Chapter 91
No matter how rushed it was, how can there be such a pile of defective equipment like this?!
Baberi let go of the leather strap that had become completely useless.
“Kuu—…!”
Before she could even finish calling Kur’s name, he shot off into the distance. She had thought it was great that a dragon mount was so fast—but at a moment like this, she couldn’t help but resent it.
Still, at least Kur had been flying low, and the place Baberi fell wasn’t barren wasteland but a forest.
Baberi crashed down onto the top of a large, yellowed, withering tree. The drying branches weren’t very sturdy, but they managed to reduce the momentum of her fall.
Just before she hit the ground, the final branch didn’t break and instead held her weight.
“At least I avoided smashing my head into the ground and dying.”
The moment she sighed in relief, the slanted branch made a cracking sound and snapped. Baberi tumbled to the ground along with it, groaning in pain.
“Damn it. This is why you shouldn’t speak carelessly….”
When she opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut from the pain, the intense sunlight dazzled her. She had punched a hole through the forest canopy as she fell.
Groaning, Baberi pushed herself up. Fortunately, only the branches were broken—her bones seemed intact.
“Kur! Kur! Hey!”
She shouted Kur’s name at the top of her lungs. Her voice echoed through the forest.
She waited for a moment, hoping to hear Kur’s cry in response, but the forest remained terrifyingly silent.
They really weren’t lying when they called this place the Island of Death. It didn’t seem like a single wild animal lived here, let alone humans.
I need to regroup with Kur, but what do I do?
If she had arrived by ship, she could have gone back to where it was and waited for him.
“The problem is, I have no idea where the ‘ship’ I rode in on—Kur—flew off to.”
Frustrated, Baberi kicked at the scattered remains of the branches.
One of the branches fell into a pool of black liquid. The dry wood immediately began to smoke, turned black, and then melted into the thick, sticky liquid itself.
Witnessing this, Baberi stumbled backward and checked to make sure her gas mask was properly secured.
“I need to get out of here first.”
It might be less polluted than a city, but it was still dangerous. For now, she decided to head toward the coast.
She should’ve just let Kur come alone. She had followed him all the way here out of unnecessary worry.
“My bag’s disgustingly heavy because of all the mana stones. And why is the ground so squishy?”
Her feet sank into the earth as if it were ground soaked after heavy rain.
The heat and the difficult footing doubled her fatigue. On top of that, her back hurt whenever she walked—it seemed something had gone wrong when she fell.
Given the situation, she couldn’t even check it herself. All she could do was endure it for now.
“Haa, haa….”
She was walking, breathing heavily, when suddenly a sound reached her ears.
She stopped and listened carefully. The rustling was unmistakably someone’s footsteps.
“Kur?”
She called out just in case, but there was no answer. The weight of the footsteps was too light to be Kur, and whatever it was was walking on four legs.
Could it be a tiger…?
Baberi recalled movies she had seen on the tablet Yuchaerin had given her. In situations like this, the protagonist usually ran into either a tiger, a cannibal, or a serial killer.
Even cannibals or serial killers were human and would walk on two legs. That meant this had to be a tiger.
Baberi placed her hand on the sword at her waist and waited for the tiger to pounce.
“…….”
A black shadow rushed toward her from behind at great speed. She drew her sword to pierce the tiger’s neck—when it suddenly spoke.
“A human!”
Baberi froze with her sword half-drawn. The footsteps hadn’t belonged to a tiger or any beast of this land.
When the figure came into view, it was a fairly tall man standing upright on two legs. His face was hidden behind a gas mask, but judging by his voice, he was a young man.
“This isn’t another hallucination, right?”
The man poked Baberi’s arm a couple of times. When she frowned and slapped his hand away, he let out a shout of triumph.
“It’s not a hallucination! You’re really a person! Oh, sacred tree, thank you!”
With a hoarse voice, he let out a strange yell, then raised his arms and hopped around on all fours.
“I’m Sannanta. Ah, how long has it been since I last met another person in this cursed land? I’ve been seeing nothing but hallucinations until now. You have no idea how happy I am that you’re real.”
He rattled on without taking a breath, then suddenly grabbed Baberi’s gloved hand and shook it vigorously up and down.
“I’m Sannanta. Sannanta!”
His grip was so strong that Baberi felt like her arm would be ripped off if she let him continue.
“I’m Baberi.”
When she shoved him away and answered, Sannanta nodded enthusiastically.
“Baberi, it’s nice to meet you! It’s been a hundred years. No—two hundred years, maybe!”
“We’re meeting for the first time. What are you talking about?”
“I feel a familiar aura from you. Perhaps your ancestor and I were friends!”
What on earth was he saying?
Unable to understand him, Baberi assumed his mind wasn’t quite right.
“How did you get here? Did you come by ship? Did your friends get shipwrecked and arrive like I did? Then you’ll need a boat!”
“No. I—”
“But don’t worry!”
Excited to finally meet someone, Sannanta didn’t give Baberi a chance to speak. He pointed toward the coast.
“I built a raft to escape this place. It’s not finished yet, but if a friend helps me, we can finish it quickly!”
“I’m good. Work hard on your own. And why do you keep calling me a friend?”
They’d just met.
When Baberi shot him a glare, he raised both hands apologetically.
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
The incessantly chatty Sannanta finally fell silent.
Satisfied, Baberi resumed walking. She was thirsty, and soon the pond she’d seen earlier came into view.
The water was clearer than she’d expected and looked drinkable. She bent down to scoop some up when Sannanta suddenly screamed.
“No! The pond water is poisonous! You’ll die if you drink it!”
He shrieked and even acted out a death scene as he desperately tried to stop her.
“It looks fine to drink.”
“Don’t be fooled by appearances, my friend.”
Realizing he’d unconsciously called her “friend” again, Sannanta gasped and glanced at Baberi’s face before cautiously making a suggestion.
“If you’re really thirsty, let’s go to the boat I made.”
“You have water there?”
“Yes.”
Baberi looked between the pond and him, then nodded. Sannanta beamed and took the lead.
“There are two drops of clean water left, so we can share—one drop each.”
A drop? Not even a sip?
Baberi stopped walking.
“Never mind. Come to think of it, I have water too.”
Most of what was in her heavy bag were mana stones, but she did have a canteen.
Just as Baberi took it out and opened the lid, Sannanta suddenly lunged at her.
In the fierce struggle, the water sloshed inside the canteen—proof there was much more than a few drops.
Sannanta’s eyes rolled back as he desperately tried to snatch it away.
“Water! Clean, uncontaminated water!”
Startled, Baberi threw a punch at him. With a grunt, Sannanta staggered back, then pulled something from his waist and threw it at her.
It was a strap with a loop made of twisted silver thread. Baberi’s hand holding the water got caught in the loop, and Sannanta yanked the strap.
She tried to pull her hand free immediately, but strangely, the hand caught in the loop couldn’t move even a finger.
“Water! Waaaater!”
Shortening the strap bit by bit, Sannanta shouted as he dragged her closer. The kind man who had offered to share water was gone—he had turned into a bandit in an instant.
“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden? Are you crazy? Let go!”
“Give me the water! Just one sip—no, two sips, and I’ll give it back!”
Up close, his sunken, cloudy green eyes were filled with madness. If she refused, it was clear he’d hurt her to take it.
“Water!”
As Sannanta reached for the canteen, his upper body opened up. Baberi didn’t miss the chance and drove her knee into his abdomen.
The blow landed solidly, and Sannanta rolled across the ground. Thanks to that, the loop slipped off Baberi’s hand.
With both hands free, she quickly used the strap to bind him tightly to a tree while he writhed in pain.
“Water. Clean water! Please, give me water!”
Sannanta screamed and struggled. Baberi stepped back and slightly lifted her gas mask to drink.
“Please, water. Give me water.”
Realizing screaming wasn’t working, he began to whimper pitifully instead.
“I’ll die if I don’t drink water. I’m already dying. I haven’t even lived 1,200 years yet!”
Twelve hundred years? He really had lost his mind.
Baberi dismissed it as nonsense and deliberately gulped down the water. Sannanta’s shoulders shook as he sobbed.
“Please, Baberi. My friend. Even just one sip….”
“You’re crying? A thief crying?”
Watching someone who’d just used force act pitiful made Baberi scoff. When she snorted, his shoulders shook even harder.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this, but this wicked island made me this way.”
“Blaming something else, huh? It’s your nature. Your nature.”
“Ugh… I shouldn’t have come to a place like this. But I couldn’t just stand by and watch the sacred tree fall ill.”
He couldn’t. Someone had to resolve it.
Muttering to himself, Sannanta repeatedly slammed the back of his head against the tree in self-reproach.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I promised I’d become a successor you could be proud of. Please forgive your son for dying before you.”
Baberi pretended not to hear him crying out for his mother. Whether he regretted failing in his filial duties or not was none of her concern.
“To die in this tainted land without even returning to the Great Forest….”
Just as Baberi finished drinking and was about to close the lid, her eyes widened. At last, she began to grasp Sannanta’s true identity from his strange words.
He was an elf. And since he spoke of being a successor, perhaps…
Baberi’s mind finished its calculations in an instant.
“You’re very devoted to your mother, aren’t you?”
From behind her gas mask, Baberi smiled slyly and held out the water to Sannanta.
“I can’t just let such a good boy die.”
