Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

Rian sat in place without moving a muscle. No, he could not move. The foreign sensation writhing inside his body now was several times heavier and more horrifying than the weight of the corpse that had been crushing him moments ago.

‘My body…… isn’t mine.’

Sitting on the cold, muddy ground, he had no choice but to acknowledge that obvious fact. He wriggled his fingers. It was not the slow, dull movement his mind remembered. Half a beat faster than he intended, an overly sensitive, almost nervous twitch ran through them.

It felt as if the soul that had lived with him for so long had one day suddenly been trapped inside an unfamiliar body. This strange agility, these sharply honed senses. Had they belonged to the scout Flynn?

The moment that thought crossed his mind, goosebumps crawled down his spine.

‘Then am I like a ghost possessing Flynn’s corpse right now? Or did he enter my body?’

Either possibility was enough to drive him insane.

But alongside the fear, one ice-cold fact was becoming clear. If he stayed here, he would die. Once dawn broke, the imperial bastards’ search party would comb through this hell, and whether Flynn’s ghost was inside him or not, he would be found without fail and lose his head.

‘I have to move. I have to get out of here.’

His survival instinct forced his paralyzed reason awake.

Rian planted his hand on the damp ground and tried to rise very slowly, very carefully. As if soothing his creaking joints and knotted muscles, he focused every nerve in his body.

But his body reacted on its own, as if mocking his careful intention.

‘Just a little. Only a little…….’

The moment he thought that and put strength into his legs, his body sprang upward as lightly as a feather.

“Uh!”

He lost his balance at the unexpected movement and staggered. Like an animal that had crawled on all fours its entire life and was standing on two legs for the first time, he could not even properly control his own body.

‘Damn it, what’s wrong with me?!’

A curse surged up in his panic. It was his body, yet he could not control it as he wished.

After stumbling and nearly falling several times, he barely managed to stand upright on his two feet. He braced his trembling legs like a newborn foal. The sensation of every nerve in his body being pulled taut felt unfamiliar.

He lifted his head and looked around.

The battlefield revealed beneath the pale moonlight was hell itself. Between broken weapons and torn flags, corpses twisted into grotesque postures lay scattered everywhere. Beyond them, only the forest gaping open with pitch-black darkness seemed like the sole escape route.

‘To the forest. I have to get to the forest if I want to hide.’

Rian hardened his resolve.

He took his first step. Surprisingly, he could barely hear the sound of his foot touching the ground. It was not his former gait, trudging along in exhaustion from hunger. Through the soles of his feet, he could delicately feel every sensation of the ground. Hard earth, squelching mud, even the feel of sharp pebbles. Every piece of information flowed along his nerves into his brain.

‘Flynn was a scout. Was his talent to silence his footsteps and sense the terrain?’

His guess soon became certainty.

Rian stepped over corpses, avoided obstacles, and made his way toward the forest. As his body seemed to gradually adapt to the new senses, his awkward movements became more and more natural. Like a shadow, without a sound.

But the more familiar it became, the more frightened he felt. This was absolutely not his own ability. It was a cursed talent stolen from the dead. Guilt caught at his ankles, but the desperate instinct to live pushed him forward.

How far had he gone like that? He had nearly escaped the center of the corpse pile when it happened.

Rustle.

A very small sound. The sound of a dry branch being stepped on stabbed sharply into his heightened hearing.

His heart dropped. Before he had time to think, his body reacted first. Rian immediately threw himself behind the nearest broken cart and hid. It was an animal-like reflex.

Through the broken gap in the cart, he peered toward the source of the sound.

A soldier of the Gale Empire was rummaging through corpses. Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be a straggler who had fallen behind the main force. He searched the clothes of a dead Kaien soldier, pulled out a coin pouch, and smiled in satisfaction.

‘Damn it, there was still one left?!’

Rian held his breath. Please. Please, let that bastard satisfy his greed and just pass by.

But not once had god ever been on his side. The moment the soldier shoved the coin pouch into his clothes and lifted his head, his eyes met Rian’s silhouette moving faintly in the darkness head-on.

Rian’s world stopped in that instant.

“Hooh……?”

A cruel, nasty smile hung around the soldier’s mouth. His eyes were like those of someone looking at a small animal he had happened to find by the roadside, ready to kick it.

‘I’ve been spotted.’

The moment those words dominated his mind, the extreme fear Flynn had felt right before he died came crashing over him as a fragment of memory. The sensation of an arrow piercing through his back came alive again like phantom pain.

Instinct overtook reason. Without looking back, Rian began running toward the forest.

“Stand right there, you rat bastard! You’re going to be fine prey for me!”

The soldier shouted as if amused.

Thump, thump, thump.

He did not hurry. Tapping the ground with the spear shaft in his hand, he followed leisurely, as if enjoying the sight of his terrified prey fleeing. The sound rang out at regular intervals behind Rian’s back, tightening around his heart.

‘Why is he so fast?! He’s catching up!’

No matter how light his body had become, he had gone hungry for days and survived a hellish battle. On the other hand, that bastard was perfectly fine, merely looting spoils. The distance closed in an instant.

To make matters worse, Rian’s foot sank into a deep mud pit, and his speed dropped sharply.

Not missing that split second, the soldier strode forward and blocked Rian’s path.

“Where do you think you’re running? Seeing that terrified look on your face makes my blood boil.”

The soldier’s face was full of the sadistic delight of someone who had completely overwhelmed his opponent. Rian crawled backward across the sticky mud.

Thud.

In the end, his legs tangled as their strength gave out, and he fell flat on his back in a pathetic heap.

“Hahaha! Serves you right! Crawl, then! Like a bug! You Kaien loser bastards are all the same!”

The soldier slung his spear over his shoulder and burst into laughter.

‘This is the end.’

The light vanished from Rian’s eyes. Was he going to die like this? So meaninglessly? Was this all that remained at the end of the life he had prolonged by hiding among corpses while his comrades died?

The moment he gave up everything, his vision went white. He felt neither anger, sorrow, nor fear. Only a state of complete nothingness.

The soldier stopped laughing and slowly raised his spear. The spearhead gleamed coldly in the faint moonlight.

“Well, I’ll give you time for one last prayer. If you bastards have a god, that is.”

The soldier spat out the mocking words, and before he even finished speaking, he thrust his spear like lightning.

The spearhead drove toward Rian’s throat. Every moment of it looked horribly slow, as if in slow motion.

‘I can’t dodge it.’

His brain had already accepted death. He did not even have the strength to close his eyes.

But his body.

Rian’s upper body tilted, slipping naturally to the left like flowing water, without the slightest connection to his will. It was neither falling nor dodging. It was an incomprehensible movement, as if merely shifting his center of gravity and letting the strike flow past.

Whoosh!

The sharp spearhead grazed right beside his cheek, as if scorching several strands of hair.

The sensation of the cold wind brushing his cheek was far too vivid. It felt like death had stroked his cheek and passed by.

“……!”

The soldier’s eyes widened in disbelief. He should certainly have pierced him. Yet the greenhorn bastard, who had been frozen stiff in terror, had dodged the full force of his thrust. And with such a bizarre movement, no less.

‘……He dodged it? This bastard?’

Flustered, the soldier hurriedly tried to pull back his spear. That momentary stiffness, that brief opening.

Rian’s fallen body sprang upward like a coil. As he planted his left hand on the muddy ground, he spun his body and drove into the soldier’s reach like a storm.

‘What…… is this? Why is my body doing this?!’

Rian’s reason could not keep up at all with the strange acts his own body was performing, and he screamed inwardly. He was merely a passenger being shaken aboard a nauseating ship.

Thud!

His shoulder slammed hard into the soldier’s thick leather armor. The dull impact made the soldier’s stance collapse slightly. Using that recoil, Rian kicked off the ground and pulled back, instantly widening the distance between himself and the soldier.

All of it had happened in a single breath.

“Y-you bastard……!”

The soldier shouted in a voice mixed with shock and rage. The leisurely face of a predator was nowhere to be seen.

This was not Rian’s technique. It was the survival instinct of the scout Flynn, who had lived through countless battles and assassination threats. It was movement engraved into the body, carved deep into the bones.

Rian’s mind was still white. He could not think at all. The fundamental terror of his own body moving on its own was overwhelming the fear of death presented by the enemy before him.

Rian stood there blankly. But his body did not stop.

Flynn’s lingering thoughts, or perhaps merely a desperate craving for survival, were shouting inside his head.

‘Run! Now’s your chance!’

Rian’s legs moved by themselves.

This time, there was no hesitation. He began sprinting toward the forest at full speed. His body was strangely light. As if he had become the wind. The corpses and obstacles around him became blurred afterimages and were quickly pushed behind him.

“You…… you son of a bitch! Stand still!”

Only then did the soldier come to his senses and start chasing after him with a furious roar. His pride wounded by the unexpected counterattack, his face was flushed bright red.

Rian had no room to look back. But the rough breathing and the sound of feet kicking through mud behind him told him that death was still chasing him.

‘Please, please, please!’

Rian prayed inwardly.

His body moved like a machine. He ran while weaving around trees and bushes. His body was finding the optimal route on its own. His feet read the subtle unevenness of the ground, and his upper body bent flexibly to avoid branches.

At last, he reached the entrance of the forest. The pitch-black darkness gaped open like a massive beast.

Would he survive if he went in there? No, what if wolves, other wild beasts, or something even more terrible was waiting for him?

But he had no choice. The spearpoint behind him or the unknown darkness. If he had to choose between the two, the answer was already decided.

Rian threw himself into the darkness.

Slash!

Sharp branches tore through his worn soldier’s uniform and scraped his flesh. Stinging pain ran across his arms and cheeks, but he could not stop.

“I won’t let you get away! Not you!”

The soldier’s spiteful shout echoed from outside the forest.

Thud, thud, thud.

Soon after, the sound of him charging into the forest without hesitation reached Rian’s ears.

The forest was a world of complete darkness that did not permit even a single strand of moonlight. He could not see an inch ahead.

‘Where…… where should I go?’

Rian’s terrified reason screamed again. But his body did not stop. Toward a deeper place, toward a darker place, it moved instinctively. When sight was blocked, his other senses became abnormally sharp. The slope and moisture of the ground carried through the soles of his feet, the damp smell of soil and rotting leaves brushing the tip of his nose, the sound of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears, and the sound of leaves rubbing together.

Rian was now playing a life-or-death game of tag, half by his own will and half by the will of something else.

There was only one thing he could do of his own volition.

‘Please, let this body save me.’

He merely prayed and ran wherever this unfamiliar body led him.