ch16

The moment everything stopped.

The man who had been howling from the wolf’s fangs and claws digging into his skin.

The middle-aged man clutching his entrails spilling from his torn belly, calling for his mother, unbefitting his age.

The panting gasps, the lamentation towards the wolf baring its teeth at his fallen neck.

The howling that shook the mountains and stirred the soul.

The wolves’ snarls filled with murderous intent.

As if the scene of carnage from moments before was a lie, it was silent, befitting the night when the sun had set and the moon had risen.

All because of one green doll that had descended without warning.

It was a bizarre presence.

As if it wasn’t there, yet it filled the entire mountain with a presence that felt like being sucked in.

The wolves, who had been sinking their teeth into their companions, quietly stopped biting and retreated.

The green figure, wearing a hat that seemed to be made of wood, looked at the wolves and opened his mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

A clear voice, like a stream flowing in summer.

Kkiing!

Kkieeeing…

Kkiing!

The wolves, who had been emitting fierce murderous intent and attacking the merchants with sharp eyes, were now wide-eyed and whimpering as they retreated.

I had seen such a sight in my hometown.

Of course, not with wolves, but with the dog we raised, when my brother would pick up a stick after it had done something wrong, it would cower in a corner and whimper.

The problem is that now it’s not a dog, but wolves as big as people doing that.

It smelled not of animal musk, but of urine, and it seemed some of them had wet themselves.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed your hunt. But I have important things to do as well. Will you please leave?”

The wolves lowered their heads and cast timid glances like bashful dogs, staggering and falling as if their legs had given way like they had done to their prey moments before, and when they reached the boundary between the road and the forest, they turned and fled.

Disappearing as quickly as they had charged, the wolves took two deep breaths and vanished into the forest.

At the same time, the space that had felt like another world returned to reality.

“Ugh… ugh…”

“It hurts… it hurts…”

“Haa… haa…”

“…Are they gone?”

The survivors, or those who were about to breathe their last, made their own sounds.

Hot breaths, sobs, pained whimpers, and the musty smell of blood rising.

Kyle and the merchants were all disoriented by the sudden good fortune.

“Let’s talk for a moment.”

When the stranger who had suddenly appeared and cleaned everything up moved, everyone flinched momentarily.

The stranger approached the middle-aged man whose abdomen had been torn open by the wolf’s claws.

“Sa…ve…me… I…don’t…wan…na…die…”

The people whose gazes and movements had been following the stranger’s movements turned their heads at the middle-aged man’s words.

It was a fatal wound, no doubt about it.

Even if there was a doctor nearby, it didn’t seem like he would survive.

The middle-aged man sobbed weakly, ignored by his companions.

“Will you hold still for a moment?”

Tear!

The stranger tore the middle-aged man’s clothes, laid him down properly, and placed his hand over his abdomen.

“Oh… oh…”

When he held his hand about a hand’s breadth above the abdomen, light began to shine.

The light began to suck something in from the abdomen, and when you looked closely, dirt and dead blood began to clump together in the center of the light.

Soon, he removed the foreign substances along with the light, and began to push the intestines back into the abdomen.

But the torn flesh of the abdomen was still tattered, and every time the middle-aged man took a rough breath, blood seeped out, staining the man’s torn clothes and pants black.

While watching him push the intestines in, I saw the elegant jawline under the strange hat that seemed to be made of woven sticks.

‘Absolutely, undeniably beautiful.’

He pulled out his hair, which shone more brightly than gold coins reflecting the moonlight.

I wondered what a waste it was, what kind of strange behavior it was, but the end of the hair emitted a faint light and stood up straight.

And in a single breath, the stranger’s hand disappeared.

“Th-that!”

The man’s horrified fingertip was pointing at the middle-aged man’s abdomen.

The middle-aged man’s belly, which was tattered and seemed unlikely to close, was being sewn shut from left to right by something invisible.

In that short time, the closed belly, though there were places where it looked shrunken because there was not enough space due to the missing flesh, was back to normal, leaving only faint red lines.

Then, he took out a small wooden container from his sleeve, opened the lid, and a fragrant smell stimulated Kyle’s nose.

He scooped out a little of what looked like thick soup with his hand and began to apply it to the wound.

“It’s Elf ointment. It helps new flesh grow and prevents bad things from rotting flesh and blood.”

The stranger, who had shown unheard-of magic, took off his strange hat and stood up.

“I’ve done first aid for now. If you eat nutritious food and rest, you’ll probably get better. Remove the hair used as thread when the wound has healed.”

“The urgent patients seem to be taken care of, are there any who have been injured by teeth or claws? The claws and nails of beasts have poison, so if you don’t treat them properly before they rot, it won’t do.”

“Um…? Are you listening?”

Kyle and the merchants, who had gone back and forth between heaven and hell after being attacked by wolves, could not answer his words.

The stranger who had suddenly appeared, saved everyone, and treated them.

No, they were just staring blankly at the Elf under the moonlight.

◈ ◈ ◈

I stuck a few more dry branches into the bonfire and looked around.

I saved a group of humans who were being attacked by wolves.

About half of them had been hunted and were already dead before I could save them, but the last group of humans who were fleeing in a group were all saved except for one seriously injured person.

I am neither on the side of the humans nor on the side of the wolves, so I was sorry to have interfered with the wolves’ hunt, but it was also necessary for me, and the wolves had also succeeded in hunting about half of their prey, so it wasn’t a complete failure.

The ones who introduced themselves as merchants were glancing at me while frantically sorting through the goods among the broken carts at the place where they said they were first attacked by the wolves, and Rudolph was basking in the warmth of the bonfire, and when his fur was singed by a spark, he was startled and moved away again.

The corpses of the humans who had been successfully hunted were dragged away and gone, but the ground around them was soaked with blood, and the food in the carts was all overturned.

In the meantime, there were many things that the wolves would not eat, or items that were destroyed in the process of being overturned, making them worthless as merchandise.

The ones who were laughing in vain while sorting things out were probably the ones who had a lot of their own goods among the broken items.

But no matter what, they are lucky.

They almost lost the biggest thing, but they were able to load the most important thing onto the cart.

Life.

If they don’t die, they can look forward to the next time.

No matter how desperate they feel now, it’s much better than being eaten by wolves and returned to nature as excrement.

The only regret is that they seem so distracted that I haven’t had a proper conversation with them yet?

I heard that merchants in the Central Plains are the kind of people who buy and sell something until they die, and after some time passed and they came to their senses, they started worrying about their luggage more than their lives.

Even though it wasn’t as fatal as the one whose abdomen was torn open, it must be painful for an ordinary human to have a hole in their leg, but when I heard them ask me to escort them to the place where they were first attacked, I couldn’t help but admire the merchants.

Even so, it was a problem that the human whose belly had just been sewn up was making a fuss, so I pressed his pressure point to knock him out.

His companions seemed surprised when he suddenly collapsed after being stabbed, but they were relieved when I showed them that his stomach was moving up and down as he breathed.

Now they are dividing the luggage that their dead merchant companions were carrying and shouting loudly.

They seem to be doing well even though their companions died and they lost their property, so it doesn’t seem like I need to worry about them anymore.

Since they are so active in their own affairs, the work itself seems to be finished quickly.

The humans are not running away, so there will be plenty of opportunities to talk, if not tonight, then tomorrow.

I took out one from the honey candy pouch in my sleeve, put it in my mouth, and looked at the flames that were burning the branches and raising me, thinking about the incident that had just happened.

As soon as the treatment of the man whose belly was torn open and his intestines were spilling out was finished and I took off my bamboo hat, the stupid, blank gazes of the men were focused on me.

It was the same with the giant brothers, but whenever I take off my bamboo hat, they seem to lose their minds and stare…

It’s not that I have no idea why.

However, in my previous life, I had so little relationship with others that I had no experience of being fascinated by humans.

I only had knowledge of things like “so-and-so lost their heart after seeing someone’s beautiful face” or “I didn’t realize how much time had passed” from poems or folklore.

I mean, I know the expression that is on the border between the phenomenon of being captivated by a handsome man or a beautiful woman and literature.

Even just myself, I was not only impressed when I first saw my brothers, but even when I look at the Leaf Elves, there is no one who has an ugly appearance, let alone someone who is not beautiful.

So naturally, I was used to such appearances to the point that it was taken for granted, so these reactions were unfamiliar.

Humans are a slightly roughly made race, but don’t they have unique (?) personalities in their faces?

Compared to Elves, who have a slightly consistent sense of beauty, human features are each unique and individual.

Still, thinking that they were fascinated by my appearance to the point of losing their souls didn’t feel so bad.

The only evaluation of my appearance I’ve heard in the past 10 years was Pallas calling me a rock mushroom-like girl.

‘…Wait.’

Come to think of it, even so, my appearance is that of a young girl of about 10 years old.

Would it be normal for a man to be fascinated by such a young girl?

In my previous life, my lecherous brother said that the younger the woman, the better…

Is it just aesthetic beauty that they are fascinated by?

Or is it a tendency as a pervert with pedophilic tendencies?

In an instant, from feeling proud of my appearance, my feelings became complicated and I groaned, and when a somewhat annoying presence approached from the side, I momentarily glared at them nervously.

“Hic…!”

The approaching man froze for a moment and fell backwards on his butt.