Savage Forest - Chapter 43

Chapter 43

“This petty-headed brat…!”

Enya widened her eyes wide when she heard a familiar woman’s voice that pierced her ears.

Fiarca stood in front of her like a warrior, holding the torch that had been burning inside the warehouse in one arm. She shouted in a loud voice as she thrust the tip of the torch dripping with fire oil into Gernan, who was impaled on the wall.

“How dare you try to scorn a woman in front of the warriors of Nervana Forest…! I will cut your crotch right now and throw it as food for the forest beetle…! Be prepared…!”

Smoke was rising from Gernan’s left cheek, which had already been burned once. Gernan screeched like a goat, floundering his limbs. It seemed that he was already overwhelmed by Fiarca’s tremendous momentum and could not tell the difference between the front and the back.

“Uh, uaaahhh! Mom! Moooom!!”

Upon discovering something short and mushy, like a cocoon protruding from between Gernan’s pants, Fiarca opened her eyes wide and shook her head dejectedly.

“Does Aquilea treat that as a man? Anyone who sees it will think there is a small bug living between your crotch.”

The next moment, a loud commotion was heard outside before the door to the warehouse burst open with the sound of a horse neighing.

Enya quickly put her clothes together. Her complexion turned pale at the familiar faces flooding into the warehouse. Rigata was the first to see the mess in the warehouse and shouted at Enya, who was sitting down.

“Enya…!”

Enya lowered her head when she saw the soldiers of Avisak and Perugia coming in one after another following Rigata.

‘Ah, why is Avisak here again…’

Seeing Enya lying on the floor in a mess, and Gernan being overturned and being threatened by Fiarca, Avisak’s face hardened at once.

In her voice, thick with her disgust, she ordered the handmaid by her side.

“Cover this over Enya right now.”

Avisak’s handmaid immediately came to her with the robe her master had given her before laying it over her thin back. Enya gazed at Avisak in disbelief.

Meanwhile, Gernan shouted, waving his arms at Avisak.

“A, Avisak! Yes, Avisak! Please make an excuse for me! You were here with me until just now! You tell me, I only came here to check the stock of grain, and that moron came to me when I was still and took off her clothes…!”

However, despite Gernan’s cry, Avisak twisted the corners of her lips without changing her expression once.

“What are you talking about? I heard that there was a commotion with the horses running away in the first district of the village, so I hurried to run. Gernan. You are the one who…”

At that moment, the look on her face was clear contempt. Enya glanced at her and Gernan alternately with a confused face.

‘But, but surely, Avisak was with Gernan at the grain storage…’

Gernan also looked at her with large eyes. As if she hadn’t lied at all, Avisak was purely expressing her doubts and anger towards Gernan.

Rigata opened his mouth.

“No, Enya…what the heck is this… Fiarca, why are you here…”

Fiarca, who had not yet taken away the burning torch from Gernan, replied cynically.

“After seeing her off, the neighing of the horses I heard was different from usual, so I followed her just in case. Arriving at the grain storage, I thought Enya had safely met Tarhan, so I tried to turn back. However, I rushed back when I heard her calling for her help, and then she bloody looked like a beggar…”

“Looked like a beggar…?!”

At that moment, Enya shuddered at the feeling that the air inside the warehouse had cooled in an instant.

The voice, which she could never hear, came from the wide open doorway of the warehouse.

“…What kind of beggar are you talking about?”

Before long, the owner of the gloomy voice leaned over and entered through the cramped entrance.

Tarhan raised his ghostly eyes and carefully surveyed the situation in the warehouse. And when he found Enya lying on the floor with sobbing marks all over her face, his eyes immediately flashed.

Enya struggled to keep her mind intact in the midst of the situation.

Not on the ground on the large rock used by the Aquileas as a place of trial, but in the temporary courthouse prepared in front of the grain storage, the sound of rough breathing of horses and the noise and protests of people buzzing pierced her ears.

The ground shook as if it had been an earthquake… no, maybe it was her sanity that was shaking. In the urgent situation that had started, she couldn’t tell if she was walking in a dream or in reality.

“I think this trial itself is nonsense! Release my son right now. This is not only for my name, but also Kahanti’s name…!”

The frantic Servia shouted.

Servia’s loose hair fluttered mercilessly in the night wind as she rushed out in the middle of the night after receiving an urgent call. No one could raise an eyebrow at her disheveled appearance, where they couldn’t find any of her usual sobriety and modesty in front of dozens of people.

She spread her arms over Gernan like protecting her eggs.

His face was distorted like porridge someone had made. Around his swollen nose and chin, dried blood was filthy soaking his clothes. His whole body was limp, as if his bones had been crushed. In addition, his head wiggled, barely touching his neck, whether he was conscious or not.

Servia continued to protest fiercely at the elders.

“What nonsense this is?! The father of this child is Kahanti, chieftain of the great plains of Aquilea! The mother of this child is Servia, the daughter of the supreme elder Haron!”

Seeing her screaming at the top of her lungs, Servia seemed almost desperate.

“This child is barely alive and breathing! My head refuses to understand that this is all because of that unscrupulous foul-blooded Cartantina! I can’t contain my anger at such an absurd and unjust treatment!”

As soon as she finished her words, a huge man lunged at her like a beast growling. In an instant, dozens of sturdy men who were guarding the place grabbed Tarhan’s body, who was going mad and tried to attack Servia, and pressed him down.

“Let me go, you b*stards!”

The struggling Tarhan’s impetus was so great that the men were having a hard time holding him back despite there were seven or eight of them. Perhaps it was to prove that he was the one who turned Gernan, Servia’s son, into such a state, his neck and exposed upper body were spattered with Gernan’s blood.

The elders, who had kept their composure and hardened their faces at the menacing appearance, hesitated and backed away. It seemed that they too were dazed after being summoned by a sudden messenger in the middle of the night.

“D*mn it, Servia…! Absurd and unjust? Does such a word apply to this situation now! If he’s of such a noble blood, explain why he threatened and tried to rape my woman right now?! D*mn, will you let me go right now!”

Tarhan thrashed again, screaming loudly, like a chained beast. Some of the men who were holding onto him fell out due to his formidable power.

Rigata, who had jumped in to stop the deputy chieftain who had initially rushed at Gernan, was also holding on to his arm, which had been bent in a grotesque shape on the floor, and was sweating and out of breath.

Servia glared at Tarhan ferociously and screamed in the same way.

“Look at that! Does he still look human to you? I strongly urge the deputy chieftain Tarhan, who brought this child to this point, to be stripped of his position immediately and the disabled woman who caused this riot to be expelled from the tribe!”

Upon hearing those words, Tarhan’s eyes immediately became bloody. He swallowed the groan that flowed from the depths of his throat and jumped to his feet. As a result, the two men holding him hesitated again and were dragged along.

He gnashed his teeth and shouted.

“Servia. Your son will surely pay for his crime. I certainly warned you then… The day I accept the position of chieftain, I will surely destroy anything that touches my woman with my own two hands! Your proud son has surely sinned! Isn’t it your noble law that no man in Aquilea can touch a woman that doesn’t want it!”

Tarhan shouted, turning his head back to the elders in a fit of rage.

“So, you are going to respect him now! Let me cut off that shameless b*stard’s neck right now! RIGHT NOW!!”

Then, he roared and struggled like a caged animal.

Enya watched the whole scene and sat alone in a corner sobbing silently. It couldn’t be harder to watch him being held down on his knees in front of so many men because of her. The heartbreaking pain and anxiety had been driving her almost insane.

It seemed like everything was her fault.

A chain of memories was forcibly pulled from her heart. It was as if that memory had become a blade and cut through her heart mercilessly.

…A trial that took place many years ago over her coming-of-age ceremony.

“We can never allow a coming-of-age ceremony for the sick. Giving a chance to a woman from an abandoned field to come-of-age in the first place is ridiculous.”

Then, before the elders, who had brought her to death by their words, Tarhan resisted with all his strength and all his might, just as he does now.

“Don’t mess with me! Why is it that I, who is from a foreign place, can work, and that woman can’t?! You Aquileas always change the rules and regulations out of your necessity! I am sick of your duplicity!”

At the time, there was no way that a foreign boy who had nothing but a strong body could win the case against the elders. Despite the outcome that had already been prophesied, he protested to the elders with an upright and consistent attitude.

In the end, Enya’s coming-of-age ceremony was mercilessly ignored.

She was barely able to claim her adulthood at Tarhan’s coming-of-age ceremony, which he had almost exchanged for his life the following fall. That, too, was dealt with by providing proof that he had taken her.

She felt sorry for Tarhan for the events of the day.

The nightmare of that time was now revived intact.

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