Chapter 30
Sunset glow was filtering into the rocky crevice.
Only perfect silence surrounded me.
I couldn't hide in this rocky crevice forever.
To avoid making a sound, I carefully parted the fallen leaves and slipped out.
Cold forest air brushed against my wounded skin.
The first thing I had to do was escape this horrific foreign sensation.
The two plugs embedded in my body were another brand constantly reminding me that my very existence belonged to him.
The pressure and twisting pain I felt whenever I moved too violently kept scattering my thoughts.
In this state, I could neither escape properly nor fight.
Fortunately, I wasn't far from the stream I had used to escape.
I staggered back toward the water.
There was no sign of anyone around the stream, either.
When I dipped my hands into the cold stream water, they felt as though they were freezing.
After rinsing the blood and dirt from my hands, I straightened my clothes as best I could and leaned against a rock where I could hide as much as possible.
I lowered my underwear and squatted down.
When I reached between my labia, a small ring announced its presence.
I drew a deep breath and hooked my finger through the ring.
“Ngh…!”
The thing Kaelan alone had touched all week.
At the thought of the pain from the beads as they gradually grew larger, cold sweat ran down my back.
But I had no time to delay.
Holding my breath, I slowly—very slowly—pulled out the beads.
Sharp pain, as intense as or worse than when they had gone in, pierced my entire body.
A groan escaped me as each bead scraped the inner wall of my urethra on its way out, but when the last bead finally came free, relief made my legs give out.
Urine I had been holding back gushed from my dilated urethral opening, but relief came before shame.
But one remained.
The anal plug.
The fist-sized, heart-shaped object was lodged deep inside me.
I tried to hook a finger around it and pull it free, but it repeatedly slipped from my grasp against the smooth ivory surface.
Even when I managed to grip the plug, my sphincter clenched reflexively and held it fast.
It only made the terrible pressure worse.
I had to get it out somehow.
It was impossible to travel any distance with this inside my body.
Still squatting, I strained my abdomen.
An instinctive motion to push out the foreign object.
A heavy, twisting pain surged from deep in my belly, as though the plug were pressing down on my organs.
My breath caught and my vision swam, but I couldn't stop.
After several attempts, the plug began to inch out amid horrific pressure.
Enduring the pain, I grabbed it with one hand and yanked; amid tearing pain, the heavy plug finally came completely free of my body.
The plug in my hand was lukewarm from my body heat, but its shape and weight remained horrific and alien.
I crawled out from behind the rock and lay facedown by the cold stream, panting raggedly.
The foreign sensation inside me was gone, but the space it had occupied remained horribly empty, filled with humiliations.
Faint blood seeped from the wounds scattered across my body.
I carefully washed the wounded areas with the stream water.
When I raised my head and looked at the sky, the sun was setting.
The blood-red sunset spilling through the branches was beautiful, unlike me.
Unlike the sun that would rise again tomorrow, could my ruined body and trampled dignity ever recover?
Even so, I had to stand.
Duchenne Viscounty.
Where Father was.
That faint hope drew me onward.
The direction the men had pointed to was clearly west.
West.
The direction of the setting sun. I had to keep going that way.
I had neither a water flask nor proper food.
All I had were torn clothes, a little money, and a bloodstained paper knife.
My bare feet were already covered in wounds.
But I had to reach Father.
I rose again and pulled the robe low over my head.
I began walking once more into the deep forest as darkness settled.
Before long, the sun had completely set.
Too many dangers lurked in the forest for me to keep moving through it in the dark.
But I couldn't risk lighting a fire with my pursuers liable to return at any time.
A tree.
Spending the night up there was my best option.
The darkness and the leaves would conceal me.
Just as I was searching for a suitable tree, I thought I heard the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance.
It wasn't my imagination.
The sound was drawing closer.
It was a relentless sound, as though several dogs, not one, were howling at their quarry.
Kaelan.
It was definitely Kaelan's doing.
His grasp, which I'd barely escaped, was almost upon me.
There was no time to find a hiding place.
I instinctively ran in the opposite direction from the sound.
I couldn't see the ground at my feet at all in the darkness.
My ankles kept twisting as though they would snap, and I repeatedly tripped over protruding roots.
When the torn hem of my robe caught on a branch and hampered me, I threw it away without hesitation.
Despite my efforts, the barking was drawing closer and closer.
The harsh rustle of crushed leaves and labored breathing sounded right behind me.
I leaped across a stream and slid down a steep slope.
Desperately, I wove between the trees through the pitch-black darkness where I couldn't see ahead.
My bare soles had already gone numb.
My lungs felt ready to burst, and pain throbbed throughout my body.
Then, right behind me, I heard a growl and felt something lunge for my leg.
I twisted reflexively and rolled to the side.
The black shape that had shot past me slammed its head into the tree ahead.
A wolf-sized, black-furred beast glared at me, its eyes gleaming in the darkness.
I hurriedly looked around, but saw no others besides that one.
It must have raced ahead.
My hand closed around the paper knife.
I could handle one.
I rose and adjusted my grip on the knife.
In contrast to my frantically pounding heart, my hand did not tremble.
That sensation—the one I'd felt countless times while facing death on the battlefield.
The black hound launched itself from the ground and charged at me.
Saliva dripped between its gleaming teeth.
Its body was airborne, leaving it at its most vulnerable.
I didn't let that moment pass.
Instead of retreating, I leaped forward.
The beast's jaws swept past my shoulder.
Its flank was exposed before me.
I drove the knife in with all my strength.
The short blade couldn't pierce deeply through the thick hide and muscle, but it was enough.
With a pained whine, the hound rolled across the ground.
The other hounds would surely come when they heard the cry.
Just as I turned to run again,
A sound slicing through the wind.
I had no time to think.
A violent impact reverberated through my thigh, as if I had been struck hard with a blunt weapon.
My breath stopped for an instant.
The feeling was familiar from memory but foreign to my body.
It was a sensation I had experienced countless times on the battlefield.
At once, I felt pain like a red-hot iron skewer piercing my flesh.
The sickening sensation of skin and muscle tearing as they resisted.
My skin tore.
My muscle split.
Bone was grazed.
Horrific searing pain.
“Nghh!”
I couldn't even cry out properly.
I felt the horrible foreign sensation of something hard and alien lodged deep in my thigh.
Pain as though my leg were twisting apart.
Something warm was running down my thigh.
The strength left my leg, and I crashed onto the cold fallen leaves.
The thigh I instinctively clutched had an arrow embedded in it.
I couldn't breathe properly from the intense pain—the first I'd felt in nearly a week.
Through my blurred vision, I saw someone approaching.
Navy-blue eyes.
A black silhouette.
A bow in his hand.
Kaelan.
The man had fired an arrow at me.
“That was a fine round, Aria. But now it’s time for the improvisation to end..”
He walked toward me and spoke gently.
His voice made it sound as if nothing had happened, as though he'd merely taken his pet dog for a casual walk.
But the arrow shaft lodged in my thigh told a completely different story.
In the end, I hadn't escaped him.
I realized Father was alive, but I hadn't been able to look for him.
His shoes entered my field of vision.
He knelt and stroked my head.
“Of course, we’ll have to correct you for improvising on your own. Don’t you agree, Aria?”
I had no attention to spare for his words.
Father was beyond this forest.
Father, alive.
I wanted to meet him one more time, even if only once, and tell him I was alive—and that I was sorry.
I wanted to feel Father's rough hands and warm embrace once more.
The hand I extended toward the west fell limply to the ground.
‘I’m sorry… Father… You were right beside me… I…’
My fingertips couldn't reach toward hope; they could only scratch helplessly at the dirt.
Kaelan's hand lifted me up.
My consciousness continued to recede.