“Hurry up Han Wol! The commander will be furious if he finds out we’re lagging behind!”

As I turned toward the source of the voice, what greeted me was a young man who looked as though he was around sixteen years old. He had short golden hair that was cut in army regulation and seemed to make his blue eyes stand out even more on his small oval face. He was clearly one of those types that girls went crazy over.

Contrary to his pretty face, he wore a beat up set of silver armor that was filled with scratches and dent. On his left hand he carried a large tower shield with a silver cross design. Like the armor he wore, there were scratches and dents all over the shield and made one wonder whether it would break apart on the next hit. In his right hand was a seven foot long spear.

Clive Gamble was one of my friends ever since we were little kids. Even when we were young and at the orphanage, Clive always caught the attention of all the females with his handsome face and tall height which now was over six feet. As I saw his frantic facial expression, the corners of my lip slowly raised up.

“Calm down Clive, they’re only fifty feet ahead of us; we can catch up to them in five seconds. Anyways, more importantly, don’t you think the number of beasts in this Merwood Forest is unusually high this year? We’re only at the edge, but we’ve already ran into over a hundred of them!”

Merwood Forest was located in the southernmost portion of the Freya continent within the Leonel Kingdom. Every year, the kingdom would send out a company of soldiers to the forest to clean all the beasts out so that they would not overpopulate and attack the nearby villages and towns. For Clive and I, who were now eighteen, this was already their third such campaign. The last two weren’t so bad as the monsters were spread out throughout the forest but the one they were on at the moment was abnormal as they had killed over a hundred just on the outskirts. The state of Clive’s and his equipment was testimony to how fierce the battles were.

“Han Wol, doesn’t it feel as though all the beasts in the forest have migrated to the outskirts? In the other campaigns, we never met any beasts that were over rank two, but we’ve already ran into a couple of rank threes and even a rank four beast! This is the first time I’ve heard that anyone ran into a rank three beast at the outskirt of a forest.”

Clive voiced out my own concern. In all the places where beasts resided, the weaker beasts were always located at the outskirts. As you went further in, you would run into higher ranks until you met the strongest one in the middle, but the problem was that we’ve already ran into beasts who we shouldn’t have found until much deeper in the forest. This case was very unusual and gave me a bad feeling.

I contemplated the issue for a couple of minutes before the two of us ran and caught up to the company. As I looked around, everyone was in a less than ideal shape as all the armors showed proof of desperate fighting. The company made up of fifty personnel was reduced to forty two already. Everyone looked exhausted and you could see that hints of fear was appearing on the face of the soldiers.

After we marched for another thirty minutes, we ran into a new batch of beasts. A rank three wind wolf pack blocked our path as they bent their knees and growled at us, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. From behind me, our company commander yelled out orders.

“First rank, shields down! Second rank, stab at the wind wolves when they ram into the shield! Third rank, snipe those bastards down with arrows! Fire!”

As expected of a veteran company, all of us complied with the orders without a single hesitation. The rank in front of me slammed their shield down into the ground while the rank behind pulled their bow back and fired immediately. As the bowstrings vibrated from the force, arrows pierced through the air and into the pack of wind wolves. Soon afterwards, yelps floated through the air as some wolves cried miserably from the blows of the arrows. Infuriated at the loss of their comrades, the wolf pack charged.

“First rank, put your body into it! Don’t let a single wind wolf pass through! Second rank, if anybody in front of you falls, take their place! A hole in the wall cannot be allowed!”

Just as the commander finished his order, the first batch of wind wolves collided with the shield wall. The first rank, putting all their strength behind their shields, barely held their places while the others and I in the second rank stabbed through the openings at the wolves. As I stabbed with my sword, I could feel a solid contact as it ripped through the skin of one of the wolves.

“Han Wol! Let’s have a competition to see who kills more wind wolves. Loser buys drinks when we get back!”

As I turned to look at the speaker, a big grin appeared on Clive’s face and I swear I saw his eyes sparkling when he said drinks.

“Haa, you and trying to get free drinks. This time though, you’ll be the one paying!”

As I said that, I once more thrusted my sword forward and stabbed a wind wolf through the head, killing it instantly. For the next fifteen minutes, we continued to hold our formation and push back and kill the wind wolves. We had already killed over thirty of them but there was simply too many of them and it felt like an endless battle. During that time we also lost five more soldiers, which lowered our count to thirty seven.

Just as we thought that the battle would end though, it took a turn for the worse.

“UWAAAHH!!”

A distinct scream echoed through from behind me. Startled, I looked back to see a green panther biting down on one of the archer’s head. My face paled at the sight of the beast. The wind wolves, also noticing the panther, immediately began to flee in masses and were soon gone. I couldn’t really blame them for running though, if I could I wanted to also.

Green Lord Panther, a rank six panther. Unlike its more common rank four Black Panther brothers, they were in a different class. The Green Lord Panthers were known to be almost twice as fast as the speedy black panthers while being twice as big. Inside a forest, their patterned fur camouflaged them and most people wouldn’t notice them until they were right beside them. In the Merwood Forest, this Green Lord Panther was the king.

With a hide that a rank six knight can barely even put a scratch in, the Green Lord Panther has amazing resilience and defense. Their claws and teeth are also nothing to laugh at, as they can easily tear through steel. At that moment, the strongest person in our unit was the commander who was only at rank five so the company had no way to break through the panther’s hide.

When the kingdom dispatched a unit to dispose of a rank six monster, it was usually an elite knight company. A regular company like ours, especially with our strength already lowered to only thirty seven soldiers, were just no match against it. There was simply nothing we could do against it except die.

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The sight of the King of Merwood Forest created panic within our ranks. Everyone knew that there was no way we could handle a rank six beast. As the commander saw the panic spread through his unit’s rank, he yelled out an order that surprised all the soldiers.

“Company! On my command, everyone will disperse in all directions and exit the forest. There is no point for everyone to foolishly fight and die a meaningless death. This way, even though some of us will die, some of us will also survive. Whether you live or die will now be left to your own fate. The survivors will rendezvous at Windsor Village.”

I couldn’t help but feel admiration for the commander and his quick reaction to the situation. No one would have blamed him if he told us to fight against even though we knew we would die; we were all soldiers after all, but he made a tough decision to instead think of even saving even just one life. As I looked at my fellow soldiers, I could see grim determination to live through this on their faces.

“Clive, when the commander gives the command, let’s run toward the inside of the forest.”

“Han Wol, are you mad?! Why would we run in the opposite direction?”

Beside me, Clive’s face showed disbelief at what I said.

“You must have noticed Clive. All the beasts in the forest have migrated to the outskirts of the forest. There must be a reason why they fled from the middle of the forest. If we run that way, the Green Lord Panther probably won’t chase after us.”

“..Don’t you think that reason is also a reason why we shouldn’t go there either?”

“It’s a gamble. Like the commander said whether we live or die will depend on our fate.”

“Haa…Have I ever mentioned I hate when you gamble?”

“No, why?”

“Because seventy five percent of the time you’re on the wrong end of it.”

“….”

“Fine, we’ll do what you said. I swear if I die I’m going to come back as a ghost and haunt you for the rest of your….”

At that moment, the commander finally decided to give the command.

“DISPERSE!”

Right as he spoke, everyone split up and took several different routes out of the forest. At the sight of all the soldiers, the still panther finally took action as it leaped forward and ran after one the soldiers escaping. Thankfully, it didn’t even bother to look at Clive or I who went further into the forest.

Without looking back even once, we ran as though our lives depended on it, which to us it literally did. Little did we know that the Green Lord Panther actually looked at us after he caught a few soldiers and was about to chase after us until it noticed the direction we ran into. It’s face looked at us with an expression close to pity as though it saw something jump out of a frying pan but right into the fire. Without paying us any more attention, the panther went after it’s next prey.

After Clive and I ran for about an hour and the Green Lord Panther was nowhere in sight, we finally stopped and collapsed on the forest floor.

“Haa, Haa…. damn that was way too close Han Wol…”

“I told you it wouldn’t come chasing after us…See, this time it was that twenty five percent chance that saved us.”

When Clive heard my response, he rolled his eyes.

“Next time, let’s choose an action that’ll give us a higher chance of....”

“ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR”

As Clive was spoke, a roar filled with pain resounded through the forest. Startled, the two of us quickly rose to our feets and were on guard.

“What the hell was that?!?!”

“....I don’t know what kind of beast that was, but I think we just found out what caused all those beasts to flee to the outskirts….”

“.... I told you we shouldn’t have come this way Han Wol….”

“Shut it. Let’s go investigate. We need to figure out what kind of beast moved into this forest and report it to the kingdom.”

At my words, Clive groaned.

“You and your goddamn sense of duty….”

As he grumbled, he followed behind as I walked toward where I thought the roar came from. After we had traveled for close to twenty minutes we found the source. Even though it was in the clearing five feet ahead, neither of us dared to move forward.

In the clearing was the most beautiful yet most heart wrenching scene I have ever seen. The beast was covered with scales that seemed to be made out of crystal. They looked so pure and dazzling as the sunlight reflected off of them. The beast’s length was around ninety feet long and even though it was sprawled out on the ground it was still at least four times taller than I was at six feet tall. The two wings that popped out from its back were very long and looked similar to the wings of a bat.

It would have been a perfect image if not for all the wounds and blood on it. All throughout the beast’s body were deep claw marks from where blood was spilling out. On one of it’s wing a part of the membrane was missing, just as though something large had bitten through it. The beast’s breathing also seemed as though it was rough. The sight of such a beautiful beast being so severely injured broke my heart.

Even though I wanted to rush forward and help the beast out, my body didn’t feel like my own and I couldn’t move. Beside me, Clive also seemed as though he was frozen in place while he looked at the scene in front of us. Well, it isn’t too surprising when you know what kind of beast it was that was in front of us. This type of beast once ruled the world and was rumored to have powers that rivaled the Gods. These beasts were supposed to have been missing from this world for the past thousands of years.

It was a Dragon.

Now that I look back, I wonder what would have happened if at that time instead of moving forward, I had left with Clive. Would my fate have changed? Had I walked away, would I have been able to live a peaceful life? Maybe I wouldn’t have had to walk this path that was filled with blood. Who knows though? It’s too late to think of what could have or would have been. I just know that my fate and the path that I needed to walk was sealed with just one word.

’Human’