reach the entrance quickly.
The subordinates who stopped at the entrance all wore tense expressions. The infamy of the Black Forest was so well-known throughout the continent that they couldn’t help but be tense.
“Um… Lord Turuan. Are we going inside?”
“Even so, this place is…”
Understanding the anxiety of his subordinates, Turuan himself couldn’t readily suggest entering. He was just considering whether his guess was correct.
‘Is the premium product really inside?’
When roughly estimating the distance from where the slave traders had lost the premium product to this place, with some margin of error, he had been hiding for about a month. During such a period, despite deploying so many people, not even a single hair had been sighted, so he was definitely in a place beyond the reach of ordinary people’s eyes.
But in this Black Forest where no life could survive, could a young boy alone last a month? No matter how mentally mature and composed he was, there was no way he could endure it unscathed.
‘Was I overthinking?’
Turuan glared at the dense thorny trees of the Black Forest and the darkness that could be seen beyond the entrance.
“…?”
He thought he had seen wrong.
Turuan focused his eyes on something like dust floating and flying in front of him.
“Lord Turuan?”
A subordinate who saw Turuan moving his eyes around while staring at the air made a puzzled sound. He also looked up at the air, but all he could see was one small, white speck of dust.
Turuan reached out and caught that dust-like thing. Then he examined it closely.
“What is that?”
A subordinate next to him peered at the dust that Turuan had caught. Turuan’s eyes soon sharpened as he turned the dust pinched lightly between his thumb and index finger this way and that.
“It’s an Arzik flower seed.”
“What?”
The subordinates each made puzzled faces. That was because the only plant in this area was the thorny trees that ate corpses. The path to the shantytown was just barren land like a desert, and the place where its people grew potatoes and cabbages was in the opposite direction, quite far from here.
“Could it be from a flower that bloomed on the land where they grew crops?”
“No. The Arzik flower is a plant that grows in shade, and in damp forests at that. It’s not suitable for vegetable-growing land.”
“Then where on earth did this…”
Turuan, who had rubbed and crushed the small flower seed hidden in the dust between his fingers, dismounted his horse. He stared intriguingly at the inside of the forest covered with black thorny trees.
“It seems that it’s not just people that the little one can revive.”
Turuan slung the greatsword that had been on the saddle of his horse onto his back. Just by doing that, the air changed in an instant. A pressure so intimidating that it was hard to even speak casually spread widely around him.
“The premium product is inside. As soon as you find him, break his legs so he can’t escape.”
The subordinates who had been reluctant until just now dismounted and stood behind Turuan. While it might be difficult to find a person who may or may not be in a particular space, it’s not difficult to find someone who is certainly there.
Turuan, convinced that the premium product boy was hiding in the Black Forest, stepped into the dark space with an ominous aura.
❖ ❖ ❖
It had been about three or four hours since the brief storm between Levi and Ion had passed.
“What… did you just say?”
Ion, who had been chattering and smiling as usual with a nonchalant face, couldn’t readily understand what he had heard.
Levi pointed to his collarbone as he looked at Ion. The black hand pointing to the center of the curved white collarbone revealed between the open black shirt created a stark contrast.
“If I attack you again, stab this spot with it.”
“What nonsense is this!”
Ion frowned as he threw the dagger that Levi had handed him onto the floor.
