CHAPTER 84
084 Someday Again
The moment a wolf lunged at the boy.
The boy saw it. An intense wave of mana, strong enough to make his skin tingle, sliced through the wolf.
The other wolves, which had been about to follow, all flinched. Even though they were beasts—or rather, because they were beasts—they were faithful to their instincts. And their instincts were telling them to stop.
In an instant, a man appeared in front of the boy. Is he a knight from the territory? The boy, who had been elated, froze when he saw the man.
'A human!?'
He wasn't an Elf, but a human. The race with short ears, who destroyed the forest without a second thought, and were even said to set it on fire.
The boy stumbled backward in fear. To a young Elf like him, the existence of a human was no different from a ghost.
"Wait a moment."
The ghost spoke in fluent Elvish. That in itself wasn't strange. The language spoken by Elves was the common tongue of the continent.
However, even with the same language, there were differences in pronunciation and habits. And Jinwoo's pronunciation was not much different from that of the Elves. It was only natural, as Chartia had been the one to teach him the language.
Perhaps thanks to that, the boy's wariness eased just a little.
In that time, Jinwoo cut down three more wolves. In the dark forest, where only moonlight filtered through the leaves, the thick scent of blood disturbed the night and created an eerie atmosphere.
'Woah, woah...'
The boy, having forgotten his wariness of the human, stared blankly at Jinwoo's sword.
The blade, reflecting the moonlight as it was swung, looked as if it were cutting not the wolves, but the moonlight itself. It was a sight so beautiful it made him forget the nauseating smell of blood.
"They're finally running away."
Only after more than half of their pack was dead did the wolves begin to retreat cautiously. It was a little strange that they hadn't fled sooner.
Leaving the wolf carcasses scattered around, he turned to look at the boy. The boy had forgotten his fear and was staring up at Jinwoo in a daze.
"What's your name?"
"Huh? My name? Ah, ouch..."
The boy, who had been asking a question back, grimaced and curled up. Looking closely, blood was flowing from his abdomen. It was hard to tell for sure, but it didn't look like a minor injury.
"Let's go inside first."
Jinwoo took the boy into the cave at the base of the cliff. He quickly stacked some firewood he had stored in his inventory and lit a fire.
Then he laid the boy down and examined his wound. It was a long scratch on his side, and it was quite deep.
"H-Here, this..."
The boy fumbled in his pocket and took out a small bottle. He had never seen the bottle itself before, but he remembered the scent wafting from it.
"Nectar? I hear it's a precious medicine."
"My mother gave it to me. She told me to use it right away if I was in danger."
She was right. Nothing is more precious than one's life.
Jinwoo opened the sealed bottle and pulled out the cork-like stopper. With a pop, a fragrant yet refreshing scent wafted out thickly.
A scent that seemed to soothe one's insides just by smelling it. The familiar fragrance brought back old memories.
Reminiscing, Jinwoo poured the Nectar onto the boy's wound. Soon, bubbles began to form on the injured area.
"Ngh..."
"Does it hurt?"
"N-No. It doesn't hurt. It just feels strange."
Jinwoo chuckled and filled the empty bottle with water, then shook it. Since it was a precious medicine, it was a waste to miss even a single drop.
'In the past, I would have drunk this myself.'
This time, he didn't need to drink it. He gave the Nectar-infused water to the boy to drink and then wrapped a bandage around his side.
"You still look young. Why did you come to a dangerous place where wolves appear?"
As he tied the bandage, he asked the question, and the boy shook his head emphatically.
"It's not usually dangerous. There are no dangerous wolf packs like that around here."
"Then what about those guys just now?"
"I don't think they're from this forest."
A pack from outside the forest?
It seemed this area had been restless lately. It might be related to the Dark Elves who attacked Velen Village.
For example, perhaps the Dark Elves were expanding their territory and drove out any threatening beasts, and those displaced creatures ended up coming into this forest...
Of course, it was all just speculation.
'I'll be leaving tomorrow anyway.'
There was no need to get deeply involved. He planned to leave as soon as Rona returned.
At a time when he needed to meet Permu as soon as possible, he couldn't stay in one territory for long. Besides, Jinwoo couldn't even enter the territory.
"By the way, we still haven't gotten your name. I'm Kang Jinwoo. And you?"
"Ah, yes."
Ahem. The boy cleared his throat, straightened his body and clothes, and spoke with a solemn attitude.
"I am Las Elea. My mother is Ionia Elea, guardian of the great Oakleaf family."
"..."
He had expected him to be a child from a noble house, but to think he was actually the lord's son. He was about to leave the territory soon, yet a strange connection had formed.

Rona headed for the forest outside the territory.
Her task of meeting with the lord, Ionia Elea, and reporting on the events of Velen Village was finished. However, Ionia's son, Las, had not returned even after sunset, so she had come out to find him.
There were no dangerous beasts or monsters near the territory, but the lord was still worried. Because of the incident at Velen Village and other unsettling events that had occurred nearby recently.
So she had told her son, Las, to stay home for the time being, but being a young child, he seemed to have gone out to play again.
It was understandable that she would be worried when her son, who had gone out like that, hadn't returned by sunset.
'This smell is...'
As soon as she entered the forest, Rona's expression hardened. The faint scent of blood was drifting on the wind.
Her pace quickened as she followed the smell of blood. It wasn't difficult to follow, as the scent was quite strong.
The place she found was strewn with the corpses of several wolves.
'Don't tell me!'
An ominous thought came to her, and she hurriedly rushed into the cave in the cliff. And then.
"Rona? You said you might stay the night, but you're back early."
"Sir Garcia?"
She saw Jinwoo and Las sitting around a campfire, eating something like soup.
Seeing the peaceful scene that blew away all her ominous thoughts, she clutched her chest in relief.
"Haaa... Young Master, I was worried. The Lord is worried as well."
"Ah, I'm sorry. The thing is, I ran into a human..."
Las glanced back and forth between Jinwoo and Rona. It was a natural reaction for him, who didn't know the two were already acquainted.
Rona took a step into the cave. Las, thinking she was about to draw her sword and cut Jinwoo down, quickly ran to block her path.
"W-Wait a moment, Sir Garcia! This person is a human, but he's my savior!"
So please don't attack him. Seeing the child shouting this, Rona smiled as if to tell him not to worry.
"I see. May I ask what happened?"
"Well, you see..."
Las eagerly explained what had happened.
How he came out to the forest to play, how he encountered ferocious wolves he had never seen before, how he was seriously injured while being chased, and how he was saved by Jinwoo's intervention.
"You were injured?"
"I had Nectar, so I'm fine. Look at this. Jinwoo even wrapped a bandage for me."
Jinwoo, watching the boy earnestly defending him, smiled slightly from behind. Rona seemed to have seen it too, as her expression softened considerably.
At some point, she had joined Las by the campfire, but Las was so engrossed in his story that he didn't even notice.
"It's strange. There shouldn't be any dangerous wolf packs around here."
"Jinwoo and I were just talking about that. I heard Dark Elves attacked a village on the outskirts?"
"It seems there have been a lot of strange incidents in this forest lately. Isn't the Lord very worried?"
"Yes. That's why she told me to stay home for the time being... ah."
Realizing his own mistake mid-sentence, Las drew his knees together and bowed his head.
"I'm sorry..."
"It's alright, since you're safe. However, try not to do things that would worry the Lord—no, your mother."
"Yes."
For the young Las, the title 'mother' was more effective than 'Lord'. At the mention of worrying his mother, Las's spirits sank and he slumped over.
"Jinwoo, thank you for saving the Young Master. If anything had happened, the Lord would have been greatly saddened."
"It was lucky I was nearby. If I had been a little further away, I might not have found him."
"I'm going to take the Young Master back to the manor. Would you like to come with us, Jinwoo? If I explain things well, it might be alright. Lord Elea is one of the more reasonable types among the High Elves."

Deep down, Jinwoo also wanted to be treated to a nice house and sleep in a plush bed. But he shook his head.
“It’s fine. Keep my existence a secret, Ras.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t tell anyone a human saved you. Say that Rona saved you. Got it?”
“But…”
“If you want to repay my kindness, keep it a secret. Nothing good will come from it being known that a human is in the Elves’ forest.”
Once Jinwoo explained that this was how he could repay him, Ras nodded with a determined expression.
“I promise. Butler Pel said that a High Elf must know the importance of promises and contracts.”
“Is that so? A fine lesson.”
Being a child, it was uncertain how well he could keep the promise, but he didn’t seem like he would break it lightly. The rest could be left to Rona.
With that in mind, he looked at Rona, and she nodded firmly before leading Ras out of the cave.
The scene outside with the child was still one of scattered wolf corpses.
Ras’s expression reflexively tensed up, and Rona…
‘…What is this?’
She was feeling a strange sense of familiarity, of déjà vu. The corpses of the wolf pack, visible upon leaving the cave.
Of course, the scene in her memory was of werewolf corpses, not ordinary wolves. But the intense smell of blood and the foul stench of beasts from that time were unforgettable.
Come to think of it, the explanation she heard from Ras was strikingly similar to her own childhood experience.
Dangerous beasts had invaded, she had been gravely injured, and someone had treated her wounds with Nectar before escaping with her.
At the dead-end cave where their escape ended, that person had fought the beasts alone and, in the end, had protected her.
The scene she saw the next day, with her healed eyes, outside the cave, was still deeply etched in her mind.
‘…Who was it?’
After becoming a knight and establishing her position, she had searched high and low for information about that person.
But it had been so long ago, and few knew the details of that day, so her search had yielded nothing.
Everyone knew that the Garcia family had been wiped out that day, but no one knew how the family’s sole survivor had made it out alive.
‘Will I ever be able to meet them again?’
She thought of them from time to time. The touch of the person who had protected her, who had poured Nectar into her injured eye.
As she recalled that hand, her memory drifted to the waterfall cave in the Primeval Forest. The night she had shaken hands with Jinwoo, she had also recalled her childhood.
“Knight Garcia? Is something wrong?”
Finding Rona’s silence strange, Ras called out to her. Snapping back to her senses, she took his hand.
“No. It’s nothing.”
She said as much, but a small ripple had already formed in her heart.

The next day, Jinwoo, who had spent the night in the cave, stretched as he stepped outside.
Seeing the sheer number of wolf carcasses nearby, he grimaced and moved to a different spot. He found a nearby stream, washed his face with the cold water, and cleared his head.
Let’s leave as soon as Rona gets back. Just as he made up his mind…
—THUD!
—THUUUD!
The forest began to tremble. The ground rumbled and the air vibrated, causing the chirping birds to startle and take flight all at once.
Giants with green skin. A horde of ogres was advancing, trampling the forest.