Alomitsu

Chapter 40: Nightmare (8)

I howled, drawing an arc in the air. I fell and rolled on the heavy snow on the opposite cliff.

The priest beast behind me also jumped towards us. It did not make the jump however, It caught the rock on the edge of the cliff and wanted to climb up, shaking the snow on the edge of the cliff.

Ayatos took out the dagger and inserted it into the long black fingers of the priest beast. Green blood ran down from the hands of the priesthood beast. What Ayatos wanted to do was not to cut the fingers of the priest beast, but let it fall off the cliff.

This priest beast clearly felt pain. After it roared in pain, its cut fingers were no longer able to grasp the rock, and it fell towards the bottomless abyss.

The other priest beasts stopped on the edge of the cliff opposite us and yelled at them. They couldn’t slide. For them, the ice surface was the same as the ground, and they couldn’t use the sliding force of the ice. I stood up from the snow, dizzy and nauseous.

Us three were safe for the time being, only for the time being. Under the moonlight, the snow was crystal clear, and the priest beasts roared across the cliff and ran back. Are they going to return to the stone pillar?

“Great god, why should I suffer such a moldy thing?” Tadek sat down beside the frozen tree, panting.

Ayatos was also sitting on the snow. He opened his trousers in the sight of Tadek and I. His knee was injured. It was a fall. It was not very serious. If he left it alone, it would cause blood from the wound to stick to the pants. Inside the pants, the wound would be more painful at that time and might even worsen the wound.

“Ayatos, I am sorry. It was I who hurt you,” I said to Ayatos, who was looking for something in his bag, full of guilt.

“You can tell. If it’s not for you, why will we come to this damn place. You almost killed us. How will you make it up for us.” Tadek angrily stood up and walked towards me.

“Money? Or what? What can you do to compensate us?” Tadek poked my shoulder. My shoulder swayed. I bowed my head and said nothing.

“Tadek, shut your stinky mouth. Don’t you understand? Even if this young man is not led by us, he will go to this damn place.” Ayatos pointed his finger at me.

“Look at his eyes. I have never seen cowardice in his eyes. All I see is faith that is worthy of letting him fight for his companions!

“His companion must have done something for him. His gratitude made him fight for his life. This kind of emotion has never appeared in us lowly people.”

“Then he should have come by himself. Why did he bring us!” Tadek tried to argue with reason, and I thought Tadek was right.

“I was willing to bring him here.” Ayatos looked at me with muddy eyes.

“Why, because of his eyes?”

“Tadek, do you remember the day you knelt down to every alcoholic? I see the pain in your eyes, not because of alcohol, but what you want to forget.

“You think fate is unfair to you, and you think everyone is dirty and sinful, so I extend a helping hand to you.

“Now it’s your turn to extend a helping hand. It is time to help the people who need help most. If you push this away, then other people’s indifference towards you is inevitable, because you have never helped other people. This is one thing. It’s a vicious circle, Tadek.”

“But, I…” Tadek wanted to say something. He glanced at the wound on Ayatos’ leg and fell silent.

“Young man, come and sit by my side.” Ayatos’ words became gentle. For the first time, he spoke to me in this tone, and I sat on the rock beside him suspiciously.

“Child, I know what you want to say to me. Take advantage of it now, maybe we may not be able to go back later.” Ayatos instantly saw through my thoughts.

“Mr. Ayatos, I know my words are selfish, but I really want to save my friend.” In my mind, Bruyer was sitting sadly on a stool looking at the fireplace.

“Hahaha. I knew you’d say that.” The old man laughed, his eyes suddenly piercing like a sword’s edge.

“You are the wish of a hero. In despair, as long as there is a ray of life, you are eager for victory. A hero needs to hold his head against the sky and his feet on the ground. With a single human body, he can carry the hopes of his companions and fulfill common goals for your companions. There is hope!”

“I never thought of becoming a hero!”

“The word hero is widely used. A hero who fights for his lover, a hero who fights for his family, and a hero who spares his life for the country.

“You are indeed not a hero now, but you have excellent qualities that us lowly people don’t have. That’s why I am helping you.”

At this moment, Ayatos turned his head and looked at Tadek. I saw his neck. The cyan pattern on the back of his neck was the same as the pattern engraved by Assassin in the white robe.

“Tadek, listen well. Don’t compare your obsession with your peers as more important, as long as you go back alive, there are some things you have to face. Don’t escape!”

On the side, Tadek was sitting under the ice tree with his head hanging down, thinking about things we didn’t know.

“Child, I want to tell you something about the story recorded in the Banshee Forest, which is good for you and what happens after we meet.”

——–

There was a story in the folk mythology of “Borpodeaux”, which was also written by Dionysus, the god of wine in Greek mythology who likes to call “Borpode” red wine.

In ancient history, such a thing happened. At that time, most residents liked to show their talents with carvings. There was a queen at that time.

She was obsessed with the shock that sculptures brought to her soul, because these sculptures were so beautiful. Whether it was a tree or a bird, even her own appearance was carved by the residents vividly.

The queen began to order better human sculptures, sculptures of gods, and sculptures of animals from every corner of the world. The condition of exchange was to sell her people as slaves to sculpture sellers.

She could see sculptures placed everywhere in her towering palace, and even sculptures of different shapes could bring her her favorite drama.

There were also some sculptures to the extent that every strand of hair was carved. The queen likes sculptures so much that even the most remote country on the mainland knew that this person liked to collect. The people called her palace “the chamber of the gods.”

The queen and her partner gave birth to a boy. She did not allow him to play as freely as other children. He must learn to sculpt according to her order. Only sculpture could prove his talent. Even his room was filled with sculptures, so that these sculptures remind the boy when to do all the time.

One day, the queen’s favorite court actor told a bold joke. He teased his master, saying that the queen was immersed in sculpture because she imagined the sculpture has an immortal body, hoping to control the sculpture to drive away death.

On that day, the narrow-minded queen asked the soldiers to put the actor in the largest plaster basin in the garden. She watched coldly and ruthlessly as the viscous plaster drowned the actor.

When the actor was pulled out to dry, the queen ordered someone to use an axe to crush every bone she once favored, leaving blood stains in the queen’s garden.

No matter how hard the servants tried, they still couldn’t wash away the blood stains on the ground. This garden had since been called the “Blood Garden.”

People rumored, standing in the garden. The buzzing wind was said to be the roar of the actor.

Ten years later, the queen’s children grew up, and the sculptures she collected were still the envy of the world. Then one day, on the day of the death of the actor, a soldier brought an anonymous gift to the queen.

This was a beautiful sculpture in a plaster box. It was only as big as a palm, but it was crafted like a natural craftsmanship. This was one of the most beautiful sculptures the queen had ever seen. The only bad thing was that the skirt of the sculpture was engraved with the abbreviation of the queen’s name. But this did not affect the beauty of the sculpture.

There was a note inside the box that said:

[Dear Queen, you will die when the black body of this sculpture turns gray. It is very precise to your lifespan down to the last minutes and seconds, because I have locked the god of death into this sculpture. Don’t try to break it, or you will step into death faster.

(Sincerely, sculptor)]

Every day after that, the queen looked at the sculpture, fearing that the black stone would fall off. She couldn’t move, couldn’t sleep at night, had no thoughts about tea and rice, and her hair turned white in a short period of time. She could only stare at this sculpture.

So the queen summoned her son. Her son was young, brave and loved by her subjects, but the only thing that made the queen unhappy was that her son hated sculpture.

“Dear mother, your son is willing to serve you.” Her son knelt in front of her steps in a gorgeous dress, and she gave her son an order to find the person who sent her the sculpture.

(Note: In ancient mythology, skirts are far more convenient to make than trousers. At that time, men mainly used skirts.)

Day by day, the queen became more and more uncomfortable. She even felt that the breath she exhaled was cold, but her son had not caught the sculptor who wanted to kill her.

The queen gave a terrible order. She asked people all over the country to sculpt this lifelike sculpture. No one could sculpt it perfectly.

The angry queen threw a citizen into the plaster, and the pulled out citizen was covered with plaster. He was already dead, and the queen ordered a sculpture on the citizen.

Sure enough, the sculptured statue was very similar to the statue of death in her hands, but the expression of this citizen’s fear remained.

The queen was obsessed with body plaster. She kept ordering the people to be thrown into the plaster and then merged into the stone pillar, but she still believed that the god of death had not left her, and her body was still aging.

This time, the queen gave a completely crazy order. She had people dig a huge deep hole in the valley and poured countless plaster into the valley. The plaster turned into a small lake.

The queen intends to throw all her people into the gypsum lake. It might be that the queen had angered the gods, and the gypsum lake suddenly erupted like a volcano.

The sky and the earth were full of splashing plaster, like snow covering the sky and the earth, and the queen was killed by no one. Her head was chopped off, and a cross was stuck in her headless neck.

The story did not end this way.

—

Ayatos touched the cloth wrapped around his wound and stood up. He planned to continue the story.

Crack~

We heard the smashed ice falling from the frozen tree, which was crisp and alert to us.

Under the light of the pale silver moon, Ayatos, Tadek, and I instantly looked at the deep and gloomy ice forest below, and some kind of beast was slowly walking towards us.

The ground under our feet trembled with its steps.