Dark Fantasy: Magical Eye Knight – Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Beyond the Pitch Black (3)

TL: Potato-tan

Proofreader: Asianpotato

 

The sun had set in the west, beginning its descent.

 

The twilight’s red and yellow hues shone through the thick, dark gray clouds. The rays that barely squeezed through the gaps were sharply defined.

 

However, the encroaching clouds quickly filled those gaps and blocked out the light. Now, a bleak gray tide trapped the sky, allowing it only to writhe about.

 

“Hah, hah, hah, hah.”

 

Under that sky, Daisy ran with ragged breaths. She was in a dense coniferous forest, her chest pounding as she darted past the tall, pillar-like trees.

 

Her mouth tasted like iron, and her saliva was so dry it wouldn’t come out. The cold air stung her windpipe and lungs. Her exposed face must have been bright red; her nose and cheeks flushed.

 

Her left foot throbbed from a shoe that had come off at some point. Her legs and arms felt as heavy as sandbags, not just her foot.

 

But she couldn’t stop. She could hear the sound of fierce pursuits right behind her.

 

Grrr. . . Awoo!

 

They were wolves. The wolves had fur in shades of gray, brown, dark gray, and reddish-brown. About eight of them were chasing Daisy through the forest, herding her.

 

“Hah, hah, hah. . .”

 

Daisy cried. The tears on her already red cheeks made her face feel even colder. But the tears wouldn’t stop. Daisy had entered the forest because her brother hadn’t returned.

 

Lately, there has been an increase in predators in the forest. In addition to wolves, the forest frequently saw bears, who typically lived alone or in family units. The village she lived in was called Big Bear Paw Village, but after all the bears had been hunted and killed, it had simply become the village’s name.

 

‘Where did these beasts suddenly come from?’ The villagers were worried, seeing the predators appearing in droves, as if they were going to eat all the herbivores and omnivores, such as reindeer and rabbits.

 

Eventually, Daisy’s brother, a hunter, never came back. Still young, she couldn’t believe her brother was dead. They had lived together, just the two of them, without their parents. She couldn’t believe she was alone again. No, she didn’t want to believe it.

 

That’s why she had come into the forest with the bow, arrows, and small dagger her brother had taught her to use. However, she was unable to locate her brother, leading to the pursuit by wolves.

 

“Hah, hah. . .”

 

Daisy stopped running. She had gotten lost somewhere and couldn’t see the path back to the village. The coniferous trees that surrounded her all looked the same, so she couldn’t tell if she was going forward or just circling around in the same spot.

 

Arrgh. . .

 

She must have been circling around the same spot. Daisy realized this when she saw the wolves slowly emerging from between the thick trees.

 

Her brother had taught her that wolves hunted in packs. When they hunted agile herbivores like reindeer, hares, or wild boars, they would pretend to run straight, making the prey think they were getting away, and then they would pounce when the prey got tired.

 

Was that how her brother died? Did he, like her, run until he fell, only to have wolves swarm him? Sharp teeth pierced his neck, claws tore his skin, and wolves tore apart his limbs.

 

Daisy wiped her tears away with her arm. Her blurry vision cleared. She glared at the wolf slowly approaching her, its tongue lolling out.

 

“I won’t die alone.”

 

Muttering to herself, Daisy pulled out the dagger from the sheath at her waist. It was the only legacy her parents, who had died of illness, left to her and her brother. The familiar hilt’s leather fit snugly in her palm.

 

Daisy held the dagger in both hands and lowered her stance. The wolves stopped in their tracks as she moved. Then, the largest wolf in the pack, its fur gleaming, let out a short, sharp howl.

 

“. . .?”

 

Daisy blinked, expecting the wolves to attack at any moment. Instead, the smallest and most stunted wolf in the pack stepped forward hesitantly. It stopped a distance away from Daisy and growled.

 

“. . .Hah.  Are you serious? You’re going to have me fight that thing?”

 

Daisy gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what the alpha wolf was thinking, but it was obvious that he wanted her to fight this little wolf. Why? Was he trying to give her a confidence boost?

 

He was just using her as bait, letting her fight the weakest of the wolves so that she would feel good about a chance to kill it. Daisy gripped the dagger so tightly that her fingers turned white.

 

The small, stunted wolf approached cautiously, then turned around to look at her multiple times. It seemed just as scared as she was. However, the alpha wolf and the other wolves simply watched silently.

 

And Daisy lunged before the small wolf could turn its head.

 

“Eee-yaaagh!”

 

It would have been better if she hadn’t screamed. But if she hadn’t let out that scream, her limbs would have frozen, and she wouldn’t have been able to move.

 

Screech!

 

When the startled wolf looked forward again, Daisy was already thrusting her dagger upward from below. Her target was its neck. The left side of its throat, where the largest blood vessel passed through, connected its head to its heart, body, and limbs.

 

Daisy recalled the exact spot where her brother had shown her how to sever the windpipes of the animals he had hunted. She plunged the dagger into that spot with all her might.

 

Pfft. The dagger pierced through fur and muscle. Daisy shuddered at the sensation of stabbing a living creature for the first time in her life. In an instant, the dagger felt like an extension of her body. The throbbing pulse from the short blade, as well as the hot blood that spurted out, reached her hand, forearm, shoulder, and head.

 

Her senses, sharper and more acute than ever, bombarded Daisy’s mind with this information, causing her to go pale.

 

Kyaak!

 

The wolf thrashed and howled in pain, its body reacting to the cold blade embedded in its neck. The wolf’s flailing quickly threw Daisy off balance.

 

Her hands trembled uncontrollably, but she desperately scrambled to her feet. However, the wolf lunged at her, knocking her down again.

 

“Gyaaaagh!”

 

A high-pitched, sharp scream rose above the coniferous trees. Daisy screamed in agony as she watched the wolf snap at her left arm.

 

Her left arm was quickly torn to shreds. The muscles were torn, the bones broken, and an unimaginable pain pierced her head like a needle.

 

“Aghhh!”

 

But Daisy still didn’t let go of the dagger in her right hand. Her hand flashed out and plunged into the wolf’s left eye socket.

 

The wolf also screamed and recoiled. Daisy barely managed to get to her feet and then collapsed. Tears, snot, and sweat poured down her face like rain. Her left arm wouldn’t go above her shoulder. The exposed arm was nothing more than a lump of flesh. She could still feel it, but it only brought her excruciating pain.

 

The wolf’s claws also scratched her chest, stomach, and thighs. Her clothes were in tatters, soaked through with blood from her wounds.

 

She gradually stopped feeling the cold. Daisy glared at the wolf with rage, fear, and resentment. The wolf, which had lost its left eye, stared back at her with the same intensity.

 

She was still afraid of death. She didn’t want to die. But if there was no hope of survival, then she wanted to die a death that wouldn’t shame her brother, who had died before her.

 

“Aaaagh!”

 

The one-eyed wolf flinched at her soul-wrenching cry. Daisy charged straight at the wolf, even though her left arm was useless and dangling. Then she disappeared from the one-eyed wolf’s field of vision.

 

The wolf, still disoriented from losing one of its eyes, missed Daisy’s dagger as it stabbed into its side. Daisy’s dagger pierced through the wolf’s soft belly fur.

 

The wolf gasped and immediately bit Daisy’s left shoulder. However, as the dagger continued to stab and pull at its stomach, its strength began to wane, and eventually, a cold darkness enveloped its eyelids.

 

“Hah, hah, hah, hah. . .”

 

Daisy collapsed on the lifeless body of the one-eyed wolf, then rolled over onto her back. All she could see was the white sky, the black trees, and the thin green leaves.

 

She could barely feel the pain anymore. Her left arm just throbbed, and her whole body felt hot and cold at the same time, sending shivers down her spine.

 

Creak, creak. . .

 

She could hear the sound of the wolves slowly approaching. Even as she lay dying, Daisy tried to pull up the corners of her mouth into a semblance of a smile.

 

“I killed one. . .”

 

Now, it was her turn to die. ‘Where would I go when I died? Would I go to the lofty heavens, as Uncle Siato, the village’s only priest, had said? Or would I fall into the underworld, as the drunkard Dolrichi had grumbled?’ She would soon find out.

 

“Daisy!”

 

Oh, she could already hear her brother’s voice. Would she see him soon?

 

“Daisy!”

 

‘You don’t have to call me, brother. I’m already dead.’

 

“Daisy! Wake up! Daisy!”

 

Daisy blinked. Her brother’s face, which she had thought was just a hallucination, was becoming clearer. Behind him was a wolf as big as a wild boar.

 

Thwack!

 

The wolf let out a final howl and split in two at that moment. Daisy’s eyes could only make out a flash of light that seemed to pass through the wolf.

 

And from the point where the wolf split in two, the alpha wolf let out a long howl and turned tail, fleeing.

 

Another flash of light struck the fleeing wolf’s back. Daisy realized that it was an axe.

 

It was a battle axe with a long handle and a large blade, even bigger than a felling axe.

 

“Why are there so many wolves here? It was bears earlier.”

 

A man appeared with a low voice and pulled the axe out of the dead wolf.

 

Then he vanished on the spot. The massacre then began.

 

The sound of clashing and screeching filled the coniferous forest with chaos.

 

Ultimately, only the man and a wolf significantly larger than a human remained.

 

“He’s huge. What did he eat to get so big?”

 

Daisy groaned and tried to point at the large wolf in front of her, but her body wouldn’t move. Noticing her gesture, Dave took her hand.

 

“Don’t worry. He’s super strong.”

 

“What. . . . .?”

 

It was true, as Dave said. When Daisy looked back, she saw the alpha wolf leaping into the air, bringing its front claws down, and the man with the axe hanging down below his right hip.

 

At the same time, a white streak cut through the alpha’s massive body diagonally. The man remained standing still, only raising his right arm, then stretched his neck muscles, nodding. Then, he made a magical gesture, causing the axe to disappear somewhere, and walked towards them.

 

“Russell-nim!”

 

“Is this your sister?”

 

“Y, Yes! Please. . . . .!”

 

“She’s badly injured. Aella. Come and take a look.”

 

“Yes. Oh, blood. . . She’s badly injured.”

 

Another person appeared next to the stunned Daisy. She had white hair and was examining Daisy.

 

“Hmm, hmm. She’ll be fine. Dave, I fixed him, no, I treated him.”

 

Daisy looked at the white-haired woman, who was making incomprehensible noises, and then back at Dave.

 

“Am I. . . not dead?”

 

“You’re not dead!”

 

Soon, the white-haired woman opened her palms and began to emit a light green glow. For the first time in her life, Daisy saw ‘magic’.

 

“Wow. . .”

 

As the green light particles touched her skin, the torn and mangled flesh healed at an astonishing rate. Scabs formed on the wounds on her chest, stomach, and limbs.

 

“Her left arm is serious.”

 

The man who had thrown the axe came over and crouched down. Daisy looked up at him without realizing it. It was the first time she had ever seen such a handsome man.

 

Regardless of Daisy’s presence, the man meticulously inspected her left arm, revealing peeled skin, exposed muscles, and broken, protruding bones. Then he said to Dave,

 

“Your name is Dave, right?”

 

“Y, Yes! That’s right!”

 

“Hold your sister tight. I need to set her bones. If I don’t set them and heal her, she won’t be able to move them.”

 

“Oh, I understand.”

 

Dave was a hunter. Herbivores with broken legs had little chance of survival. He quickly tore off a handful of Daisy’s tattered clothes and stuffed them into her mouth.

 

Daisy’s eyes widened as she watched the conversation without understanding a word. The pain that she had forgotten came flooding back as the man touched her left arm. Soon, he started to set her bones in place.

 

Crack!

 

“Ugh. . . uhhh!”

 

Daisy fainted dead away from the sickening sound and pain that reverberated through her body.

 

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