The morning mist hazes the surface of the kesu in a pale purple haze. It is the dawn of the frontier.
No Man's Land, as far as the eye could see, had a strange and unique beauty in its desolate rock and sand, and in the few plants and trees of the same color as the sand. It is the beauty of a kind of terrible conceit that is harsh and does not tolerate human intervention. The wilderness, even in the same frontier, was different from this side of the Kesu River, as if it were a completely different world in terms of its green color.
However, nowadays, the area around the Rude Forest on the north bank of the river does not necessarily appear to the eye of the beholder as a peaceful world surrounded by greenery. Linda raised a small fist to the sky and yawned. The middle of the Rude Forest was burnt to ashes, and the majestic figure of Fort Staphorus, the protector of Gora, which had stood tall in the middle of the forest, was also lost overnight.
"It seemed to tower so unwaveringly."
The girl with shining blonde hair, slender limbs and mysterious violet eyes hugged her shoulders and murmured, gently looking at the ruins of the castle. Some smoldering black smoke was still rising from there. The once impregnable castle of Staphorus had been defeated in a day and night-long siege by the invading army of the Shemites of Nosferus.
A small figure woke up beside the girl, who was looking at the aftermath of the battle that left tens of thousands dead, with her violet eyes shaded.
"What did you say? Linda."
He asked in a sleepy voice and stretched out his head toward me. The morning sun illuminated what could be called a miracle of creation: a beautiful girl standing there with her arms folded, dressed in boyish leather clothes, lost in thought, and a beautiful face that was exactly the same except for the length of her hair.
There, as if a polished mirror had appeared, the pretty boy leaned close to his sister's side and looked into her violet eyes. When they stood side by side, it was almost impossible to tell which was the girl and which was the boy. This was Linda, the princess, orphaned from Paro's now defunct royal family, and Remus, the prince, the only legitimate heir to Paro's throne, The younger brother, on the other hand, had soft, dreamy eyes and open lips, and as a result, they were like two pearls, indistinguishable from each other if they stood in silence.
Their father, the king, and their mother, the queen, were killed in the Black Dragon War, when the crystal city of Paro was overrun by savage Golar soldiers, and by an ancient machine hidden in the depths of the Crystal Palace. However, a slight deviation in the coordinates sent them unexpectedly to the frontier of Gora, close to the wilderness of Nosferus, so that the twins were found and abducted to Staphorus Castle with strange companions they met by chance, and encountered the Great Night Raid of Shem.
The strange pair of companions still slept in the shade of the huge rock beneath the cliffs of Staphorus, where they and the twins had spent the night after their escape. When all Shem's troops were finally withdrawn and they felt confident that they were safe, the Chariot of Lure, the Sun God, had already cast the first flash of light on the horizon, and they slept back and forth, free from the tension of the night.
If they had heard a sound or a sign, they would have awakened from their slumber deeper than the darkness of the Dole, and taken up their great swords, which were still drawn to their knees. Thinking of this, Linda laughed faintly and brushed her dirty blonde hair back behind her shoulders with both hands.
"Linda."
His brother Remus says with a face that is finally waking up clearly. A whisper, as if he feared to disturb the clear quiet of the doomsday morning.
"We're alive, aren't we?"
"It's not natural."
Linda replied irritably. Remus panicked.
"Hey, Linda! If you're yelling that loud, there's more of them out there. ..."
"No, you don't. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Linda made up her mind.
"The Shemites know that those flames yesterday were in full view of the other frontier forts. Reinforcements will reach Staphorus by the end of the day from Arvon, Talos and other nearby forts. The Semites fear that. Yesterday, they would've spent the night picking up the bodies and throwing a feast, but they sent canoes out before dawn to pull them away because they know if they run into the new Gora army, they're finished. Otherwise, they wouldn't have missed us so easily."
"Oh, right."
"You're always using half your brain. Oh, and I'm hungry."
Suddenly brought back to reality, Linda clutched her flat stomach and sighed sadly.
"There should be fish around here, but I don't feel like eating them after the blood that was spilled in the Kes River yesterday. There were so many dead Semites and Gora men in the Kes. I'm sure the fish in this river today are eating it up."
"But it was so full of blood and bodies at night, and now it's so clean and blue and quiet."
Remus was impressed. Linda clicked her tongue.
"They were washed downstream, you idiot. No matter how many fish there are in the Kes River, we couldn't eat all those bodies in one night."
Linda was wrong. It was no wonder that the princess, who had been brought up like a flower in the peaceful midlands of Paro, did not have an accurate knowledge of the Kes River, which was said to be a dark stream. Linda didn't know anything about it,
"We'll starve to death. That's all well and good, but Gora's reinforcements, which the Semites feared, are a threat to us as well. If we don't want them to find us, we'll have to get out of here."
Linda looked around and shook her head, wondering which way she should run. The river Kes stretched out before her, and she could not hope for much. To turn back towards the forest behind them would be to risk running headlong into Gora's vast army. And the No Man's Land beyond the River Kes is a lonely wilderness rife with monsters and barbarians, the most terrifying place on earth.
"I hope Guin wakes up soon and tells me what he thinks."
Linda puckered her pretty lips. Her brother gave her a soothing look,
"Don't worry. I'm sure everything will be fine with Guin."
"I hope so. We're on the Kess River."
Linda said. But when I looked back at her, her eyes suddenly softened.
"Suni. Guin."
I looked at them as they stood up and walked toward me from their hiding place in the shadows of the rock. They were two very contrasting people.
Suni, who comes running up to Linda, is a girl of the dwarf tribe Shem. The Shem are not the Karoi who attacked Castle Staphoros last night in large numbers. The Karoi are known for their ferocity, but Suni's tribe, the Rak, are a more docile race.
The average height of the Semites is about one meter, though there are some differences between the races. Their weight is only about the same, and their faces and limbs are densely covered with bristly hair. At first sight they look more like apes than men, and in fact their intelligence is said to be quite low. But they are not animals at all.
As proof of this, they have their own strange language and can make weapons. They can light fires, wear furs, and dress themselves in cloth. And in their little heads they keep a little bit of love too - you can see it in the walnut eyes of this Suni, whose life has been saved three times by Linda and her companions, and who looks up to Linda like a faithful dog. I know.
Behind her stood a strange figure. It was Guin, the leopard-headed warrior.
His name is Guin. But that's all we know. His country, where he'd been, what he'd been doing, the circumstances of his wandering-- he lay naked in the Forest of Ludes, with no memory of anything.
He was more than twice as tall as Suni, and probably three times as heavy as Suni. Moreover, there was not a single inch of flesh on his magnificent physique. His body, armored with massive steel-like muscles, reveals him to be a tough and hardened warrior, and the wet blood, old and new scars, stuck here and there on his dark body seem to indicate his turbulent past.
And what gives a strange final touch to his god-like physique is the leopard's head that covers his shoulders and hides his face - the head of a real rugged beast.
"Have you had enough?"
Guin says in a growling voice. The voice, though the twins had grown accustomed to it, was heavy and muffled by the leopard's head, and quite difficult for the uninitiated to hear.
"You'd better save your strength. We've got to get out of Gora by the end of the day."
"Leaving Gora territory?"
Remus rolls his eyes and says.
"But how?"
"Don't be surprised. You know that once you cross this river, you're already in the middle of nowhere."
Suni ran over and threw herself at Linda's feet, looking up at the silver-haired girl with admiration. Linda unconsciously patted her small head and was struck by the fantastic beauty of Guin, illuminated by the morning sun of the Kesu River, as if she were a mythical god.
"If you ever set foot on the frontier, ..."
Remus shakes his head.
"There is no other way. I was thinking last night that at any rate we should wrinkle the Kes and cross the wilds of Nosferus and somehow reach the eastern edge of the Middle Plains. Any other route would be not only difficult but dangerous and too far. And with Suni and me, we'd be too visible to penetrate the Gora territory."
"But the wilderness of Nosferus--"
"No, there's still one way to do this, Guin."
Suddenly, a voice called out from behind them, and they turned their heads. What they saw was the handsome face of a young warrior - Istvan of Valacia, the Red Mercenary.
Last night, the four of them, Guin, the holy twins of Paro, and Suni, who were pursued by both the Semitic troops and the dead spirit of Rude, who had been bouncing around the castle in the guise of the lord of Staphorus Castle, ended up at the top of the Black Tower after running away.
They crawled through the loopholes to the roof of the tower, and the flames and barbarians pursued them. No matter how much Guin's strength and skill are superior to the others, they are outnumbered, and if they continue like this, it is obvious that one day they will be killed.
Knowing this, Guin resolutely chose a dangerous gamble. He tied Linda, Remus, and Suni together with a leather belt, and suddenly threw himself from the roof of the tower to the surface of the dark river Kes, which stretched far below.
A feeling of endless levitation, fear of falling forever, and as soon as their bodies slammed into the water, darkness engulfed the four fugitives.
Nevertheless, they were unexpectedly lucky, or perhaps they were protected by Yarn, the god of fate. For, having leaped hundreds of metres, they would not have been surprised if they had struck not the surface of the water, which protected them, but the rocks on the shore, which smashed them to pieces. But once they were submerged in the water of Kes, they floated up to the surface of the dark river, unconscious.
Their luck was twofold. If they had remained afloat, the great fish of Kes or something else might have found them before anyone else had noticed.
But as they fell like huge birds without feathers, there was one who hid himself in a rock at the base of a steep cliff near the surface of the Kesu River and watched them closely. It was Istvan.
This jovial, bad-tempered young mercenary from Valacia, near the sea, had been sentenced to death for rebelling against the lord of Staphoros, and was locked up in a cell next to Guin and his men. However, determined to shape his own destiny, he worked through the night to weave a rope Ladder and escaped from Staphorus Castle ahead of the others. Just as Netozlumik somehow knows when to escape from a sinking ship, he, who calls himself a psychic "demon warrior", seems to have a strange ability to know exactly when the right moment is.
Because if it had been that night, they would have been killed as prisoners by the Semites who attacked the fort, and if it had been earlier, they would have been hit by the huge Semite army that was lurking at the bottom of the cliff.
No matter how good a warrior he was, it would have been impossible for him to defeat all the dwarves who came after him, and the fate of Staphorus Castle would have been greatly changed if the people of the castle had heard the noise of the battle below the cliff. However, Istvan escaped to the riverbank of Kes by the rope Ladder just after the Shem army, which had secretly crossed the upper stream in the darkness, had completed its surprise attack by dividing into two groups, one in the forest and the other at the bottom of the cliff.
For a while, the cheerful mercenary from Valakia looked at the figures floating and sinking on the surface of the water, and pondered what to do, but eventually came to the conclusion that it would be to his advantage to help them.
So he crawled out and threw the rope with the key in his hand. It was already night, but the fire that had engulfed the castle of Staphorus made it as bright as midday. It was only a matter of time before Istvan pulled the four men, who had been caught by the hooks, up onto the rocks with great difficulty. As he dragged up their heavy, wet bodies with his strong arms, muscles heaving like rope, the black, still surface of the river rose in waves, and at the same time the huge mouth, with its fangs, snapped its teeth together. After biting its teeth together two or three times, the monster took in the corpse of a castle soldier that was floating nearby and disappeared.