He stared at the world around him. Everything seemed pointless. Everything felt empty and without meaning, as if there was no purpose in the world.
He hated this world with its absurd and pointless rules and demands.
He loathed all these laws that existed. He felt alone and unloved, as if he was an empty vessel with no soul.
However, there was something that bound him to this world. A hint of daylight in this darkness. He swore to protect that light with his very life.
—Year 106, Era of the Creations—
A lovely day of the fall. The weather was comfortable, a bit cold but not too cold; just enough to rest peacefully and have sweet dreams. On this wonderful day, a person was leading a horse carriage, on a path that leads to who-knows-where in the middle of vast plains. A slight breeze of wind caressed his face. It was a teenager who was dressed in a black and crimson red dress that had some designed patterns. A sheathed long sword with strange etchings of gold and silver on its handle and hilt was hanging by his waist. His appearance and the carriage he was leading, made him look like a royal mercenary. Other than his clothes that well suited his figure, his face had ordinary features alongside his jet-black short hair. Yet somehow he looked dreamily gorgeous. A small pendant was hanging by his neck, it was a crystal gem with uneven edges covered with a thorn-like vine made of something metallic; perhaps it had a symbolic meaning.
His irises were brown and he had slightly long eyelashes. But his eyes felt lifeless if one stared into them long enough.
"Hey, Casian. Hey! What are you dreaming about? If you keep getting absent-minded like that you'll lose yourself someday!" A little girl yelled from inside the carriage.
The girl poked her head out from the carriage window and disturbed Casian's peace of mind. She looked very different from ordinary humans. She is what one might call a Dryad. Her pale white skin colour accompanying her long green hair and dark green irises were beautiful. The elegant smile on her face seemed enough to cure anyone's heart.
"Is something wrong?" asked Casian. From the tone of his voice he didn't seem annoyed at all, even after being crudely disturbed from his deep thoughts.
"How much longer will it take to get to the Imperial Capital? I'm getting exhausted from all this travelling!"
Casian took a moment to think and said, "We just left the town of Ishal. Ahead of us is the flower forest of Cecilia. After that, we cross one more town and we reach the capital."
"You didn't even answer my question! How many more days will it take?"
"Well, we should be there by tomorrow."
"Hmm... I was wondering why you want to visit the capital now."
"Did you forget? I was summoned."
"No, what I mean is, you never respond to the summons from the Mage Association. Why now?"
"It's the head mage this time. I also received some disturbing news."
"News? What sort?"
"About my master. You don't need to worry your little head about it."
"You're treating me like a kid again!"
"Because you are."
"Stop already!"
As they were chatting, a forest on the horizon ahead caught the little girl's attention. "So... do we have to camp inside that sad-looking forest?"
"We might have to. Ariel, what do you mean by sad-looking?"
The forest they were speaking of looked slightly blurry in the distance. The night was falling and in the red sky, the forest seemed to be emitting an unusual white light.
The little girl, Ariel's face tensed up a bit and it felt as though she could relate to something that Casian couldn't. She said, "I don't really know but that forest is filled with sad emotions. Despair, hate, sadness and such emotions are oozing out from it and it feels prickly like a rose with blood-covered thorns, beautiful, but it pricks you if you get too close."
"You don't know about that place?"
"From what I read, It was one of the battlefields from the Great Deities' war a hundred years ago. If I remember right, many of the renowned gods that had a fall on this land were Vidar and Gaia. The strange flowers that glow in the night are a result of evolution from the flow of mana that was released after many divine beings were destroyed."
"That's not all. It wasn't a war, it was a massacre. A single entity slaughtered all of the gods residing in this area."
"Wait wait wait, I thought they killed each other because Gaia was a southern god and Vidar was a god from the north," said Ariel with a puzzled look.
"Although northern and southern gods were against each other in the Great Deities' War, the battle here didn't happen because of that. The entity that slaughtered all those divine beasts and gods, especially Gaia and Vidar, made it look very one-sided, or so I heard my master say. He then received the title, God of War, Ares."
"But that's the title of a southern god. How can they recognise someone as a god when they killed one of their own?"
"Ares originates from one of the southern kingdoms, that's why he was recognised by Celestia instead of Valhalla. As for why, even after Ares killed one of their own, I don't know. The title of god given to one doesn't ask for anyone's consent or choice either." With a brief pause he continued, "Anyhow, we have to stay the night in that forest. I've heard some rumours of a drider-hoard infection, but it shouldn't bother us even if it's true,"
"Yeah, brother will fight off any driders that come to eat us! hehe," Ariel giggled.
Although they don't look alike at all, Casian and Ariel have a relationship that of a brother and sister. A dryad and a human wandering this strange yet beautiful world. If their life was a play, would fate have it be a tragedy? Or would it take a path more lighthearted?
A few hours have passed, and night has already fallen. The two wanderers have entered the mysterious forest. Inside the forest, anyone would feel uneasy because of the eerie atmosphere cultivated by the dimly glowing flowers. A path was carved out in the middle of the dense forest with tall trees on both sides of the path. The forest is filled with many tall trees, although the Cecilia flowers are just small plants that grow close to the ground.
Casian stops the carriage horses and gets off the horse. "Hey, Ariel, we'll stop here for tonight. I'll make preparations."
"You should get some rest too," says Ariel after jumping down from the carriage.
"Eh..."
"Don't 'eh' me! You haven't slept properly for a few days, I think you should get a good rest before we start moving again."
"Alright alright, just promise me a few things."
"Like what?"
"Promise me, you won't get too curious and go off into the forest when I'm not awake."
"Alright, I won't go wandering off, you happy?"
"Very much so. One more thing, have you practiced your arts? I'm talking about mana emission specifically."
"...I haven't."
This was the first time in their conversation that Casian got annoyed. But before he could say anything Ariel continued, "I promise I'll do it tomorrow! I am so exhausted today, I feel like I also have a fever, oh hey, I feel so dizzy all of a sudden! Am I gonna faint!?"
He said in a disappointed tone, "It's fine, you can skip practice today. But, tomorrow when we reach the Capital that will be the first thing you do."
"Let's go—!" Ariel exclaimed in joy but stopped soon after realising she doesn't want Casian to remove the privilege of skipping practice that day.
Ariel is Casian's waist height. Outside of the carriage in this glowy environment, her stature was blurry but enough to notice a few traits of her. She is a petite young girl with very dryad-ish features that include beautiful cyan, white and yellow flowers in her green hair. Her long gorgeous dress suited her almost perfectly. Anyone would say she will grow up to be a pretty lady.
The fire crackles and pops as it lights up the area surrounding the fire. Sparks and embers leap up and spread in the air. Ariel is reading a book beside the fire sitting on a log. Her big brother, Casian, is napping inside the carriage. Their trustworthy horse is resting by the carriage.
The forest is filled with many tall trees, although the Cecilia flowers are just small plants that grow close to the ground.
Ariel remembers that Casian strictly prohibited her from wandering off into the forest. As of then, her mind was occupied reading a book named, 'Spell Records; Junior, 7th edition'. Unexpectedly, something caught her attention, she tilted her head and looked into the distance. The forest ahead is too dense for her to make sense of anything she sees.
—'A sudden outrage of bloodlust? It's so hurtful...'
The evil emotions felt like small needles piercing her skin one by one.
With the ability to read emotions in the atmosphere near her, she closed her eyes as something other than the previously unnerving feeling was roaming about in the atmosphere. Actually, it was three different emotions altogether.
—'Bloodlust, disgust... And something I can't make sense of?'
That 'something' sent chills down her spine.
The little girl's ability to read emotions close by her wasn't something very special when you consider the fact that she is a dryad. Dryads are the spiritual forms of large trees, forests and sometimes even mountain ranges. Long story short they are the physical representation of nature itself— Or, that is how ordinary folks think of it as.
—'Someone is in danger! I can feel it. I should wake up Casian but... he hasn't been able to rest peacefully for the last few days...'
Thoughts like, 'what she should do' and 'what she should not do' kept flooding her mind but in the end, she was only but a child. She decided to search for whatever was causing the strange phenomenon all by herself. It should not go unmentioned that a slight bit of curiosity was also at play.
The horse set by the carriage didn't seem to care much at all. From its view, she disappeared into the distance, her figure engulfed by the dense forest and weak lights emitted by the flowers.
While chasing the source of the overwhelming surge of emotions, Ariel was slightly brushing some trees on her way. Upon swiping her finger on a trunk, the finger radiates strange energy around it. The strange aura flows like water until converging at the tip of her finger leaving a glimmer of small light for only a brief moment at that area. Of course, all that happened very quickly.
—'This should be enough for me to find my way back.'
As Ariel kept delving deeper into the forest the intensity of that strange feeling kept growing. And not long after her tenth marking, she stopped suddenly. Not much distance ahead of her was a shadowy figure. Ariel realised her mistake of not being swifter as the tall figure heard the rustling sound she made while moving on dried leaves, looking directly in her way. The dark-shadow-like figure was too late, the young girl had already moved behind a tree.
—'Almost got caught! Glad I noticed him before he saw me... I should cast the cloaking spell brother taught me.'
She spoke in a bizarre-sounding language for a brief moment and a dark aura started to envelop her whole body and fuse into her skin, making her figure almost transparent. Although, If someone were to concentrate their attention directly towards where she was standing, they would most definitely notice the slightly distorted space caused by the cloaking spell.
The shadowy figure from earlier, who, upon a closer view, looks like a tall fellow with not many redeeming looks except for his two sharp canine teeth and his black-shrouded attire, didn't seem to think of the sound as something to be concerned about and went back to carefully observing his initial subject of interest.
—'A vampire? Wait, I sense other people!'
Ariel discovered many other figures in the vaguely lit part of this forest. They maintained a relatively large distance from each other.
The part of the forest they were positioned around was but a huge wound with no large trees except Cecilia flowers. It felt as though moonlight hailed down from heaven on this patch of the forest and claimed it as hers.
—'They're surrounding something. Huh, a lesser-drider? And who's that? She's so... pretty...'
Ariel saw an eight-legged creature, a spider almost the size of herself, known to her as a lesser-drider. But besides that 'thing' there was something else that stole her attention. A young woman with long beautiful white hair. Her hair had braids in them that stretched to the back of her head. Her skin colour was pale and seemed to glow in the moonlight as if she is a faraway princess from another world. She was wearing a pale blue gown that had designed embroidery. At that moment her face had a distressed expression. The spider beside her who looked like it was on good terms with the girl, was contracting its legs assuming a defensive posture toward the crowd of vampires around them.
"Well well well, it seems like we really hit the jackpot this time," said a person with a raspy voice from the shadows. He slowly started walking towards the forest clearing. His body soon came to Ariel's visibility. It was another vampire wearing a shroud. He was not a large but tall fellow. His stature left much to be desired compared to the tone of his voice. Something else that came to Ariel's notice was his badge that was on the left side of his chest.
—The Witch's crest!?
Upon seeing the crest Ariel was terrified.
—Bad, this really is bad, I shouldn't have come without Casian...
"Master is gonna be so very happy that I caught you guys all by myself! So please don't make this hard for me and try not to make me kill you," said the guy with a wide smirk. The features of his face and the expressions only give off a crude vibe.
A gentle yet defiant voice replied, "Why are you so persistent to hunt me down all of a sudden? And after all this time..." The voice belongs to the white-haired girl. She has a soothing voice that has a warm, friendly, and positive tone.
"Silence! I have no interest in filthy blood like yours. No, you have no significance at all! But still, my master wants to capture you and I don't know why the heck they want us going after impure vampire blood like yours. What I do know is that I'll finally get my sweet promotion after I hand you over!" He accused the young lady of being a vampire, and that of impure blood. It's as if he has an innate hate for her just because she has that specific trait.
"What a distasteful fellow," the spider said in a monotone and almost inhumane voice.
Many more spiders of different shapes and sizes crawled their way out of the trees and into the forest clearing, making a formation around the original speaker. It followed up with, "You're a fool if you think we would just let you take her."
"Oh? You think your hoard of driders can stop us, vampires?" Look at yourselves, you're not even proper driders!" At that point, some of the figures came forward from the shadows. They were also wearing a shroud with knives in both hands.
Ariel was carefully observing all this playout from behind a tree.
—'This must be the drider-infection Casian was talking about!'
With a blood-curdling hissing sound, the spiders crawled to the group of vampires surrounding them. They attack in pairs of four or five, covering up the face and body of any unlucky fellow with their webbings. The places they bite immediately change colours and the flesh around it disintegrates. The end result is a dreadful-looking corpse.
The supposed pack leader shook his head and with an annoyed tone, he replied, "You feel the need to not make this as hassle-free for us as we thought but, oh well, who gives a shit! Die for all I care!"
Although the spiders were large, moreover they outnumbered the vampires, it seemed as though they were getting slaughtered. The vampires were skillfully using their knives to kill the drider hoard as effectively as possible.
In the middle of the skirmish, the white-haired woman, presumably called a vampire of impure blood by the leader of the pack was approached by some of the opposing vampires. She takes an offensive posture and uses her sharp fingernails as weapons. The woman has great speed and agility like a cat so it's hard to keep up with her when she attacks. She fights to kill, and it feels like she has no remorse for the people she kills. Maybe that comes with the nature of being a blood-sucker.
Her unique fighting style was soon to be disrupted by a sneak attack performed by the pack leader himself. He appeared behind her and made her dodge an attack in an untimely manner that threw off her position, leaving her wide open.
"You are mine!" yells the aggressor, already assured of his success, only to be dumbfounded by several tree branches that bound him mid-way through his dirty attack. The branches seemingly appeared out of the ground, wrapping around the entity's body in an instant and conveniently binding the target at his location.
Not far from the scene, Ariel was seen gasping for air, as her cloak was blinking, making her visible to the common eye.
—'I used too much mana! My cloak ran out I hav—!!'
Before she could finish her thoughts a knife came flying directly in her direction. Fortunately, her reflexes came in handy again as she dodged the knife in time. The knife was thrown from the target she just spent so much effort to bind. And now she was on the ground thrown off-balance because she had to evade the knife.
"And who the fuck are you?" The pack leader broke free from the fragile tree branches with no effort at all. He approached Ariel with a pissed-off look.
"A dryad? You don't look like a dryad of this forest. Where the fuck are you from? Well, it doesn't matter, I fucking hate dryads!" he said as he was about to run the small dryad with his knife, even though she was just a kid.
Behind him, the white-haired vampire yelled, "I am your target! You dare turn your back towards your enemy?!"
Just before she was about to dash and attack with her sharp claws—
"Heh. You are so arrogant."
The young lady noticed there were two more enemies of whom she was completely unaware. They had only recently announced their positions but it was too late as they held crossbows directly in her direction.
Several crossbow bolts came flying in her direction, piercing her flesh. One of the arrows went through her lower-left abdominal area. As she fell to the ground she tried to support herself with her left arm. Her right arm was pierced by an arrow that is still sticking out, rendering it useless. She feels the urge to vomit. Blood gushed down her throat almost drowning her in her own blood.
Vampire blood doesn't look much different from human blood. When exposed, it starts to evaporate with a low sizzling sound.
Ariel saw before her the aftermath of a bloody battle with her own eyes. The scene she witnessed was horrifying. She had tears falling from her eyes, and the sight made her more afraid than anything before. What she just saw might leave a vicious mark on her for the rest of her life. But this is the reality of the dreadful world she is living in. Just as she described, a rose with blood-covered thorns.
"Ah yes! That's it, cry out louder! The taste of killing a pitiful dryad who's in despair is just so delightful!" The sound of the vampire's voice sent shivers down the little dryad's neck. She heard an ominous, piercing laughter coming from the vampire's mouth as he licked the edge of the knife with his tongue.
As the unsightly being in front of her was about to execute her, she came to regret the fact that she couldn't be together with her brother anymore. Although deep in her heart she believed that he will come to save her, no, she wanted him to come and protect her. But she couldn't bare see her brother hurt, nor did she want to depart from him. A selfish wish? Perhaps it was.