FanFic

FanFic | Submit FanFic | Updated FanFics | Latest Comments

Viewing as Guest

Warning! Mature content in this one.

***

“—and so, we believe that HOPE will be effective as a part of rehabilitation plans all over the country. We have gained valuable information about the decision-making and neuronal processes of women with criminal records.”
“Hm. I see, keep up the good work, Ms. Park.”
“Thank you, sir. However, I feel that we strongly need to increase the number of subjects under observation.”
“You mean, increase your study?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hm… That would require more funding. I knew you would be ambitious, but to move forward so early in the study is a bit reckless.”
“With all due respect, sir, I believe it is fundamental to the research.”
“Hm, very well. That will take more resources, so I authorize you to write another grant.”
“Thank you, sir.”

***

When she finally reached Neiran Village, she found it strangely quiet. The town wasn’t nearly as big as Granheim, but it still had its own general store. Planning on stocking up on her food supplies there, Crow went through the deserted streets and found her way to the general store.

The interior was designed in much the same fashion as the store in Granheim, so it didn’t take her long to find what she needed. Grabbing some bread, cheese, and a few pieces of fruit, her gaze fell on the potions section. While fighting constantly over the past three days, she had felt the acute need for a potion on several occasions. She had also been paralyzed by one of the nastier species of frogs, which had been a dangerous situation as well. Thankfully it hadn’t been a long-lasting hex, but she had very nearly died. Having never died before, she wasn’t sure where she’d end up or what would happen to her, but it would be a tremendous loss to appear back in Granheim.

Selecting the cheapest potion, one that recovered 100 HP, she grimaced at the price but took it anyways. She also picked up a paralyze potion and an antidote, which would drain the rest of her money.

Then she went over to the counter and drew out her money. The clerk was like the rest of the town—quiet and subdued. She hadn’t even greeted Crow upon entering the store.

“What’s the fastest route to the forest?” Crow asked, figuring she might as well get some information from this strange town.

The clerk’s head jerked up in alarm. “Don’t go into the forest!” she hissed, “It’s cursed—just yesterday night, the blacksmith’s daughter ran into the forest after a spat with her fiancée. She hasn’t come home since, and her father found her clothes deep in the forest this morning. And it’s not the only time this has happened! Whenever a woman goes in alone, she never comes back out… The forest is cursed.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Crow said brusquely. “Just an old wives’ tale.”

“It’s been like this for years and years! I’m telling you, adventurer, nothing good will come of going into Forza’s Forest. Take heed and go the longer route south.”

She was in a hurry and had no time for superstitious folly. The girl was probably just taken down by some monsters anyways. What kind of idiot would go into the forest at night, unarmed? Come to think of it, she had been just that kind of idiot, that one moonless night. But it was different now. She also had Brutus; the wolfdog would do his darndest to protect her.

“Just check me out. Please.”

The clerk shook her head, concern and fear on her face, but she took the money. Crow packed the items away and left the store.

There was some kind of disturbance outside, breaking the frozen silence of the village. A bearded, muscular man was swinging his hammer around in the air while roaring, his face red and his words slurred. He was clearly drunk. The people of the village were around him.

“I’ve, I’ve gotta find my daughter, she must still be out there somewhere!”

Another man, thinner and fair-skinned, grabbed the drunk man’s arm. “Calm down, Ben! You’ll hurt yourself or someone else like this!”

“But she’s out there! My Analise!”

“Ben, you know she’s gone.” It was a sharp-faced woman this time. “She should have known better than to go into the forest at night. Foolishness, pure foolishness.”

“Why you--!” The man called Ben bellowed and took an unsteady step towards the woman, trying to break free of the fair-skinned man’s grip. Another man jumped forward to grab his other arm, restraining him. “Let me gooooo!” Ben wailed. His eyes swung to one man who was visibly cowering and had obviously been crying.

“IT WAS YOUR FAULT, YOU ROTTEN RAT-FACED WEASEL!” Ben tore free with a burst of anger and fell upon the cowering young man, pummeling him with his fists. “GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!”

The villagers cried out as they tried to break the fight. Crow left the uproar behind her as she headed towards the forest.

***

By all appearances, Forza’s Forest was as ordinary as they came. The trees were strong and tall, and the floor was littered with fallen leaves. Animals were busy preparing for the winter. Birds sang as they flitted through the branches and squirrels chittered angrily at her from the trees. There was nothing to suggest any particular danger.

But she found herself moving quickly. It was silly, but she couldn’t help but be affected by what she had seen and heard in Neiran Village. With the exception of the one called Ben, the villagers had already accepted the loss of Analise and were treating it as hopeless. Their quiet acceptance had chilled her to the bone. Perhaps the clerk was right, and she shouldn’t be here.

She was in the middle of such thoughts when she thought she saw the tree in front of her smile. Of course that couldn’t be, trees didn’t smile… except the tree’s smile widened, and it walked forward with yellow eyes wide open and suddenly grabbed her arm.

Brutus snarled and leapt up to come to her aid, but roots sprang from the earth and wound around his legs, restraining him.

Crow watched, frozen in fear and panic, as the tree turned into a man, or something that looked like a man but was utterly different. Its limbs were thick and solid, ands its entire body was covered in a bark-like material. And, it was completely naked, a swollen organ swinging pendulously between its legs.

“Who would’ve thought I’d get a second one, and so soon? It must be my lucky day!”

It talked. What the hell, what the hell, WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS!

The grip on her arm was rough and scratchy. When the treeman’s other arm moved to touch her face, she finally broke out of her panic and drew her dagger with lightning speed, channeling Jay at the same time. With an adrenaline-fueled thrust, she severed the arm grabbing her, making a crunching noise, and jumped backwards. The treeman roared in pain and fury, but its arm grew back almost immediately, thick vines forming muscles and the bark-like skin growing to cover them.

“How dare you!” it screamed. “How dare you lay a blade on a druid of the forest!”

Roots emerged from the ground, seeking a grip on her legs. She jumped around, doing her best to dodge them, but one root managed to catch her left leg, and she came down in a heap. She twisted and cut the root, but another came up and took her right leg, and another sprang out to wind around her dagger arm. It grabbed her wrist so painfully that she cried out and dropped the dagger.

“How amusing, the Human struggles quite well. But it’s over! I, Forswyth, will enjoy my meal!”

Vines crawled up her body and pulled at her clothes. Crow watched in horror as the druid’s organ swelled and pulsed. Memories crashed into her, memories she had wanted to forget. Of two men, and constant pain, constant pain. Cries into the night, her name, murmured wetly into her ear.

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NONONONONO!

She channeled Jorgen with a burst of fear and pain, screaming at the same time. As she transformed, the druid was taken aback for a moment and the vines loosened their grip. In that instant, she sprang up and BIT the druid’s phallus off.

It screamed. She screamed.

And then she was at its throat, tearing and tearing and tearing. Brutus leapt in at some point, violently ripping into the druid’s legs. The limbs were like branches, but the body and head were fleshier. After tearing out its throat, she stabbed its face over and over again with her claws until it didn’t move or scream anymore. Finally, it turned to grey light and disappeared, leaving a few coins and a bracelet behind.

For a few minutes, she breathed heavily on the forest floor, her eyes wide and wild. She stopped channeling Jorgen and collapsed, feeling incredibly drained and disoriented. What… what had happened? It was hard for her to remember… no, don’t remember…

Another few minutes passed as she lay there, curled up around herself, willing her to stop remembering, chanting blackness into her head until everything was calm and dark again. Then she counted down slowly from one hundred, and when she reached zero, she stood up, her face expressionless and cold. She picked up the items the druid had dropped and identified the bracelet.

She should probably return to Neiran Village and give the bracelet to the girl’s father, but you could rub two shits together and that would perfectly symbolize how much she cared. Crow simply pocketed the bracelet and the money and walked grimly on, her senses on high alert for more unwanted surprises.

She would get through this forest no matter what it took.

***

Two Forest Druids, several Black Wolves, and one Grizzly Bear later, she checked her map. The cursor that showed her position was located right in the middle of the forest. It really was a large and dangerous forest, and now she knew that the clerk’s warning had been perfectly warranted. Not only did the Forest Druids disguise themselves as trees, but the deeper she went into the forest, the more monsters she encountered. She leveled up several times in quick succession, putting her at level 15.

It was definitely exhausting. Each battle required her to use everything she had, and more. The Grizzly Bear had been particularly life-threatening—her dagger had been unable to penetrate its thick layer of fur. She had been forced to draw the sword as well as channel Jorgen to find the strength required to take it down. Even then, she had fallen into critical condition by the time the beast finally fell. Brutus also took a big gash from the monster, and was indisposed for a while before she could wrap a bandage around him, which seemed to do the trick. After trying it on herself, she learned a skill called Bandaging. It seemed useful, and she had enough cloth for it.

Both she and Brutus were worn out, and night was falling, so she decided to find a place to sleep for the night. It would be the most dangerous night yet; she knew now that monsters grew much stronger when darkness fell. If she chanced on another Grizzly Bear now, or if several Forest Druids ganged up on her, it would be over. Finding a safe sleeping place was crucial for her survival.

Thankfully, the forest solved the problem for her. She just about tripped into the opening of a small cave. Distracted in her search for a safe place, she didn’t see the dip in the ground and fell forward right into what looked like a wall of foliage. But the wall parted like a curtain when she tumbled through it and into a cozy hollow that served her needs perfectly.

Brutus followed her in with far more grace and immediately started examining his surroundings. Crow pulled out a blanket, a loaf of bread, and a slab of deer meat from her inventory. After throwing the meat to Brutus, she nibbled on the bread while contemplating the risk of making a fire. It was a cold night, but she finally decided against the fire. The cave was a stroke of good luck, so she shouldn’t test her fortune any further.

When she lied down on the hard ground to sleep, Brutus came whuffling up to her, putting a cold nose in her face before plopping down next to her. His warmth comforted her, and drew her into the abyss…

***

It was hard to remember when it started. Maybe it was her mother’s sudden death, and how her father grew thinner and colder day by day. At first it was just little caresses, pecks on the cheek, whispered words. “You’re looking like your mom more and more every day,” he said to her one day. She didn’t think much of it, until night fell and he came into her room, drunk.

“Ha-yoon… Father is so lonely…”

She was only a child, so she didn’t understand what he wanted or what he was doing until it turned scary. He pulled off her clothes, grunting, and planted wet kisses in her hair. He fingered her little nipples and moaned. She was scared; she had never seen Father like this. When he licked the outside of her ear, she realized that something was wrong and tried to kick him, but he grabbed her spindly legs so hard that it hurt and pulled her closer to him.

“Ha-yoon… Ha-yoon…”

By the time he entered her, she was crying and terrified, and everything was red inside of her. She was red, the bed shaking beneath her was red, everything was red. When he came in, the world exploded in pain. She screamed, but he shoved a hand in her face and pushed in again. When she bit his hand, he slapped her and squeezed her mouth shut.

“This is our little secret… Ha-yoon…”

That was probably the first time. He left her an hour later, spent, while she cried and cried in her spoiled blankets.

He didn’t do it until he got drunk again, but within months he was coming to her every night. She bore it, took it all in silent pain, and turned eight while bearing it.

Her older brother was twelve, and he didn’t understand why his little sister lost weight, dropped out of school, and stopped speaking. Until he hit puberty, and realized one day what Father was doing. At first he was disgusted, because he knew it was wrong. He tried to stop Father, but Father pulled him onto the bed, deciding that it was time to teach his son how to be a man.

It didn’t hurt as much, because her brother was smaller, but the feeling of betrayal cut her more deeply than anything. He used to whisper apologies in her ear while doing it as Father watched on, but at some point it became routine, and he started to enjoy it. It was him first, then Father, every night.

One time, a social services worker came to their dirty apartment, asking why the ten-year old daughter hadn’t come to school in years. Father explained with a sad face that his daughter was frail and sick, and in no condition to go to school. The worker looked at Ha-yoon’s sunken cheeks and dead eyes, remarking that she should be taken to a hospital if that was a case. Father promised that he would, and the worker left while ticking off her name on a chart.

Help, she wanted to scream at him. Help me!

But when she tried to open her mouth, nothing came out. Everything had been sucked out of her, and all that was left was this empty, dirty husk.

She began to despise herself when she turned thirteen. And then, at sixteen, she crawled out of her room and into the kitchen. There was a knife on the counter, which she took. Father was out on some business and her brother was at school. She stared at the knife and realized that she was scared, and had always been scared. But just when she was about to plunge the blade into her wrist, Father came in, saw the knife, and knocked her down. The blade spun from her grasp. He beat her soundly, and when he determined that he had doled enough punishment, he turned to leave.

The blade went in so easily. He screamed as she clung desperately to the knife in his back and twisted it with all her might. And then she pulled it out with a squelch and rammed it in again, and again. By the time her brother came home, the thing she had once called “Father” was unrecognizable. Her brother yelled and tried to get the bloody knife out of her bloody hand, but he got a blade in his throat for it.

She should have killed herself then, but when the madness in her mind started to subside a little, she collapsed out of exhaustion. Her body simply wouldn’t move—all her strength and anger were spent. So she lay among the carnage for three days, drifting in and out of consciousness.

When the neighbors realized that no one had come out of the apartment for days, they were a little worried. They knew the people inside were a bit… eccentric. Three days passed, and some people remarked that there was an awful smell coming from the apartment. Someone called the police, and they broke in to find a mostly dead girl in a heap of crusty blood and bloated, mangled parts.

They sent her first to a hospital, which she didn’t remember, and then to a government mental rehabilitation institution. The case was a big one, and split into two parties. One group believed that she had been sexually abused for years, considering the medical evidence from her hospital visit, and that since she was still a minor, she should have a less harsh punishment. The other group lobbied that a girl who had murdered her own father and brother so violently shouldn’t be let loose into the world. The entire situation was complicated by the fact that the girl was so mentally damaged that she wouldn’t even look anyone in the eye, let alone talk. Many people thought she was already a dead girl. Many thought she was a monster.

And perhaps she was, because for a long time, she felt absolutely no guilt. She had borne enough, taken enough. Yet the world operated on a plane separate from her, and the case was ruled disadvantageously for her, though she cared little at the time. She spent three years in psychiatric rehabilitation, and in those three years, she attempted suicide eight times. When she turned nineteen, she was tossed into Kang Prison for Women, where she had been judged to live in for twenty-five years. The world had already forgotten about social refuse like her by then.

It was hard to remember when it had all started, but it was easy enough to remember when it ended. The memories of the slick, viscous blood in her hand and her father and brother screaming came back to haunt her nearly every night. Part of her mind was constantly trying to suppress the memories that threatened to overwhelm her, but the more she tried to forget, the more she could remember.

When she was registered in the program called HOPE, she had spent four years in prison and was twenty-three years old. And now, she knew that those years of pain were something that she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried. She could suppress the memories for a while, but they always came back, more vivid than before. However, being in Royal Road, meeting Jay, and feeling, truly feeling— it changed her. She had once thought that she could never have a future, that there was nothing in the world for her, only her bloody past.

But now she couldn’t help but think: Is it okay for me to live on?

***

When Crow and Brutus crawled out of the cave in the morning, they were surprised to find that a light layer of frost had covered the forest in diamonds. The first frost of the season drove all the animals in their burrows, so it was a quiet morning.

Crow was determined to get out of Forza’s Forest today. They had made good time yesterday, but she wasn’t sure what kind of trouble they would encounter today. She didn’t want any more surprises, but she was resolved to overcome any trials in her path to the Saigorn Mountains. Therefore, the moment she re-entered the unit after eating a meal, exercising, and taking a shower, she was already in full battle mode.

Brutus seemed to sense her mood; his ears were erect and his eyes were bright and alert. That was why he noticed the rustling of the bushes first, and immediately put up his hackles with a growl. Crow put up her dagger accordingly.

What emerged from the bushes was unlike anything she had ever seen in her life. At first she thought it was a human, but it was far too big… and had hooves instead of feet. It wore a set of worn leather clothes that seemed to fit it poorly, and a set of prim spectacles perched on its tall nose, lending an air of elegance to its strong face. Its expression was placating and peaceable, and two human arms were upright with the palms out.

“Now, now, fair lady, I bid thee lower thy weapon,” it said.

“But you’re a monster.”

“Far from it, human child. I am a scholar, a gentle soul whose only pastime in life is to ponder the mysteries of our world and oh dear, where are my manners? I am called Forza.”

“As in, Forza’s Forest?”

“It appears that several decades of continued residence have garnered me a rather… unsavory reputation. There are several rapscallions in the forest who go around using my name for, ah, unpleasant activities. The druids in this forest are absolutely insatiable. I believe you happened to chance upon several of them, for which I apologize most sincerely. But worry not, my dear, for there is just one thing I desire from you, and it is certainly not your womanly endowments.”

“…”

“Ahem. I’ll not draw out this, ah, one-sided conversation out any longer. I was curious about this lone woman warrior, and I happened to find out that the person in question is a Tailor. Now that pricked my curiosity, it certainly did. I said to myself, why, this is a golden opportunity! Therefore, what I want is—“ Forza paused for dramatic effect, “—a new set of attire that suits my dignified mien.”

Ding! A quest window popped up in front of Crow.

Crow stared at the strange creature for a long time. Was this… what they called a centaur? She had read of the race in Jay’s adventure books. They were a valiant people, with the upper bodies of humans and the lower bodies of horses. But this one professed himself to be a scholar, and it was true that he didn’t carry a weapon…

“And what if I refuse?” Crow asked, suspicion thick in her voice.

“Why, I certainly can’t stop you, but I entreat you to rethink it, little wolf.”

At that, Crow froze. How did he know?

Forza seemed to read her mind. With a suave smile, he spread his arms. “My dear, this forest is named after me. My eyes are everywhere. The Saigorn Mountains are also quite near. The Lycanthropes, eh? An elusive people, who certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if news of their existence were to be exposed…”

This changed everything, of course. Crow wanted more than anything to simply leave and get out of this crazy forest, but if he knew about the Lycanthropes, then she couldn’t afford to anger him and jeopardize everything.

The centaur smiled again, white teeth flashing in the sunlight. “Well then, why don’t we make our leisurely way to my humble abode? You can work there in peace, wolfling.”

<< Previous Chapter

Reset