Forest

For 1 week we walked through the Black Forest, after we entered it I went into heat again since the time had already passed, and him and I had sex and he did that trick to stop my heat.

I noticed that before we had sex he would disappear for a bit, then I found out he was hunting all the monsters in the area so we wouldn't be caught off guard.

It was a tough 1 week, since we didn't make much progress on our path, luckily today was the last day of my heat and now I'm free of that problem, my relationship with Uriel got a little weird, I tried to ignore it in the first few days.

But it's hard when we have sex all night every night. Now we're on our trek through the forest in an unsettling silence, Aetheris also seems pretty pissed at Uriel lately.

"Ayla, if you want... I'll take responsibility for you," Uriel starts the conversation.

"Yeah? H-How so?"

"I mean, if you want me to marry you, I'll accept, I'll make a formal proposal."

"Whoa..."

"I-I'll think about it" I'm not sure what to do, it's so strange, how am I supposed to act?

'Uriel... does he like me?...' this doubt has been bothering me a lot lately, does Uriel have romantic feelings for me? What kind of person would go to such lengths to save someone they don't like?

And if he likes me romantically, and I, what do I feel for Uriel? It's so confusing to be hit by all these new feelings, Uriel is a cool guy and he's good-looking, but I can't say if I like him, I've never been in love before and I don't have anyone to ask.

And I clearly can't ask Uriel himself if I like him.

"U-Uriel, d-do you have someone you love?" I start a strange conversation with him.

"...Well...yes, there is someone I like," he says thoughtfully.

"I-I see, and w-what's this person like..." strangely, my heart twists, hoping it's me.

"...Sorry Ayla, but I'm not very good at this kind of conversation..." He avoids the subject.

"M-More case...Kyaaa" I hide behind Uriel when I see an enormous spider as big as the trees.

'W-What the hell is that thing?' even the spider's legs can be mistaken for trees.

"Shhh, be quiet Ayla, she hasn't seen us yet," Uriel says as he takes me behind a tree.

"Another one... this place is full of them..." He murmurs.

'He's already found another one... was it at the moment he was leaving to clear the area?' I didn't see any monsters because Uriel is very talented at staying hidden in the forest, and every time we took a break he went to kill the monsters in the area to keep me safe.

Soon the giant spider leaves, seeing it makes me remember something.

"Uriel, where are we going again?" I end up not really paying attention to where we're going and what we're going to do.

"...We're going to cross the Black Forest, then we'll reach the only human village in the demonic territory, this village is neutral and the demons have given permission for it to exist, in this village we'll buy a lot of resources and then we'll go to human territory."

"In human territory I'll try to resolve the problem with the church and your family..."

"If I can't... don't you think it'd be romantic if we just ran away together?" He says jokingly with a smile.

"A-ah..." I blush and look away, in a way it really does sound tempting to run away together, I don't have anything in this world anyway.

Soon we're back to walking through the dense forest, it has a strange tone, it's dark both day and night, and I also notice that Uriel makes a lot of detours as if he's dodging dangerous things through the forest.

"Uriel, do you know this forest?" It's almost like he knows the geography of the area.

"...Unfortunately I know it all too well... want to hear this story?" He asks with a somewhat complex tone.

"...Yes," I confirm after thinking a bit, learning more about Uriel seems cool.

"You see, when the holy sword that is the [Blade of Infinity] chose me as the hero... the nobles didn't like that at all, after all all the previous chosen ones were nobles."

I notice he never loses focus.

"They saw it as a blemish on their honor, after all a commoner wielding this sword had never happened before, no one knows the criteria for the sword to choose someone, but they weren't satisfied that the chosen one was a homeless person."

"Of course, I still had the sword, so they couldn't carelessly kill me, after all that would be bad for the public's view of the nobles... so they decided on various ways to try to get rid of me..."

"One of the most common ways used to try to kill me was to send me on dangerous missions... and one of them was to cross the Black Forest with a cargo."

"I was naive and didn't even know what the cargo was, and I didn't know about the existence of this forest... so I happily accepted, after all they had said this mission would help a lot of people."

"During my journey, everything went smoothly until I reached this forest, I... was hunted by monsters from all sides, all thanks to the 'cargo' which in the end was bait for monsters."

"I had to run, getting lost in this forest, I didn't know this forest required magic to enter, so it was night when I entered this forest... I almost died several times."

"It was very difficult to survive, and in the end I only stayed alive because of the sword that protected me, the nobles don't know that the [Blade of Infinity] has a safety system for the wielder."

"This safety system is activated if the wielder is attacked by something that would kill them, the sword will automatically go into defense mode and protect the user... in exchange for consuming part of the wielder's vitality."

"In the end I lost 10 years of my life in this forest, just to be able to escape it alive 3 months later... during that time the nobles made several announcements about how I had died heroically, and that at some point the sword would return to the altar in the church."

"They were surprised and outraged when I came back alive and stronger... and now I know the structure of the forest to a certain extent, since I had to survive here, I was about 11 years old at the time, I didn't have training and didn't know any magic, so it was difficult but now even without magic surviving here is easy, so don't worry Ayla, I won't let anything hurt you."

"..." I remain silent, listening to this absurd story, they sent a child to be killed in a dangerous place like this, the nobles can only be described as rotten.

How could they, do such evil, when Uriel didn't even want this sword, the sword itself chose him and still they tried to eliminate him.

He runs his hand over my cheek.

"Don't cry Ayla, it's okay... it was hard, but I overcame it and as the saying goes 'What doesn't kill us makes us stronger' I would never give those nobles the privilege of seeing my corpse."

"I'm glad you're sad for me, but I'd rather see you smiling than crying," he says with a beautiful smile.

I take the cue and put on a smile, my smile is strange since it's not 100% genuine as tears stream down. Uriel has been through so many bad things.

And yet he tries to save me, when in the end he could simply hate me for being a noble.

Soon we're back to walking in silence, but it's not an uncomfortable silence, it's a calm silence, a calm moment to think calmly.

To ruin the moment, some monsters appear, Uriel quickly draws his sword and stands in front of me.

The monsters seem to be a mix of lions and wolves, having a mane and fur that resembles lions but with a wolf-like body, and they're in a pack.

They surround us, I see these monsters have a dark, almost black coloration, blending in with the darkness of the forest, they circle and circle around us, strangely Uriel still hasn't attacked.

"U-Uriel i-is there a problem?"

"I don't know... these wolves are reacting strangely... they should have attacked us already... and they seem to be just watching you..."

Uriel remains alert for any attack.

"These are lightning wolves, they are fast and treacherous hunters... but very impulsive, normally attacking as fast as they can, they're not the kind of monsters that would usually be dragging this out."

"Plus, they normally focus on the stronger opponent instead of the weaker one, usually attacking the stronger one while trying to use the weaker one as bait, so it's weird that they're eyeing you instead of me."

"AAAUUUUUU" the wolves stop, sit down and howl.

"..." We remain silent, not understanding.

"..."

"Fenrir..." Suddenly I think of the most obvious reason, Fenrir the legendary wolf is the leader of all the wolf-type monsters, after he fucked me for 2 weeks it's obvious to me that I'm marked as Fenrir's mate.

Combining this with my beastly form having recognized Fenrir as a mate would be equivalent to me having married Fenrir, just the idea of this is disgusting, and unfortunately it seems correct since now the wolves are bowing to me.

"Ayla... I understand... I'm sorry about this," Uriel apologizes to me, coming to the same hypothesis as me.

Honestly, I'd rather be attacked by the wolves than have them recognizing me as Fenrir's partner, it just reminds me of the castle and makes me feel disgusting.

"Uriel... let's get out of here..." I don't want to be around these wolves, I don't care how they see me, I just want to get out of here.

I start walking and Uriel comes with me, the wolves get up and disperse through the forest. We continue our walk in silence, the scene just reminds me of how dirty I am, and makes me wonder if Uriel doesn't see me as a disgusting freak.