[ TWATF ]

Chapter 11: Witch of Massacre (1)

[If you wish to become strong, climb the Tree of Imagery, only if you are confident that you will not go mad.]

- Huhyoo, Lord of Steel

Episode 2.
Witch of Massacre

In the forest that seemed to be endless, the sun was high in the sky, with its heat drying up his entire body.

He could not feel how long he had been wandering.

Jaehwan wiped off his sweat as he glanced around.

‘Finally.’

The footprint he found through the bushes were about the size of Jaehwan’s. Even if it didn’t belong to a human, surely it had been left by some form of bipedal being.

It had been a month since he broke free of the Tower of Nightmares. He had traveled through an endless forest all that time.

He wasn’t sure where he was.

He must be somewhere among the <Great Lands>, but he just couldn’t figure out where it was. The heat of the forest made Jaehwan think it was ‘Fiery Region’, or one of the 12 regions from Beastlain’s information about the <Great Lands>, but it didn’t look like it was true since it did not have the famous ‘Burning Tree’ of the Fiery Region.

Jaehwan then thought he would know once he met with someone. He did encounter monsters similar to what he had seen at the tower, but these monsters had some special features. They all had horns, varying from one to five.

Yet none of them were enough of a threat to Jaehwan.

The strongest one he fought so far was a five-horned wolf. It moaned in pain as Jaehwan stabbed it, but it did not die at once. After a few more stabs, it was dead.

‘So the monsters are mostly weak here.’

He couldn’t figure if he had become strong, or these monsters were weak. But it wasn’t only monsters that he came across.

He did encounter some mysterious intelligent beings.

They were non-humans who wore white robes like ancient monks, but they had green skin and a pair of antennae on their heads.

“Worthless human### HOW DARE###”

“HOW### INSOLENT###”

He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he tried hard to speak to them as it was a rare occurrence for him to met an intelligent being. Even with his [Suspicion] at full power, he still couldn’t understand their language.

“#### HORN!! ####”

They pointed and shouted at the horns of wolf that Jaehwan killed and carried on his belt.

“This?”

“###PUNY HUMAN!### HORN OF PENTAHORN!!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a puny human and this here is a horn.”

It seemed like he was able to speak.

“### HORN! ###”

A few of them approached Jaehwan and he felt a bit alarmed.

‘Why are they coming all of a sudden?’

“####”

There was no way he could understand. They did mention something about a horn, so Jaehwan flashed it as he spoke.

“Good. I’ll give you this if you tell me where this is…”

Then they attacked with their swords unsheathed. It wasn’t just a threat. Jaehwan then turned to the sky. The sun-like thing was up there. It was hot.