Chapter 10: Life

Anyway, our emperor couldn’t hold back any longer, so he persuaded the priests and had our master sent to this forest. Actually, our master found it very annoying.

The second hybrid let out a deep sigh. Then, as if annoyed, he continued.

“He didn’t want to pay any attention to the petty tricks of that mad king. The reason for the long war is supposed to be in this forest, but would our master and the emperor ever believe that? Yet he kept making such a fuss and poking around the continent across the sea like a thug, so he just burned it all down. Though we couldn’t just cut off King Helter’s head.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better to just kill the king?”

“Can you please not say things you don’t understand? Then what about the people of that country? Who takes responsibility for the atrocities that mad king committed? The anxious people would start doing all sorts of vulgar magic and divination. Good heavens, do you think our great emperor would just watch that happen?”

“True, that would make things more complicated.”

“Of course. Either way, he settled it with minimal forces. If this forest is destroyed, that armor can no longer be made.”

It wasn’t wrong. If they couldn’t strike Helter, then targeting this forest was the right move. And whether the war would continue or end, they would find out later.

With the hybrid’s words, silence fell. The two hybrids soon fell fast asleep, and Luti, after turning thoughts over and over, eventually grew tired and fell asleep as well.

The sun was hot. It wasn’t even the threshold of summer yet, but the forest was already trying to present summer.

Luti took out a single cherry from the pouch tied tightly at their waist and bit into it. Kay had gone all the way to a deep valley to pick them; they weren’t fully red yet, but they were still edible.

Luti chewed the cherry with shoulders stretched wide. As the sour and sweet taste filled their mouth, they unknowingly scrunched their eyes.

“I love sour things so much.”

Sweetness was still not their thing. They preferred sour over sweet, and they couldn’t even put the water snake called a special dish to their mouth. Kay and Bee had said, “You’ve gotten too used to luxury!” but nothing had changed. Eight years had passed since they were thirteen, making them twenty-one, but water snakes were still gross, and they still lived in the forest.

Luti untied the hair that had been tightly bound. Then the hair, reflected in the fresh sunlight, rippled. Because of the hardships in the forest, they didn’t have snow-white skin, but their perky nose and attractively upturned eyes hadn’t changed, and their large pupils each gave off different colors.

Their right eye was blue, showing wisdom, and their left eye was purple, containing strength and beauty.

Yes.

Luti now had the body of a fully grown adult. They were shorter than average men, but their limbs had become firm from the rough life in the forest, and their eyes, nose, and mouth sat naturally in their small face, giving a neat impression and a sense of intelligence.

Luti was proud of themself. Because although they were weak, Sorotel, who had kept Luti alive, was not. He was a little demon, a man with swift feet, and despite being a demon, he had bright eyes and a charming voice. Sorotel, who had saved them even though his personality was nasty.

He was still lodged above Luti’s heart. In the past eight years, it had never once fallen out, and they had never tried to pull it out. Luti liked this horn, and they liked the present where Sorotel protected them. When they thought that their healthy existence was thanks to the swift-footed man, their back straightened.

After several hours, Luti straightened their back and looked contentedly at the trees growing little by little. Over the past eight years, the forest had shuddered. It had wailed together with Luti, and unable to bear the pain, it had sent down thunder and lightning. After rain and wind blew fiercely like that, the forest became quiet. It sank into sorrow and did nothing. Neither wind nor rain fell, and it let out only sad crying sounds.

Luti lived their life holding the sounds of that forest in their arms. Together with the two hybrids, they left that small cave and began to settle, gathering wood to pitch tents, selecting unrotted soil to build and plaster walls. When two years passed and it became four, sprouts appeared. The river that had been red began to blur, and small sprouts grew and tried to show green leaves. And it took on its present appearance.

There were still burn marks here and there, and the air was still acrid, but it was still changing. The fact that the river in particular was changing meant that time was all that was needed to return to normal. Animals would appear now too, and perhaps people would return to the forest again. Then the same things as before would repeat…

Luti suddenly looked gloomy. It was fine if people crowded in like before. It was fine if little demons caused trouble and men who had fled the city loitered around trying to do bad things. But the people of Yondo were not okay. If they came here again to make armor needed for war, they absolutely had to stop that.

But they didn’t have that kind of power. All they had was the knowledge inherited from Ru and information about this forest. There was nothing except the fact that this forest had its own self-regenerating ability, that deep underground, moles and strangely shaped organisms still squirmed, and that the collapsed mountain was gradually rising along its ridges. So if they crowded in again and demanded the powder for armor, they had to absolutely play dumb.

“Agh! It’s so hot I could die! If it’s already like this, what are we supposed to do? Are we going to have to pitch a tent by the stream and live there like last summer?”

It was Kay. Kay was the name Luti had given the first hybrid.

“Shut up. Just be grateful we’re even living in a tent by the stream. How many bugs have we caught and eaten thanks to that? And how many moles have we eaten?”

The second hybrid, who had gained a little weight compared to eight years ago, was Bee. Bee still went on about being the real power of the Black Uniform Knights and missed his master.

“Yeah, you sure ate a lot. Even crunching on eyeballs.”

“Eyeballs are the tastiest, you know?”

Bee loved eating. So on days when Luti made dried meat, he wouldn’t go anywhere and stuck close. Instead, he showed off by giving plums or berries he had gathered as gifts.

“Ah, I miss our master. Our master always brought back a live bird whenever he returned home. The feeling when you dig out and eat that bird’s eyes!”

“You’re too extreme. And your tastes are weird. Luti, not all hybrids are like that. No, he’s the weird one. A perverted bastard obsessed with eyeballs.”

Kay threw a small pebble, telling him to get far away. Then Bee spread his cute two legs wide and made a “kaa-” sound, but even after seeing it for eight years, it was never threatening. Rather, it was so cute that Luti only thought they wished their lifespans were longer than humans.

“I have to hurry. I need to till all this land so the seeds can swell and give us food.”

Luti stamped the ground with their foot. The traces of fire were gone, but it was dead land. So they had to clear away all the soil soaked with blood for new sprouts to grow.

“This is too hard. Can’t we eat some dried meat first?”

“Already hungry?”

“Already? The sun is right overhead. I only ate two mole legs for breakfast.”

He had probably been roaming around all morning eating bugs. If he was lucky, he might have caught a few moles and gulped them down.

“Let’s eat our dried meat first.”

“Have some conscience. Can’t you see Luti working up a sweat?”

“Who said that to you? Luti, come on, let’s eat something. Hmm?”

Once Bee started being lazy, there was no end to it. Luti had no choice but to toss him the wooden rake. It wasn’t far from the hut, so a short walk would shake off Bee’s complaints.

“But after eating the dried meat, you have to work.”

“I know, I know. Trust me. Have I ever said two different things with one mouth?”

He had. At least this spring alone, it had happened more than twelve times.

“Ah, I want time to pass quickly so I can meet our master.”

“…”

“Our master was incredibly handsome and rich, so he bought me everything I wanted to eat!”

Luti walked toward the hut and looked down at Bee once. They understood that the master Bee always talked about was a cool, handsome knight who was also great at fighting, but Bee was male. Of course, they understood wanting to brag about his master, but it seemed like Bee emphasized his master’s handsomeness too much.

“Is your master really handsome?”

At Luti’s innocent question, Bee suddenly stopped short.

“You’ve never seen a handsome man, have you?”

They hadn’t. First of all, Ru was a dwarf and didn’t have a handsome face. The subordinates from Yondo all had bushy beards, and the humans who had fled had fierce expressions. Among them, there were some men who looked decent, but they had never looked closely at their faces.

“Probably.”

“You at least know what handsome means, right?”

Of course they knew that much. Books had described countless times that a man should be tall, have very broad shoulders, strong eyes, and firm arms and legs.

“It means he’s popular with women.”

“Right. Our master is very popular with women. Duchesses would dress up in all sorts of ways to catch our master’s eye. This is a secret, but Kay’s master also admired our master. He secretly sent letters and even put his handkerchief inside them.”

Bee whispered so Kay wouldn’t hear, but he was quickly caught.

“Look at this crazy bastard! You just insulted my master!!”

“I didn’t insult him, I just told you a fact.”

“I told you that wasn’t a letter from our master! And that handkerchief belonged to our master’s younger sibling!”

At Kay’s desperate insistence, Bee muttered.

“It’s the same thing. Whether the master sent it or the master’s younger sibling sent it. Either way, the surname is the same, Carolay, isn’t it?”

“Hey! You perverted bastard!”

Kay lunged. The two hybrids began fighting while showing off their pride for their masters, and “ahaa” sounds filled the air. It was when Kay, who had less flesh than Bee, tried to deliver a sharp blow. Luti’s expression hardened.

“Wait…”

“Liking eyeballs is my taste, okay?”

“I find your taste very disgusting…”

“Someone’s there.”

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