CHAPTER 37: CHAPTER 36: PARADISE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST (10)

For a moment, silence filled the place. None of them spoke or made a sound.

Oliver was staring at Orion, and Orion stared back with an empty, uninterested expression.

Oliver stepped closer until he stood right in front of him.

"I have some questions for you."

Orion straightened himself slightly.

"You didn’t need to bring me here. You could have asked back there."

"Would you have answered me?"

"No."

The moment he finished, Aria raised her hand and a heavy axe formed out of thin air.

She stepped forward, bent over Orion, and pressed the blade against his neck.

"Will you talk, or should I separate your head from your body?"

He didn’t even open his eyes. He simply leaned back down on the floor, his neck almost touching the cold steel.

"Do whatever you want. I don’t care."

He wasn’t acting. He wasn’t trying to look strong. His indifference was real.

The blade grazed the tiny hairs along his neck, coming close enough to cut skin, yet he didn’t move an inch.

Just as the edge was about to touch him, Lemur rushed in, grabbed Aria’s arm with both tiny hands, and pulled the axe away.

"What are you doing?!"

He was shocked seeing Aria change from an old woman into a young one, but even then he moved without thinking to save Orion.

Aria turned toward Oliver.

"Move your little friend. He’s getting in the way of extracting information."

Oliver rubbed the back of his head.

"I don’t think killing him will help us. We need him alive, right?"

Aria lifted the axe and rested it on her shoulder.

"Don’t worry about that. I’ve tried this before. These people don’t die. They come back again. All we need to do is hurt them until they talk."

Lemur stepped directly in front of her, blocking her path.

Oliver raised both hands.

"Look, violence really isn’t necessary here."

Then he leaned down toward Orion, who still lay motionless on the ground, expressionless.

"Hey."

No reaction. No movement. Not even an eye twitch.

But Oliver continued anyway.

"I have some questions. We need your information to find a way out of here."

At that, Orion finally opened his eyes and gave him a sidelong glance.

"Unfortunately, that’s impossible, little one."

"Why?"

"Because I tried for at least four hundred years. There is no exit from this hell."

"Wait, repeat that."

"I tried leaving for four hundred years. Nothing worked. Don’t waste your time."

Oliver blinked several times, trying to process the words.

"Four hundred? How do you even track time here? The sun doesn’t move!"

"This place wasn’t like this at the beginning. It used to be a small paradise deep within the forest."

Orion sat up, leaned his back against the opposite wall, and took a slow breath.

"It all started more than a thousand years ago."

...

Back then, I was with a large group of my knights, along with some survivors from my kingdom.

We were fleeing after the mythical creature that once protected us turned into a monster and attacked.

Most of the kingdom had fallen. Most of the people died. Only those who ran at full speed into the Great Forest survived.

In the first days, we wandered without a goal. We had no home, no shelter, and no kingdom left to return to.

We had no choice but to go deeper into the Great Forest, desperate to find a place safe from monsters and mythical beasts.

To build a place to live, we pushed deep into the heart of the forest. The journey was brutal at first.

We encountered countless beasts. Some nearly wiped us out, others left many of us severely wounded.

Our strength weakened day after day.

To make things worse, we barely had any food.

We were forced to eat whatever creatures we managed to hunt, despite their horrible smell and unbearably bitter taste.

Some tried eating the fruits we found, but most were poisonous or rotten. Illness spread fast.

Every single day in that forest drained more of our hope.

And yet none of us died, and that was the only thread keeping us moving.

With time, our meat supplies ran out, and most of the weaker creatures we hunted either died off or fled. We were on the brink of death from starvation.

We were ready to collapse when one day, I caught one of the small gray creatures.

When the others saw him, they insisted we kill him and eat him. They were too hungry to think clearly.

But I couldn’t. He was crying. His gestures and eyes showed intelligence and awareness far beyond any monster we had seen.

So I returned him to the cave where a large group of gray creatures lived.

When we entered, they raised their crude weapons at us.

But when they saw the child with me, a massive creature stepped forward. His features calmer, less savage than the rest.

I later learned he was their leader. And the child I saved was his son.

For the first time since entering the forest, someone welcomed us. They took us into their stone dwellings inside the cave.

They gave us what food they had and allowed us to stay among them.

Years passed. We learned to hunt with them. They taught us how to dry fruit so it wouldn’t rot.

Their language was completely different, but communication wasn’t impossible. Gestures, expressions, small signs... enough to live peacefully.

Over time, I grew close to the leader. He began respecting me, trusting me.

But peace never lasts.

Some of the gray ones never accepted us, especially the leader’s second in command.

He always glared at us, as if our existence offended him.

He started with petty harassment. Hiding food. Ruining hunting routes. I thought that was the extent of his hostility.

I was wrong.

During one of our hunting trips, the leader’s son joined us with a group of gray hunters.

The area was swarming with furred beasts, and we advanced carefully.

While I watched the surroundings, I noticed the second in command standing behind the child.

I didn’t understand his intention until it was too late.

He pushed the child toward one of the raging beasts. The monstrous creature lunged to devour him.

I screamed and threw myself toward them, trying to pull the boy away before the beast’s jaws closed.

I failed.

When we returned to the cave, the second in command carried the child’s corpse. Even though I wanted to stop him, the others forced us to carry it back.

I tried explaining what truly happened, but the second in command had already spoken before me.

I couldn’t understand their language, but I understood something was wrong the moment their accusing eyes turned toward us.