0. Opening (5)

3.

Lanneque got up from his seat. He was used to a slight headache and anemia.

It was dark all around. It was because the sun hadn't risen yet and he slept with the windows closed. But I have to get up. I have work to do.

What Lanneque did in the morning was simple. First, light a fire in the kitchen stove with flint and tinder, then go outside with the string he always use.

"Whoosh..."

When he lights the fire in the kitchen stove, he heard birds chirping and the sun came up. Lanneque always came out of the house with a long string that was on the table in the living room.

First, he checked the traps near the house. The total number is 25. You shouldn't miss even one. Missing out a trap means that one day your family might be trapped.

Each of these traps is sharp and strong enough to slice through a thick block of wood. If someone stepped on it, it would have to cut them to the bone. It was a task handed down from his father a few months ago, he will have to do his part.

[...]

He was lying down to check the condition of the traps when he heard a voice. He didn't know exactly what they were talking about, but their voices were getting closer to him.

A cold sweat ran down his back. It is not an animal. It's a human voice.

'You also have to protect the family.'

His father told him while teaching him how to take care of the traps now that he had grown up. However, every time his father said such things, Lanneque felt frustrated as if a stone had been placed in his chest. After all, this... This is something that kills living things, whether humans or animals.

What he had to do right now was clear. He had to be flat on his stomach, and he should go home as quickly as possible to wake up the others.

Cautiously dodging the trap, Lanneque crawled on the ground, not minding the dirt and dust on his body. Still, there was smoke coming from the chimney. As long as I go home, I will be able to wake others up with my mother. Then I will pick up my bow and arrows at home, and grab a dagger...

[Clatter]

"Mom, I..."

Lanneque couldn't finish the sentence, "I think bad guys are here". There was no one in the kitchen. The pot on top of the stove was boiling, sending out smoke through the chimney. The only thing on the pot was old, rotten soup.

No one was in the living room either. And that was when Lanneque realized the reality.

It... ...happened about 3 months ago.

'Lanneque! Don't let him get away alive!'

His father shouted, but his right hand did not stop trembling. You will never hit the target if you shoot like this. He was running away with his back in full view, and he's the one who attacked his father. But Lanneque couldn't hit him with an arrow.

[Thud]

The arrow grazed the target and was lodged in a tree. He loaded the next arrow, but that person had already run away. He must have escaped the traps, so they missed him.

'Why did you do that! What if he brings more people!'

His father severely scolded and punished me. However, rather than the pain in his cheek from being beaten, the image of his older sister holding an ax with a resolute face never left his mind. On the head of a thief who was caught in a trap and smashed to the knee... She wielded the ax.

The mother was injured in her eye by a stone thrown by a thief. The flesh didn't tear as the stone was smooth, but the eye was so swollen that she couldn't open it.

The grandfather kept the thieves in check by shooting an arrow from the roof, and the father moved from tree to tree and cut down people, not trees, with a huge axe.

Lanneque couldn't do anything. Because the screams of the people who fell did not leave his head.

After that incident, he suffered from nightmares for several days. The constant scolding from his mother and father must have played a part too. So... It happened in one morning when he overslept. The tragedy happened that day.

[Screech]

Lanneque, who woke up at the sound of his mother's screams, ran downstairs, but... His mother had collapsed on the other side of the stairs going down to the first floor. And he could see blood pouring from her neck.

Lanneque couldn't forget those eyes. Those eyes of his mother who looked this way, wide open. Maybe she was telling him to run. She didn't care about the blood welling up from her neck, and she looked directly at Lanneque, scolding him with her eyes. Telling him to move.

But his legs wouldn't budge. The thought of not being able to let go of his mother like this filled his head, and his emotions had already gone beyond anger or pity and had rather calmed down. The calmed head quietly let him know that there was nothing he could do right now. If I had an axe, or at least a bow or dagger...

'Come on.'

His sister grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him into a room. Then, she roughly slapped the cheek where tears were dripping to wake him up, and held his face with her both hands.

'If you go down here, you can come out to the back of the house. And run.'

But where to? Before he was able to ask her, his sister pushed him through the narrow gap in the room. His sister, who was bigger than him, probably wouldn't have been able to pass through this gap. That's why his sister pushed him. Because she knew she couldn't go.

'After all, my sister...'

When he came out to the back of the house, his older sister, with blood pouring from her neck, fell to the floor head first. It was the first time he realized that the sound of a person falling to the floor could be this loud. It was only from the second floor.

He heard his father's scream stop halfway. Grandpa was lying near the workshop.

There was no time to stare in dismay. He ran along the direction of the forest road. If you go as far as Elmut Village at the end of this road, there are soldiers there, so talk to them and they will help you.

'My sister...'

He ran like crazy. His heart was beating so fast, but he didn't even have time to think he was suffocating. Later, he even thought that he was running just because he wanted to feel the wind blow. He couldn't stop crying from the loss of his family. He should have stopped to wipe his tears, but that couldn't be done, so he hoped the wind would wipe them out instead. And at the end, he didn't even think about it. The only thing he could think of was his sister bleeding from the neck.

So, in the city he arrived the next evening... He had to come out empty handed.

'We don't move.'

The city vigilantes didn't help. Because what the vigilantes had to protect were the people in the city.

'I can't help you if you don't do your civic duty.'

The army did not move. There was no obligation to protect people outside the city who did not pay taxes, and there was no guarantee that the bandits would still be there when they had arrived.

'The ax...'

Instead, he purchased a large logging ax on credit from a furniture dealer in the city he traded with.

And all the uninvited guests in the house were cut down and planted in the forest. The animals must have been preying on it.

And that day, five cemeteries appeared behind the small cabin.

"No more... No way. I have nothing to give you. Because you've already taken my whole life."

He stroked the wound on his cheek with his hand. It was a small mistake during logging. He grabbed the ax lying in the living room.

When first held, the ax was heavy and long, making it difficult to lift. However, there was no longer a family to accept whining and childishness. He had no choice but to put his mind down and become a man, an adult. And in order to finish logging, he had to become something beyond that.

[...]

People were coming.

As the last remaining survivor of the cabin, Lanneque was obliged to welcome guests.

"Logging... I should log."

A bow was tied on his back. The quiver was a hindrance, so only three arrows were loaded into the shin protector.