Chapter 1: The Call Of The Forest

The city of Elevor was one of the most beautiful cities in the world that occupied a whole lot of people, both citizens and outsiders, it was a huge city that had its streets filled up every day.

However, this city seemed to have one prevailing problem that got overlooked by those at the top who only cared about one thing.

The cost of living in the city was far too expensive and even though there were a lot of people who could afford to live there, there were also a lot of people who didn't have the resources.

Most of these people were not poor by any means but living in the city meant that they wouldn't use their money for anything else besides paying the humongous rent collected by the government and other services provided in the city no matter how crappy they were.

This was the reason why towns were established good distances away from the city.

Since the citizens weren't allowed to make residential buildings anywhere in the Country because all the lands belonged to the government, the government took it upon them to make the towns for them but it was all done diffidently.

They didn't want to look bad in the eyes of their people by just telling them to move away because they couldn't afford to live in the city, and as such, living in the towns outside the city came with its punishments, instigated by the government of course.

The people inside the city were fed lies to make sure they were totally shunned by many, and on top of that, they had to live very close to the thick forests surrounding the city from the north through the east and west.

This meant that they were in danger of getting attacked by the demon beasts always lurking around there, and because there were no barriers in those areas, they had no form of protection besides fighting off the beasts themselves. 

There were four towns established outside the city because of how huge it was.

There were two on the west even though one of them was closer to the north.

The one closer to the north was called the town of Reno while the other one was called Elfo.

Then there was the town established on the north and was called Mesis.

Finally, there was the town established in the east, the town called Oblitus.

Oblitus was a peculiar town among the four towns because it was the town closest to the thickest parts of the forests which meant that it was the hottest town among the four.

Since all the towns were established four years ago, there had been no unfortunate deaths in any of the towns except Oblitus who had already lost six people to beasts.

It used to be four, but between the past three days, two seven-year-old children lost their lives in the hands of beasts, but somehow their bodies were able to be recovered, they weren't torn to shreds like the four who died before them.

The town of Oblitus was a place to be dreaded at night and with the sun beginning to set over the town, the families there started to finish up everything unfinished so that they could go inside and go to bed with their hands on their chests.

However, not everyone was in a hurry to go to bed that night. With the sky slowly turning dark, two children who seemed to be about seven years old could be seen running into the forest but it looked like only one of them was happy about venturing into a dangerous territory like that while the day was turning dark.

There was a girl with hair as red as blood and eyes as blue as the sky and she seemed to be grabbing on tightly to the hands of a boy as she moved deeper into the forest.

The boy who happened to have bright blonde hair with crimson eyes seemed to be the one who was being forced to come on this trip. 

"Hey, Ava, I've already told you, it's not safe for us to be out here now, if any beasts show up, we'll both be dead." The boy pleaded his case, hoping that she would understand and decide to come back with him before it was too late. 

The only reason he was there was because she said she was going to go alone if he refused to go with her, he thought he would be able to talk some sense into her before they got too far but here they were. 

"Oh, come on, Arsha, don't be a scaredy cat, we're almost there, and so far there haven't been any monsters, have there?" She retorted, still moving forward. 

"Yes, but they might show up any moment now and you know we can't fight them," Arsha argued further.

"That's not true, you can use your flames to fight them off or that water bullet thing you showed me the other day, it's sad that I don't have cool powers like that but since you do, you can fight for both of us." She replied before turning to him with a smile.

Those were the naive words of a seven-year-old, but still, it didn't make sense that a little girl like her wasn't afraid of going into a place like this by this time after everything she had heard and all the beasts she had seen. 

"You're not listening to me, Ava."

"Hey." She cut him off before he could say anything else. "I told you it's okay, she's the one guiding us, she promised to protect me as long as I watch the stars with her tonight, can't you see that's why no beast has come close to us so far, she's protecting me, just like she promised."

At that moment, Arsha just had to stop himself from getting pulled further in because he was really confused right now.

"What are you talking about? Is it one of those weird dreams again?" The young boy had quite a baffled look on his face. 

"No, there was no weird dream, she's calling me now, you can't hear her now, but you'll see once we get there. Come on, we can't stop moving." 

She sounded quite desperate as she tried to grab his arm but Arsha pulled his arm back to prevent her from grabbing it.

"Who is even this person that you're talking about?" He inquired.

"The princess."

"The princess?" 

"Yes, now let's go."

She reached out her hand to grab his arm once again, and this time Arsha didn't resist but that wasn't because he didn't want to, his eyes were just on the company they seemed to have now.

Ava tried to pull him forward but he didn't budge as his gaze was stuck on the huge figure towering over them and his body slowly began to tremble.

His heartbeat quickly sped up and his breathing began to get louder.

"Huh? What's wrong with you?" She asked before tilting her head a little to the right. 

"Ava, get out of the way now!" 

It took all the willpower he had to yell those words, but was it really worth anything?

Before Ava could comprehend what was going on, a long glow came directly toward her and pierced straight through her body from the left.

"No." Arsha gasped with a horrid look on his face before slowly taking a step backward.

"Ar.... sha." Ava managed to force out as her mouth slowly filled up with blood.

She was suddenly pulled up at that moment, and now hanging in the air, her body slowly began to get covered by some kind of white substance.

Arsha could tell on a first glance that those were spider webs, they were dealing with a spider beast, a huge one at that.

That horrid look was still stuck in his face as he watched the spider slowly wrapped his friend like a nice little bug meal.

Escaping now that the beast was busy was very possible for him but he just couldn't move.

"It happened again, this is the third time now, I tried to warn her but she just wouldn't listen. She was the last one and now....."

He wasn't able to finish that statement as he took a step backward and ended up crashing to the floor. 

Just before the spider could cover Ava's mouth, she muttered something and ordinarily nobody would be able to hear a mutter from that distance, but he heard it loud and clear. 

"This was all your fault, Arsher."

He felt an immense pain in his heart as those words resounded in his head, and in that moment, he truly wanted to tear his heart out but maybe there was a faster way to do that.

With its meal now wrapped up nicely, the spider which had its true figure enveloped in the darkness turned its gaze to him.

"Go ahead, do it, it will be better this way. It was all my fault after all so joining them will be the right thing to do."

In that moment, he was truly ready to die, and the spider, unable to comprehend the meaning of his lip movement, was ready to give him the death he desired.