HPV 32

The boy ran, crying.

He stretched out both arms, trying to grab even the tip of the elf’s yellow hair, and stumbled forward.

He walked straight into the forest’s trickery.

The yellow hair vanished, and he plunged off a cliff, breaking his leg.

Bzhan staggered to his feet, limping. He ran again.

He had to find the elf quickly.

Because his very being had been bound to a human through a sacred artifact.

If it hadn’t been for that cursed toy, he would have run away long ago.

Even though his elf father had thrown Bzhan to the humans as carelessly as tossing away leftover food—

Even though he had made it clear he no longer needed him—

The broken leg increasingly hindered his run.

The boy staggered, crashing into a tree. His whole body ached as if he’d been beaten.

But worse than the physical pain was the voice of the High Priest echoing in his mind.

—A lonely elf, outcast by his own kind, tried to ease his solitude by abducting a child from a human village and raising him. You wonder if he thought of the boy as his child? Well… the elf never loved the boy.

If he had loved him, even a little, he would have smiled at him once.

The elf was so beautiful, so gentle, and so dignified.

Bzhan had wanted, even if it meant dying and being reborn, to become one of them.

Father, you taught me that humans were inferior—

So why didn’t you make me an elf too?

A boy who was neither elf nor human sank to the ground.

The High Priest’s voice kept replaying.

It was a sermon he had delivered while bringing Bzhan to the hero’s party.

—Bzhan, you don’t need to understand the purpose of this journey right away.

Every human—and every elf too—sets out on the long journey of life to learn that very thing.

Within that journey, there are smaller journeys. This is one of them.

—I, too, am new to this journey.

—Gaioh, the god I serve, revealed your existence to me even before you reached the royal palace.

No matter what race you are… you are needed in this world.

‘The fact that I fell for the forest’s illusion…is proof that I’m not an elf.’

Bzhan sat frozen, as if he had lost all strength to move.

Time passed, and finally—someone’s presence approached him.

The boy was silently crying.

No sobs, just quiet tears streaming down his face, enough that at first, they thought they were imagining it.

His face said it clearly:

He knew, better than anyone, that he had no place to return to, that he could never go back to the forest of the elves.

So neither of them said anything.

Paronai bit his lip and lifted Bzhan into his arms.

Surprisingly, the boy accepted the touch without resistance.

Over the wounds carved across his body, a holy light descended.

Yurichen calmly knelt beside him as he healed him.

“Bzhan, did you see Banwes or Riarun?”

He hadn’t expected much—but something surprising happened.

Bzhan, who had been turning his face away, answered.

“I didn’t.”

“Did you and Riarun get separated at some point? Do you remember where?”

“I never took Riarun with me.”

Paronai shot to his feet.

“Are you pretending not to know? Riarun’s in danger because of you…!”

“Wait, Paronai. Look into Bzhan’s eyes. Those are the eyes of someone telling the truth. It seems there’s been some misunderstanding.”

Paronai tried to look closely into Bzhan’s eyes, but Bzhan turned his head away stubbornly.

“We were already inside the forest’s influence long before we noticed. The vision of Bzhan carrying off Riarun was an illusion too.”

“Then…?”

A shiver of horrified realization ran down Paronai’s back.

Even his solid body, which didn’t waver even when carrying a holy sword, trembled now.

“Riarun must have wandered into the forest alone, lured by an illusion somehow. And we don’t have a sacred tool that tracks his location…”

Which meant they had no choice but to hope that Banwes would find Riarun.

Even though Yurichen could erase the forest’s curse in his vicinity, there was still no way to shrink the vastness of the forest itself.

—

I already know this forest from the game.

This is where Bzhan gives up chasing after the phantoms of the elves and decides to start living anew.

Yurichen uses the sacred artifacts to find Bzhan, but along the way, Penzey is lost.

Angry, Yurichen unleashes his holy power, kills off the forest’s spirit, and drags Bzhan back.

‘So maybe Yurichen will come find and rescue me too…’

When you’re lost, the best thing to do is stay in one place.

So I obediently sat under a tree, playing my part as the useless burden.

The damp grass soaked my backside, but I endured it.

The idea of this being a “forest of illusions” weighed heavily on my mind.

What if Yurichen or someone else found me—but it turned out they were just another illusion?

Or worse, what if Yurichen or Banwes decided it was the perfect chance to ditch me, the troublesome one, for good…?

The demon had also been returned to me by Banwes.

In many ways, it was the perfect time to abandon me.

The more I thought about it, the darker the future seemed.

‘Should I try to find some way to survive somehow? But I can’t leave the forest alone…’

Unless I could pull off that strange teleportation again.

[Child. Do you want to leave?]

At that moment, the same voice whispered in my ear again.

A chill, like cold water sinking into my heart, ran through me once more.

‘Are they trying to teleport me again? But I don’t even know whose voice this is…

I can’t use a power of unknown origin twice…’

[In exchange, your…]

This time, I heard the words that had been cut off before.

It might have been an important clue. I strained to listen.

[Your… body. Even if you throw a tantrum and refuse, I’ll drag you by force. Enjoy yourself while you can. You’ll be brought back someday. And when that happens, I’ll make sure you can never leave the underground again.]

It was a voice I never wanted to hear again—the voice of Hancanera, the terrible one who had imprisoned me and humiliated me.

The rules of space twisted, and something crawled into view before me.

What had looked like a white mass straightened itself and smiled at me with a chilling sneer.

The moment I met his mocking eyes, my whole body trembled as if it would fall apart.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

Only broken gasps escaped from what was definitely my mouth.

As I cowered, drained by fear, the grotesque figure gradually faded away.

It had been an illusion.

But…

‘Was that voice Hancanera’s from the start? No… if it had been, I would have recognized it immediately.’

But what if, back then, I had already lost my mind?

What if Hancanera had let me go on purpose, and I just forgot?

My thoughts were slipping away.

I was handing over everything to the forest’s deceit.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but even the vitality in my body seemed to be fading.

This was how travelers died here.

—

Before Banwes’s eyes, Riarun—no, the illusion pretending to be Riarun—vanished.

He ground his teeth.

To fall for an illusion meant—that a selfish emotion had taken root.

It meant that survival was no longer his only purpose, unlike before.

It was inevitable.

Even as he bristled with jealousy at Riarun’s life of comfort, he found himself crumbling at the sight of those faint yellow-green eyes.

It was all because of Riarun’s existence.

Whenever he saw him, his heart softened, his senses dulled.

The fact that he could be healed by Riarun—it only made him more vulnerable.

Now, the illusion threatened his survival.

‘I’ll keep getting weaker and weaker. This might be my last chance. If I left Riarun behind in this forest, I wouldn’t be bound by him anymore.’

With such thoughts in his mind, he wandered the forest, directionless.

But in the end, he couldn’t help but notice Riarun’s collapsed figure.Curled up again.

Curled up so small, it was as if he would disappear from the world altogether.

Whenever Banwes saw Riarun curled up like that, he was reminded of his own stunted childhood.

He had never once slept with his legs stretched out. Monsters had drooled over him, ready to tear into his flesh.

They had stripped the area bare, not leaving even a single beetle for food. The environment had been so harsh, and the numbers so overwhelming, that even monsters had fought and devoured each other.

They fought among themselves, and devoured the corpses. Just thinking about it made him sick.

Why had he fought so desperately to live…

forcing himself to swallow foul meat, holding back the urge to vomit?

Had he eaten his own kind too?

‘You’ll never know that kind of pain. The pain of hunger,the agony of feeling like an endless hole had opened up inside your stomach.’

‘Don’t develop useless habits when you don’t even know what real pain is.’

He had tried to correct him—but it had been meaningless. Banwes lifted the limp young man into his arms.

This time, there was no doubt—it was real.

As he lifted him into the air,

Riarun’s curled limbs naturally unfolded.

But it brought no sense of relief.