The somber forest smelled bloody, yet had a smell that Eugene had missed. Ciel, who had been following Eugene, was nowhere to be seen now. He couldn’t even see the people who had entered the forest before him.

He took a look around. Ten minutes had passed since he had entered the forest after passing the Red Boulder. However, Eugene felt as if he had been inside for longer than that. The forest was so dense that it looked as if he had already reached the center.

In a forest like this, he had to be wary of these kinds of illusions. Eugene felt something different in the air, something that seemed to stick to his airways every time he breathed. It wasn’t mana or a primal spirit.

“…It’s a sweet old memory.”

Three hundred years ago, Helmuth had been a terrible hell, but Hamel had gotten most of his good memories precisely in that terrible hell.

He had lived half of his past life in Helmuth. As a survivor of a monster attack, he had spent his teenage years as a mercenary, blindly trying to get revenge. Thus, he had little to show in terms of good memories; if he really had to pick something, it would be the memory of his first murder, or maybe the first time he had finished a quest on his own.

‘I guess I can’t really call those things memories to reminisce about.’

Eugene smirked as he took a step forward. As if it had been waiting for him, something popped up from underneath his feet. It was an ambush, but the signs were obvious. Whoever failed to avoid this obvious ambush clearly had some sort of problem.

Thump! Using the step forward as momentum, Eugene kicked the attacker. The thing that had tried to drag Eugene into the shadow was a scrawny black hand.

“Wow…” Eugene smiled as he lowered his body.

Seemingly flustered, the black hand crawled toward the darkness. However, Eugene’s hand was much quicker at catching it than the black hand was at escaping.

“This really reminds me of the old days.” 

The thing he had just dragged out of the darkness looked nothing like a monster, much less a demonic beast....