At the End of the Ashen Forest, the Sage Learns of the Boy's Past Life
The continent's frontier, where the forest elves once flourished and are now said to have perished. The deep Ashen Woods spread everywhere, where miasma and beasts keep people away. Magic remains only as ancient relics and curses, never systematized. Villages are isolated, and the closed societies fiercely expel heretics. The village where the boy was born has a law to quarantine, not kill, the cursed children.
Sol, a boy with memories of a past life, has lived in lonely isolation as the cursed
At the End of the Ashen Forest, the Sage Learns of the Boy's Past Life - Took you long enough.
The mountain path at night lay sunken in cold, heavy darkness.
A single set of footsteps pressed forward, treading over earth and stone. Soru's arms were locked rigidly behind his back, bearing Efi's weight. From his fingertips to his shoulders, the lingering numbness still prickled gray. Even so, he could not let her fall.
*(This weight alone is proof that she's alive.)*
The breathing at his back was shallow, rapid. At times, it seemed to catch—thin and faint, as if about to break off entirely. Each time, Soru's heart clenched with a pain like being crushed in a fist.
The ridgeline of the Tolg Mountains had begun to rise faintly against the eastern sky.
He had no idea how far he had walked since then. The soles of his feet had long gone numb—he felt neither pain nor cold even when stepping on stones. His lips were dry and split, the taste of blood lingering in his mouth the whole way. His arms had become like wooden rods, his shoulders and lower back screaming in protest.
But he did not stop.
If he stopped, the breathing on his back would stop too. The thought alone drove his legs forward on their own. No—it wasn't his legs. His entire body seemed to be screaming: *Don't let it end here.*
*(That person said—)*
The sage's hermitage was to the north, past two streams, he had said.
He had crossed the streams long ago. How far north he had walked since then, he couldn't tell. Anything resembling a path had vanished; he had been forcing his way up slopes of rock and scrub. There was no moonlight, and his visibility extended only a single step ahead of his feet. Every breath drew the cold night air like needles into his lungs.
—Then.
His foot caught on something.
A tree root, or a crack in the rock. His knee buckled, and his body pitched forward. He barely managed to throw out one hand, dropping to his knee on the ground. On his back, Efi let out a small moan.
"...Sorry."
His voice was hoarse, barely stirring the air.
He raised his head.
Fog had risen.
Before he knew it, white mist was curling up from the ground, swallowing the surrounding landscape. It was thick enough to grasp, yet against his skin it was only cold, weightless. The presence of the mountain seemed to be dissolving into the mist, vanishing.
And beyond that fog—
—he saw it.
A tree.
A tree that was not dead.
It was not one of the thousands of dead gray trunks he had seen in the Ashen Forest. Black bark gazed silently down at him through the darkness of night. At the tips of its branches, leaves remained—faintly, unmistakably.
A living giant tree, untouched by miasma.
The instant he saw it, something dark swelled violently deep within Soru's chest.
—*Burning.*
At the edge of his vision, flames flickered.
No. That was the scene before him now. But beyond it, overlapping, he could see it: a giant tree engulfed in flames. A crown of branches snapping and collapsing. Black smoke covering the sky. Shadows of silver-haired figures fleeing in panic. Screams. Yes—this was the dream he had seen countless times—
"...gh."
Something rose from the pit of his stomach.
Soru, careful not to drop Efi from his back, slowly—yet unable to hold out—crumpled onto the earth. Both knees sank into the soil. Nausea pressed up the back of his throat. His vision spun. He couldn't breathe. Cold sweat ran down his back.
*(This place... I know it.)*
Know it? No. What he knew was not this tree. What he knew was the sight of this tree burning—seen in that dream, hundreds of times already.
Bile spread through his mouth.
"U...gh."
Without even the strength to vomit, Soru simply pressed his hands to the ground in agony. His fingers clawed at the soil. The cold touch of the earth pulled him back, just slightly, to reality.
*(No. Not now.)*
*(I have to save Efi.)*
Soru clenched his back teeth. The taste of blood in his mouth grew stronger. With that, he somehow forced his eyes open.
Three trees stood before him.
Beyond the curtain of fog, beneath an overhang of rock, there was a hermitage.
A small dwelling built of nothing but stone and wood. A faint light leaked from the window. Before the door, a small patch of packed earth lay open.
Soru rose on trembling legs.
*(Finally... we made it.)*
No—*we've arrived* was more accurate.
For some reason, his legs would not move. If he knocked on that door, something would end. Something would change, irrevocably. That premonition bound his body in place.
But.
At his back, Efi drew a short, sharp breath.
That sound moved his body.
He made it to the door and raised his still-numb hand. His fingers trembled with fear.
*Thud. Thud.*
He knocked twice.
The sound was swallowed by the fog, echoing strangely small.
For a while, silence.
The world was quiet, as if all sound had vanished.
—*Creeeak.*
The door opened.
A man stood there.
He was tall—more than a head taller than Soru. His long, ash-silver hair was tied back carelessly. Beneath his bangs, eyes the color of deep forest gazed down at him. Even in the darkness of night, it was clear: those pupils were a deep green that seemed to drink in the light.
His ears tapered slightly to points.
Silver hair. Deep forest-colored eyes, green mingled with amber. Pointed ears.
A forest person.
Before Soru could utter a word, the man—Sage Serundiru—dropped to one knee and looked down at Soru's mud-caked face, Efi still on his back.
And then.
"...So you've finally come."
A low, warm voice.
It was the voice of someone who had been waiting. Waiting for four hundred years, without cease.
Serundiru's lips relaxed, just slightly.
A smile.
But a cold thing raced down Soru's spine.
*(No.)*
He should be being welcomed.
*(This is wrong.)*
This smile was not the smile of one greeting a long-awaited guest.
It was the face of an executioner, seen for the first time by a criminal being led to the gallows. And that face was smiling. A smile like one gazing lovingly upon a blade sharpened over long years for this very day.
Neither joy nor mercy.
It was the quiet smile of one resolved—as an executor of fate.
Serundiru's gaze shifted to Efi on Soru's back.
In that instant, those deep forest-colored eyes wavered, ever so slightly.
"...Efi."
Serundiru murmured in a hoarse voice.
—This one, too, had been waiting.
"Come in. Quickly. Lay the child down."
Serundiru's voice sharpened abruptly. He leaned out from beside Soru and peered into Efi's face. Thinly closed eyelids. Lips drained of color. Her left wrist and below, discolored gray.
"...That fool. To have used this much."
With that, Serundiru turned and strode quickly toward the back of the hermitage.
Soru dragged his body inside.
The interior was larger than expected, and quiet.
At the back of the earthen floor stood a stone hearth, firewood burning red. Along the walls, wooden shelves rose in tiers, lined with what appeared to be countless books, bundles of dried plants, and small earthenware jars. From the beams near the ceiling hung dried tree roots and what looked like the bones of some creature. A faint scent of medicinal herbs and burnt candle wax drifted in the air.
Serundiru pointed to a wooden platform in the corner of the room.
"There. Lay her down gently."
Soru nodded and, with the care of setting a fragile object onto the floor, laid Efi onto the platform.
Efi's black robe was stained with blood and mud, smeared in places with gray powder. Her near-white ash hair clung to her forehead with sweat. With each exhale, her chest rose and fell shallowly, and each time her brow twisted with pain.
Serundiru took several dried leaves and small cloth pouches from the shelves. Then he crouched unceremoniously on the earthen floor and, with the tip of the dead-branch-like staff in his right hand, began swiftly tracing a pattern on the ground.
"Flame and pain are not needed here. ...Receive this."
He spoke as if murmuring, then dropped finely crushed herbs and blood from his own wrist onto the drawn circle.
The circle glowed a pale green.
The light slowly enveloped Efi's body, then faded as if seeping into the wounds of her internal organs.
After a while, Efi's breathing gradually deepened. The pained furrow between her brows relaxed, just slightly.
Serundiru rose quietly and looked at Efi's left wrist.
"The paralysis runs deep. It will not fully return. ...But her life is not in danger. You did well to bring her here."
Soru almost let out a sigh of relief, but he could not let the emotion show plainly on his face.
Efi's eyes opened, faintly.
Her golden left eye reflected Serundiru, unfocused.
"...Sei...ja."
A hoarse voice, barely more than escaping air.
And then, with an expression that was half tearful smile, half something like profound relief, she closed her eyes again.
Serundiru gazed at her face and let out a soft breath, as if chewing on something.
"This child, too, did well to make it here."
—Night.
Only the fire in the hearth illuminated the two men.
Serundiru sat across the fire, slowly making the motion of sipping hot water from a wooden bowl. In truth, the bowl was empty. Each of his movements was economical, yet quiet as prayer.
Soru sat hugging his knees.
The numbness in his arms had receded considerably. Strength was returning to his fingers. But deep within his body, the shock of seeing that tree in the fog still lingered raw. And then there was that smile Serundiru had shown.
*(I have to ask.)*
*(But I'm afraid to.)*
Who am I? Why do I keep dreaming of the forest people? What is the black stone charm?
He wanted to know the answers. From the bottom of his heart, he had always wanted to know.
But if he learned them, this time he would truly become "something." The vessel called "Soru"—a vessel that was nothing—would take on a definitive meaning.
Serundiru opened his mouth.
"You have journeyed long toward this place. Words of praise are unnecessary, I take it."
Soru could not say anything.
Serundiru, still gazing at the burning firewood, began to speak in a measured tone.
"It was about four hundred years ago. The seven-lord alliance of humans invaded the territory of the forest people. Conquest, plunder, terror. What they sought was the magical power of the forest people and the rich resources of the forests. ...No, that is not right. It was terror itself. An ineradicable terror of us forest people—a long-lived race so different from themselves—drove them to the battlefield."
Serundiru's voice was quiet.
"After fifteen years of war, the Holy City of Yursheira fell. The purifying flames unleashed by the allied forces burned our sacred tree, our city, our kin—all of it to ash. The blood of the silver-haired people flowed, staining the earth black. We who prided ourselves on longevity were dragged, one after another, into those accursed flames."
The fire in the hearth crackled.
"I survived. And then—neither swearing revenge, nor merely seeing off the deaths of my kin—I was kept alive, carrying a single doubt."
Serundiru looked at Soru.
"I had an enemy. On the battlefield, there was one soldier who pursued me relentlessly, me alone. With the victory cries of his comrades at my back, I fled—across fields, through forests, over mountains. I must not have been in my right mind then. It was neither revenge nor a thirst for life. I simply wanted to escape from that man's eyes."
Serundiru's fingers tightened quietly around the bowl.
"And then, I killed that man with my own hands."
Soru's fingertips trembled faintly.
"I slit his throat and stabbed his chest. I certainly stopped his breath. ...And yet, when I saw the light in that man's eyes at the end, I was seized by an inexplicable sense of déjà vu. I had seen those eyes before. From the distant past, when this forest was still green and our kin sang together—I had seen those eyes, somewhere, all along."
Serundiru exhaled deeply, once.
"...I have heard that humans believe in a concept called reincarnation. I laughed at it for a long time. But on that day,
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.