Chapter 4: Encampment
DEATH quietly visited the temporary Dark Elf encampment at the edge of the Accursed Lands. Around five hundred Dark Elves camped there, mostly women and children, with very few able-bodied men. The only thing these people huddled together had in common were the lack of meat on their bones and the color of despair clouding their eyes.
A baby could occasionally be heard crying, but even those eventually grew hoarse and faded away. They didn’t have the energy to keep crying—and babies were given priority with food and supplies. Everyone of all ages was at their limits.
But fate seems to favor dramatic developments—their situation had finally changed for the better.
A woman with relatively more energy than the rest noticed something strange in the air as she took care of the sick. She smelled something funny. No—she smelled food! Whatever it was, it had a strong, sweet aroma. Some of the others noticed it as well.
The smell was followed by the sound of people pushing their way through the trees. The camp suddenly grew noisy. Did the Warrior Captain entrusted with their fate bring back what they were all dying in wait of?
Did what they had half given up on become an actuality?
“We’re back! Gather around! We found food!”
A miracle occurred. Life returned to their blank faces. Everyone ran to the glorious Warrior Captain, stumbling and staggering as they went, and practically snatched up the food he handed out.
“Prepare the pots! We’re cooking a feast! Where are the sickest and neediest people? Feed them these fruits!”
The camp instantly came to life. Everyone mustered what little energy they had left to get to work. Some prepared the pots, some fetched water, some started a fire, while others rushed to the sick with fruit.
The hemp bag the Warrior team had brought back was packed with food. Most stared in shock at the provisions that burst from it, but they all went about their respective jobs, knowing they had no time to spare.
Ultimately, the clan that’d been on the verge of extinction had escaped immediate danger. Some lives were teetering on the edge, but the Warrior Captain’s team had come back with food just in time to save them. The first good news in ages brought joy to everyone’s faces.
The overflowing provisions were more than enough to fill everyone’s empty stomachs.
Where’d they get so much food from?
No matter how hungry they were, shouldn’t they have rationed it better?
The middle-aged woman who wondered these things asked the Warrior Captain, but he evaded her question, and her doubts were eventually drowned out by the desire to satiate her hunger and by experiencing the finest food she had ever tasted.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE din quieted down after a few hours. Excess food had been carefully set aside and was under strict surveillance.
The majority of people fell fast asleep now that their bellies were full, leaving only the sound of firewood crackling under the empty pots to break the silent night.
By obtaining temporary provisions, the starving Mazaram Clan safely survived the night they’d feared many wouldn’t make it through. At long last, they could finally rest, instead of spending another sleepless night tormented by hunger pangs.
But it is during the nights, while the majority rests, that the minority must stay awake.
Warrior Captain Gia sat beside a small campfire a slight distance from the encampment, silently gazing at the starry sky through the gaps in the canopy.
“You did…well today, boy.”
“Elder Moltar? How fare our people?”
From the trees untouched by the firelight appeared Sage Moltar, the elder who guided the Mazaram Clan and the man considered the oldest Dark Elf alive. With a body like a withered branch, he slowly ambled out of the dark with his staff and sat directly across from Gia, the campfire between them.
After a slight pause, he answered Gia’s question in a strong and dignified voice that belied his frail body.
“They are all sound asleep with full bellies. Even the twins have recovered from that horrible state. The fruit you brought back is miraculous. I’m confident I’ve lived longer than most, but not even I have seen such fruit before.”
Moltar quietly closed his eyes and thought back on the day’s events. It felt as chaotic as being out at sea during a storm, only for the clouds to break. A single ray of light broke through their despair.
Gia, who’d returned with words of hope, brought more than enough food to fill everyone’s stomach and then some. He’d brought home a startling amount of delicious foods Moltar had never heard of or seen before.
“Aye. I also tried a bite of that fruit—it was divine. I never knew such delicious fruit existed in this world.”
After confirming every one of his clansmen had eaten, Gia finally bit into an apuhl. He would never forget that moment for the rest of his life.
Startling sweetness spilled into his mouth with the pleasant crunch of his teeth sinking into the skin. Juices gushed from its flesh with every single bite. He could feel his dehydrated body quickly regain its strength.
Saying it was a heavenly experience didn’t do it justice. Even if he didn’t understand it in his head, he had experienced true joy for having satisfied the basic desire of all living things to eat. Indeed, it was an unthinkable experience outside the realms of common sense.
“…What transpired in those woods?”
Gia kept silent. He couldn’t withhold the truth, but he struggled to come up with a good way to explain. It’d been such a surreal experience, and more than anything else, he couldn’t shake the innate fear that that being was tricking them.
Moltar saw he was conflicted and waited without rushing him. Judging by the pensive silence Gia kept with a tormented look on his face, Moltar determined he must’ve brought back even worse trouble than he’d expected, and he decided it was better not to press him with a barrage of questions.
He ran into trouble that can’t be dealt with easily by ordinary means. Is it something my knowledge and experience can get us through? Moltar quietly prepared himself for the worst. But the answer to his question exceeded his imagination.
“We met a legendary being in the middle of the forest.”
Moltar’s long, white eyebrows shot up.
A variety of legendary beings had been recorded over the ages. Some were good and some were evil. Some were friendly toward humanoid races, such as humans and elves, while others were hostile. The beings were as diverse and numerous as their legends, with their immense strength as the only common denominator among them.
This was the cursed forest mankind kept clear of—the Accursed Lands. Moltar prayed with all his might that his fears were unfounded.
“Which legendary being? Is it from a legend I know of?”
“I think my adjutant mentioned it was the being sealed in the Accursed Lands or something like that?”
“You encountered the King of Ruin?!”
Moltar felt dizzy. His worst fear had come true.
The Traveling Colossus, the Living Ocean, the Messenger from Another Dimension, the Automatic Torture Machine—of all the legendary beings, they had encountered the most dangerous and nightmarish one.
Moltar managed to keep calm despite the horrifying situation and his frustration over the endless suffering his race had to endure by rallying all the experience he’d cultivated over his decades of life.
“You’ve heard of it, Elder Moltar?”
“There are a handful of ancient records and folktales that claim the King of Ruin will appear when the world becomes overpopulated. It will destroy everything in existence, making everyone start over from the beginning. I don’t know if it’s the same being, but I also can’t definitively say it’s not… Did it introduce itself as such?”
There weren’t too many tales about the King of Ruin. The few myths and legends that did exist were disjointed, with some saying the King of Ruin was sealed in the Accursed Lands, others saying it would suddenly appear from nowhere, and one claiming god had already destroyed it.
The King of Ruin’s objective to destroy the world was the sole consistency.
“I didn’t hear its name. It didn’t introduce itself. But the King of Ruin…certainly is a fitting name for the fear-inspiring being I met.”
“Did you speak with the King?”
“No, the King was a being beyond our comprehension. But there was a girl there who clarified the King’s words for us.”