Savage Forest - Chapter 62 - Belle Reservoir

His mother’s consciousness went back and forth often. Sometimes, very occasionally, she would come back to her senses like this.

Tarhan quickly knelt beside her with hope this time, too, and squeezed her bony hand.

Even in the dark, he could feel his mother looking up at him with sad eyes. The empty eyes were never filled after that day.

“The rainy season will start soon. Until then, I’m thinking of looking for a new house to live in. This house will surely be washed away by the rain. Also, it’s too close to the riverside…”

Tarhan continued to say this and that, ignoring his mother’s desolate gaze. He couldn’t bear to see her eyes, so he kept his head down. He wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t recall the memories of that day if he were to see her eyes.

As he continued to tell her trivial stories after a while, he put his hand back under the blanket and left the house when she closed her eyes again.

Her mother was crying. Her eyes never dried up.

Still, he ignored it.

It sounded like someone had opened his chest and poked some kindling into it, but he wouldn’t show it.

* * *

Another few days passed like that.

The work of dealing with the corpse was not finished. Unlike other Aquilea men who deal with dismantled pieces of meat, boys from the fields like Tarhan had to start from scratch.

Occasionally, if the monsters were still alive, he risked his life to suffocate them. He also took charge of the process of washing the discharge and intestines, and genitals of the monsters the men were reluctant to do. He always carried a heavy corpse basket on his back till his back felt like it would break.

Then, when the overseer missed a few kicks and his back and arm were hit by the overseer’s whip that struck him, he felt a flash of lightning in front of his eyes though he couldn’t make a fuss at work.

As the days passed, he felt that his judgment was clouded like turbid water. After wrestling with the monster’s meat fat, tendons, eyeballs and tentacles all day long, black stains that could not be erased were accumulated on his nails.

After he finished his work, all covered with sweat, he went to the river and washed his body, looking down at his hands.

‘My hands look like the hands of a monster.’

Suddenly, he wondered if there was a woman who wouldn’t be surprised or startled when a hand like this approached them.

The surface had already been swollen hundreds of times by the monsters’ blood and then cut several times from sawing and slicing. The ends were cracked, and the ugly thing looked like a piece of wood… Would there be a woman who wouldn’t cry when a hand like this stroked them?

Nevertheless, the time for such thoughts was also a luxury for him.

Tarhan roughly washed the dried dark blood off his face and went back to work. While waiting in line to receive the day’s wages, an Aquilea man who saw his face spat and kicked at where he was.

He looked up at him with sharp eyes.

“Damn Cartantina b*stard.”

The marksman, whom he had broken his nose the other day, was out of work for a long time. It seemed to be his brother or an acquaintance. In the meanwhile, a man much taller than Tarhan, who was still a boy, giggled and joked with one of the workers nearby.

“Like a child born of a jackdaw and a Cartantina woman, that face is black.”

“No. I heard that when a woman sucks Dimpir’s blood while pregnant, the skin turns black like that, so that’s why the mother is being punished by heaven. I heard that the limbs are crippled.”

Unlike the skin of the Aquileas, which turned red and white again when exposed to the sun, seeing his tanned skin as he worked, they often joked that it was because of his dirty foreign blood.

Tarhan silently waited in line for his turn, not responding to the humiliating words they uttered.

Even with that inhuman remark insulting his mother, the chunk of meat in the overseer’s hand in front of him made him even more desperate. Because the supply was low yesterday, the overseer didn’t call him, so he only sucked on sap all day.

Today, he did hard labor on the front line, that it seemed that the skin on his stomach was clinging to his back.

When it was his turn, the overseer glanced down at him. Tarhan kept his eyes fixed on his protruding chin and the fleshy whip he held in one hand so as not to divert attention.

“What are you doing? You have to put your hands together and receive it.”

The overseer mocked him as he was about to take his turn.

At those words, loud laughter erupted from the men around. Since the last time he made the marksmen like that, this kind of thing has increased.

Tarhan obediently stretched out both of his hands while giving a defiant look at the overseer. The overseer, who gave a vile laugh, held his share of the daily wage in his hand and pretended to spin it, then dropped it in front of him.

The meat in the basket tumbled across the dirt floor.

“Pick it up.”

At the same time, sounds of ridicule and contempt erupted from the crowd watching him. The nape of his neck stiffened, and an unknown feeling of contempt and shame rushed into him.

Even so, he couldn’t help but stoop down to pick up the chunk of meat. More than anything, he and his mother were desperate for food to go into their mouths.

The moment Tarhan bent down, someone stomped at his back with their heel.

With that, his head plunged into the dusty ground. Even as his body rolled down half a turn, Tarhan wrapped his arms around the meat in front of his eyes. He just curled up his body like a maggot. Soon, indiscriminate kicks poured down.

“Die, die! You filthy Cartantina blood! How dare you break Haron’s second cousin’s nose?”

“This slug-like kid! Go to hell…!”

His flesh was split, and his back ached. In pain, as if his whole body was about to burst apart, Tarhan held on to the meat to death.

It wasn’t until every man there kicked him at least once that it was over.

As he lay still on the ground until they all went back, he got up slowly, and with his creaking body, he trudged toward the house with a bag of garbage-like food in his hand. It felt like the road in front of him was collapsing with every step he took. It seemed that he would not be able to complain if a downpour came down right now and wiped out his lowly body.

When his gaze suddenly turned and looked at the river, his eyes trembled.

He immediately had the urge to take off this nasty body and throw himself into the river. However, every time that happened, the image of his mother, who would be waiting for him at home, flickered in front of his eyes.

Tarhan spit out Cartantina’s swear words and started moving again.

Then, he felt a gaze behind his back. He seemed to know who it was without having to check. It was that girl again.

At that moment, an unknown source of anger and sadness surged all at once. He couldn’t be more angry to see that girl on his way home after being scorned and ridiculed, trudging back with some barely garbage to feed his mother.

It was a shame.

It was an irrational feeling that he himself couldn’t understand. It was always like that when he saw that girl. The pride that he didn’t even know remained in him kept swelling abruptly.

‘D*mn it…’

He couldn’t handle it.

Was it possible to feel this kind of emotion in the current situation? Tarhan whirled around to pick up a stone and tossed it at random, screaming.

“Get lost! I have no pity to give you…!”

When the girl quickly hid behind a tree, the sight of her staring at him again made him angry again for no reason.

‘The girl who makes everything go wrong. D*mn girl. This vicious girl who only upsets people’s hearts. Dangerous, drying people’s blood…’

Even after pouring out all kinds of curse words, his anger did not subside.

He was furious and kicked the rubble around him with rage filling his head. Then, thinking that the girl might still be watching from behind the tree, he suddenly decided that this time, he had to chase the girl off completely out of sight.

He would firmly educate her not to do such useless things.

With such determination, he turned his head to look back, but something was lying in the empty path where the girl should be. The moment he saw it, Tarhan felt his entire body lose strength.

It was a bundle of carefully steamed rice placed on a large leaf.

‘…The girl must have left it.’

He sat down. With mixed feelings, he wiped his dust-stained face with his two hands.

‘She left it for me…?’

He felt a surge of emotions that I couldn’t explain.

It was so raw that he didn’t think he could handle it with a sober mind. At the same time, an inexplicable sense of shame came over him. He didn’t even know, so he threw a stone at the thought of chasing the girl.

He gritted his teeth.

It felt like the bottom of his heart was exposed.

How far did he have to be dragged down to feel better? As he picked up the steamed rice, to his surprise, his stomach was growling. Even after going through that, his stomach was clamoring for food.

Tarhan grabbed the rice and shoved it into his mouth. It wasn’t even a handful. The girl was sure to starve for three or four days just to give this to him.

‘Stupid girl.’

As he took the grain of rice off his mouth and swallowed it, he spat out a curse in his heart. However, his mood was running in the opposite direction.

It was a feeling he had never experienced before.

I felt as if his heart had become as fragile as a raw liver in his hand… like the soft, brittle flesh of a lamb. Like a baby’s finger that has never had a callus. It was as if his raw, bloodied flesh had been exposed to the girl. He couldn’t stand it at all.

Tarhan grabbed his daily wage and started running.

It started raining incessantly. It didn’t take long for the heavy raindrops to hit his bruised arm, shoulder, and leg mercilessly. He thought as he ran.

‘I’m only thinking about my mother now. A man from Cartantina never abandons his family. No matter what happens…’

…Even if he lived like this?

He knew that no one could answer that question. Even so, Tarhan woke up every morning and made a resolution before going to bed.

“Please take care of your mother, Tarhan.”

One last promise that couldn’t be kept. That was all he could do for his family when he didn’t even have the strength to die. Many of his family members died right in front of his eyes. Now there were only two of them.

Even so, his mother was not completely intact in body and mind.

He remembered the happy times, yet they seemed like a very distant past. Stone skipping with his brothers in the shallow waters. The image of his sister wiggling his hair out of his neck, trying to braid his hair that didn’t even reach the nape of his neck.

In fact, he wanted to give up on everything. He wanted to quit.

He wanted to abandon his mother and run away to the forest alone. At the same time, the feeling of self-hatred and self-defeating that he couldn’t help rushed at him like a tidal wave.

‘…Everybody here is crazy. I’m crazy, too. I must be crazy.’

He cried to himself as he ran. It was like following the way of the Cartantina and abandoning the spirit of another Cartantina. He had known the truth for a long time. A long time ago… that he didn’t deserve it.

From the moment he lost his family, from the moment he couldn’t protect it, he was already a failure.

He didn’t even deserve to be sad.