On a cold winter day, dark clouds once again blocked the sun, and the heavy snow that had stopped for a while in this quiet forest fell again.

Although the knights had gone away long ago, the young man who was left behind was still leaning on the oak stump, looking at the sunset in the sky with a calm expression as before.

The young man did not lick the potion off the ground as the knight said. After all, this kind of thing was too tasteless.

But now this stubborn young man regrets not doing so. He really needs treatment. Not to mention the sword wound on his chest, his body suffered multiple fractures after hitting the tree. Although the pain has gradually disappeared, it does not matter.

It means the wound has healed.

After several hours, he was still unable to move, and under this situation, he could not do any emergency treatment for his injuries.

The blood drops slowly dripping from the chest accumulated a pool of solidified plasma on the ground, and there was a strong smell of blood in the air.

Now I can survive for a few days with my firm will. If I'm lucky, I can survive until a passing traveler rescues me. But before that, there's no guarantee that some beast attracted by the smell of blood won't treat him as a human being who has no power to resist.

Plate lunch.

Everything can only be left to fate.

The young man thought to himself: Did he do something wrong to end up in such a miserable situation?

Whether it was Heimer and Zeref, the sisters who were taken away, or Wenarcodo who once guided him... He wanted to save these people, but the cruel fate insisted on keeping them.

Take them all away from him.

In the final analysis, it's all because he is too weak. He is too weak to fight against fate, and can only follow the long line of fate.

【But one day, I will be able to fight against this unreasonable fate, right?】

So he has to live until the day he can decide his own destiny.

"It's so cold..."

Goose feather-like snowflakes fell on his body, and pieces of hexagonal ice crystals melted in the palm of his hand. At this time, the boy was wearing thin clothes, and the heavy snow accompanied by the cold wind made his limbs cold.

It seems that he doesn't need some wild beast to end his life, this weather can kill him.

Perhaps due to excessive blood loss and freezing, the young man's consciousness was in a daze for a while. When he woke up, he found that there was a thick layer of snow on his body.

The snow has stopped.

If he didn't freeze to death like this, does that mean he really shouldn't die?

The weak young man squeezed a smile from the corner of his mouth. Even though he was miserable, he was still alive. As long as he was alive, it meant that there was still hope for everything.

At this time, a man wearing a sapphire blue priest uniform suddenly appeared in the young man's sight. This man stood in the air like a weightless ghost. It was not seen that he had stepped on anything, but was just floating in thin air.

"Who are you?"

The young man opened his chapped lips and asked the man. The strange thing was that he seemed to understand this man's usual style from the beginning and did not expect this man to come to save him.

"..."

The man in the sapphire blue priest uniform did not respond to the young man. He just stared at the young man calmly in the air, neither speaking nor intending to do anything.

"Eh? Missed?"

The young man stared blankly into the air. In just a blink of an eye, just as he appeared inexplicably, this strange man also disappeared inexplicably, as if he had never existed from the beginning.

"Ouch!!"

When the boy was wondering whether he had seen a ghost, the howling of a wolf brought him back to reality.

Sure enough, compared to the hopeless rescue, the hungry beast arrived first.

However, the wild wolf in front of him looked familiar. Its coat color and slightly bulging abdomen always made the young man feel that he should have seen it somewhere.

"Is that you?"

This is the female wolf that he let go back then.

The young man also saw the arrow wounds on its body and believed it was unmistakable.

He once spared this female wolf, will this female wolf let him go now?

"Oh, I'm overthinking it."

The female wolf lingered in front of the boy for a while, and after confirming that he had no resistance based on the smell of blood on his body, she immediately bared her fangs and bit the boy.

Do you expect these beasts to have human nature? At least the boy doesn't believe this. If the beasts are all human, can they still be called beasts?

Besides, he shot and killed many of the female wolf's companions, and now he became the food for the female wolf to raise her cubs. This should be karma.

You boasted so much to that knight, didn't you want your oath to become a joke in just a few hours?

The young man couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh, then closed his eyes and waited for his death.

"Oh my! Boy, why are you so embarrassed?"

A seductive female voice sounded in his ears, and the boy opened his eyes in surprise, only to see the limbs of the female wolf instinctively twitching in place, and a dark dagger penetrated its neck, nailing it to the ground.

On the ground.

The alluring female elf was standing next to him. Since she was wearing a mask, the boy didn't know what her expression was, but I guess it was just a look of ridicule.

"Where's the little sister? And the baby? Where have they gone?"

"..."

"Forget it, even if you don't tell me, I can probably guess it."

Ming Die sighed, and suddenly squatted down next to the young man, reaching out and groping around the young man's waist.

"I thought she would always carry this flower, but didn't expect it to be on you, kid? The mark on the horse has also been cleared. It seems that my mission was a complete failure this time? Damn it!"

"Nia's... flowers?"

While Mingdie was kicking her feet in place in frustration, the young man's eyes were fixed on the Diya flower in her hand.

Does it appear that the night elf has tampered with the flower in order to track them?

The garland the girl gave him as a joke actually saved his life.

After the arrival of Ming Die, the big stone in the young man's heart fell inexplicably.

Obviously this elf is not a trustworthy person, but at this time, the young man feels that she is extremely kind.

The young man felt that his eyes were getting heavier and heavier, and his tense spirit could no longer hold on.

"Eh? You kid, don't really die."

Mingdie took off her mask. She looked at the unconscious young man and expressed her worries with a slight frown.

"That's all, this is what you owe me."

Ming Die sighed softly and took the black-haired boy out of the snow. Of course, she did not leave behind the bag filled with gold coins beside the boy.

…

"Ahem! Water!"

Before the young man opened his eyes, he felt that his throat was extremely thirsty, so he groped around, and someone immediately handed a water bag to his hand.

After drinking all the water in the water bag, the young man opened his eyes. The light of the oil lamp was very dazzling. He rubbed his eyes for a while before he got used to it. After seeing the appearance of the man in front of him clearly,

The young man couldn't help but be surprised.

"Is it you?"

"Haha, thank you for recognizing me."

The man grinned, revealing two rows of yellow teeth, and his fat body trembled like waves.

"Then where am I?"

The young man suddenly stood up from the simple hard bed, but the pain that surged from his body to his brain made him immediately fall to the ground.

Boom!

The young man just brought his face into close contact with the ground, making a passionate declaration to this place that he had been away from for a long time.

"Oh! Why are you so anxious? Your injury hasn't healed yet."

It was obvious that he could have caught the young man just now, but this guy insisted on making him fall into the mud before he helped the young man up from the ground with a smile.

"Oh, don't disgust me with your pretense."

The young man pushed away the arm that looked like a pig's trotter, and walked toward the door while holding on to the wall.

"Haha, I like what you say. Don't go too far. The Ghosts don't know you now."

The boy's bad attitude made the man laugh, and his laughter sounded like muffled thunder jumping in the clouds.

The young man ignored this guy who had brought him countless unbearable memories and continued to stagger out of the room.

The boy, who was already a little exhausted, fell forward as soon as he went out. When he used the rusty iron railing in front of him to prop himself up, he found that his hands were suddenly stained with something dirty. So he rubbed it repeatedly with both hands, trying to rub it.

Walking on the greasy objects above will only make your hands stained with more smelly dirt.

Looking at the dirty environment in front of him and smelling the rich and weird air, he had to believe that he was back in a place that he thought would only appear in his nightmares.

Two years have passed and nothing has changed here, everything is still so disgusting.

"Hmm...hmm! Humph!"

After a lot of hard work, the fat man who looked like a giant ball of meat finally squeezed out of the narrow doorway.

Then he swaggered up to the young man, stood up straight, patted the young man on the shoulder affectionately and said:
Chapter completed!