Helmut

Chapter 1

Prologue

The night was shrouded in darkness.

A cool breeze passed through the trees, making the leaves rustle ominously, and one could hear various beasts howling in the distance. Five men moved silently through the woods, concealing their presence under the sounds of nature around them.

Their eyes flashed menacingly when they spotted the gentle glow of a small campfire illuminating a sleeping bag beside it with the last of its embers. The sleeping bag was puffed up and still, suggesting that its inhabitant was likely deep asleep.

How naive, one of the men thought. Falling asleep in a place like this was a foolish thing to do. One of the men smiled to himself, realizing the task could’ve been a lot more difficult if their target had been awake.

The five of them silently exchanged signals. Then, they crept toward the sleeping bag and surrounded it. The man closest to the target brought out a dagger and immediately thrust it downward before its blade could even glimmer in the campfire.

Whack!

The dagger punctured the sleeping bag, and it immediately sagged flat to the ground, revealing it was empty.

The man blinked in surprise.

“What?”

He felt a chill run down his spine as a voice called out from above.

“Up here.”

The man quickly turned his gaze upward and saw a boy waving atop a tree. He seemed to be about sixteen years of age, and his youthful face was fair and tidy, like that of a young noble lord. But there was something haunting about the way his dark eyes, like gaping holes of the abyss, stared back against the moonlight that illuminated the rest of his face.

The five men shuddered. None of them had sensed his presence.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be a crime to kill them, given they ambushed me while fully armed,” the boy muttered to himself after giving it a brief thought. The five assailants stood below, glaring at him. “This clearly counts as self-defense.”

The boy wrapped up his thoughts and snapped a nearby branch. He put the twig on a bow and calmly aimed it at the intruders.

“Dodge it if you can.”

Then he released the bowstring.

Is this supposed to be a joke? one of the men thought. A twig wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Or so they thought, until the twig flew toward one of them at an alarming speed.

Wham!

A loud noise rang out as if a massive metal beam had met its mark. Shortly after, a gruesome sight unfolded before their eyes.

“Argh!”

The man’s arm was torn from his shoulder. He dropped to the ground and writhed in agony, the scent of blood thick in the air. The other men looked on in shock. There was only one reason why a twig would cause so much damage.

“It’s a Biis!” a man shouted in panic.

“Correct.”

The boy nodded and put another twig on his bow, firing it almost as soon as he pulled back the bowstring.

Whack!

There was no hope of dodging an arrow one couldn’t see. Another man fell to the ground, but he made no sound at all, having died instantly. The remaining three men froze in place. They couldn’t make sense of the sheer display of power unleashed before them and were gripped by terror.

“I will let you live if you can dodge my shot.”

A smile spread across the fierce predator’s face as he offered hope to his helpless prey. He then placed another branch on his bow. The men began to shriek as the boy slowly pulled the string, and they fled as fast as they could. The boy’s lips parted once again.

“One, two... and three!”

Whoosh!

The vicious arrow sliced through the darkness like a nocturnal bird on the hunt.

“Ack!”

The projectile pierced through the neck of one of the last men. The boy muttered numbers under his breath, his fingers tightening around the bowstring. One, two, three, four.

The ferocious sound of a projectile ripping through the air resulted in another shriek of death.

A life for an arrow.

Another dull, wooden bolt flew through the darkness.

“P-please spare me...”

The last man remaining dropped to his knees and begged for mercy, but the boy was ruthless.

“You came here to take a life,” he said. “Then, you should’ve known the same could be done to you.”

The last arrow shot out from the bow.

The boy jumped down from the tree after killing the five assailants. He barely made a sound when he landed. He approached the bodies and stared down coldly at their fear-stricken faces.

“You are all as weak as insects.”

There was a mild tone of surprise in his voice. He frowned and then stretched his hands and clenched them once more. Despite the slaughter, there was not a drop of blood on his hands. The battle hadn’t even lasted long enough to get him warmed up.

The humans from “the outside” were weak. They had no primal instincts that kept them safe, and they couldn’t even see what they were up against because they were blinded by greed.

In comparison, the boy’s acute senses had allowed him to see them coming from afar. All he had to do was wait and wipe them out. It didn’t even matter to him that the five men were well-trained.

Helmut, the first human to ever leave the forest of magical beasts, sighed.

“This isn’t anything like what you told me, Darien. The human world is boring.”

He then searched the men to collect anything he might need and dug a deep hole by the campfire. After burying the five intruders, the boy packed up his bags and left as if nothing had ever happened.

◈

The Forest of Pahe

Neither influence nor power could help the couple when their child was born with the seed of darkness, a mark of the cursed demon lord who nearly destroyed the world.

The seed was sure to turn the baby evil and corrupt as he grew, so it was decided that the baby boy must die or be sent to a place where he would eventually perish. It was ultimately decided that the infant would be sent into the Forest of Pahe against the screaming protests of his mother.

The baby was spared for the time being, but only because he would surely die in the demonic forest from which no one ever returned.

The Forest of Pahe was as dark and menacing as ever when it took another life to add to its long list of victims.

* * *

The very mention of Pahe was enough to send chills down one’s spine.

The thick layer of demonic energy in the forest gave the place a dark hue, making it appear as menacing as it truly was. The trees and thick undergrowth subtly changed their positions, making one lose their sense of direction while the beautiful flowers adorning the forest held potent poison that could kill a grown man in seconds.

Furthermore, demonic beasts dwelled within—powerful predators made even more vicious and violent by demonic energy. Had they been able to leave and enter the human realm, they would have caused great calamities throughout the world.

But a holy barrier separating the Forest of Pahe from the world outside prevented anything from leaving the woods. No entity tainted with demonic energy could cross the barrier, and there was no way around this rule.

Needless to say, no one from the other side of the barrier wanted to enter the Forest of Pahe, so stories about the forest slowly turned into myths and legends over time. Despite the unease of hearing the forest being mentioned, people no longer saw it as an actual threat. In fact, some even came up with a rather inventive use for the place.

“If no one can leave the forest alive, why not send those who don’t deserve to live?”

“What a brilliant idea!”

The suggestion gained favor and resulted in a cruel decision. Anyone whose crimes didn’t merit an execution but required them to be ousted from society was sent beyond the barrier. Soon, banishment to the Forest of Pahe became one of the most dreaded punishments among prisoners, second only to execution itself.

But there was a catch. It was promised that amnesty would be given to anyone who made it out of the forest alive.

Unfortunately, once they’d been teleported to a random location within the barrier through holy magic, not even the most brilliant scholars, bravest of warriors, or most fearsome of mages could find their way out.

No one ever made it out of the Forest of Pahe.

* * *

It was the thick demonic energy in the forest that kept the infant alive.

The baby cried out at first, but he immediately fell asleep as soon as he grew tired. The forest was much too harsh for a newborn. It was too cold in the woods, and the hunger was unforgiving. But a strange power flowed out from a round, seed-like mass in the baby’s heart and wrapped itself around his body, allowing him to stubbornly cling to life for ten days and nights without food or water. Despite how it might sound, fate had been kind to the baby, for it didn’t let any magical beasts prowl around and kill him. But his good fortune soon ran out.

On the tenth day, his blankets were thrown aside, and a beast with glowing eyes loomed over him, its hot breath beating against his face.

Grrrowl!

The sleek creature stood with four pillars of legs studded with powerful claws, and its thick coat of cloud-like patterns seemed impenetrable, even with the best of swords. Moonlight glinted off the beast’s fangs as it snarled menacingly.

It was a giant white leopard, so massive that it could make one faint from fear with its sheer size alone. Its long, sharp fangs could easily tear into the tender flesh of the infant in a single bite. Though, for some reason, the leopard hesitated before its tiny prey.

This was a baby, after all.

The child squirmed about and opened his dark eyes. Strangely enough, there was not a trace of fear in them. The leopard found it intriguing when the baby didn’t start crying after his innocent eyes caught sight of the massive creature.

Suddenly, the leopard ran its coarse tongue over the baby’s soft skin. Surprisingly, the baby remained calm as the leopard savored the delicious scent of its prey. After a moment’s hesitation, the beast wrapped its tail around the baby and lifted him up. However, instead of crying in fear, the child laughed.

It wasn’t clear whether the leopard was saving this fresh delicacy for a future meal or had something else in mind. However, one thing was certain.

The baby’s fate was forever changed.

Elaga, the great leopard who ruled over a section of the Forest of Pahe, pranced back to its dwelling with the boy dangling on its tail. Indeed, it was a surprising turn of events that left all who witnessed it in awe.