Transmigrated into a Female-Oriented Card Game - C.329

Lydon flew out of the forest, away from the warriors, carrying Mino in his arms. If the humans hadn’t set foot in the forest yet, a fight could have been avoided. Flying at full speed, Lydon’s face was contorted with urgent fear.

Cadel, flying ahead of Lydon with the same anxiety, soon saw what he feared.

‘No…….’

They had already crossed the entrance to the forest and were advancing inexorably toward the inner forest, and Lydon’s expression turned to dismay as he caught sight of them. Mino’s parents had apparently hired mercenaries as well as villagers. Flimsy swords and slow-moving rocks streaked across the sky. Mino could hear voices calling his name through the rising curses of the humans.

Clinging to Lydon’s arms, his eyes squeezed shut from the fast flight, Mino responded to the voice calling to him. The child quickly found his father in a crowd that must have numbered well over twenty, and when he recognized the familiar face he hadn’t seen in days, he tried to make his presence known.

“Oof! Oof!”

“You can’t get caught.”

Lydon cut off Mino’s cry, it was too late to give him to the humans now, they were already in the eyes of the warriors.

“Kill the invaders! Charge!”

With a curt command, a torrential downpour of ice spears fell upon the humans. It was a coordinated spell that Cadel and Lydon had narrowly avoided with Lydon’s illusion, and there was no way a few clumsy mercenaries could shake it off.

The screams of those who failed to dodge the attack echoed through the forest. Ice spears that narrowly missed tearing off limbs, blocking their paths, and knocking them to the ground.

Fairies in the Forest of Illusions are twice as powerful. A place where even the most skilled knight could not guarantee survival. Even the long past was unlikely to change that.

“Ooof! Oof! Ugh…!”

Mino struggled to his feet as he watched people fall to the ground below him. His horrified gaze turned to his father, crouched behind a tree, narrowly escaping the attack, a scene too brutal for a child to watch.

‘There are no fairies here who will side with humans. No one will be able to protect those people, so…….’

Cadel shifted his view as he watched them fight, wondering if all the humans who came to save Mino would die here. Lydon was descending, his face rigid as he stared at the one-sided battle between the fairies and humans.

As he set Mino down on the ground, the panicked child shuddered and spoke as if in a seizure.

“My, my father… Lydon, my father……!”

“Go outside.”

“Save my father! He, he’s going to die!”

“If you run straight this way, you can get out, because right now you can probably get out on your own.”

“But my father!”

“If you keep making noise, I’ll kill you all.”

“Ah…….”

Lydon’s eyes were as cold as ever as he held Mino in his gaze, and as if intimidated by his icy gaze, Mino flinched and backed away a little.

“Run. I’m going to kill you if you run the other way, so you better keep your eyes straight ahead.”

“Why, why are you acting so scary?”

“Go.”

Lydon took a threatening step forward, and Mino hesitated, then turned and ran. When Lydon realized he was completely out of range, he took a deep breath. He opened his clenched hand and looked into the white palm, his fingertips trembling slightly.

Cadel wanted to reach out and touch it, but all he could do was watch as Lydon took to the sky again.

“I was going to let him go after just one day. You could have waited just one more day. I won’t eat your son. I’m not going to hurt him, I just…… wanted to talk to him a little bit more.”

The forest below him was a mix of bitter chill and hot blood. Lydon slowly raised his hand, his eyes taking in the sight of the humans on the ground.

“You’re all idiots. If it’s a land inhabited by idiots like you, it must be boring.”

Slowly, palms facing each other, Lydon began to channel his mana. In an instant, the ice crystals swirled and enveloped Lydon. The blizzard of crystals quickly grew in size.

“……It’s obvious even if I don’t look at it.”

A blue magic circle surrounded the vortex, rising one after the other. Cadel was stunned to see it.

‘This couldn’t have been what Lydon did outside…….’

A great spell that froze an entire empire. Cadel wondered if he intended to unleash the same magic here.

‘If he does that here, the other fairies will freeze too.’

The warriors attacking the humans slowed as if sensing the chill that was amplifying by degrees. The bodies of the sprawled humans froze, and a blizzard of snow seeped between the two races, obstructing their vision. The chill on their flesh struck fear into the hearts of humans and fairies alike.

Cadel was at a loss for words, even though it was a thing of the past that he could do nothing to stop. He feared for the lives of the other fairies and humans, but more than that, he worried about Lydon’s condition as he forced himself to maintain the creaking great spell. He was a young fairy, no matter how gifted a magician he was. Casting this level of magic would be too much for his body.

And just like that, the wings froze and the screams of the falling warriors followed.

‘Lydon!’

A flash of light knocked Lydon to the ground.

Rumble!

A dull thud echoed off the ground, kicking up dust. Cadel quickly shifted his vision to look for Lydon. Pushing his way through the thick dirt, he soon saw Lydon’s form lying on the ground, and above him, a figure that had never before appeared in Lydon’s past.

Hyron. The Fairy King.

“Lydon.”

Hyron asked harshly, tightening his grip on the nape of Lydon’s neck.

“Answer me. What were you thinking when you unleashed that magic?”

Lydon didn’t seem surprised by his father’s sudden appearance; he remained silent, his mouth closed, as Hyron slowly descended from his son’s upper body.

But before Lydon could raise his freed body. An icy grip appeared out of thin air and snatched Lydon up. The grip on Lydon forced him to face Hyron.

Facing Hyron head-on, Lydon bit his lip hard. Hyron was giving him a cold, hard stare that made Cadel shudder as he watched.

“I don’t want to hold your little friend hostage, so you’d better answer.”

Hyron seemed to already be aware of Mino’s presence, and for good reason. He could see every inch of the forest through the crystal ball in his castle.

At the mention of Mino, Lydon’s mouth dropped open. He stared down for a long moment, delaying his answer, and only muttered when blood began to trickle from a cut he’d received earlier on the ground.

“I was trying to stop the fight.”

“For whom?”

“…….”

Lydon was silent again. Hyron didn’t paddle him anymore. Instead, he slapped him hard across his son’s bruised cheek.

Lydon’s expression didn’t change as he took the slap hard enough to turn his head, only Cadel, who was watching in horror, cursed at Hyron.

“This is the home of the fairies. In this wide world, only this forest, only the Forest of Enchantment, is a place where we can live our full lives, Lydon. Once again, the invaders are human.”

“…….”

“You should have fought for your people, used your magic to defend them. Our power is for our struggle, not to protect the invaders.”

Hyron’s grip on Lydon tightened slightly, and the more he did so, the more his eyes sank. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t make a face, but in doing so, he revealed a great deal of anger.

“Did you think saving a human would allow you to see the outside world? Did you think that child would show you the sea?”

“……We promised, I’ll just be out of the forest in a day or so……!”

“You can’t go out.”

“Why? Because I’m a descendant of the Fairy King? Because I have to carry on the family name?”

“Because there is a seal on you. You will never be free even if you leave this forest. You will never be able to protect yourself from the humans who seek you. If you leave this forest, you will die in persecution, unprotected by anyone. And your death will not end with you. If you die, the children of the Pinhai Tribe will also die.”

Hyron’s bloodshot eyes glittered as he spoke. His grip tightened, threatening to crush Lydon at any moment.

“And yet you want to go out, trusting the promise of a young human who doesn’t even understand why his father is being attacked here?”

“I…….”

“If you must go, Lydon, exterminate your people with your own hands. Kill them all for your freedom and leave. Can you do that?”

It was extreme discipline, and while he understood why it was necessary, Cadel couldn’t hide his disturbed feelings. He saw the despair in Lydon’s eyes.

“……I can’t.”

The gloomy answer finally caused Hyron’s grip on Lydon to loosen. As Lydon dropped to the ground and struggled to center himself, Hyron, who had risen into the air, spoke low.

“I’ll send the surviving humans back. I hope you don’t make the same mistake twice, Son.”

Now Lydon was out of the forest and experiencing the world with his whole body. He had learned the truth about the ocean he had always wanted to go to, and he was slowly fitting in with the world, discovering new candies, new countries, and new people.

But that was only for a little over two years. It was a fraction of a second compared to the years Lydon had been trapped in the forest, driven insane by the excruciating loneliness and boredom, and it broke Cadel’s heart.

Back at the hideout, Lydon sat with a grim look on his face, hugging his knees. There was a muffled murmur nearby as if Hyron was sorting things out, but Lydon didn’t even turn his head in that direction, just stared at the ground with clouded eyes.

He did not cry. In Cadel’s presence, he was quick to cry, quick to sulk, quick to bring tears to the corners of his eyes at the slightest injustice. But when it came time to genuinely grieve, Lydon didn’t cry; he simply choked up numbly, as if all emotion had been drained from him.

‘……Lydon.’

Cadel called his name over and over, even though he knew Lydon couldn’t hear him. Cadel wanted to promise him again and again, to keep him from losing hope, to keep him from being devoured by the bleak future.

But Cadel’s desperate promises never reached him, and Lydon remained frozen in place for more days than he could count. Only after the sky changed color, the sun set, the moon rose, the moon set, the sun rose, and so on and so forth, did Lydon slowly raise himself, thinner than he had been at first.

A faint glimmer of color returned to his dry eyes. Under the dusky dawn sky, Lydon staggered out. Cadel followed silently, suddenly sensing something was amiss.

‘Isn’t this the way out?’

He was walking toward the entrance to the forest. Perhaps he was trying to get out of the forest, but it was unlikely he would succeed, and he might be caught by Hyron or Mephis.

Lydon’s expression was stubborn, even strangely desperate. Cadel continued to follow him, unable to resolve his anxiety.

Without further ado, Lydon arrived at the entrance to the forest, tiptoeing right up to it, using the trees at the entrance as a boundary. Lydon stared out at the plains in the distance, then slowly shifted his gaze. A rustling sound came from the direction his head turned.

‘That’s…….’

It was Mino. Like Lydon, he was at the entrance to the forest, but unlike Lydon, who had his feet inside, he was standing outside the forest.

Mino looked just as shy as Lydon. Cadel didn’t know exactly what had happened to Mino and the other humans, as his vision was focused on Lydon, but the child must have had a difficult time.

They locked eyes without speaking. Lydon looked into Mino’s bloodshot eyes, and Mino looked back and forth between Lydon and the forest beyond. They stared at each other for a few moments, as if in a confrontation, before Lydon spoke.

“Show me the sea.”

His voice was hoarse from not speaking for so long. With a look of impatience on his face, Lydon reminded Mino of their promise.

With those few words, Mino’s expression changed. His rigid face contorted, flushing red with what he didn’t know whether anger or humiliation. Squaring his shoulders, Mino swung the fist he had been clenching the entire time.

The fist didn’t reach Lydon, but what was in it struck him squarely in the head.

“…….”

It was a stone. A small, sharp-edged stone. A thin trickle of blood ran down his brow, etched into the stone. Despite the trickle of blood running down his eyelids, Lydon stared at Mino without expression.

“Keep your promise.”

Mino cursed in a repetitive dry voice and threw another rock. Lydon didn’t dodge, so a new wound opened up on him.

“My father still hasn’t woken up. Uncle Timbo is badly hurt, and Brother Eric is dead. All because of you!”

“You said you’d show me.”

“If only you hadn’t dragged me into the forest! If only you’d let me go back!”

“Was it a lie?”

“You are a monster! A monster! Because you’re a monster, you have to be locked up in a place like that. Stay there for the rest of your life and never come out! No one wants you out!”

The little hand eagerly picked up a new stone and threw it away. The sharp edge scratched Lydon’s cheek, scratched his forehead, hit his head, and hit him in the eye. Lydon covered his injured left eye and muttered softly.

“……It was really a lie.”

Cadel thought Lydon would fight back. Even though the other person was a child, he was still a human being, and Lydon was deeply heartbroken. He kept getting beaten and there was no reason to put up with it.

“Let them live, you monster! Let the humans live!”

But Lydon didn’t fight back. Without even the slightest threat, he turned and walked back into the forest, undeterred by the stones that continued to fly at his back. It wasn’t until Mino’s voice faded into the distance, and the stones stopped coming from every direction, that Lydon stopped dead in his tracks.

After days and days of hardening his emotions inside, he could no longer hold them in once he realized that Mino had abandoned him.

Tears formed in the corners of his eyes as he trembled pitifully. Like a broken dam, the tears were unstoppable, seeping into the wounds that covered his face and staining the dirt. Lydon pitifully hunched his shoulders and wiped his damp face. He choked back a sob and grunted pitifully.

‘Please don’t cry.’

Cadel wanted to hug him, to hold him tight, to comfort the poor fairy, to tell him that he needn’t be heartbroken. He should have realized sooner that even a man who smiled all the time must also have such a lonely past. If he had, Cadel could have squeezed all his love out of him and flooded Lydon’s parched past. So that it would never dry up again, so that he wouldn’t have to fill the empty ground with his tears.

“Take me away…….”

Lydon closed his eyes tightly in prayer, his face damp with tears. And the sobbing wish dug into Cadel’s heart like a sledgehammer. I’ll take you somehow, I’ll take you outside, show you anything you want, make you feel anything you want. Cadel said it over and over.

But he was only a thorough observer. The scene before him slowly faded away. The sobs faded, the agonizing tremors faded, and soon Cadel’s vision flickered beyond the vague loneliness Lydon must have experienced.

「You have completed watching Lydon’s Memories – Past Story (favorability rating over 70).」

「Fatigue recovery is reduced by 50%. Be aware of your physical fatigue.」

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