Chapter 188 – Reasons to Move On.
It was his one-sided notice. So I could have held him a little longer. It wouldn’t be strange if he resented him. He could have asked him why at least once, but Usher gasped at Belka’s acceptance. Doesn’t it seem like she’s been waiting to break up with him? Even though he knew it couldn’t be, he accepted it that way.
“Honestly, there are many people who are better than me. Find someone who is better than me and can protect you.”
He let go of the girl’s hand holding him. He was struck by his hand and turned away from her tender hand wandering in the air. Even that lovely strand of hair was his pain. That’s how he left the girl who couldn’t hear any answer and walked away. He couldn’t bear to look at her face, so he walked away ignoring her until the end, but before he knew it, he was running. I’m afraid that if I hesitate even a little, I’ll go back and hug that little body. Rather, it was a good thing. Because there was a person named Helena by her side.
At least he would be able to protect the girl more securely than he did himself. The golden light of the girl who always looked at him and the words she whispered saying she always liked him were all buried. He was so out of his mind.
“…Are you all right?”
As Helena asks behind Belka, who blankly watches Usher run away, the girl’s trembling voice is heard.
“Yeah, because Usher was still alive.”
Tears overflowed from the girl’s golden eyes as she turned around at her question.
“You know. Heeuk. Someday… Uhhh. Will we be able to meet again?”
Watching her girl clutching at her breast, Helena remembered the conversation Usher had had with her before he fell back asleep and woke up.
“What are you going to say to Usher?”
“I’ll tell Usher everything.”
Even though she had something to do with Jude, it was something she wanted to hide, but Belka said that as if she was determined.
“But that’s it.”
“Yeah, I know maybe it’s better not to say it. But I don’t want to fool Usher.”
Helena tried to stop such Belka. Therefore, the girl’s heart did not change even though she must have already predicted what the outcome would be. Her feelings and actions that she had to do for each other ended up hurting her. Watching her little hands, which were stained red, she closed her eyes. She wanted to stop this. In the end, there was nothing she could do.
“Whoops, whoops!”
Usher continued to run. She didn’t know where this place was or where she was going, she didn’t know the end, she just ran. It was when he had just woken up. Usher had many things to ask about why he was in Parz, why he had come all this way without Donar and Sif. In particular, the most questionable thing was how the hell did she get over the cloud zone.
“How did you get here?”
As far as he knew, crossing the Clouds was a very difficult task. He is Usher, who has already crossed the Cloud Zone with Donar’s group, but it is only after hearing from Medea and Lyudmilla how difficult it is to cross the Cloud Zone that he realizes that he has been through such a difficult place. A hellish place where it is difficult for even one person to escape even if people try to pass through it together. It was absurd that Helena and Belka had brought him through such a place alone.
“The story will be long.”
To his words, the girl answered him in a calm voice. As you know, the disease he suffered from was a disease that could only be cured in Parz, and he had to cross the cloud region to be cured. However, there were no people in Lantua who could cross through the clouds. In the end, there is no way to cure him. At that time, a wizard named Jude appeared and proposed. He said he could take them across the Clouds and heal Usher. But he had a condition.
Usher seemed to know what that condition was. I couldn’t have known The hand of the girl who barely spoke in a nonchalant voice was shaking slightly. She wanted to call it quits. Enough, she wanted to say, was enough. I get it. Don’t talk anymore However, he missed the timing to speak because he was strangled, and Belka’s voice continued.
“He wanted me to be his.”
No other way existed. The conditions to form the upper ranks were not given, and Donar was responsible, and Usher had no choice but to die from illness. In the end, the fact that he woke up in Parz means that Belka accepted his offer. She eventually got away from Jude and she was able to heal him, but that didn’t change the fact that she had to surrender her body to him. The girl did her best to trick Jude. She fawned over him, she sucked and licked his, drank, and she accepted.
He couldn’t say anything to the girl who vomited her words out in agony as if she were confessing her own sins. He couldn’t hug her. She couldn’t do anything I tried so hard to protect Belka. The unchanging reality came upon him.
“Geup!? Evil!”
Usher came to his senses only after he tripped and fell while running and running. As he fell, the sand that came into his mouth was salty, gritty and wet, and he felt bad. He blankly turned his body to lie down. The water that had been hiding in the damp ground soaked into his clothes and the back of his head. I barely thought he was different, but he’s still just a helpless, pathetic little kid who doesn’t know how to do anything and can’t do anything. The guilt of not being able to protect him was now so heavy that it was just a burden he wanted to throw off.
He got up again. He had to get out of here quickly and find a place to stay. Then he saw the road he had passed. How the hell did he get out? The strange forest, densely covered with trees, was broken and torn here and there. On the road he passed, a white flower had been trampled on and was lying terribly on the ground like fallen leaves.
“Ugh…!”
And belatedly, his condition came into view. The pants were torn in places, and blood leaked from the scratches and stained the pants red. I felt the pain just standing up, but it didn’t bother me that much. He picked up the dead flower and looked at it, unable to hold back his tears. It was as if his chest had been beaten to pieces. How long has it been since you’ve been lying on the ground and crying like that? By the time he came to his senses, it was already dark and the surroundings were full of darkness.
-Chrrrr
The sound of bugs coming from somewhere fills the silent night. The moonlight seeped through the leaves, but it was too faint to illuminate the forest below through the dense leaves. The place he is stepping on is more like a pile of tree roots and debris than the ground, and water seems to flow underneath. Even though it is different from the forest he knows, it is very different. My body trembles from the wet clothes and the cold night air. He has to get out of here somehow, but where the hell is he supposed to go? He has no money and no place to return to.
Eventually he sat down and gave up. I am hungry, my body is tired and in pain, but I don’t think about anything. It was as if his heart, which seemed empty, had erased even his thoughts. He leans back against the stump of an unfamiliar tree and embraces his knees, trying to forget the cold, but his pants that touch the ground are already wet. There was really nothing left of him. It was at a time when he was just shedding tears without sound.
-Kirrrr
A low, cautious cry was heard from somewhere. The cries he might have missed had it not been for the silence around him gave Usher goose bumps. It was clearly a cautious cry, but it was not kind for anyone. A sound like a sharp, stealthy dagger to avoid being noticed by prey. The sound clearly came from Usher’s side, not too far away. Feeling his heart beating like it would burst, he turned his face slightly in his arms, heard a sound, and checked the direction he had come from.
But all Usher could see was the thick darkness beneath the forest. The darkness, which I had not cared about until just now, began to feel frightening in an instant. He tried to calm down the sound of his heart beating like it was about to explode, afraid that something that was aiming at him might hear it, but there was no way he could stop the beating of his heart. He forgot to even breathe and as he stared at it, he soon got used to it and could see something making a sound. Is it a type of bird? At first glance, it seemed that feathers were peeping out.
Even that would not have been discovered if it hadn’t been for the moonlight filtering through the leaves. Even so, what is certain is that it is aiming at him.
-Kirrureuk
It was that there was not one such thing. This time, there was a similar cry coming from behind him, and the faint rustling of the remains of trees that had replaced the ground. Because he could hear the faint sound, Usher realized belatedly that the insects weren’t crying. At the same time, silence seems to penetrate his ears. Realizing that he couldn’t hear anything, he immediately ran out of his seat.
– Kiyiik!
– Kiriik!
Then, quickly, he felt something aiming at him brush the spot where he was. The footsteps of those stepping on trees are light and nimble, as if they are passing by. The speed of running after him seems to be just as fast. Perhaps he would have been caught by them if he hadn’t noticed them beforehand and ran away, so he ran faster and listened to the sound of them chasing them. It is difficult to hear the sound of the tree’s roots getting caught and broken, but the body that says he still wants to live catches the sound of the guys running after him.
Their number was not one or two. At least five or six. Maybe more than that. Still, it seems that it is not easy to catch up with him because of his small size, but his weakened stamina was the problem. Having been sick for about two months, his body was so weak that he didn’t think he had run much, but he was out of breath and dizzy, making it difficult to keep his balance. The moment he eventually lost his balance and fell. I could find myself splashing and throwing myself into shallow water.
“It’s great, twee!”
The water in his mouth was finer than the sand in his mouth earlier, but thanks to him, when he came to his senses and looked around, he could see that he had come out of the forest. Instead, what he faced was a vast night sky.
“This.”
The vast lake lit up the night sky, and he was thrown into the middle of the brightly shining stars and moonlight.
-Kirrureuk!
He was speechless at the scene, and the cry of something dragged him back to reality. The sound came from under the forest he had just escaped from. Whether they are afraid of stepping into the night sky or do not want to step out of the forest, they hide in the darkness of the forest and do not come out, but the sound they hear as if they are still aiming for him informs them that they are at the border of the forest. It was fortunate if they didn’t get out of the forest. It was the moment when I stood up in the night sky thinking that if I went further from the forest, they wouldn’t be able to chase me.
-Kirreuk!
Perhaps noticing his sign, it eventually escaped from the border of the forest and stood above the same night sky. Its size was small. At most, it came no more than his waist. But Usher could never be relieved. Before dipping his feet into the night sky, his fingers were bigger than his fingers, and he had claws that looked like sharp hooks and reptilian scales, but his muscular legs that stretched over his ankles, which were wrinkled like soft skin, also showed scales, and at the same time had large and small feathers.
It looks like a bird, but instead of a beak, it has a long and sharp snout, drools, boasts sharp teeth packed in its mouth, and stares at it with sharp eyes that are split vertically. Overall, it looked like a small winter Hildis beanie, but it was different. Crucially, it walked on two legs and had small, bird-like wings, but the wings were not meant to fly, but rather to hunt, showing sharp claws close to hands. The long tail that trailed behind his back swayed happily.
There was nowhere to run anymore.
