Love Letter From The Future

The land, cursed by the Evil God, could not nurture any life. In order to survive, one had to adapt to the extreme cold and hunger.

All creatures of the coniferous forest followed the laws of the Evil God Omeros.

The strong devoured the weak and the weak deceived the strong. In the fight to survive, violence and struggle never ceased.

There was no place for morality or justice in this merciless law of survival.

Those who failed to adapt to the ways of the North were eliminated and their corpses became  someone’s meal.

There were no exceptions to this endless cycle.

When the Yurdina family, the rulers of the North, arrived in these lands, they embodied its laws.

That was how humanity ruled the continent.

They were a species with higher potential and more adaptable than any other.

Cruel and wicked they may have been, but they were strong.

They did not even hesitate to abandon their beliefs and traditions in order to survive.

The Elves, driven to the edge of the steep cliff of survival were ultimately forced to make a choice.

Will they face extinction as they are, or will they mimic the humans they despised so much?

In truth, there was only one choice to be made.

Only those choosing the latter would survive.

Forging their destiny was a privilege of the living.

And they also were the ones who had to bear the weight of that tenacious life.

In the middle of the coniferous forest, torches were lined up side by side.

The expressions of those standing post holding the torches that illuminated the surroundings were uniformly grim. Each time the reddish glow of the flames flickered, their somber gazes spread into the void.

Their ears were all pointed.

They were Elves who were driven to the North.

Surrounded by the group was a man, noticeable for the hideous burn marks  marring  his body.

His skin was so fused together that even guessing his age was impossible.

Forcing his half-stuck eyelids open, the man shouted.

“Oh, everyone… Thank you for joining us in this painful ritual once again today. Unfortunately, we are trapped in a prison called the body. The soul granted to us by the Heavenly God is free but we, bound by this shell known as the body, are in such great pain and suffering.”

He continued his speech in a sorrowful tone.

His old, tattered priestly robes fluttered in the night wind. One might think the biting northern gales would chill him to the bone, yet he showed not the slightest sign of discomfort.

No—perhaps it was the opposite.

The burns and melted skin etched across his body gave him a perpetually pained expression. Since he was in constant agony, perhaps he didn’t even register the new pain.

What best reflected his inner feelings was his voice.

His charred flesh and skin no longer functioned properly.

He continued speaking in a voice steeped in despair.

“We are sinners! Because of our sins, we are trapped in these bodies and suffer to pay for them… The reason we continue to live is to be forgiven for the sins we committed against the Heavenly God. Only after atoning for all our sins will we reclaim the true freedom of our souls!”

As his speech went on, the Elves’ gazes lowered further and further.

The sight of the bowed Elves resembled tombstones in a graveyard. A sad and solemn ritual was unfolding amidst the blizzard.

It was then that the man raised the torch he held high.

He seemed poised to offer a prayer.

Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Yet at times, the will of the Heavenly God is like a blade, bringing upon us agonizing trials… But it’s alright. Pain is brief, while happiness is eternal. If enduring all the suffering in life would ultimately bring us greater happiness, then we must save our brethren!”

With those words, he aimed the torch toward something.

Then, another figure, previously hidden in the darkness, was revealed.

It was of an Elf, trembling with fear.

Unlike his usually beautiful kin, this one was hunched with a protruding lump that gave him a rather shabby appearance. Even at glance, he seemed to have difficulty moving.

Behind him, a female Elf who seemed to be his mother was quietly sobbing with her eyes closed.

The hunchbacked Elf with a seemingly impaired intellect couldn’t even manage to utter coherent words

“Uh, ah… M-Moth-er. I-I’m sc-scare…”

In the end, the female Elf could no longer bear it and collapsed.

Unable to hold back her endlessly flowing tears, she  pounded her chest and sobbed uncontrollably. The expressions of the Elves watching her were equally grim.

The man too remained silent for a while, overcome with heaviness in his heart.

He merely patted the female Elf’ shoulder , offering words of apology and consolation.

“I’m sorry, truly sorry… But your son has lived such a painful life until now. He will have to continue living like this for another 400 years. Compared to those long years, the next few moments will be nothing but a fleeting instant.”

“Please…”

Choking back sobs, the female Elf clutched tightly at the hem of the man’s robe.

“Please, don’t let my son be in pain anymore.”

It was hard to tell if it was a plea or an expression of resignation.

Yet it was clear that the man deeply sympathised with her words.

Tears streamed continuously from his reddened eyes.

A few of the Elves couldn’t hold back and began to weep softly.

The man then made a promise in a firm tone.

“…I’ll end it as quickly as possible.”

With that, he steadily walked toward the hunchbacked Elf. The Elf instinctively covered his head and let out a frightened whimper, ‘Hiiik.’

With sorrowful eyes, the man looked down at him.

“Eat.”

He rummaged in his robes and handed the Elf a piece of bread.

In the North, grains did not grow. Let alone grains, there were countless Elves who couldn’t even manage to secure a proper meal.

The same went without saying for the hunchbacked Elf who couldn’t even fend for himself.

In his exhausted eyes from prolonged hunger, a faint glimmer appeared. Though he hesitated, perhaps out of fear, the man patiently offered a kind smile.

In the end, the hunchbacked Elf couldn’t resist his instincts.

He devoured the bread in a frenzy. Even though he could have choked from eating so fast, the meal was finished in an instant.

And the moment he looked up at the man with eyes full of expectation—

Whack! The hunchbacked Elf’s jaw was twisted aside.

For a moment, he couldn’t comprehend what had happened and wore a dumbfounded expression. Only after collapsing onto the cold ground did he feel the searing pain surge through him.

The unfortunate Elf let out a wail.

“UH, AA, UGH… AAH, AA, AAAAHHHHHH!”

At the sound of his scream, the surrounding Elves turned their heads away. His mother was practically clinging to the ground while sobbing uncontrollably.

The man who had struck the hunchbacked Elf quietly made the sign of the cross.

“Lord, forgive me…”

After that, a one-sided assault ensued.

He punched and kicked.

Blood and bits of flesh scattered amidst pitiful screams. But the frail-bodied Elf stood no chance against the man who seemed to possess inexplicable strength.

The hunchbacked Elf was beaten into a pulp in just a few minutes.

The only indication he was still alive were faint groans.. Tears of agony streamed down from his vacant, wide open eyes.

Only then did the man stop the beating.

Bloodstains spattered his robes, sending up wisps of steam in the cold air. Yet his breathing remained steady.

With a sorrowful gaze, he reached into his robe.

From the same place he had taken out the bread, he now drew a dagger.

“This should be enough. The Heavenly God will surely forgive you… May you find happiness, young soul.”

And then, in a swift motion, he plunged the dagger into the hunchbacked Elf’s neck.

The Elf reacted violently, clutching at his throat, but there was no way to stop the flowing blood.

Guhhh, Guhh, escaped the choking sounds as his life ebbed away.

And that was the end.

The hunchbacked Elf’s body convulsed for a moment before his head dropped limply.

It was a sign of death.

And from that point on, something astonishing began to unfold.

A crimson mist began to seep in where his blood pooled. Absorbing the blood, it soon took the shape of a tree..

Crack, Snap.

Sounds of the Elf’s corpse crumbling and being absorbed as nutrients echoed. It was as though a bell had tolled, making several Elves urgently lift their heads.

In mere seconds, a small grotesque tree had sprouted.

It looked as if a living being’s body had been twisted into a perverse work of art. But none of the Elves present paid any mind to that.

They were solely fixated on the lumps of flesh that were hanging from the tree.

The man watched the tree with a vacant gaze for a while, then let out a long sigh and spoke.

“…You may eat.”

And then with steady footsteps, he walked away.

The Elves slightly hesitated at first.. No matter how desperate they were, it was hard to reach out to a tree that grew from consuming a corpse of their own kind.

But the moment someone’s stomach growled loudly— they turned into starving beasts and rushed towards the tree. They didn’t care as chaos erupted amongst them.

Even the hunchbacked Elf’s mother wiped away her tears and stood up.

Leaving behind the chaos of that midnight, the man shed yet another tear.

“Immanuel…”

The northern night still had a long way to go.

**

On the night I interrogated Aviang, I received a letter from Senior Delphine.

Its contents were brief and straightforward.

‘Help me.’

I silently gazed down at those words before leaving my room once more.

Aviang’s tearful plea weighed on my mind.

The Elf girl had wept as she pleaded.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

‘The Elves, we Elves are going mad… If I don’t send the money, they’ll kill my younger sibling too! Because the cult sacrifices the most useless Elves first…’

Did Aviang also have a younger sibling?

For some reason, her image seemed to overlap with Ned’s, leaving me uneasy. It was an utterly pointless sympathy.

Aviang was an Elf and an enemy of the Empire.

Therefore, she was also my enemy. She was someone I shouldn’t recklessly sympathise with.

I knew that.

I knew it, but couldn’t stop her image from lingering in my mind.

In the end, I decided to clear my mind by swinging my sword.

I have undergone relentless training since childhood.

So naturally, I only knew how to ease my mind through physical exertion. For me, wielding a sword was both training and a hobby.

However, as I stepped out of the room, an unexpected visitor greeted me.

“……Senior Ian”

It was a girl, still wrapped in bandages here and there.

I could now recognize her by her grey hair alone. She was my cherished junior, and an illegitimate daughter of the Yurdina family—Seria.

Before I could offer her a concerned greeting—

“May I ask you for guidance in a match?”

Seria politely bowed her head as she made the request, and I couldn’t help but pause for a moment.

Her aquamarine-like eyes were filled with determination.

Looking back, how long had it been since I last crossed swords with her?

I recalled being utterly defeated before. Although I managed to land a hit at the very end, the overall result was my overwhelming loss.

So then, what about now?

I couldn’t suppress the fierce smile creeping onto my face.

It wasn’t the expression I should have shown in front of my injured junior, but I replied in a sharp voice.

“……Alright, let’s have a match.”

It felt like perfect timing, given how unsettled I was.

After all, there was no better way to clear a swordsman’s mind than combat.