CH 34

Gareth had killed four men, leaving only one alive by the time Giggs and the rest of his men came running after hearing the sound of swords clanging against each other. With his robust upper body still revealed, Gareth menacingly leaned down towards the one man he kept alive and demanded, “Tell me who you are.”

The man did not answer and only trembled with his head hung low.

“Are you a fugitive?” Gareth asked again. The forest he was in started at the east side of the country and stretched out to the northwest. The land at the eastern end of the forest was owned by a viscount, and if one were to travel about 10 days northwest, they would reach Gareth’s territory. There weren’t many people who reached the northwestern end of this forest because of the dreary feeling emitted by its huge size. Moreover, no one could tell exactly how wide it was spread out. Therefore, Gareth’s estate had been protected by the forest for a long time. Despite the entry barriers, there was an endless vast land behind Gareth’s castle, which served as his estate.

The first employment condition Gareth had offered to the king was for him to give back his father’s estate. Gareth didn’t want a title as he had no intention of wearing the king’s leash around his neck. When he had returned to his reclaimed estate, there were still some people who remembered the horrors of the tragedy that occurred. They were afraid of Gareth since they thought he had passed away a long time ago, and had doubted their eyes when he had returned home. They didn’t approach him and avoided him as if he were a ghost.

“I won’t repeat myself twice,” Gareth warned, then made a scratch on the man’s neck with the tip of his sword. The man looked like an outlaw, but his weapon and skills said otherwise. He had been able to tell just by clashing swords with him once.

Although most outlaws were serfs, there were some knights who ran away from their lords. If these men were knights, it was going to cause a problem. That possibility was what was causing Gareth to hesitate. Outlaws were not just outlaws once they obtained proper force; they were a group of murderers who could possibly harm the people living in his estate. For this reason, Gareth couldn’t simply let the man go. 

“How many more of you are there? Did you form an alliance with each other?” he asked.

The man continued to tremble, but kept his mouth shut. His eyes soon turned white as he began to froth at the mouth, perhaps from the sight of his comrades dying in front of him.

“He’s useless. Take care of him, Giggs,” Gareth ordered as he stood up without hesitation. Giggs immediately carried out his order.

Gareth didn’t watch the man die. Instead, he observed Elena who was standing by the tree.

“Shall I search around?” Giggs asked carefully, his sword bloody from his completed task.

“Finish searching by morning,” Gareth said, his eyes still trained on Elena.

Giggs and Hansen split the rest of the men into two groups and immediately set out to search the forest. The darkness was irrelevant to them, as they knew it was best to leave as soon as possible once they saw the look in Gareth’s eyes. 

“I don’t know if she’ll be okay by tomorrow,” Giggs muttered to himself. 

Hansen, who had moved in the other direction, mumbled similar words, “I hope she will be safe.”

Gareth approached Elena in an instant. Elena held out her hand to him and whispered, “Are you all right?” Her voice trembled, perhaps from the thrill that still lingered in her body. Elena swallowed dryly as she tried to regain her composure. She opened her mouth again to praise his breathtaking swordsmanship, when Gareth suddenly pulled her close and embraced her roughly. He then pushed his lips against hers and shoved his tongue into her mouth.

Elena gasped from the feeling as it was completely different from before. He was still rough on her, but didn’t feel cold anymore. Rather, he was burning hot. Elena could feel his whole body boiling with a fever. Without realizing it, Elena raised her hands and cupped them around Gareth’s face.

Gareth breathed heavily as he swallowed Elena’s lips as if to bite them off. The heat in his body was driving him insane. His mind was going blank. Gareth’s blood had always boiled hot after slaughtering people. The sensation would awaken his bloodthirsty desires, which would sometimes consume his sense of reasoning. At such a point, he couldn’t hear or see anything, possessed by the burning urge to kill.

Gareth groped Elena’s body. He knew he had to control himself, but it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t because he had just killed four people, but because the nasty situation he had just experienced further fueled his anger. 

‘We almost got attacked. We could have been stabbed from the back…’

Gareth’s hot and turbulent breaths fanned over Elena’s skin. He had not felt this degree of anger when he first killed a person. His heart would only simply beat irregularly for a moment. However, an unknown rage began to grow inside him as time passed. He would become furious and be shaken with impulses he could not easily control.

Gareth had lost his family at the age of 14, and had been through countless near-death experiences. He had decided to become a mercenary at the age of 16. He knew that killing others was an act of destroying his soul, but thought that he would get used to it as time went on, and that at some point, blood would no longer look like blood. He simply thought this was natural, as mercenaries were supposed to be like this.

However, he was wrong. He couldn’t get used to the slaughters and the sight of blood. No matter how much he washed his hands and body, he still felt as if he was covered in gore. When his body started to carry the stench of blood, the agitation he felt after killing only seemed to increase, causing him to become emotional and enraged. Overtime, it seemed that his thirst for death was slowly dominating him.