Savage Forest - Chapter 60 - Belle Reservoir

3. Times that We Loved

The girl was digging out the maggots that had infested her grandfather’s back with her hands.

An abandoned field—the residence of the God of Death, where even sunlight does not shine down here. It was a sight that could be said to be in the middle of death.

The smell of filth pierced the nose mercilessly.

In the middle of it, the only boy who seemed to have life in him was watching with fierce eyes. Tarhan continued his insensitive gaze, unaware of how long she had been watching the child.

‘She doesn’t even cry.’

That was his first impression of the girl.

The little girl did not even cry, even as she picked out the little bugs that were infesting the back of the old man who was taking care of her one by one with her hands.

Did she not cry, or did she not know how to cry?

Although it should have been shocking, surprisingly, there was no emotion in the boy’s eyes either.

Not even the faintest hint of sympathy, which might have been appropriate, crossed his mind. The boy possessed eyes that appeared too cold and weathered for his young age. At a glance, they resembled the eyes of an elderly man who had endured countless hardships.

An impenetrable face, with eyes as hard and unyielding as the bark of a tree.

The boy’s existence was reduced to an obsessive sense of responsibility to feed both himself and his deranged mother and a lingering affection for his own flesh and blood to keep them going. Yet now, even those last remnants of connection were on the brink of vanishing under the weight of life’s relentless trials.

Once, it would have been unimaginable for such a wretched place to exist in the land of Aquilea, which once thrived upon the fertile expanse of the Great Plains. However, that was now a distant memory, or perhaps not so distant after all.

It hadn’t been long before the boy arrived in this squalid den, trying to eke out a life within its grim confines.

‘…It’s amazing that she hasn’t died yet.’

The old man’s eyes, clouded with cataracts, appeared to have lost their sight long ago. Maggots infested his pupils, and his fingers’ knuckles had burst, oozing pus.

Despite the revolting sight, the girl persisted in cleaning him. The cloth she used had become soiled and almost useless. The boy couldn’t help but wonder if he would look like that wiping the spit from his mother’s mouth.

The thought made him feel nauseous, and he couldn’t bear it any longer.

Unable to wait any longer, Tarhan turned his back coldly on the girl.

“…lo… fo…”

Then, he heard what sounded like an animal groan. Looking back, he saw the old man pointing in one direction, lifting his finger.

Tarhan then realized the old man was pointing at him. He frowned at the sight.

“…fo, llo…”

He couldn’t understand what the old man was saying. The sound the old man made as he died was inaudible. However, the girl seemed to have managed to understand the words. She raised her head, and their eyes met for the first time.

He wanted to avoid the girl’s gaze the moment he looked at her.

The moment he felt the light-colored eyes following him, unknown anger soared inside him as something hot rose up his throat.

As he immediately left the spot, Tarhan could still feel the girl’s constant shameless gaze.

‘D*mn old man. Taking the burden to kill someone by starving them to death.’

He forced himself to gather all his energy to pour out all the swear words directed at the dying maggot-infested old man as he clenched his teeth while walking briskly.

Some people thought that just because they were healthy, things would get better.

He gritted his teeth and thought.

‘This is a living hell for everyone, regardless of whether they have attached limbs or not.’

At least, that was the case for the boy who had gone into this cave as the last survivor of Cartantina.

Of course, he knew in the back of his head that his situation was better than that of the girl having that maggot-infested old man as her guardian. At least he didn’t starve. He was quite well off in this area, even bringing food to his crazy mother, whom he had hidden in a makeshift pile of rubble.

Even there, Tarhan’s name was quite famous.

A thin but stocky and tall boy with a clear lineage from a foreign tribe, clearly from Cartantina, whom Aquilea had recently slaughtered.

It was only natural that he would take on the hard work of deliberately avoiding Aquilea people to make ends meet and to feed his crazy mother.

He knew that the Aquileas called this area the abandoned fields.

A dangerous area not far from the forest where monsters lived was a place where the old and sick tribesmen settled down after being tossed around until there was nowhere else to go. Even though the people of this place lived right in front of the monster’s habitat, they definitely didn’t have eyes, ears, or limbs to be afraid of it.

Even if their whole body was fine, part of their mind was not intact.

People who were abandoned even by their families… those who had nothing more to lose and were not even afraid of death.

‘The humans here are all crazy b*stards.’

Even the Aquileas, savages who had never spoken about integrity or principle in their lives, were reluctant to this place. In the dirty and disorderly environment, poverty, germs, diseases and bugs were rampant.

That was why it was common for this place to be the dwelling place of strangers hiding from other tribes.

The same was true of him.

“Take care of your mother, Tarhan.”

On that night, when all of Cartantina was engulfed in flames, his father disappeared, carrying his sister on his back, to search for the rest of his brothers.

After that day, Tarhan thought that he would spend the rest of his life searching for his lost sister until he and his mother witnessed the naked corpse of his sister piled among the corpses of other women. He didn’t see his father’s body.

He knew he and his mother were lucky.

The last survivor of the ruined country… his life was saved by a stroke of luck. Therefore, he had to endure the humiliation today and survive the stigma of being the blood of a defeated tribe.

The time he first set foot in the empty field was close to the spawning season when monsters spread seeds and gave birth.

There was a reason why the seed of an enemy army with no connection was able to find work. Although Tarhan was the age of a boy, there was no one who would not use him as he had a stocky physique with an appearance approaching that of a young man.

There he worked all day, flaying the corpses of monsters.

He cut the flesh and gutted the bones until the smell of rotting meat permeated his whole body. Working until the dripping blood seeped into his skin before it even touched the ground, the bone fell out, and he was given a chunk of meat.

‘If I go out and live in the forest, I can live alone… but Mother will die.’

Although he had nothing to fear in terms of his survival, his mother’s out-of-focus mind kept getting into his mind.

Even if he ended up living in the forest, he would inevitably be away from home. Even among the abandoned people in these empty fields like now, a group of humans was absolutely necessary. The weak that were left alone become good targets for beasts and monsters.

So, he had to somehow stay in this empty field.

When he arrived at a pile of stones that could not be called a house, the foul smell of excrement emanated from outside a few dozen steps.

Tarhan, unfazed by the familiar stench, crossed the rubble and opened the entrance to the small hut.

His mother was there.

“Aahh… aahh…!”

The shocking appearance of his mother, whom he was not accustomed to seeing, was revealed.

Shortly after the defeat of Cartantina, after that unforgettable night, his mother was in a bad state. Even if there was saliva at the corner of her mouth, he could not wipe it off, or if the food was brought to her, she could not swallow it unless he chewed it himself and put it in her mouth.

It was unknown whether she recognized her son or not.

The lost eyes wandered through the air.

All the cloth, which he must have carefully covered in the morning, was torn, revealing her lower body, dirty with excrement.

Tarhan habitually removed the cloth.

Picking up his mother, he began to wash her with the water he had filled in an urn with a broken lip. His mother wept like a child. The corners of her eyes, with the mucus he had not been able to wipe off, were wrinkled.

Tarhan calmed her, wiping her dirty face and underneath, and laid her down in the bed. Every time there were no clothes to change into, she had to change the clothes he had bought to cover his mother.

After washing her and sharing the food he had gotten, he picked out some edible pieces of meat and put them in her mouth.

“Ah! Ah! Aaahhh!”

As the food got into her mouth, his mother started screaming frantically. Still, he finished the meal carefully lest she bit his fingers.

Eating the leftover crumbs, he felt sleepy as his body was weary from the work.

Tarhan lay down beside her, watching his mother fall into slumber with her head bent grotesquely. The stale smell from his mother’s body was stifling though he didn’t have enough energy to care about it.

In the end, he carefully leaned his body against his mother’s thin body. Even though he couldn’t lift a finger, he recalled the scenery of the large room where his family used to sleep together, and he was grateful for the warmth she gave at that moment.

As the tears dried up on the sleeping boy’s cheeks, a strange noise came. His mother had awakened from a nightmare.

“Koohk! Kkuook…! Aaaakkk…!”

He despaired once more as he saw his mother’s body twisted grotesquely and screamed horribly as she tried to escape the pain.

The more he pressed down on her fluttering body, the more his mother went mad. Eventually, her eyelids rolled, then her body limp. The bed they had been lying on became damp again, and a foul smell rushed into his nostril.

As he held his mother’s body with a deathly grip, Tarhan wanted to deny reality.

This couldn’t have been his mother.

It was excruciatingly painful to watch her like that. It felt like his heart was breaking. Every time he saw her like this, he was struck by pain.

She was nowhere near the wise woman with beautifully lined wrinkles around her eyes who would teach him how to weave baskets and the uses of all kinds of grass. It was as if she had gone mad and run amok, leaving only her body with her soul drained out of it.

Even so, he couldn’t give up on her body.

The suffocating fear of being left alone in the world if he lost her as well took hold of him every night. Every day he came back and had nightmares of his mother not breathing.

Just the thought of living through that night filled him with painful memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It suffocated him. He couldn’t live at the thought of being trapped alone in the darkness from which he could never escape.