Chapter 109. A Girl’s Final Days in Arretia

“Dad! Daaad!” I shouted as hard as I could with my head half-turned back.

“Come on! Don’t look back! We have to get away as fast as possible!” Mom desperately said, causing me to look at her.

She was dragging me by the arm as we made our way through the forest. There was a great war going on in the world. I heard dad call it the ‘Final War’ or something like that. From what he said, it was the war to end all evil in the world, but I just didn’t understand why we had to run, since we weren’t evil.

As we skipped and jumped over grass, roots, and stones, all I could think about was all the things that dad used to say about it. He said that we couldn’t be with the rest of the elves because they choose to side with the God of Darkness and Hellfire, and that our family had been on the side of the Holy Gods for generations, and that for him, such a change was unacceptable. But the Holy Gods weren’t kind to the elves anymore, so we couldn’t stay with either side, forcing us to live in the forest ever since I have memory.

The only people I knew were the few ones that sometimes we saw at the closest town. It was a human town, but since it was so far away from either side, they didn’t immediately reject us… but still, my mom wouldn’t allow me to play with the other kids, so I’d been a lonely girl, spending most of my thirteen years with the animals of the forest and my parents.

But today, some men in golden armor came to our house. Dad went outside to greet them, and even said that he was willing to fight for them, but they just pulled out their weapons and claimed that we were traitors of the Holy Gods, and that we had to die to make sure something like that wouldn’t happen again.

My dad was a strong fighter, and he was able to hold them back while mom and I made a run for it. He said he was going to catch up with us in a special place that mom knew about once he was done dealing with those fools, but I just didn’t understand what was going on.

A blast of golden light suddenly illuminated the sky, and I couldn’t help a scream of fear from leaving my body as I crouched and took cover. Mom still forced me to move as she pulled me up, however, she also stopped. She had a smile as she looked at the golden light in the sky.

“M-mom?” I asked, uncertain about it.

“It’s the light of the Holy Gods…” she said between heaves. “This means that things will be—”

Another boom in the sky, and it turned dark for a moment, before turning back to the normal color it was supposed to be with the few rain clouds that were covering it. My mom frowned, and before I could ask her about it, I also heard the sounds of many people shouting in the horizon.

“We’re not safe. Come on!” she exclaimed and continued pulling me in the forest.

* * *

We ran until we couldn’t run anymore, then when we rested when rain fell, but we only did so for a moment before picking up again and moving elsewhere and in a direction that I didn’t recognize. I didn’t even know where we would end up either as this path was completely unknown to me, and I was starting to wonder where the special place we were going to meet dad was.

“Where are we going, mom…?” I eventually asked with my eyes at the fading light of the day. Night was about to fall and we still didn’t have a place to stay, not even a camp set up for it. She kept on walking ahead of me a few steps away from me without responding. So I urged her once more. “Mom…? Where are we—”

“I don’t know,” she said with a tired voice. “We just… we just have to get away from here; from everyone,” she continued without stopping to look at me.

“But it’s about to be nighttime,” I said, trying to keep up with her, but she, again, didn’t say anything. “Mom, are we going to meet up with dad further ahead?”

She suddenly stopped and turned a sad look at me. “Your father… he…”

Mom started crying after saying that, bringing her hands to her face to cover the tears that were spilling, and I panicked to get a hold of her. If she said that then… that meant that dad was… No, I refused to believe that, so I shook my head and smiled slightly—despite the fact that mom couldn’t see my face. “Dad is strong. I’m sure he’ll be ahead, right?”

There was no response for a moment as she kept quietly sobbing, after which she shook her head. “We were on the border of the human and dwarven territories, with the dark forces not too far away from us. If he hasn’t caught up with us, then… he won’t catch up anymore.”

Seeing mom like this, I wanted to be strong, and to lift her up, move aside her long golden hair—the one I inherited from her—and deny her words but—but—but I couldn’t hold it in anymore myself and broke down like her, falling with crying tears on top of her. I wasn’t going to see dad anymore.

“W-why would—would they do this?” I asked between sobs.

After shaking her head once more, my mom replied, “Because our people betrayed the Holy Gods. If we had stayed faithful, everything would’ve been fine.”

“Then, what should we do?” I asked, my head still buried in my mom’s shoulder.

A wave of golden light streaked across the sky, followed soon after by one of darkness. Something that had been happening for a while already. But such a thing gave my mother a reason to stand up, bringing me up to my feet with her.

“We must… just run, find a place to spend the night and then… keep moving,” she said with a raspy voice and a sigh, before turning to look deeper into the forest. “I can make a place for us once we find somewhere where nobody can find us.”

With a nod, I followed after her.

* * *

Days passed, and dad never appeared. We moved from one place to another with the sky constantly blooming with a mix of golden light and darkness. We knew how to take care of ourselves after living for so long in the forest, but it was still hard to keep moving when the pain of losing dad was still heavy on us, and the fear that someone might be coming after us ever since we fled.

Mom was great at earth magic, so she’s been able to create small shelters in different places that could be mistaken for some cave or a natural shade in the forest, so nights hadn’t been too scary, save for the few noises that could be heard and the occasional golden light from the sky.

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As for me… none of my talents were good for these sorts of things. I had a great affinity with Light Magic—or Holy Magic as some humans called it—which is something that my parents were very proud of, but the amount of destruction that that kind of magic caused was something that I didn’t like, so I hardly ever used it as I focused myself on things that had more use—like fire and water, even if I wasn’t particularly good with those.

However, by this point, I wasn’t being of any use anymore, since I was so tired that I could only make a few sparks of fire and droplets of water… Still, as long as I was with mom, I should be able to move ahead. She’s still got power to keep going.

“Come on,” mom said as she stood up and walked to the edge of the cave. “We’re still not safe… As long as we’re near the borders, there’s always a chance that either demons or Holy Knights find us.”

I stood up and walked over to her, hesitating only for a moment by the edge of the cave as I looked at her with a question in my mind… “Mom…?”

“What is it?” she asked, her eyes darting from one place to another as she inspected the outside.

“Is it really that bad to… go with the demons?” I finally asked with a low tone of voice.

“What are you saying?” she said with widened eyes as her face snapped to look at me. “Those things are evil. The only reason all of this is happening is because of them; because they corrupted our people and turned them against everything that’s good. If they hadn’t done that, we would still be peacefully living with the Empire.”

“But… I heard some kids in the town some time ago that demons aren’t actually that bad,” I said back with a hushed tone. “And that even an old hunter was once saved by a demon that killed a Magic Beast, and—”

“I won’t hear it!” my mom snapped. “Those are heretical things to say, and if you keep doing that, your soul will be consumed by darkness.”

“But mom!” I argued back with a higher tone of voice. “It was the Holy Knights that came to our home! And they wouldn’t listen when dad offered to help them! Maybe Dad would still be alive if we—”

With a slap on my face, my mom forced me to quiet down. All I could do was grab the side of my cheek that felt like it was burning as I looked with glassy eyes back at her. She was glaring down at me, and I feared for a moment that she might do worse, but she didn’t move.

“Your dad did what was right for both us and the will of the Holy Gods. If we were to turn to the dark side because of the sins of our people, then we would be doomed for eternity,” she said with a spiteful tone. “Don’t forget that. We’re people of the light—You are a child of the light. If we turn to the darkness now, then when our souls leave our bodies, we’ll never get to meet your father next to the Holy Gods.”

I couldn’t say anything back. I couldn’t think of anything to say about it, and just by looking at her fierce glare, I feared that if I said anything else, she might do something even worse, so I just lowered my head and quietly nodded.

“Good,” she said with a softer tone, before getting closer and giving me a hug, followed by a sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s just that—I’m afraid to lose you too and after everything we’ve done. I don’t want to risk having your soul lost as well. I want us all to be together again; even if we’re going to have to wait for a lifetime to do so.”

“It’s okay, mom,” I said with a forced voice. “I’ll do my best.”

My mom took a step back with her hands still on my shoulders as she looked at me. I avoided looking at her by keeping my head down, but slightly forcing a smile that I didn’t want to show. After a moment she let go of me and turned to leave the cave.

“Come, then,” she said and I followed soon after her.

As it had been over the last few days, an explosion of darkness covered the rising sun of the new day. It turned dark as if it was night time and I hurried over to my mom. “Mom…”

“It’s okay… it’s okay… I’m sure that light will prevail…” she whispered, holding my hand tightly as we focused our attention in every direction.

Sure enough, after a wave of light, the day turned back to normal. But as I was about to relax, a loud growling caused my eyes to widen and my body to jump as I looked in the direction that it came from.

Because of the darkness that covered us just now, a Magic Beast had managed to sneak up on us. It was a large wolf, almost as tall as some of the trees around us. It had bright red eyes and its fur swayed as if it was made out of a dark smoke. Its claws were just as red as its eyes, and its maw appeared to carry the drops of blood of something else.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t do so. The terrifying look it was giving me had paralyzed me. But it hadn’t done that to mom, who sprung forward with a large stone spear in her hand. The beast didn’t sit still either as it also dashed ahead, right to where my mom was.

There was no way that she could survive such a fight, especially after so many days of running, poor meals, and bad resting. But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have the power to fight, and I didn’t want to run away to leave my mom to die, so I just stood there, watching with widened eyes.

And just as I saw the beast’s open mouth about to chomp down on my mom, a large beam of red light pierced the wolf, splitting it in half as the smoke-like body that it was made of faded into the air. Mom was stunned in place as she looked at the beast disappear, and I felt like running over to her to see if she was okay, but then something else appeared from the trees; something I had never seen before.

A… thing with large red horns, and a large claw-like hand opened in the direction of where the wolf was, suddenly appeared. The skin on the body was just as red as the beam that killed the wolf, and the face was even more terrifying than anything I’d seen. The eyes were burning red, with a couple of slits in place of a nose, and a wide mouth full of pointy teeth. It was almost as tall as the wolf, and the body was like that of a person, but the torso was much bigger than anything I’d seen before, and the legs reminded me of the hindlegs of a goat.

It took a couple of steps this way, and I felt my heartbeat fasten. If this thing could kill that dark beast so easily, then there wasn’t a way for me to even run away from it.

“Are you okay?” it asked with a voice that sounded like an ox talking. “Didn’t think there would be commoners this deep in the forest.”

Behind it, a couple of other things appeared. One was really small, with green skin, a long nose, pointy ears, and a couple of jet-black eyes; and the other one appeared to be a person just wearing a hood to hide their features.

The green one spoke with a high pitched voice, “Oh? Quite the conundrum we’ve found ourselves here. Our scouting party was looking for a proper path to get the better of the aggressing forces, and luck would have that we’d find lost souls in the middle of—” Without waiting for the little thing to finish talking, my mom launched the rock spear in its direction, but it was blocked by the large thing. “Hey!”

“Eletha! Run! These are demons!” Mom shouted, “I’ll buy as much time as I can!”

“Hey, what is the meaning of this? Aren’t you elves? I thought that you guys were—”

Again, my mom interrupted the little green demon by creating a fireball and throwing it at it. She then dashed forward with another rock spear in her hand while half-turning her head this way. “Run! Now!”

I did as she said, and I turned to run in the opposite direction, away from all of that. I couldn’t think about what was going on, and I was already scared from what happened with the wolf, so I just ran, and I ran and ran.

It didn’t matter if my breath was running short, or if my legs couldn’t give me more. Mom was fighting to make sure I survived, and I couldn’t waste it, not after dad did the same. Eventually, I lost my footing, and fell face first into the dirt. I quickly stood back up, but as I did, the sky turned completely golden, much more golden than ever before.

Heavily heaving, I looked at it. This wasn’t normal. The thought that my parents were right about the Holy Gods was taking hold of my mind. Maybe They noticed how good we were, and seeing that, They were going to help me, so I did something that I had just pretended to do before. I prayed; I pleaded to Them; I begged to Them.

“Why did you run like that?” someone said with an ethereal voice, as if it was coming from a hollow place. “We’ve already taken care of the other one, so why don’t you come with me?”

I urgently turned to look. It was the hooded person. It said that they took care of my mom… which means that like my dad, mom was gone as well. I felt despair fill me, and I felt stupid for doubting my parents when they talked about the demons. They were right all along… and now I was going to die by one of them. At least, I knew that I was going to see my parents once more, since I never joined the dark side.

I closed my eyes and waited for what was to come…

“Huh?!” the demon exclaimed and I looked at it.

From beyond the trees and the horizon, a huge wave of darkness was coming. It was like nothing I had seen before, and before I knew it, it swallowed me, the demon, the trees, and even the ground under me.

Darkness was all that remained.