Alomitsu

Chapter 37: Nightmare (5)

“A glass of the cheapest wine as usual.” The old man walked to the wine cabinet and asked the bartender for a glass of inferior wine. The dark yellow liquid gave off a pungent smell.

“Tadek!” The old man grabbed the collar of the obese man’s neck with one hand, and the hand holding the wine glass placed the drink in front of Tadic. I saw the pig in human skin for the first time.

Tadek held the wine glass, sipping the inferior wine. His fat, folded chin kept trembling as he was drinking. He stuffed his mouth into the wine glass, like a pig desperately arching the swill.

“…Dionysus, thank you for your gift.” Tadek was obese and his small eyes revealed his enjoyment. He praised Dionysus, the god of wine, and even called himself a believer with Dionysus.

(Dionysus, the god of wine in Greek mythology. He was displaced and mad. He taught peasants how to make wine. He was also one of the beloved gods. The tragic experience was said to be connected to the fate of Dionysus.)

“Tadek, enough!” The old man slapped Tadek’s fat cheek. It seemed that the pain made Tadek regain his senses. He stared at the old man with a confused look.

“Dear Ayatos, Tadek thank you for your charity. You are like a god in my mind. Tadek is willing to serve you all the time.” Tadek soberly wiped the dirt on his clothes.

His spoken language was by no means like the rude alcoholic group. Seeing this scene, I really couldn’t believe that the well-trained people in front of me would do such crazy things.

However, I now knew the old man’s name, Ayatos, which was also a very strange name.

“Tadek, come with me.” Ayatos (old man) gestured to Tadek. It seemed that Ayatos didn’t want other people to hear what he said.

I followed Ayatos in silence. He wouldn’t let me say anything, or he would cut off my tongue. I’d better be careful about this.

The three of us kept detouring after leaving the tavern. The road we passed was quietly unoccupied. There were collapsed mud houses everywhere, and some mud houses devoured the broken wood into their bodies.

It is about five o’clock in the afternoon, and the dim sunlight made the abandoned mud house turn into an ancient yellow, and weeds were swinging on the soil, as if to warn the three of us not to disturb this ancient desolation.

Goning was in a hot summer. I took off the beast jacket and tied it around my waist, dressed like a hunter.

“Ayatos, the first time you brought me here, is there anything you need help with? I, Tadek, will definitely do my best.” Tadek bent slightly towards Ayatos. It seemed that he really respected Ayatos, or did he respect the wine Ayatos gave him?

“Tadek, I want to take this young man to the Banshee Forest.” Ayatos didn’t say anything euphemistically, and he went straight to the point.

“Banshee Forest!!!” Tadek screamed, the fat on his body trembled with fear. Tadek glanced at me. “Ayatos, I know you and I have no relatives. Are you going to the Banshee Forest for a stranger?”

When Tadek said the second sentence, he looked at me. His small eyes were filled with hatred, as if I was making him remember bad memories.

“Tadek, I have a reason for this. Even if you don’t tell me, don’t I still know part of you? As for this young man.” Ayatos pursed his lips and looked at me, his eyes trying to pierce me.

“With bravery and compassion, from the moment he faced me, he did not choose to run away. Instead, he mustered the courage for his friend and asked me, who was holding a weapon. I don’t want him to experience the same kind of grief as we do.”

“But this is very dangerous…” Tadek’s words were mixed with unwillingness. His attitude was much softer than before. It seemed that he was caught by the old man. As for what it was, the old man did not tell me. I was not interested in knowing. I just wanted to get evidence to convince Bruyer.

“We just need to take a look, Tadek. We will take a look, then we will leave.” Ayatos comforted Tadek. Tadek hesitated, he kept looking back and forth at me and Ayatos.

“Just a look, and we’ll be back.” Tadek finally agreed.

“Wait for me. I need to get something.” Tadek squirmed his fat buttocks and ran away. It seemed that what he was doing below made him very impatient.

While Ayatos sat on the dirt bag bulging on the ground, he glanced at my leg.

“Can you run when necessary?”

What he said surprised me a bit. I threw the stick and stood up. I could run, but it would cause a slight tingling pain in the wound. This wound was a bite by the Blue Shadow Aborigine. It was already good for the most part.

“I hope you can be alive and kicking like you are now.”

“What will happen?” The old man’s words made me smell the crisis.

“I don’t know!” Ayatos said indifferently.

Ayatos and I fell silent. I didn’t know how to talk to him. The atmosphere was very boring. As for Tadek, it didn’t take him long to get three swaying lambskin bags, which might contain water.

When Tadek handed a bag to me, his face dropped to show that he was very unhappy. I didn’t care about these things. I took the bag with a smile. The wet touch made me instantly understand that it was oil!

“Let’s go, before the sky goes completely dark.” Ayatos didn’t have any procrastination. He led us from the dog hole in Goning’s city wall to the snowy forest.

“God, God, God” Tadek muttered along the way with the dark and faded cross. He was terrified. He made fear raise my spirits so I must be careful.

Banshee Forest.

This was just a name coined by someone too superstitious.

After entering the snowy forest, we went not into the small town where Bruyer and I lived, but a trail.

The streams here were all frozen. In theory, the flowing liquid would not be frozen unless it was extremely cold, but the coldness of the forest was obviously not as cold as that.

We stepped on the ankle-deep snow and made a squeak sound. As we went deeper, the temperature in the gloomy forest dropped significantly, making me feel cold despite my fur clothes. The two also put on the thick clothes in their bags.

In the gloomy, ethereal forest, no animal could be seen in the depths of the forest. They disappeared like they all went extinct.

What disturbed me was that the collapsed pits in the rows of trees had no end, and the cold wind blew through the pits and made a cry.

Uuuuuuuuu…

There were more than one pit, and they were everywhere. Their cries horrified the forest. The sky was getting darker and darker, and our line of sight was only about 20 meters.

The two were very serious, and Tadek also put the cross in his bag.

A block of boulders stood in front of them. The trees clung to the sides of the boulders. The vines and plants had already died. It was still freshly green and frozen on the boulders.

“Once you get here, and you, young man, dare to sneeze or say a word, I will kill you. I will really kill you.” Ayatos took out the dagger from his belt.

His expression was extremely serious. This time, he didn’t have the temperament of an ordinary person, but the cold temperament of a killer. I had only seen this temperament in the White Robe Assassin.

Moving on, the extremely old broken city appeared before my eyes. It seemed real but false, because every wall of it was shaking, like a reflection in the water.

In the center of the city was a dry circular pool. In the middle of the pool was a kneeling angel sculpture. One of its wings was broken and laying on the ground.

This seemingly avant-garde building gave me fear. Broken stones were scattered around the round pool. I could clearly see the dry red traces in the pool. As for the kneeling angel, there were two rows of red tears under the eyes.

When we stepped into the ruins swaying like water, Ayatos and Tadek bent down. I followed.

Sneaky, eagerly suspicious.

After entering the ancient city, I heard words that I had never heard before, as if people were talking to each other, but this sound was not a normal conversation of people. It was more like a trill sound made by hundreds of people uttering the same sentence at the same time.

“Arikus, Joknarren, Bukhdanas.”

Untranslatable words and unintelligible meanings. Their tones were such that their words did not belong to any human language.

Shek Pik!

The three of us bypassed the circular pool, and with the help of the frozen vines, we bent over and walked to the edge of a rock wall. I quietly stretched out my hand to support the rock wall. There were many peculiar gullies on the stonewall.

Ayatos and Tadek crouched in front of me. I wiped the snow from the rock wall to see why there were ravines on the rock wall.

Short text popped before my eyes. It was written in ancient Greek!

The writing on the stonewall was so small that I dared not stand up and look. The part I saw went:

[The kindness and innocence I was killed. Death enveloped me. I had no feelings. I said goodbye to myself and came to the world I once hated.] [I couldn’t sleep, lost my life, and left the world that I had longed for to return.]

Two paragraphs. Just these two paragraphs. It was extremely short! But what happened below made me sweat.

The gully of the stone wall under my hand swayed and dissipated like a reflection in the water. These words dissipated out of thin air, and the gully also disappeared. It became a smooth and cold stone surface.

Frightened, I turned my head and looked forward. In an instant, I seemed to see a person on the stone pillar in the ruins ahead! It’s on the stone pillar, not under the stone pillar!

On the column engraved with water lines, there was a gray-white naked “person”. It climbed over the stone pillar like a gecko, and then disappeared.

I wiped my eyes. Did I have an illusion because of this snow? I wanted to ask the two people in front of me, but I couldn’t ask. Ayatos told me not to say anything. Since I knew Ayatos, I was basically dumb.

Flack!

The sound of flippers came from behind me. It was very similar to the “popping” sound made by applying glue to the goose flippers when I was a child. However, the sound of the flippers coming from the rear was also mixed with the pop of a suction cup.

The hateful sight made me aware that I was being watched by something, and it was behind me!