Savage Forest - Chapter 64
Translator and Editor: Effe and Nabi
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chapter 64
That night, Tarhan gathered his mother’s remains and released them into the river. The torrential rain did not seem to stop, and Aquilea did not give any land to bury his mother until the end.
The girl still pursued him to the pile of stones that he had returned to after releasing his mother’s body.
He left the enemy alone, as the dagger was still in her hand, and laid on the bed as if passing out, thinking that it would be okay if she stabbed him with it.
As soon as she lay down on the bed, he vividly recalled his mother’s melted body and limp skin, which was already cool. He calmly closed his eyes despite the rising nausea. It was because he was so exhausted that he didn’t even have the energy to vomit.
Soon, he fell into a faint sleep, hoping that he would never open his eyes again.
He had a nightmare.
It was a dream of that day.
Fire arrows rained down from all sides. It was hours after he found his sister’s body at the scene of the mayhem, where he could not hide anywhere. A scene unfolded in front of his eyes as the three Aquilea b*stards were entangled on top of his mother.
Blood trickled from the corners of his mother’s mouth, her long black hair disheveled.
Tarhan watched it from beginning to end, with his cheek sunk into the cold ground. The flaming torch in the man’s hand, clutching his hair, was thrust in front of his eyes so he couldn’t close his eyes.
The moment the heat touched his eyes, he woke up screaming.
“Huaaaahh…!”
He felt the girl horrified, and he took his hand away from his eye. As he backed away from her, gasping for breath, Tarhan sat down with his head lowered as he pulled his hair.
“I, I thought you were having a nightmare…”
A cautious, thin voice came.
Feeling the girl coming towards him, he quickly sat down and took a couple more steps back. Since it was a small hut, even with that much movement, the end of his leg touched the outside where the rain was pouring.
The moment she saw the expression on his face, the girl didn’t come any closer.
Suddenly, he noticed that the girl’s shoulders were shaking so thinly, together with a pale face and blue lips.
It didn’t seem like it was because she was cold. He didn’t know what she was thinking to terrify a sleeping person, but he savagely warned her not to come any closer. Anger, confusion, and piercing tiredness seemed to drive him crazy.
“I, I won’t disturb your sleep… however…”
The child spoke again in a cold sweat.
He wondered if she had something else to say. She was so hesitant that he couldn’t bear it and wanted to rush her.
He waited patiently until he heard an unbelievable word.
“But from the side, only toes… can I just sleep touching your toe…?”
It was a terribly weak voice that he wondered if it was the same girl who stabbed his mother’s head without hesitation.
It felt like his heart was breaking apart.
…Why would she say something like that?
He suddenly remembered that girl digging out maggots from the old man’s back. She lived a long time in the old man’s hut. Although she didn’t know what kind of relationship the two had, it was not difficult to predict that there was no human being who would easily accept such a skinny girl, even in an empty field, even with her bad feet.
Suddenly, a lightning-like realization passed through his mind.
‘The old man has been…’
From the moment that girl was abandoned when she was weaning until she could speak so fluently.
Then, it hit him hard that this child hadn’t long since lost someone like her own parents as well. At the same time, Tarhan remembered the nights when he hugged his mother’s crippled body to sleep.
Even though he couldn’t hold her face or say a warm word to her, when he remembered how comforting his mother’s presence was just being in the same hut, he couldn’t refuse that amazing request. He didn’t even know if he, too, would have slept holding the maggoted old man’s toes whenever he was afraid of the dark night.
“Do whatever you feel like.”
With the stark words fell, the child’s small body jumped up.
Before long, the girl’s warm hand touched his cold ankle. Like his mother’s, it was not always cold, nor was it entirely frozen. It was soft and warm.
He felt strange.
As he looked down at the back of the girl’s head, who was trying to sleep while holding his muddy feet, an indescribable feeling rushed over him. At the same time, he crouched as he recalled the last glimpse of his mother.
He turned his back to the child and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Why the hell…’
Maybe it was because she didn’t want to disgrace her son that she would lead her body into the river and become the hippi’s host?
His mother’s final screams seemed to flow through him.
After losing all but her one child, he knew that her eyes never had the same light as the living.
Still, he was the only one who thought it wouldn’t matter if she stayed alive, for his sake, his only remaining son. It was his wicked greed. It reminded him of his past self, thinking about leaving her alone and running away to the forest.
‘Because you think I wanted to run away to the forest…’
At the same time as a wave of guilt washed over him, Tarhan struggled to escape it.
Perhaps if he had done it differently, if he had said differently then, if he had led his mother and ran away in a different direction then, or if he did not have the thought of running away, leaving her behind… this might not have happened.
Now, he couldn’t even tell what was right and what was wrong. His head hurt like it would break.
Only one thing was clear.
…He lost even his mother now.
He was completely alone.
It seemed that the fact that he feared so much, the fact that would not change even if the land split apart, held him in this world. Even when he hugged his chest with his arms, he couldn’t feel the warmth. It felt as if he was suffocating to death in the cold river.
All of a sudden, something suddenly touched his crouched back.
It was not difficult to guess that it was a girl’s hand.
The girl who said she would sleep holding on to his toes came up behind him. The tiny body was moving little by little as her small arms wrapped around Tarhan’s back.
“It’s too cold… Just, just tonight…”
The thinly trembling voice sounded like sobbing as well.
The image of the girl who followed him in the rain, the girl who stared at the blood-soaked forehead, and the girl who directly ended his mother’s life, who became the monster’s host, appeared in order, overlapping like afterimages.
Actually, this girl needed something to eat, so she wasn’t just following him around.
As the fact he had tried to ignore her for a long time hit him like a wave, the meaning of continuing this futile resistance disappeared. Except for his childhood, he had never shed tears in front of anyone, even in front of his mother.
However, at this moment, he couldn’t find a way to stop the hot tears flowing down his cheeks.
The little girl hugged him tighter as he began to sob, and Tarhan tried to remove her hand. He didn’t want to look ugly anymore. He didn’t even want to look dirty anymore. Still, the girl clung to him the more he pushed him away.
Against that stubbornness, the will to resist faded like blown ashes.
He finally collapsed completely in front of the child. The child hugged him tighter as he crouched down even more, let out his breath and started to cry. In the child’s tiny embrace, he was shattered into pieces right to his soul.
The end was scraped all the way to the floor without leaving the last piece.
Since they met here anyway, it was as if they were facing each other with all their bottoms exposed from the beginning.
He had a terrible dream of their first meeting.
It wasn’t a long time. He was accustomed to the dreams, and this time, he found that he couldn’t wake up.
It was because of the gentle hand that was brushing his forehead.
The surroundings were still hazy and dark. Their bodies, which had been entangled like one body even just before falling asleep, seemed to have been separated for quite some time, and his empty side felt cold.
Again, a tickling sensation landed on his forehead.
He could see what was going on without looking. She was sitting down by his bedside while he was sleeping, quietly brushing his forehead and hair.
Tarhan pretended to be asleep, and in the distance, he felt his whole body buried in the emotions that began to rush in. He was used to feeling choked, and the tip of his nose tingled, though he couldn’t express it. He pretended to fall asleep for a while and left his body to the touch she gave.
This happened often when he woke up.
Tarhan pretended to sleep each time. He had no idea how he should react to it.
The child’s originally small hand, which was no more than half of his hand, touched him like the most precious thing in the world. The touch was as soft as a feather as the fingertips gently brushed along the contour, careful not to break it.
He was mesmerized by that touch every time. It was as if he was a newborn child.
It seemed that her heart overflowed from her fingertips and came into him. Her hand was the only soft thing he had in his world. There was only one light corner left around him, which was sharp and desolate all around, dotted with blood and the corpses of monsters.
A corner of his chest kept getting hot, and it seemed like his body would boil over if he didn’t bathe himself in cold water right away. At the same time, a feeling of helplessness disarmed his whole body.
Nonetheless, he put up with it all desperately. If he could, he would have clenched his teeth. This kind of contact is always desperate for him. He knew that this moment would break in an instant like pottery that fell on the floor.
Moments later, the child’s hand fell away, leaving a painful regret.
He could hear her limp foot moving towards the kitchen, which was connected to the room in which they slept. The busy movements of the child preparing food for the soon-to-be-awakened Tarhan were transmitted through sound.
He opened his eyes slowly, hearing the familiar sound.
She didn’t have to do that every time. No matter how many times he said it, she seldom listened to him.
‘It’s just breakfast. I won’t die even if I skip it.’
Still, she hated that he was starving.
Tarhan got up again, repeating the futile thought that it would be nice if the amount of time she had been looking at him had increased if she had time to take care of that.
It had been years since that happened and since she started living with him.
—
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Join our discord to receive the latest updates as soon as possible!
Comments for chapter "Chapter 64"
MANGA DISCUSSION
What Are Pilot Novels?
Pilot novels are novels that will only have a few chapters released from our group. We hope that someone else can continue these novels for the enjoyment of everyone!