This is the story of a magician and an elf girl.

"You know what they are, right..."

"Of course... We share a part of the original body's memory, which contains information about them... bloodthirsty demons, undead spirits... puppets whose souls are held hostage by the undead phoenix... they are the most dangerous enemies outside the forest... Are you not afraid of such enemies? You also understand the effect of the hellfire, right? If you are infected by just a little bit..."

This is by no means an easy journey, as John said at the beginning.

——The outside world has been occupied by puppets for more than hundreds of years, but this is something the elves hiding in the forest don’t know.

——John, who felt very uncomfortable at the thought of explaining things about them to her... shook off his guilt and stared at the bloodthirsty guys in the pit with his eyes that could withstand all the malice in the world: "Who do you think I am? These half-dead guys are still a thousand years away from fighting me."

"Hmph... Then I'll just wait and see."

——In order to prevent the window of her soul from being stained by the image of this hellish scene

——In order to prevent her eyes from being polluted by this irrational world.

"So... who is... tired of living?"

"!!"

The preemptive black shadow took a step forward from the oblique wave.

Swoosh! The arrow shot through the puppet's forehead, and the remains of the skull splashed out from the back of the head. The magician casually swung the butt of the gun and smashed it at the second puppet. With this blow, he knocked the opponent to the ground, and then used the auxiliary rod in front of the crossbow to support its head to stabilize it. While reaching for the bowstring with both hands, he also put the butt of the gun against his chest.

With a click, the bowstring that was re-fixed on the groove tightened the bow arm again. John injected the arrow into the arrow path and pulled the trigger at the same time as he moved his ankle.

Snap! The puppet whose forehead was pierced at close range immediately lost all signs of activity. As the third puppet slowly walked towards John...

"Go away."

"Gah?!"

John pushed the crossbow towards its hands, pulled out a silver dagger from the scabbard and pierced the opponent's forehead. He pulled out the dagger through his center of gravity, raised his left hand and easily shook off the claws extended by the fourth puppet. The palm wrapped in hellfire swept past John's eyes that were aware of all the opponent's movements, and the blade swung out from his right hand went straight to the temple of the fourth puppet.

"Guga?!"

——Snap! The forehead on the side of his face, stained with blood, was oozing with sticky blood. The fourth puppet fell to the ground and was kicked away by John as a stepping stone, knocking down the fifth puppet. He took a step back without relaxing for a moment.

He made the sixth and seventh puppets collide with each other's frontal lobes while sprinting, then lowered his upper body and reached out to grab the left hand of the eighth puppet that was about to launch a surprise attack on him from behind his right side, and threw it to the ground in front of him using all his strength, then pulled out the arrow from the scabbard and inserted it into its head for a fatal blow.

“Ga…” “Gaah…”

"--go to hell."

His eyes, covered by his bangs, were pointed straight at the two puppets in front of him. John pulled out a throwing knife in each hand, twisted the handle and clamped the blade between his fingertips - whoosh! He used centrifugal force to throw the knife accurately, and the flying knife pierced through the heads of the two puppets. They knelt on their knees and went to hell to report their experience without resistance.

"..."

The fifth puppet, the last one left and still lying under the corpse, stretched out his hand to John who was looking down at him. Naturally, John did not take him seriously at all. He only noticed that his clothes seemed to be somewhat similar to those of the other puppets, and then he retrieved the dagger from the head of the fourth puppet.

——Snap, a knife pierced through its forehead at close range.

"call……"

John, whose martial arts skills were still superb, reached out and wiped the blood off his cheek with his sleeve, only to find that this was the spot where Linnay had re-sewn it for him yesterday - the bright white plant fiber was stained with dirt.

"...Tsk...I told you not to use white..."

"As expected of you, magician. Come back soon. I am almost ready. Please pack up your weapons."

“Ah…I see.”

Xiaobi, who injected spiritual power into the ground, released plant spores to make a large number of wooden cabinets. She let the tree spirits carry the bodies of the babies one by one and put them into the cabinets. Then she submerged the terrain in the area as if it were a dug grave.

When they finished their work and returned to the camp, Linnae lowered her head and asked John, "…What…what happened?"

"...Well...thanks to the power of the tree spirit, I made a lot of coffins...be confident...if it weren't for you...I wouldn't be able to do this..."

John tried his best to change the subject without bringing up the subject of the puppets. Linna looked at the baby in her arms with a worried look and said, "... No... I... I want to ask... Is there... Is there no companion for this child...?"

"…I'm sorry…I didn't see any other survivors…"

"...I'm sorry...girl...this is true...please don't take it to heart..."

The two people with their heads down didn't see any of the babies alive when they were dealing with them. It was a miracle that the baby in Linna's hands was still alive... Why... Why didn't the puppets regard it as a food object... Was it a coincidence? Or...

"Let me see her..."

"Well...but it's not her, it's him."

"...male..."

Linnai, who had used the power of the dryad to weave a white cloth and was holding the baby, let John gently hold up his body that weighed less than three kilograms. His race was subhuman, and at least the reason why he was not human was because of his furry ears and heavy bones. He was born only about a week ago, and if no one took care of him, he would be weak and die within today.