Love Letter From The Future

Chapter 319: Bread and Dagger (17)

The barren land was cold and dark.

The land, cursed by the Evil God, could not nurture any life. In order to survive, one had to adapt to the extreme cold and hunger.

All creatures of the coniferous forest followed the laws of the Evil God Omeros.

The strong devoured the weak and the weak deceived the strong. In the fight to survive, violence and struggle never ceased.

There was no place for morality or justice in this merciless law of survival.

Those who failed to adapt to the ways of the North were eliminated and their corpses became someone’s meal.

There were no exceptions to this endless cycle.

When the Yurdina family, the rulers of the North, arrived in these lands, they embodied its laws.

That was how humanity ruled the continent.

They were a species with higher potential and more adaptable than any other.

After a long war, even the Elves had no choice but to acknowledge human superiority.

Cruel and wicked they may have been, but they were strong.

They did not even hesitate to abandon their beliefs and traditions in order to survive.

The Elves, driven to the edge of the steep cliff of survival were ultimately forced to make a choice.

Will they face extinction as they are, or will they mimic the humans they despised so much?

In truth, there was only one choice to be made.

Only those choosing the latter would survive.

Forging their destiny was a privilege of the living.

And they also were the ones who had to bear the weight of that tenacious life.

In the middle of the coniferous forest, torches were lined up side by side.

The expressions of those standing post holding the torches that illuminated the surroundings were uniformly grim. Each time the reddish glow of the flames flickered, their somber gazes spread into the void.

Their ears were all pointed.

They were Elves who were driven to the North.

Surrounded by the group was a man, noticeable for the hideous burn marks marring his body.

His skin was so fused together that even guessing his age was impossible.

Forcing his half-stuck eyelids open, the man shouted.

“Oh, everyone... Thank you for joining us in this painful ritual once again today. Unfortunately, we are trapped in a prison called the body. The soul granted to us by the Heavenly God is free but we, bound by this shell known as the body, are in such great pain and suffering.”

He continued his speech in a sorrowful tone.

His old, tattered priestly robes fluttered in the night wind. One might think the biting northern gales would chill him to the bone, yet he showed not the slightest sign of discomfort.

No—perhaps it was the opposite.

The burns and melted skin etched across his body gave him a perpetually pained expression. Since he was in constant agony, perhaps he didn’t even register the new pain.

What best reflected his inner feelings was his voice.

His charred flesh and skin no longer functioned properly.

He continued speaking in a voice steeped in despair.

“We are sinners! Because of our sins, we are trapped in these bodies and suffer to pay for them... The reason we continue to live is to be forgiven for the sins we committed against the Heavenly God. Only after atoning for all our sins will we reclaim the true freedom of our souls!”

As his speech went on, the Elves’ gazes lowered further and further.

The sight of the bowed Elves resembled tombstones in a graveyard. A sad and solemn ritual was unfolding amidst the blizzard.

It was then that the man raised the torch he held high.

He seemed poised to offer a prayer.

Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Yet at times, the will of the Heavenly God is like a blade, bringing upon us agonizing trials... But it’s alright. Pain is brief, while happiness is eternal. If enduring all the suffering in life would ultimately bring us greater happiness, then we must save our brethren!”

With those words, he aimed the torch toward something.

Then, another figure, previously hidden in the darkness, was revealed.

It was of an Elf, trembling with fear.

Unlike his usually beautiful kin, this one was hunched with a protruding lump that gave him a rather shabby appearance. Even at glance, he seemed to have difficulty moving.

Behind him, a female Elf who seemed to be his mother was quietly sobbing with her eyes closed.

The hunchbacked Elf with a seemingly impaired intellect couldn’t even manage to utter coherent words

“Uh, ah... M-Moth-er. I-I’m sc-scare...”

In the end, the female Elf could no longer bear it and collapsed.

Crack, Snap.

Sounds of the Elf’s corpse crumbling and being absorbed as nutrients echoed. It was as though a bell had tolled, making several Elves urgently lift their heads.

In mere seconds, a small grotesque tree had sprouted.

It looked as if a living being’s body had been twisted into a perverse work of art. But none of the Elves present paid any mind to that.

They were solely fixated on the lumps of flesh that were hanging from the tree.

The man watched the tree with a vacant gaze for a while, then let out a long sigh and spoke.

“...You may eat.”

And then with steady footsteps, he walked away.

The Elves slightly hesitated at first.. No matter how desperate they were, it was hard to reach out to a tree that grew from consuming a corpse of their own kind.

But the moment someone’s stomach growled loudly— they turned into starving beasts and rushed towards the tree. They didn’t care as chaos erupted amongst them.

Even the hunchbacked Elf’s mother wiped away her tears and stood up.

Leaving behind the chaos of that midnight, the man shed yet another tear.

“Immanuel...”

The northern night still had a long way to go.

**

On the night I interrogated Aviang, I received a letter from Senior Delphine.

Its contents were brief and straightforward.

‘Help me.’

I silently gazed down at those words before leaving my room once more.

Aviang’s tearful plea weighed on my mind.

The Elf girl had wept as she pleaded.

‘The Elves, we Elves are going mad... If I don’t send the money, they’ll kill my younger sibling too! Because the cult sacrifices the most useless Elves first...’

Did Aviang also have a younger sibling?

For some reason, her image seemed to overlap with Ned’s, leaving me uneasy. It was an utterly pointless sympathy.

Aviang was an Elf and an enemy of the Empire.

Therefore, she was also my enemy. She was someone I shouldn’t recklessly sympathise with.

I knew that.

I knew it, but couldn’t stop her image from lingering in my mind.

In the end, I decided to clear my mind by swinging my sword.

I have undergone relentless training since childhood.

So naturally, I only knew how to ease my mind through physical exertion. For me, wielding a sword was both training and a hobby.

However, as I stepped out of the room, an unexpected visitor greeted me.

“......Senior Ian”

It was a girl, still wrapped in bandages here and there.

I could now recognize her by her grey hair alone. She was my cherished junior, and an illegitimate daughter of the Yurdina family—Seria.

Before I could offer her a concerned greeting—

“May I ask you for guidance in a match?”

Seria politely bowed her head as she made the request, and I couldn’t help but pause for a moment.

Her aquamarine-like eyes were filled with determination.

Looking back, how long had it been since I last crossed swords with her?

I recalled being utterly defeated before. Although I managed to land a hit at the very end, the overall result was my overwhelming loss.

So then, what about now?

I couldn’t suppress the fierce smile creeping onto my face.

It wasn’t the expression I should have shown in front of my injured junior, but I replied in a sharp voice.

“......Alright, let’s have a match.”

It felt like perfect timing, given how unsettled I was.

After all, there was no better way to clear a swordsman’s mind than combat.