The reconnaissance unit pushed through the forest as they walked.
The earth beneath their feet bore signs of having been turned over once,
and the broken vegetation pointed in no clear direction.
It was not the path of someone who had fled,
but a place where someone had deliberately ruined the “trail.”
A faint smell of smoke lingered.
Not flames, but an acrid afterscent.
A smell that scratched at the tip of the nose.
The soldier in the lead clicked his tongue.
“What the hell….”
He kicked the ground once.
Broken leaves scattered.
“We can’t track them like this. They’ve completely churned it up.”
A soldier behind him spoke in a low voice.
“We still have to find them. Those are our orders.”
Another soldier beside him cut in.
“Just move according to orders. Don’t get worked up for nothing.”
He swept his gaze over the area ahead.
The wind was strange.
No, not the wind—the feeling left behind where the wind had passed was strange.
“Hey. You’re checking the map, right?”
One soldier pulled a map from his belt.
When he unfolded the paper, the many creased lines gleamed in the faint morning light.
“Mm… yes. If we keep going like this…”
Before he could finish.
The wind came.
More precisely, the wind bent in as though aiming for the map.
The edge of the paper fluttered, then slipped from between his fingers.
“Uh—!”
The soldier reflexively reached out, but it was already too late.
The map flipped once in the air and flew toward the forest.
Just as the map seemed about to fall—
someone snatched it.
A short figure flashed between the shadows.
Brown hair, light feet.
He seemed as if he had been pushed along by the wind,
and in the next moment, his movement rode the wind and “vanished.”
It was Ed.
He folded the map with one hand and tucked it into his coat,
raising the corner of his mouth ever so slightly.
“That bastard!”
The soldiers raised their spears at the same time.
Their feet kicked off the ground, and they charged into the shade.
That was when it happened.
Something fell onto the ground in front of where Ed had been standing.
Thud—
a dull sound.
With a small rupture, smoke burst out.
Not flame, but acrid smoke.
It stabbed first at their eyes and throats.
“Gah…!”
“My eyes—!”
The soldiers broke into coughing and staggered back.
They shut their eyes and covered their faces with their arms.
Someone swung the tip of his spear through empty air.
Toward the place he believed the enemy would be.
The smoke subsided after only a few breaths.
In the fading smoke, the soldiers checked one another’s faces as if feeling for them.
But there was already no one there.
Curses leaked out between coughs, and spearheads scraped at empty air.
What remained was not what they had “seen,” but only what they had “missed.”
Someone kicked the ground, but the forest gave no answer.
All that remained were leaves scattered across the ground, and the afterscent of wind, as if someone had passed through.
One soldier ground his teeth.
“…Those bastards.”
His hand was trembling.
Not only from anger.
Just now,
the sensation that he could not even be certain of what he had been looking at made it all the more terrifying.
And—
none of them yet knew.
That in this moment, what had lost its way was not the “map,”
but their own “certainty.”
—
Another search party had gone deeper into the forest.
The trees all looked the same, and the wind was the same.
And yet, only the ground beneath their feet was different.
“Uh…”
The soldier in the lead stopped walking.
He swept his gaze around, then tilted his head.
“Isn’t this… where we passed through earlier?”
The soldier behind him grumbled.
“Is it? All forests look the same.”
“No.”
The leading soldier spoke in a low voice.
He pointed to the right.
“That rock. It was there earlier.”
The soldiers all looked that way at once.
But where the rock should have been, there was no rock.
Instead, only a gouged-out mark remained in the ground.
A round depression, as if someone had pulled the rock out.
“What the…”
Before he could finish, a scream burst out from behind.
“Aaagh—!”
The ground gave way beneath their feet.
One man fell in, and another who had tried to grab him was dragged in with him.
The earth collapsed, tangling their legs together.
Once their balance broke, the rest toppled one after another.
“Damn it! Everyone up!”
A soldier reached out, but the wet soil was slippery.
The noise grew louder.
Curses erupted, and the sound of armor clashing tore through the forest.
Above that sound—
for a very brief moment, someone’s breath brushed past.
Just as the search party tried to regain their senses,
a Haraya appeared beneath the shade of the trees.
His long ears were slightly raised, and his nose moved faintly.
And at the corner of his mouth—
his fangs showed for the briefest instant.
Jincheong was smiling.
It was a soundless smile.
A face that said not “you’re caught,” but “you’re too late.”
One soldier reflexively thrust out his spear.
“There—!”
Jincheong tilted his head ever so slightly.
The next moment, the earth beneath his feet gave way again.
He slid down as if through a crack opening in the ground.
The soil covered him, and the smile disappeared with it.
What remained were the gouged-out traces, the soldiers tangled and fallen over one another,
and the sense that this forest was no proper path at all.
—
A soldier of the search party was walking.
He thought he heard something in the distance,
but he focused on the sector assigned to him.
The forest was still a mess.
Broken vegetation, overturned earth, footprints impossible to identify.
“Why is everyone so quiet…?”
The moment he turned around, no one was there.
Had the formation split apart, or had he fallen behind—
his judgment lagged for an instant.
“Uh… where did everyone…”
That was when it happened.
The sensation of something wrapping around his ankle.
“Huh—!”
His body tilted, and he fell flat.
A rope with a hook on it was tightly caught around his foot.
“What the—”
The instant he drew in a breath, a hot pressure burrowed through the gaps in his armor.
“Hrk…!”
Hureuta withdrew his outstretched hand.
No flame was visible.
Instead, the inside of the man’s body seemed to buckle once, and his strength drained away.
“You must be tired.”
Hureuta spoke in a low voice.
“Sleep for a while.”
The soldier’s eyes lost focus.
Marin immediately approached and bound the soldier.
She fixed only his wrists and arms,
then sat him with his back leaning against a tree trunk.
Marin said briefly,
“Let’s make them find him.”
Hureuta lightly stirred the ground and gathered wet leaves.
A spark passed over them for only an instant, and only a thin wisp of smoke rose.
The flame was immediately covered with earth and extinguished.
The smoke rode the wind, spreading upward as if marking “this place.”
“Done.”
Hureuta dusted off his hands.
“This place is finished.”
Marin quietly moved the soldier’s weapon away.
Then the two of them disappeared into the forest.
“Let’s move.”
—
The air in the forest was damp.
The smell of smoke had faintly seeped in,
and the backs of the soldiers’ hands as they rubbed their eyes were stained with dirt.
There was no blood.
Instead, their stamina and nerves had worn down first.
Cedric stood at a point some distance from the abandoned house,
in a small clearing where the groups could easily gather.
He did not sit.
Because if he lowered himself even for a moment, it felt as though the lines of the squads would blur even more.
The priest stood one step behind him.
Cedric did not look back at the priest.
Right now, his gaze was fixed on the forest, and on the “hands” scattered within it.
Then his adjutant ran up to Cedric and bent one knee.
“Sir Knight.”
Cedric only turned his head.
“There are no casualties.”
The adjutant caught his breath.
“But… the disruption is too severe.”
“The traces have been erased, and the squads have been shaken twice. The search is not making progress.”
Cedric’s gloved hand pressed down hard on the corner of the map.
It felt as if it was not his fingers being pressed down, but his pride.
He did not let that feeling show on his face.
“The white hair.”
Cedric asked.
The adjutant nodded.
“We encountered it. Briefly. It passed by.”
At those words, Cedric’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
It was the only “result” they had obtained in this forest today.
Cedric spoke at once.
“Gather the sighting reports first.”
His voice was low and composed.
“Time. Location. Wind. Distance.”
“Whether it was smoke screen or projection, if there are any traces, write them all down.”
The adjutant swallowed and nodded.
Cedric added,
“Take the statements separately by squad. Do not mix them.”
“If they mingle with one another, we will be the first to become confused.”
The adjutant answered, “Yes, sir.”
Cedric looked at the forest once.
He did not want to stop.
Right here and now, he wanted to seize the “hand.”
But today, the forest had been one move ahead.
That fact scraped roughly at his throat.
Cedric pressed his lips together once and said,
“Today’s search ends here.”
A very small breath leaked out among the surrounding soldiers.
It was a sound impossible to tell apart as relief or frustration.
Cedric heard it, but did not turn his head.
“If the sun sinks any further, we will be toyed with even more.”
“Regroup at the abandoned house. Re-form the squads.”
“Establish camp. Stack the carts at the rear and gather the supplies inside the building.”
He raised a hand and pointed toward the forest.
“At dawn tomorrow, we go in again.”
The words sounded like a declaration, but to someone else, they might have sounded like an excuse.
Cedric knew that possibility.
So he made his expression even colder.
After the adjutant withdrew, Cedric glanced one last time toward the priest.
The priest said nothing.
Only his breathing trembled faintly.
Once a day.
That limit had already been passed today.
Cedric looked back at the forest.
And in a very low voice, as if speaking to himself, he said,
“Tomorrow…”
He did not finish.
Even without finishing, he had heard enough for himself.
The way of hiding within arm’s reach would not last long.
As if trying to rebuild that certainty, Cedric stood even more firmly.
Cedric rubbed his chin once with his fingers.