Chapter 253

Illegal Dumping (3)

You could enter the Forest of Four Seasons whenever you pleased, but leaving was another matter.

Not only that, no one knew where they would end up when they entered.

Both Grylls, an invasive species, and Ludwig could be considered lucky cases in that regard.

Someone else had started out in a swamp, only to be dragged away by a swamp maw before making it very far.

With starting points being so heavily randomized, luck inevitably played an enormous role.

In other words, you could set foot in a viciously dangerous area the instant you entered.

"Cough! Cough!"

The Pope—or rather, Louis II, now branded a traitor to the realm—coughed violently.

Enduring pain that felt like an awl piercing his lungs, he opened his eyes.

’Where... in the world am I?’

Countless natural environments existed within the Forest of Four Seasons.

There were ordinary forests, plains, grasslands, deserts, snowy mountains, oceans, and even volcanic regions.

Those environments also existed outside the Forest of Four Seasons, so they were not especially difficult to accept.

But the place where Louis had landed was different. Before him stretched an environment unlike anything he had ever seen, even in books.

’A gray and green... region?’

Gray and green.

The striking combination of two colors that did not belong together.

Then there was the surrounding terrain. At least deserts had sand, but here there was nothing but solid earth and vast, empty plains.

A few withered trees stood here and there, but they only made the place look even more desolate.

’I don’t know about anything else, but that green glow... can’t be good.’

Green light occasionally shimmered from the gray earth. Just looking at it filled him with an ominous feeling.

More importantly, he could not remain here. He needed somewhere to hide.

Drip. Drip.

After all, blood was still dripping from his wrist.

Just before he had been forcibly sent inside, Asella had coldly severed his hand.

’Damn it. That fucking bitch.’

He grimaced and hurriedly rummaged through his pack.

It was the luggage Asella had given the prisoners as one final mercy.

She had said it contained useful supplies, so this was the only thing he could rely on.

Although having only one hand made it difficult, Louis somehow managed to examine its contents.

’A dagger and jerky. This is a potion, and this is...’

After the potion, the next thing to catch his attention was a small vial.

It was filled with purple liquid.

The instant Louis saw it, he clenched his teeth.

There was only one thing purple liquid could signify.

"You fucking bitch!"

Crash!

With a furious roar, Louis hurled the vial away.

The purple liquid within seeped into the gray earth.

"How dare you... How dare you mock me to the bitter end?! This is your idea of a final mercy?!"

Green usually represented healing, while purple liquid generally symbolized poison.

It was a kind of consideration, telling him to take his own life cleanly rather than be eaten alive by a beast.

Of course, his corpse would still be devoured afterward.

It merely meant that he could leave this world after experiencing as little pain as possible.

"Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right?! I will never give up! Never!"

With a vicious expression, Louis forcibly pressed his severed hand back against his wrist.

Then he poured the entire potion over it, desperately trying to reattach it somehow.

However, unlike an elixir, an ordinary potion did not possess particularly powerful healing properties.

Although the flesh and muscles fused together, it could not mend the bone, leaving the hand dangling loosely from his wrist.

Louis decided that was good enough and tightly wrapped the joint with a strip of cloth.

His determination to survive and escape by any means necessary was palpable.

’I’ll survive no matter what I have to do. I didn’t build up all that power just to lose it like this...!’

He could still vividly remember the lavish life he had enjoyed within the Holy See.

No one had been able to oppose him, and anyone who tried was immediately purged.

The taste of power had been sweeter than anything else. Wealth and women were meaningless in comparison.

That was why he could not give up.

He would survive through sheer tenacity and reclaim everything.

"O Ares, please grant me strength."

Perhaps because he had once been a clergyman, he even prayed to Ares, a goddess he had never truly cared about.

Had Ares heard him, she would have been dumbfounded.

Louis gripped the dagger with his intact hand and began walking.

"Cough! Cough!"

Was there a lot of dust because this place was a wasteland?

Louis coughed again.

He hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand, only to feel something wet.

’Th-this is...’

Blood.

His hand was covered in blood from his coughing fit.

Louis turned deathly pale at the sight.

It seemed his imprisonment had weakened his body considerably.

Had he known this would happen, he would have drunk some of the potion. He had acted too hastily.

’Water. I need to find water first.’

Water was the single most important thing for survival. A person could not last longer than three days without it.

He quickened his pace, frantically searching for water.

However, finding any was far from easy. All that stretched around him was a desolate expanse of gray.

The occasional puddles he found either glowed green or resembled filthy sludge.

"Cough! Cough! Cough!"

Strangely, his coughing was only getting worse.

And that was not all.

"Huh?"

A subtle change began to occur in the wrist he had forcibly reattached.

Green cracks slowly began spreading from the seam.

It looked ominous, almost as though it had been infected with a plague.

"Wh-what in the world is this...?!"

Twitch!

That was not all.

The severed hand he had forcibly reattached began to move slightly.

Louis was not moving it. The nerves had already been severed, so that should have been impossible.

Twitch! Twitch!

The movements grew more violent.

Louis’s hand writhed as though it were a living creature in its own right.

Crack! Crunch! Craaack!

The situation grew even worse.

Its movements had now become utterly grotesque.

The fingers twisted in bizarre directions as though they belonged to a mollusk.

Louis’s face went deathly pale, but he reacted quickly.

His other hand was still intact, so he used the dagger he was holding.

"Aaaaaaargh!"

Screaming in terror, he severed the hand once again at the reattached joint.

Perhaps the nerves responsible for pain had also been corrupted, or perhaps terror had overwhelmed everything else.

Either way, he felt no pain until the hand had been completely severed.

Plop!

Louis’s hand fell to the ground.

Yet even after being separated from his body, it did not stop moving grotesquely.

Drip! Drip!

Blood dripped from the severed wrist, but Louis paid it no attention.

"Die! Die, you monster!"

He was too busy stomping on the writhing hand.

Until moments ago, it had been his own hand.

Not anymore.

He did not know whether it had been possessed by an evil spirit, but something had clearly taken control of it.

If he could, he would have burned it to ashes.

[...urts.]

Louis flinched as he continued stomping on it like a madman.

What was that sound?

Where had it come from?

The moment those questions crossed his mind, Louis nearly fainted in horror.

[Hu...]

"A..."

He could see it with his own two eyes.

A tiny "mouth" had appeared on one of the completely crushed fingers.

And that mouth was speaking in the language of Eldorado.

Crunch! Crack! Craaack!

The bizarre phenomenon did not end there.

The hand, which had lain motionless for a while after Louis’s trampling, began moving once more.

Then it slowly started growing.

Its skin peeled away, exposing bone and muscle, only for new skin to cover them again.

[Hu... hurts...]

"Gaaaaah?!"

The hand he had been stomping on was "speaking."

And it was speaking unmistakably in the language of Eldorado.

The instant Louis clearly heard the words, he recoiled.

He was so startled that his legs gave out, sending him crashing to the ground.

[It... hurts...]

As that process repeated endlessly, the hand soon grew enormous.

Its sheer size was not the problem.

The problem was the hideous form it had taken.

[It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.]

[Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?]

[#$%... #@=$... @$%%.]

[Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me.]

Mouths had sprouted all over the hand, each one spouting different words.

And it did not possess only mouths.

It had noses, ears, and even eyes.

No fewer than ten fingers had sprouted from it now.

Could this thing still be called a hand?

If not, what in the world was it?

It was an abomination riddled with mysteries, but one thing was certain.

Everything that had happened was the work of the Forest of Four Seasons.

"Ah... Aaah..."

Clack-clack-clack-clack!

Louis stared at the monster that had once been his hand, his face as pale as a corpse.

His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and he had wet himself, leaving his trousers soaked.

Any semblance of human dignity had completely vanished.

"Aah..."

But anyone who had witnessed the monster’s growth and final form would have reacted the same way.

[Hahahaha! Hahaha!]

[This is fun! This is fun!]

Just then, voices rang out nearby.

Dreading what he would find, Louis examined the stump of his wrist.

Sure enough, a mouth had also appeared on the arm that had been corrupted by the green energy.

"A-A-Ares..."

[Ares? Ares? Ares?]

The mouth repeated his words exactly.

Louis’s mind went blank.

But even that did not last long.

A shadow fell over him.

As though he had abandoned all hope, Louis raised his head.

The massive hand, covered in countless eyes, noses, mouths, and ears, stood directly before him.

The eyes on the hand stared at Louis as though observing him.

The noses flared their nostrils as they sniffed his scent.

The ears listened to his pounding heartbeat and ragged breathing.

Finally, the mouths on the hand...

[Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.]

[Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.]

[I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry.]

[I want to eat. I want to eat. I want to eat.]

[Let’s eat. Let’s eat. Let’s eat. Let’s eat.]

...salivated as they regarded Louis as "prey."

The hand slowly approached him, every one of its sensory organs focused entirely on Louis.

"Aah..."

Louis despaired.

Then he wondered.

If hell truly existed in this world, was it a place like this?

Had the political enemies he had sent away to be purged met ends like this?

How had Ludwig ever managed to encounter Grylls?

Crunch!

The hand completely enveloped Louis.

Crack! Crunch! Chomp! Chomp!

"Aaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaargh!"

Louis was devoured by what had once been his own hand.

His screams echoed throughout the desolate wasteland, but there was no one there to hear them.

[Tasty. Tasty. Tasty.]

[Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting.]

[Let’s eat more. Let’s eat more. Let’s eat more.]

No one except his own hand.

***

"Hey. You, come here."

"Wh-what?"

"I saw you doing the sweet-potato shuffle in the storeroom. Hand it over now unless you want me to cut your wrist off."

"Ugh..."

Where did this punk think he was going, trying to sneak off with a sweet potato?

I gave Kkobong a stern lecture after catching him stealing one.

It would have been another matter if he had dug it up himself, but I could not allow him to take food from the storeroom.

"Here, look at this. This is called a seed. You plant it here. Got it?"

"Can I dig them up myself?"

"Just don’t eat too many."

And so, I taught him how to grow sweet potatoes.

He was already working hard, so it was only right to give him a suitable carrot—or rather, sweet potato.

Kkobong looked surprised that I was teaching him so kindly, but only for a moment. He then began growing sweet potatoes with great enthusiasm.

’Summer should be here soon.’

Summer would probably arrive tomorrow or the day after.

When it did, an enormous swarm of insects was sure to descend upon us.

’I wonder if I’ll get to see the sky whale again.’

Would it drop more ambergris this time?

I was looking forward to it a little.

Well, that aside...

[Heavenly Demon: I am sorry. I wished to deal with all of them, but some managed to escape.]

[Wild Grylls: How many entered the forest?]

[Heavenly Demon: Four. I fear they may bring harm to you.]

[Wild Grylls: Don’t worry too much. I’ll make my own preparations.]

I should prepare to welcome our potential guests.

Though they would undoubtedly be different from Ludwig.

’So she really is the Heavenly Demon, huh?’

I had learned something new in the process.

’Well, who cares?’

She was someone who had helped me.

I would continue repaying her kindness with kindness until the very end.