Chapter 4 – Echoes of the Silent Steel
With Angel slowly integrating into my consciousness—her voice precise and calm like a scalpel—I kept walking through the woods. Each step was a battle between the will to move forward and the exhaustion gnawing at my muscles. The air had the scent of wet leaves, living earth... and solitude. As if the forest itself was watching me with invisible eyes.
I was looking for something specific: bitter peaches. According to William's original memories, they were technically edible, though their taste was something out of a cruel joke by nature. Bitter enough to make you regret being alive—but still edible. And in this green hell, anything edible became a treasure.
Hours passed. The sun crawled slowly above the twisted canopy. Three hours... and I had found only a single bitter peach tree. At first, I didn't dare eat the fruit. Maybe it was pride. Maybe fear. But as hunger grew, even bitterness started to sound like a delicacy.
Angel, in her calm, calculating tone, informed me that we had covered around fifteen kilometers so far. Caerlin was still two hundred kilometers away. At this pace, it would take three to four days—if I didn't starve first.
Time blurred into shadows and unsteady steps. Another three hours slipped by like ghosts in the trees, and I only managed eight more kilometers. My body no longer responded like it used to. My legs were trembling pillars, my breath a frayed rope. Hunger had become a voice in my mind—cruel, insistent.
I finally gave in.
Before me stood a grove of bitter peach trees. Tall, proud things with their fruit hanging nearly three meters high. I took a breath. My trembling hands reached for the sword at my side. Using it as a support, I clumsily climbed the rough bark, scraping my arms and slipping more than once. If my uncle saw me using his sword like a climbing staff... he'd probably drop dead from a heart attack.
But this sword... it's no ordinary blade. It may look plain, even rustic. But like everything tied to my bloodline, it's forged in pain and sacrifice.
More than four hundred years ago, my ancestors crossed the endless sea, fleeing relentless persecution. Of the five thousand that escaped, barely a thousand survived—mostly younglings and a few aging mages. When they arrived on this continent, they discovered something devastating: there was no mana here. And with their reserves depleted, they were forced to use their physical bodies for the first time in generations.