Chương 73: A Breath Of Fresh Air

A pair of shoveled hands violently bursts out of the lake surrounding the faux Royal Castle and claws at the beachside before hauling its owner onto land. June's mouth agape, he slobbered without grace as he heaved for air. He opened his eyes and immediately let out a groaned yelp. It had been months since he had seen the light of day, or any light at all, in fact. He crawled onto his knees, shakily stood up, and let the sun kiss his face. He lifted his mole-like arms and screamed into the sky.

"FREEEDOOM!"

Silvester sat on the other side of a giant hollowed tree from June. Silvester sharpened a large stick with long strokes. It had been a week since he reunited with June. The room quietly echoed as disjointed wood-pecking resounded around the hollow tree. As much as Silvester quietly hated June, he was happy he wasn't dead.

'June's been acting strange.'

'After we met again at the abandoned training grounds, he slowly stopped talking.'

'Now, he's just staring at the wall with blank eyes.' When Silvester and June rejoined, June didn't bother closing his eyes anymore. They no longer emitted a blinding beam of gold and now simply glowed. Silvester quietly disliked June. He had a hatred for monsters. When he was 15, his home was destroyed by monsters, his family, his siblings, and his neighbors, too.

When he escaped, he eventually found his way down the mountain where his birthplace was located and found a small village where he met Eren, Ann, and her sister. Ann, her sister, and Eren were raised together. Eren had lost his mother from birth, and Ann's mother was his surrogate until he weaned. And when Eren lost his father to an illness when he was 13, he engrossed himself in his hunting. He lived on his own as a hunter in a cabin that was not too far from the village.

When Silvester fled down the mountain, he bumped into Eren, and by some odd fate, they had become like brothers over the years. They ate together. They bathed together. They hunted together. They lived together. It was also through Eren that Silvester met Ann and her sister, who was his first love. He lived with Eren, helping him out of his reclusiveness. He lived in the village for 4 years and on his 19th birthday…

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Silvester pushed the sharpening rock through the wood.

"tsk" He looked at the split wood and crushed it in his hand. He knew June wasn't a monster. He knew June wasn't a bad person. He even felt bad for June; he looked at him and saw a naive fool who pretends to be the fool for Brighthaven's sake. The problem was that June was a flesh-shaper. Silvester had only met one flesh-shaper before. Ann's sister was one. Eren didn't know, nor did Ann or anyone else. He only learned that she was a flesh-shaper the day she and everyone else in the village died.

Silvester grabbed an ornate stick with a torn rope hanging from its tips.

'I need a new bowstring; sinew might work for now.' The nightrealm had both harmless creatures and harmful ones. It entirely depended on location; some continents' most dangerous creature could be a tiny bird the size of a child's fist that pecks you with a fuzzy beak, and another continent's most harmless creature could be a turtle the size of a house with an appetite for blood. And then there were nightmares.

Where creatures had a species and a root they evolved from or spawned from, nightmares were one of a kind; they were almost as rare as flesh-shapers, and even though the coalition had hundreds of kingdoms with trillions of people, there were only under 60 known flesh-shapers to date. Nightmares were considered hellspawn that demons told bedtime stories about.

Sometimes, they manifested as sleep paralysis creatures to expand their influence; the more people who knew of a singular nightmare's existence made it stronger. They appear inexplicably and suddenly, they often have a strong behavioral trait, making many carry an eccentric intelligence, some may tear toes from their victims, some may kidnap children to raise them, others might compulsively make every door in their senses ajar instead of open or closed.

One day, Silvester had called out Ann's sister to profess his love. He was sure it wasn't a one-sided love. But the second he got there, the village was attacked, and he ran back. Eren was knocked out, and Ann had gone catatonic. Everybody had died. Ann's mother was torn in two; her entrails marred the cobble path in front of their quaint home. Her father was on the ground; flowers made of his own flesh sprouted from his body like mold. A nightmare made of clouds twisted its body into beasts.

It had no eyes or details; it loosely resembled their limbs and shape. But one piece of detail never changed about the beast. It looked like its body was made of sky, and clouds always had teeth, and the teeth would always arrange into a grin. Silvester snapped out of his memory when June tapped him on the back. He turned around.

"What?" June tore a piece of his ragged shirt off and presented it.

"You look like you're about to cry. Want me to step out?" Silvester looked at the immaculate man in the eyes; the fact that he could see June's eyes threw him off. He nodded his head.

"N-no." June craned his neck to the side to let out a couple of cracks.

"You want to talk about it?" Silvester pursed his lips.

"Sure."

"I was thinking about my first love, about how she died specifically." June's mouth fell agape, and his eyes narrowed.

"Oh…" June reluctantly patted Silvester on the back.

"I'm not good with words; I'm better at listening." June sat behind Silvester, pressing his back against his. Silvester took the silence as a go-ahead.

"She was a flesh-shaper."

"She was Ann's sister. I am not going to say her name; it makes it feel real then."

"…"

"I lost my first home, and then I met Eren and Ann, and her."

"A couple of years after they took me in, Eren and Ann lost everyone to""…"

"Are you going to say anything?" June shifted a little behind Silvester.

"I'm listening." A silence wrung out before June said something again.

"I know what it's like to lose people too… recently too."

"I may not have known them for as long as you did, but I understand a little." Silvester took a long breath; June's back was warm against his. He felt mixed feelings when it came to June. He hated how he refused Ann's love; he didn't shut her down and he didn't do anything wrong. He also respected him; he had been a guiding light to everyone in Brighthaven and to Ann. After her family died, she had closed herself off from others; she fell in love for the first time, and she expressed some form of happiness.

Silvester had a feeling that June knew about Ann's emotions and did his best to reject them without hurting her feelings, but at the same time, unless he played the villain and hurt her with a direct answer, her emotions would continue to linger. Silvester had a lot of nitpicks about June, but at the same time, he reminded him of his first love. Both were flesh-shapers, both had similar personalities, and both were selfless to a fault. Silvester let out a long sigh. He was happy he was no longer alone.

He spent 3 months alone, hiding and recuperating after an injury. He was no longer able to run due to a cut he received on his leg; his bow's string had been torn, and after he was exposed, he was hunted for weeks before the army regrouped.

"June…. Do you think Brighthaven is alright?" The sound of teeth gritting against each other came from behind Silvester. June exhaled.

"We have a new mission, Silvester."