Chapter 236: Archie’s Story (2)
He heard someone crying.
No, crying was not enough.
Someone was wailing.
Bitterly, or perhaps miserably.
Archie wandered through the darkness with blurred senses.
He could not tell whether this scream was coming from his own mouth, or whether it was ringing inside memories of his past, but he wanted to stop it somehow.
But he could no longer even feel his own existence, and he could not be certain whether he was floundering, or whether he was merely mistaken in thinking he was moving a body that had already vanished.
The moment Archie realized he was in a state where he could not even cover his ears and let the strength leave his body, he lost consciousness as if being dragged down by helplessness.
Unfortunately, however, even this did not become a refuge for him.
-I-if you eat this...... do you think you can go up?
Because his consciousness, having lost its way, had foolishly stepped into another pain.
***
-I-if you eat this...... do you think you can go up?
At the voice filled with fear, Archie came to his senses and looked at the woman.
The woman was still holding her feeble arm near his mouth.
-I asked if...... if you think you can go up?
Perhaps uneasy because no answer came back, the woman asked again.
-You have to take me too. Ah, or else, I won’t die p-peacefully either.
Ridiculously, the human was threatening him while holding a single broken tree branch.
Archie wondered whether to kill the woman making such a worthless threat, then soon changed his mind.
His dulled head seemed to finally regain its speed and began working properly.
Right. This was an opportunity.
Of course, as the human feared, he could bite off her arm, and he could leave the woman behind, but Archie intended to put her safely up above.
Once was enough for the mistake of being distracted by the lump of meat before his eyes and making a stupid choice.
He was no longer a powerful predator, and to the Imperial Family, he was merely tempting prey.
Archie ground his teeth.
Now that he had survived, he needed to devise a way not to be taken in by the same trick again.
Werewolves could not restrain themselves when it came to humans.
If the other side continued using humans as bait, it was obvious they would be caught helplessly, just like today.
In that sense, the human before his eyes would be useful in stopping the Imperial Family from using humans as bait.
She was a human who had been used as bait.
If this thing had a head on her shoulders, she would not simply let herself be used like this.
At the very least, she would have some desire to take revenge on the bastard who threw her to a monster.
Moreover, this woman had more guts than any human he had ever seen.
Humans who somehow found a solution while being chased by death were rare.
Rather than killing her right now, using her appropriately and then eating her was the choice that would raise a human’s utility more.
Without taking his eyes off the woman, who was holding out her arm with a deathly pale face, Archie slowly opened his mouth.
The human did not avoid his eyes either.
As if that gaze were a warning that she would not stay still if he betrayed her while taking her arm, Archie put that arm into his huge mouth with satisfaction.
***
The woman safely climbed the cliff together with Archie and reached flat ground.
Both arms were still safely attached to her body as well.
Instead of tearing off the woman’s arm and eating it, Archie chose to drink her blood.
If she lost one arm, it was obvious the weak human would not endure the blood loss and would quickly die.
Thanks to that, Archie, who had climbed the cliff with more difficulty than expected, fell forward with the woman still slung over his shoulder.
-Ugh......!
The woman, whose face had struck the ground together with Archie’s, felt around the ground and soon came to her senses.
Wisely, the woman escaped from Archie, who was sprawled on the ground, and quickly widened the distance.
Archie felt the woman slipping out of his hand, but he could not raise himself.
Perhaps human blood had not been enough, because the injury in his chest still hurt terribly, and his strength had not returned properly either.
It did not matter if the human ran away like this.
He had planned to send her back to the humans from the beginning, and even if that dying human ran away, it did not seem she could get very far.
Even if the woman returned to the village and brought other humans, he had no intention of stupidly remaining in this place until then.
Because of that, Archie did not stop her even as the woman shakily rose.
Tap, tap.
Archie closed his eyes as he felt the sound of footsteps made by a light body grow farther away.
But when those small footsteps began drawing close again, he had no choice but to open his eyes wide.
What? Did she already bring humans? Was there a group of humans wandering nearby?
But no matter how hard he listened, there was only one set of footsteps, the woman’s.
While Archie stayed in place, flustered by the unexpected situation, the woman, who had returned before he knew it, stood before him.
Archie closed his eyes again without realizing it.
Though he did not know the reason, Archie smelled the thick scent of grass and waited for the woman’s next action.
Before long, something light fell over his head with a soft rustle.
At the same time Archie recognized that it was a pile of fallen leaves, he could tell what the thick grassy scent that had followed the woman was.
Unable to know what on earth she was doing, Archie left the woman’s actions alone.
After that too, the woman repeated the act of gathering fallen leaves or branches several more times and covering him with them.
Is she burying me alive?
If so, he had no choice but to judge that the woman’s mental state was deeply questionable.
If that were the case, the woman would also be unable to inform the other humans of the Imperial Family’s atrocities as he had thought.
It was the moment Archie considered whether he should change the woman’s use into nutrients to recover his body.
The woman began whispering softly.
-Hold on as long as you can so your breath does not stop. Because after you die, it will become more painful.
What kind of insane nonsense is that?
At the words whose contents could not be told as blessing or curse, nausea rose on its own.
As expected, this woman was definitely mad.
The woman, who had muttered something so insane that it would have been better if she had fussed about burying him alive, left Archie behind, speechless from disbelief, and this time truly went on her way.
With displeasure, Archie shook off the fallen leaves the woman had covered him with, watched the woman retreating back for a moment, then soon followed after her.
***
Archie had not known he would meet the woman again so quickly.
He certainly had not known he would meet her on the very night she returned home, and in the forest where she had once again been captured by a monster.
The woman was being dragged deep into the forest, held by the hand of an older man who resembled her.
Archie, who had been eating a small animal to recover his strength, had to hide himself while changing into a human form at the unexpected appearance of uninvited guests.
Archie, who had spent the strength he had barely stored just to change his form in order to avoid the humans’ eyes, glared irritably at the woman who had returned to the forest and the man who had brought her.
What did she come back here for?
Was she trying to kill the monster first before telling people, and use him as evidence?
Since he could not give his corpse to humans for that, Archie concluded he had no choice but to wait for them to give up and leave.
But in the conversation between the two that soon reached his ears, Archie realized all his expectations had been wrong.
-Once you were offered to the Temple, you should have properly done what they told you there. We were saved like this in exchange for you going to the Temple.
-I, I know. But I came back alive. Now, with my family......
-Do not say something so dangerous!
At the man’s rebuke, the woman shrank back.
As if afraid someone might hear, the man’s eyes quickly swept over the quiet forest.
Mistakenly believing no one was listening to them, he sighed and lowered his voice even further.
-If you do not intend to return to the Temple, I can no longer accept you as my daughter. If it becomes known that we are family with a criminal like you, our whole family will become criminals too.
-Wh-why am I a criminal? I followed exactly as he said. Coming back alive was only because I was lucky......
-Then you should have returned to the Temple!
The man, unable to endure his frustration, shouted nervously.
-Why did you come back home again, hm? You should have gone back to the Temple. If you had even a little thought for your family and a heart devoted to god!
For some time, the man’s one-sided scolding continued.
Archie chewed the raw meat in his mouth, understanding to some extent where the woman’s madness had come from.
Seeing as the woman did not answer, she seemed to have accepted her father’s words to some degree.
Archie’s expectation that humans would join forces to stand against the Imperial Family or the Temple had been splendidly wrong.
Archie felt irritation rise.
This was a disaster.
Judging from that insane conversation, those people did not seem to have any regret about the Imperial Family using human bait to catch monsters.
Thinking that he had spent strength on a useless act, Archie chewed the small animal stuffed in his mouth, bones and all.
When a crunching sound rang softly, the man who had been shouting at the woman finally closed his mouth.
Looking around with a fearful face, he turned his body as if he did not want to remain here any longer.
As if she could no longer even dare follow him, the woman did not move from the place where she had sunk down.
Perhaps the sight of his daughter sitting as if dead seemed pitiful to him, because the man paused for a moment and looked at her with sorrowful eyes.
-......Return to the Temple. If not, at least complete to the end the task god entrusted to you. You know that is right too, do you not?
Thinking that he did not know how this was any different from telling her to just die, Archie swallowed the last raw meat in his mouth cleanly and turned his gaze toward the man growing distant and the daughter left alone.
The woman sat there blankly, looking at his back until her father’s figure could no longer be seen.
By the time Archie slowly began to feel boredom, the woman finally rose.
Archie expected that even now, she might chase after her father and stab him in the back or something, but he quickly realized that too would not happen.
Because the woman’s eyes, which had shone in order to live, had gone black and dead.
With that, the woman’s value had just been decided.
That was useless trash.
Archie followed after the trash like that.
There was no special reason.
It was partly because he judged that filling his stomach by eating her was that woman’s greatest utility, and partly because of a slight curiosity about whether the woman would truly follow her father’s words and head toward the Temple.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the place the woman’s feet led her was neither the path out of the forest nor the Temple.
The place the woman headed toward was the cliff.
She had returned to the place where she had placed a strange curse on the monster who had saved her and fled.
Archie watched as the woman dug through the fallen leaves she had covered him with.
She realized the monster who should have been beneath them was gone, rose, and slowly moved her feet toward the cliff.
Then she leaned her body toward the dizzying height below.
With no time to think any further, Archie grabbed the woman’s shoulder and pulled her back.
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