“You sure were lucky, wouldn’t you say? One wrong move and you might have been his next victim.” The smirk returned to the upperclassman’s face, and a chill ran down her spine.
So he really is that terrifying—an ally-slayer and a cannibal. It was just dumb luck that he let me live. A shiver raced along her back, and she crossed her arms. When she did, her hand pressed against something in her chest pocket.
That’s right... Lord Beldarus had handed her something small, wrapped in paper. From what she’d just heard, it couldn’t have been anything good. But it couldn’t have been poison...could it?
Hetty set the bag down in her lap and carefully unwrapped the paper, her hands trembling. There, in the bottom of the bag...
Meow.
...candies in the shape of cats’ faces peered up at her.
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The forest was called “The Greatwood.”
It lay north of the Southern Kingdoms, and shared a border with Igris, the kingdom next to it, the kingdom next to that, and so on for a great distance. The vast forest stretched on and on, which is how the name came to be.
...No, that’s not quite right. The truth is the other way around.
The Southern Kingdoms have their name because they sit to the south of the Greatwood, as if the continent’s main purpose was to have a place for the Greatwood to exist. This made the humans living on this land nothing more than land-monkeys with nothing to offer the Greatwood, living on the comparatively barren earth. The vast woods made up roughly half the surface of the continent.
The thick growth of enchanted trees was home to terribly powerful magical beasts, preventing the people in the south from crossing over to the kingdoms to the north. In fact, it didn’t simply hinder human travel; at times, the forest grew and encroached into human territory, eating away at the habitable land.
The people did their best to fight back against the fickle woods when it spread, and lived as well as they could in the land left over. They raised children, built communities—and went to war with one another.
Such was the relationship between the Greatwood and humanity. Frontier settlements existed along its edges, humankind’s first line of defense against the trees. They cut their way through the forest. Sometimes, it was all they could do to fell the trees that crossed into human territory. These were dangerous areas, where encountering a magical beast was not uncommon. On the other hand, feudal lords granted settlers the right to own any land they cleared or successfully defended. The privilege extended to all: commoners, refugees, and immigrants alike. Even despite these methods, the lords were still constantly at war with the Greatwood.
Oddly enough, every nation and territory eventually adopted the same tradition. Characters with shady pasts naturally gathered in the settlements along the forest: peddlers of get-rich-quick schemes, debtors, fugitives, ex-convicts, criminals, former mercenaries, and failed would-be adventurers.
Northplain was a territory within the kingdom of Igris, one of the regions bordering on the Greatwood. It was one such settlement, far off in one of the northern corners of human territory at the very edge of the Greatwood.
“Was.” After being swallowed up by the Greatwood, the settlement no longer existed.
After Gaius Beldarus resigned from his post and renounced his title, he departed the capital and returned to his hometown to visit his mother’s grave.
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“It’s as grim as I expected,” Gaius sighed to himself, seeing the ruins of his former home before his eyes.
The fields that the villagers had worked so hard to carve out were now completely enveloped by the Greatwood. The forest, which should have been a distant sight from across those fields, had expanded its territory into the plaza, the former heart of the village. If Gaius wanted to reach the home he had once shared with his mother, he would need to descend from his cart and weave his way through the trees on foot for some time.
While several houses survived the invasion, it had been a rough 30 years and the buildings were all in the process of crumbling into the ground. It may go without saying, but there wasn’t a single habitable structure left in the village.
From what he’d heard along his journey, no new frontier settlements had been created in the surrounding area. Nor could he find any trace that a person had been here recently. It was clear that the land’s rulers, House Zigan, had given up entirely on preserving the existing settlements, let alone securing the borderlands. Rumor had it that family strife had caused their grip on the area to loosen in recent years.
With another sigh, Gaius descended from his wagon and slowly began walking.
＊
Gaius could feel his love for antiques slipping a notch as he looked about the ruins of his hometown. He collected the ashes and belongings of his mother and her neighbors, thinking it fortunate that he’d built a burial mound to mark a grave for his mother. He needed to consider what his next move would be, however.
Gaius still had a decent amount of money saved from his days as captain of the guard; a nearby settlement might allow him to join them. Perhaps he would make a new home in the nearest town. He could take up work as a carpenter or laborer, and eventually build himself a modest house.
But where on earth would I build...? An open, flat parcel of land would be best, one not too far yet not too close to a source of water. Gaius thought deeply and rubbed his chin.
Ah yes, there’s a river just outside the village. Remembering this, Gaius decided to go and see what state it was in.
It had entirely dried up. Gaius didn’t know what had happened in the thirty-some years since he’d swam and played in the river, but now all that was left was a stretch of sandy soil in the shape of a riverbed.
He looked “upstream,” but there was no sign of what had caused this. All he could see was the riverbed stretching into the forest like a road.
The Greatwood was devouring the village, so why had the riverbed been left untouched by the greedy trees? And just how long ago had the water dried up? Had the river changed direction, or had its source also run dry? All sorts of questions came to mind.
Come to think of it, I never did go upstream back in the day. The reason for this was obvious; no settler would ever let a child go into the Greatwood.
...I suppose there’s nothing to be done about the river, but what should I do now? Digging a well would be laborious and costly, but he couldn’t survive relying solely on rainfall, either. Settling down here seemed more and more complicated by the minute. Logically speaking, the further one lived from a town, the more difficult it would be to secure food.