Ch.8Red Eyes (2)

At the dinner table still cluttered with the remnants of our evening meal, Mr. Milwood and I sat facing each other.

Mr. Milwood was biting her lip without saying a word, and I too remained silent, carefully watching her demeanor.

Honestly, I couldn’t understand the current situation or atmosphere at all.

What had I done?

I had finally created the tombstone my sister had longed for, and I had finished our farewell dinner, emptying glass after glass of the wine she had offered.

I was planning to leave this cabin and exit the forest in the morning that would soon dawn.

I had already received directions from Mr. Milwood on how to get out of the forest.

Looking back, I didn’t seem to have done anything particularly wrong over the past day.

Then this cold atmosphere must be because of what happened earlier.

I had fallen asleep, collapsing after repeatedly expressing my gratitude to Mr. Milwood in my drunken state, when I was suddenly awakened by the sound of a door opening.

Looking out the window, I saw Mr. Milwood heading somewhere, so I secretly followed her.

Perhaps she was going hunting to prepare something special for me as a final farewell gift.

I think I thought, “She doesn’t need to go through such trouble.”

Of course, on the other hand, my unresolved suspicions and fears about her were also creeping up.

But I never expected that she had simply gone to the riverside to bathe.

And I certainly never expected her to be such a beauty.

But was she really this angry just because I had seen her naked?

I couldn’t tell.

And there was only one way to find out.

“Um, excuse me…”

“…”

“Ah…mmph.”

I quickly shut my mouth, which I had barely opened to ask a question.

Between the strands of her hair that had fallen forward as she bowed her head, I could see resentful eyes glowing with an eerie light, glaring at me.

She was no longer covering her face with cloth.

Mr. Milwood ignored my words and was just pulling at her own hair.

“…I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were bathing…”

“Shut up.”

She cut off even my apology decisively and raised her head to glare at me fiercely.

To think she would reveal her face so openly after trying so hard to keep it hidden—my assumption that she covered her face due to trauma must have been wrong.

Ironically, only now did I vaguely realize that she wasn’t angry simply because I had seen her naked.

I could instinctively sense from the chill she was emanating that there was a more terrible reason and secret behind her obsession with not showing her face.

After a long silence, she slowly opened her mouth.

“You can’t leave this forest now.”

“What?”

“I said you can’t leave.”

Mr. Milwood said this in a resolute tone.

Her voice came out cracked, as if her throat had been completely strained during the brief time she had screamed and wailed after looking into my eyes.

Can’t leave?

For how long?

“Um, when can I…”

“Forever.”

“…What?”

To my dumbfounded question, she shot back an answer.

“Don’t you understand? You can never leave, never meet anyone, never go anywhere, never see anyone.”

“…”

“Just like me.”

She stared at me intently with her large eyes.

For some reason, her red-glowing pupils suddenly seemed larger.

No, they were growing larger.

It felt as if enormous pupils were approaching me.

And my own eyes, reflected in those pupils, were also glowing with the same red color.

“Huh? My eyes…?”

“Those red eyes are proof that you’re cursed.”

Mr. Milwood spoke relatively calmly, having put away the desperate expression she had been wearing until just now.

It seemed she had prepared herself mentally to tell me the truth.

“…Cursed?”

“That’s why I was so desperate to hide my face.”

With those words, she gave a slight smile.

It wasn’t a smile from hearing something amusing or from feeling good—it was a miserable smile, as if she had resigned herself to something, mixed with self-reproach.

A voice tinged with self-deprecating regret flowed from her lips, matching that smile.

“I was eking out miserable days in this forest where no one lives, trying to prevent the curse from spreading…”

“… Ah… Perhaps, did I…?”

“Because of you.”

Goosebumps rose sharply all over my body.

Suddenly, the texture of the clothes I was wearing felt extremely rough.

It felt as if thorns were sprouting all over my body.

I could vividly feel cold sweat trickling down between the goosebumps.

An immense chill enveloped my body, and the scene of the carriage accident flashed through my mind.

The chill, the carriage accident.

Those were the sensations of death that remained in my mind.

I was now feeling the fear of death.

“I shouldn’t have saved you, shouldn’t have helped you.”

“I’m… I’m s-sorry…”

I hunched over as each of her sharp words seemed to cut through my heart, creating a chilling sensation.

I tried to say something, but my frantically trembling lips wouldn’t move properly.

I was struggling to convey my apology with my stammering speech.

“…No.”

But she interrupted me and stopped my apology.

At the same time, the painful weight of the air that had been pressing down on my entire body instantly dissipated.

My stiffened neck began to twitch slightly.

When I cautiously looked at Mr. Milwood with a terrified gaze, her expression was tinged with sadness, resignation, and despair.

“It’s not your fault. Everything is…”

She paused briefly, her voice choking.

After a moment of silence, when she opened her tightly clenched lips, she inhaled with a sorrowful sound.

She continued speaking, her entire body trembling.

“It’s my fault…”

“Mr. Milwood…”

“It’s my fault. Not sending you away quickly… knowing I shouldn’t have… because of that damn… loneliness…”

“Mil, Milwoo…”

“No,”

She cut me off.

It was already the umpteenth time she had interrupted me, but this time was somehow different.

If her previous interruptions had felt like cutting off a conversation that was getting too long, this time she cut me off more roughly and forcefully, as if she didn’t want to hear it.

“My name is ‘Sylvia.'”

“…What?”

She staggered like someone who had lost their inner support, then leaned her body completely against the backrest and looked up at the sky, muttering in a dazed voice like someone who had let go of something.

“Milwood is the name of these ruins where you and I are staying…”

“…”

“Milwood was… a beautiful village where even the chirping of the forest and the clattering of the waterwheel sounded charming.”

Moisture welled up in her eyes.

Her red pupils glistened, reflecting the light.

Milwood, no, Sylvia slowly closed her eyes as if recalling the scenery of Milwood village.

As her eyes closed, a single tear rolled down from them.

“Because of my curse, everyone in this village died, and this village became ruins… If only I hadn’t been here…”

As she slowly exhaled, a sorrowful trembling sound emerged, as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

She was barely holding back her tears and trying to calm herself.

I could only quietly watch her.

I still couldn’t grasp what all this was about, and I didn’t want to provoke her carelessly.

Sylvia, who had revealed her real name, seemed to have much to say despite her reluctant lips.

Wait… Sylvia?

That name wasn’t unfamiliar.

Even her face wasn’t unfamiliar.

Bright blonde hair, snow-white skin. And a beautiful face and figure.

I had definitely seen her somewhere before.

“…Illustration.”

I hadn’t met her in person.

I remembered seeing her face drawn somewhere.

Certainly… when the Count who helped our family brought a newspaper published in the capital.

Her image was drawn in an illustration in that newspaper.

Why had the Count brought that newspaper?

‘Look at this, Ash. This is the hero who accompanies your sister.’

‘A woman? I thought the hero would naturally be a man.’

‘She’s a woman warrior who fights with more dignity than most men. I met her once, and I felt she truly had the eyes of a hero.’

‘More importantly, isn’t there anything written about my sister in the article?’

I muttered, looking at the woman before me.

It’s definitely her.

“…Hero… Sylvia…”

*

Sylvia.

The central figure and backbone of the hero party established through the cooperation of all nations to protect the fragile human kingdoms.

A legendary hero who ultimately achieved her goal at the end of a journey to defeat the King of Monsters, who tyrannized people’s daily lives in the most vicious ways.

Although she lost all her companions in the process and sacrificed her own noble life, she was the light of humanity who ultimately managed to vanquish the Demon King.

And now she was right in front of me.

“Hero, light, all bullshit…”

“…”

“You can see for yourself, the world is still, no, has become even more of a mess, hasn’t it?”

As she said, the world was a mess.

Even calling it a mess would be an extremely cautious and measured expression.

Despite the Demon King’s death, the threat of monsters had not disappeared, and humanity was in an even greater crisis after losing many heroes of the era, including the Hero herself.

In fact, my parents’ deaths were also the work of forces trying to seize power by exploiting such chaos.

The chaotic political situation had drained away all the intelligence to detect such conspiracies in advance, as well as the wealth and military power to prevent them.

“Were you alive all this time…? They said the Hero had died…”

“I suppose they thought I was dead since I didn’t return to the kingdom.”

I had many questions I wanted to ask her.

After all, she must have witnessed my sister’s final moments.

But there was something I needed to ask first.

“Are these ruins… no, is this village and that curse the reason you didn’t return?”

“…Yes.”

“If you had returned, they could have helped you…”

“Hahahahaha!”

“…”

She laughed loudly with a miserable voice.

“Help is impossible.”

“A skilled healer could…”

Sylvia shook her head.

She took a small knife from the table and gripped it so tightly her hand trembled.

It was the knife I had used during dinner.

“…This is the dying curse left by the Demon King.”

“The Demon King’s…?”

“…Yes, that damned scaly skin… even as he was dying with his throat cut, he placed a curse on me.”

The Demon King.

A vicious Snake King who suddenly appeared about 30 years ago, controlling monsters and ruthlessly attacking humanity.

It was said that this scaled demon with vertically slit pupils used powerful brainwashing magic that drove all monsters mad and forced even demons who didn’t want to fight to follow him.

Unlike other Demon Kings throughout history, this Demon King’s goal was simply war.

Simply the extinction of humanity.

If such a being had cursed her with his dying hatred, it would indeed be difficult to heal, but still, if she had returned to the capital, the kingdom wouldn’t have just abandoned such an important figure as the Hero.

“He said it didn’t have to be him who destroyed humanity, that’s what that severed head said as it fell to the ground.”

The wooden handle of the knife she was gripping began to crack with a snap.

“That damned lizard didn’t kindly tell me what kind of curse it was.”

“…”

“Ha, it was only natural, I suppose, so I couldn’t prepare for it…”

“What… kind of curse was it?”

“…Yes, I’ll tell you. Unlike with me, I can warn you in advance.”

Sylvia explained the curse that had been placed on her, and which I now shared.

As I listened to her explanation, my expression gradually hardened.

This curse cannot be healed.

I cannot leave this forest.

I can never meet anyone again for the rest of my life.

Everything she said was true, and now it was my story too.

*

After defeating the Demon King, she couldn’t return to the capital immediately.

All her companions were dead, and her own injuries were so severe that she needed treatment first.

Just like me after the carriage accident, she was completely broken and walked for two whole days in that state until she reached a village called Milwood.

This place where we are now, the village that has now become ruins.

The villagers let her in without suspicion, recognizing her as the Hero.

The Hero thanked the residents face to face.

Face, to face.

“I discovered that the condition for triggering the curse is seeing my face.”

“…”

“The effect is… well, simply put, losing your sanity.”

“Sanity…?”

“Berserk, enraged, call it whatever you want. Anyone who sees my face goes mad and attacks everyone in sight. Just like monsters…”

“…”

“The problem is that another person who sees the face of someone who has gone violent like that also gets infected by the curse, and then another, and another, and another, continuously.”

“…Good heavens.”

“This curse doesn’t end until either you die or everyone around you dies and you’re left alone. Even if you’re left alone and return to normal, you’ll go mad again as soon as you see someone else.”

She whispered with a faint smile.

“It was fortunate that I didn’t return to the capital right away…”

She was certainly right.

If she had returned to the capital with this curse, no matter how excellent the healers were, before they could break the curse, the entire country would have been filled with people rampaging madly.

Knights dispatched to subdue the rampaging people would also go mad… and more and more people would…

“…That’s how Milwood village turned into a hell where people, no different from monsters, tore and bit at each other in just thirty minutes.”

“Then, those people…”

“…”

When making the tombstone, Sylvia had offered a lot of advice.

She particularly told me about the format for the text and numbers to be engraved, and even recommended a short prayer that would be good to engrave.

How did a hero know so much about making tombstones?

“Ah, those graves… Don’t tell me.”

“…”

“…No… right?”

Thud,

The knife in her hand had its handle completely broken.

Not satisfied with that, even the blade part pressed by her thumb slowly bent.

“I had to kill them all.”

“…Oh, my God.”

That cemetery.

I had visited it many times while making the tombstone.

I had read each one.

Among them was the grave of a one-year-old baby.

“Ah…”

I didn’t need to ask her to confirm.

Just looking at her despairing expression, I could already guess the answer.

“…”

“…Wait,”

“…What is it,”

“But why am I still normal?”

According to her, I should have gone mad by now and attacked her.

However, except for my reddened eyes, I looked exactly the same as usual.

“Maybe I’m not cursed after all…”

“I need to pass on the curse.”

“…?”

“So if there’s only one person around me, the curse doesn’t activate. If it made me die, the curse couldn’t spread enough.”

A clear answer.

Of course, if she died, the curse wouldn’t spread enough.

It was a detail that strongly reflected the malice of the already dead Demon King.

“So… I’m now…”

“Yes, when you meet other people, you’ll lose your mind and attack them. Until either you die or everyone around you dies.”

“That’s… impossible…”

It was a terrible curse with no apparent solution, as she said.

A curse created to kill all humans, which is why she had cut off all contact with humans and shut herself away in this forest.

And I too had been caught up in this curse.

So this was why she had been hiding her face so desperately.

Now I could understand why she had emanated such hostility when I casually asked her to show her face.

And despite being so careful, I felt an unspeakable self-reproach for my carelessness that had ultimately caused this disaster.

I need to think.

Is there a solution, some good way out of this?

Of course, it’s not like I had anything particular I wanted to do outside this forest, or any reason to live.

Rather, if I could live here where my sister’s grave is, I would want to do that.

Well, that’s what happened in the end.

I had become someone who shouldn’t leave this place.

I could stay by Laila’s side…

Wait,

By Laila’s… side?

“Sylvia.”

“…What is it?”

“We could just die, couldn’t we?”

“…”

I looked straight up at her.

Yes, having lost all my family, I didn’t particularly want to live anyway.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I wanted to die, but there was no need to live while risking the danger of spreading such a curse to the world.

To my sister’s side, to Laila’s side, to my parents’ side.

It might even be for the best if I could go meet my family again.

I had blushed with shame while carving Laila’s tombstone, ashamed of myself for being glad to have survived.

Though it was a life she had saved with difficulty, I didn’t find it precious.

And in her face, piled high with despair, I could find no joy or desire for life.

She too must surely want to die.

After killing the people of Milwood village with her own hands, after realizing that she was the cause of all that terrible tragedy, she must have wanted only to die, all this time.

That’s what I thought.

Sylvia heard my words and slowly smiled.

“Ha, hahaha…”

“…Sylvia…?”

“Ahahahahahahahaha!”

“Syl…via?”

I called the hero’s name imploringly.

Sylvia’s laughter grew louder and turned into a maniacal cackle.

She tightly gripped the knife that was bending into an L-shape in her fist and raised it with lightning speed.

The tip of the knife was pointing toward her eye.

“Whoa!”

I jumped back in surprise.

“Hehe….he,”

“Sylvia?”

The knife turned into pitch-black ash and scattered into the air.

Even as a somewhat lacking magician, I could tell from the pitch-black ash powder.

The Demon King’s curse was protecting her.

Don’t die, spread the curse.

I might be able to die, but she couldn’t.

I might be able to escape this curse, but she couldn’t.

“…Is there any way…”

I asked the hero, forgetting my initial intention to ask about my sister.

If there was any way out.

“Then, at least I could die—”

“No,”

Sylvia knocked over her chair and stood up abruptly, then slowly approached me.

“…Sylvia?”

“I just thought of something, Ash…”

“…Yes?”

“…Perhaps you are a reward bestowed upon me by the Goddess?”

The red color in her eyes seemed to glow strangely.

Even her blonde hair seemed to flutter ominously.

“I was at my limit too, Ash.”

“…What?”

“How much I wanted to leave this forest, how much I wanted to talk to someone…”

“…Sylvia, ugh!”

Sylvia grabbed both my cheeks with one hand.

As my cheeks were pressed, my lips protruded forward grotesquely.

She looked down at my face and smiled.

It wasn’t a miserable smile or a resigned cackle, but a beaming smile like that of an expectant child.

“But I endured. I endured, and endured, and endured. Because I’m the Hero. Even if I’ve fallen, my desire to protect people hasn’t disappeared.”

“…Sylvia?”

“But you came here on your own feet, and you ignored my warnings despite my giving you ample caution.”

She stared directly into my red eyes, tainted by the curse that was the same color as hers.

I too looked into her red eyes that reflected my image.

Milwood, no, Sylvia dropped the broken knife handle onto my thigh and said:

“Welcome to my fucking life, Ash.”

She declared with a laugh that she would not save me.