Honestly, coming to the Forest of the Demon Realm through Adriana’s ring felt like a gamble.
I heard from the Eccentric that you can’t just place Warp Markers everywhere, and they mentioned they were planning to conquer the Forest of the Demon Realm.
I wondered if the Warp was directly linked to the Forest of the Demon Realm, and the result? Jackpot!
I learned that the Grand Witch sensed someone warping into the Forest, so I could immediately follow that direction.
“Wha… how did that guy get here?!”
“Kill him first! We can’t let them know we’re here!”
A few members who had never faced me before charged straight at me. Horan, a girl, frantically reached out to stop them, but it was already too late.
“Giant Golem and Yachabore, huh?”
With the traits of magical beasts living in the Forest, they rushed at me, but it was as easy as sticking a sword into their necks while having the answer key.
“……!”
Silence.
Seeing two of their own members killed in an instant, they froze with bewilderment.
Usually, the first people to charge in a group tend to be the ones confident in their skills. For two such people to not even resist before dying?
I swung my sword to shake off their blood and moved toward them.
“Everyone, run!”
The shout from the male Leader.
Horan picked up the Leader and turned her body, but the other members were still in shock.
“Don’t get distracted.”
Meanwhile, another member jumped onto a girl with the legs of a magical beast and stabbed her with a knife.
Now recognizing the situation, the Tudogs members started to run away without any strategy.
I took a deep breath.
The dank, murky air of the Forest of the Demon Realm filled my nostrils.
Someone once said that no matter how long you stay here, you can never get used to this unique atmosphere.
But for me, it was a place more familiar than ever.
In the forest.
Especially this forest, renowned as the most infamous on the continent.
If it’s the Forest of the Demon Realm known as hell, there was no one here who could escape from me.
*
“Leader…”
Horan bit her lips, calling him with a crushed pronunciation. Yet the Leader couldn’t even respond to her call.
The first two people to flee kept hearing the screams of countless squad members echoing through the trees at regular intervals.
It was like knocking down dominoes, killing the members he had struggled to gather.
“Even in the Forest of the Demon Realm, he’s moving like that.”
A hollow laugh escaped the male Leader’s lips.
Choosing to flee despite having the numerical advantage was the sensible choice. This was the Forest of the Demon Realm, a bizarre maze that completely disregards an individual’s strength.
Though it was just the entrance of the forest, I thought I was the one more familiar with the place. Thus, I thought it would be easy to escape.
“Guess I was wrong.”
I was completely mistaken.
That boy, for some reason, was flying around the Forest of the Demon Realm, slaughtering everyone.
I felt like a beast being hunted by a hunter.
Death was looming around like hell.
Thinking this, the Leader smirked and asked Horan to let him down.
“Horan, you should run.”
“Leader?”
“You have somewhere to go other than the Tudogs, right? Go there.”
“But Leader!”
Horan pleaded, but the Leader spoke firmly.
“Thank you for your efforts until now.”
He knew very well that she had followed him purely out of affection. He had used that affection to easily manipulate her.
“To be honest, I’ve never loved you even once.”
“……!”
“I was born into a place like that.”
The Leader said faintly.
Using magic, he pushed Horan away, who looked like she wouldn’t leave.
With Horan’s abilities, she could surely escape while giving him time.
While waiting for death with his mana stored, the Leader saw a girl falling from a tree as he approached.
“Ugh, ugh!”
Hare, who infiltrated the Aios Academy.
What if her best friend, Rin, had found out earlier that she was ‘The Earliest Apocalypse’?
Would there have been no such tragedy?
No use regretting it now.
The moment Hare saw the Leader, she reached out, begging for her life, but blood spilled as the blade thrust into her back, tears streaming down her face.
However, contrary to her wet eyes, her pupils were losing vitality.
“Forty-two.”
The total number of people who warped this time was 44.
In other words, apart from the Leader and Horan, it meant everyone else was dead.
Daniel McLean, covered head to toe in bright red blood, glared at the Leader with a dry expression.
With his cruel and merciless demeanor not seen in the Academy, the Leader couldn’t help but feel tense again.
Who could see him like this and not tremble?
“I missed one.”
“Ugh.”
I wondered if Horan had already managed to escape the forest, but I was baffled by how someone like him, a swordsman, could sense such a thing.
“Well, as long as I have you, the most important one, it’s fine.”
“I won’t beg for my life.”
“Even if you beg, I won’t save you.”
The Leader’s mana began to surge at his resolute response. Noticing that Daniel McLean wasn’t using mana meant he could not handle it properly.
I tried to find the key to victory in that, but suddenly, the uncontrollable mana started surging.
“What is…”
He couldn’t exert such overwhelming force alone.
It wasn’t this boy in front of me causing this either.
The mana around began to leave, as if refusing to grant even a handful, and the Leader could only give a hollow laugh.
“Damn witches.”
Witches, fitting the name, began to appear on their staves, encircling the Leader.
And stepping out from behind Daniel was the Grand Witch and Adriana, who had handed him the ring to summon him here.
“Hehe, have you come to kill me, you pitiful little bugs?”
“O witches of the forest, punish the man who has insulted us!”
With a single command from the Grand Witch, the witches began gathering mana immediately. They hurriedly attempted to fire spells to kill the Leader as quickly as possible.
“Right now, the moment you cast magic, that girl will die.”
My voice echoed through the forest.
The witches looked surprised, turning to glare at me.
Among them, one witch who couldn’t believe my words hurriedly tried to cast magic on the Leader.
“Eek!”
Seeing the branch piercing her palm, she cried tears.
Among the trees in the Forest of the Demon Realm, some boast the strength of steel, allowing for such use.
“I told you, you’ll die the moment you move without my permission. That was just a warning.”
Pointing at my temple with my finger, I said.
“Next time, it’ll be here.”
The witch was in tears.
Since I told her not to use any magic at all, she couldn’t even use healing magic, sitting down merely biting her lips, looking at me.
“Tudogs, you definitely told me. ‘I’ve seen the scene created by The Earliest Apocalypse’.”
At my words, the Leader slowly nodded.
“Yeah, I saw it clearly with my own two eyes.”
Something felt off.
How in the world could he have seen that?
Could it be that he, like me, was also a regressor? But I dismissed that thought as unlikely.
“He said he ‘saw’ it.”
Not ‘experienced’ like me, but ‘saw’ it.
It seemed impossible for him to be a regressor; rather, the thought that he had seen the ‘future’ was correct.
And the only ones I knew who could see the future were…
The witches of the Black Forest.
“What’s your connection with the witches?”
At my words, nearby witches flinched. Only the younger witches, including Adriana, didn’t understand what I meant.
The Leader seemed pleased with the witches’ reactions, chuckling as he spoke the truth.
“Magical material No. 17. That was the name the witches used to call me.”
“……”
“Even as a man, I couldn’t be a breeding male for them because giving birth to children with someone of the same blood would result in deformities.”
Adriana once told me how the witches’ village was maintained.
Once every fifty years, they would bring a man to sustain the village.
So where did the used-up men go?
And what happens if a boy is born from the pregnant women?
All the answers lay with that man.
“I heard he was the son of the Grand Witch. That damn bitch has given birth even at that age.”
“……”
The Grand Witch was glaring at the man without a change in expression.
“Because men can’t handle your magic, you got careless, didn’t you? Damn witches. But, what should I do? I guess I was a freak. Seeing as I could use your magic despite being a man.”
The Leader mocked the witches, giggling.
“On the night I ran away from you girls while wearing the guise of a human, I saw the future. It was the foresight you referred to as a witch’s trait.”
This time, the witches could only be shocked.
The atmosphere was like the livestock they raised seeing something only a few witches could see; it was bizarre.
“The world will perish! In ten years, countless deaths will blanket the land! It was unfair! It was so unfair!”
With the feeling of vomiting blood, he poured out his sentiments.
“I’ve just managed to survive! I’ve escaped from those insane bitches! I only have ten years left!”
Thus, the man resisted and resisted.
He utilized every means necessary to survive.
The culmination of all those actions is what lay before me now.
The man slowly looked at his blood-stained hands from pushing through the forest and around the witches, slowly forming a self-deprecating smile.
Though he already knew, the truth re-affirmed mixed despair into the smile on his face.
“In the end, I too have become like those bitches.”
The Leader, or rather.
From the eyes of Magical Material No. 17, thick tears flowed down his cheeks.
