The night in the deep woods was not just a passage of time; it felt like a living enemy. The flickering light of the small fire cast long, jagged shadows against the massive trees, forming a marble-like wall that kept the encroaching darkness at bay. Kael sat across from me, as comfortable as if the forest were his own living room. His eyes, though sunken from exhaustion, moved over me with a hunter's cold precision.
"From Aethelgard, are you?" He didn't even wait for an answer. His gaze fixed on the dried blood staining my shirt and the unstitched, jagged wound beneath it. "You don't have to say it, kid. That's a sword wound. Not a clean execution, but a rushed murder. They left you here for the wolves to finish."
I remained silent. There was nothing to say. Explaining how the Kingdom had tossed me away like refuse would only make the wound bleed again. Beside me, the Green Slime huddled deeper into my shadow, as if trying to hide from the fire's heat.
Kael began to straighten out a thick, coarse rope net across his knees. "Kingdoms don't love these things," he said, nodding toward the Green Slime. "When they look at them, they don't see a living creature. They don't see a soul, or a breath, or a life. To them, these green or red masses are just treasure chests hidden in nature. The Essence Core... every slime has that glowing heart. Alchemists rip it out and grind it down to make youth elixirs for kings. Blacksmiths toss those cores into their forges so their fires burn hot enough to melt souls, not just steel. They don't slaughter a living being, kid; they extract a mineral. Your green pest doesn't look valuable enough to die for, but watch out. A hungry hunter will slit a throat not just for a meal, but for the gold that glowing stone promises."
The world looked different through his words. I had thought of them as part of nature; to the Kingdoms, they were just fuel—raw material. Perhaps my father leaving me in the woods wasn't a mercy at all, but simply abandoning me to the mercy of these core-hunters.
Kael stood up. His tall frame cast a gargantuan shadow against the trees. He swung his pack over his shoulder and paused, as if weighing a decision. After a few seconds, he reached into a leather sheath on his belt and pulled out an old hand axe. Its handle was worn, but the steel edge shimmered even in the dim moonlight.
He drove the axe into the dirt right by my knee with a heavy thud.
"You'll only trim your fingernails with that stone knife," he said, a faint, mocking but friendly curl touching his lips. "This axe is an old flame of mine. If you ever find your way to the Solis Emirate, buy me a mug of ale at the tavern by the border. We'll call it even then."
Kael stepped into the darkness and vanished as silently as the forest itself. Not even a footstep could be heard. I was plunged back into that heavy silence, but this time, I had a weight of steel by my side. I gripped the handle. The wood was warm; the steel was ice. It whispered a sense of security that the stone knife never could.
But the peace was short-lived.
From the bushes directly behind me, that familiar, searing heat surged again. Before I could even turn, the Red Slime launched itself from the darkness like a cannonball. It slammed into my chest. It wasn't hard like a rock, but more like a heavy, gelatinous boulder that had been sitting under the sun for hours. It knocked me flat on my back and began to "bounce" on top of me.
Its hot mass was trying to crush me, to squeeze the breath from my lungs. But this time, I wasn't going to let it flee. This heat... this was the key to my survival.
"You damn thing... you're not going anywhere!" I roared.
Despite the pain and the pressure on my chest, I wrapped my arms around the hot, slippery mass. The texture was strange—both fluid and leathery. The Red Slime struggled, expanding and contracting its body to escape, but I dug my fingers into its gelatinous flesh. The heat burned my hands, but I didn't let go. We tumbled across the dirt, wrestling. The Green Slime retreated into a corner, watching this chaotic struggle in terror.
As the Red Slime made one last surge to spring away, I pinned it down with all my weight. I needed something to restrain it; I had no rope, no net. My eyes fell on my tattered, old trousers.
Frantically, I fumbled with the ties and kicked them off. I was freezing, my wound was throbbing, but I was focused only on this red energy source. I shoved the slime into one of the trouser legs. The mass became even more aggressive once trapped inside the fabric, thrashing and bulging against the cloth.
"Not today," I hissed through gritted teeth.
I twisted the legs and the waist together, tying a massive, tight knot. The slime was now trapped inside a makeshift fabric bag. I dragged it toward the nearest young pine tree. I wrapped the loose ends of the trousers around the trunk and pulled with every ounce of strength I had left, lashing it tight.
The Red Slime hung from the tree, thrashing inside the pants. I could feel the intense heat radiating through the fabric; the color of the cloth began to darken from the temperature. It was like a living lantern, a heater hung against the bark.
I slumped down, leaning my back against the tree trunk. I was panting, my bare legs shivering in the cold forest air, but there was a flicker of victory in my chest. I looked at the steel axe beside me and the thrashing red glow tied to the tree.
"Looks like," I whispered to the Green Slime, my voice trembling, "we have a heater now."
Aethelgard had left me to die. But with an axe and a slime tied to a tree, I wasn't just going to survive this night—I was going to start owning this forest.