The Baby Isn’t Yours

Step, step.

The sound of footsteps lightly on the grassy forest floor brought the boy back to consciousness.

Someone was carrying him and running through the forest.

‘What’s going on?’

When he opened his hazy eyes, he saw a bright blue sky and green leaves covering it.

‘…Am I finally dead?’ 

The boy thought dazedly.

Vague memories of escaping from the hellish castle and entering the fairy forest, which rejected humans, came to mind.

Had it been two days since then?

He was about to collapse from hunger and exhaustion.

‘Oh, right. I tried to take the medicine because it was too hard to endure!’

At that moment, the boy’s eyes widened.

He remembered the man who had grabbed his wrist just before he collapsed.

Only then did he realize that someone was holding his weak and trembling body.

“Ah!”

The boy, who was out of breath, looked up in a hurry and saw a man carrying him on his back and walking with long strides.

Dark gray hair and blue eyes, visible from under the robes, were captivating.

It was a rough but somehow beautiful appearance.

The man continued to walk without stopping, looked at the boy and asked:

“Are you awake?”

“W-w-who are you?”

“I’m curious about who you are, kid. Who are you?”

“Huh? I, I…”

The boy swallowed dry saliva and kept his mouth shut. He wondered if this man was from the palace. He was a boy who entered the royal court as a servant at a young age and had little experience in the outside world.

He may not know much about the world, but he has learned enough about life in the palace not to talk recklessly and not make a fool of himself.

“Why aren’t you answering me all of a sudden?”

“Please let me down.”

“No way. We can’t get there today at the pace you’re walking.”

Get there? Where were they going?

‘… It’s not the palace, right?’

The boy looked up at the man with an uneasy expression.

The man was dressed shabbily, but had a very noble appearance.

There seemed to be an unknown power in his mysterious blue eyes.

‘Oh? Come to think of it, one of your irises is a different color?’

Looking at the bag he was carrying, the boy could see the man’s eyes closely.

Both were blue, but the pupil in the right eye had a golden glow.

It was a mysterious iris.

Looking at this iris, it seemed that he was drawn into it. The boy stared into the man’s right eye as if in a daze.

Did he feel his gaze?

The man looked at the boy.

In an instant, the boy felt himself locked in the man’s gaze, not daring to move.

It felt like flames were flickering in the golden pupil of his right eye.

The man asked the boy while looking at him.

“I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

At that moment something strange happened.

The boy opened his mouth as if he had received a command in his soul.

“I am a servant of the royal court, Ahim.”

“Servant of the royal palace? Are you talking about the palace of Akan?”

“I was a servant, I helped the chief chamberlain in the royal palace of Akan.”

He couldn’t help but let the truth pour out of his mouth. It wasn’t something he could control with his will.

The moment a golden glow flashed in his right eye, the boy was bound by the sacred duty of telling everything.

The man stopped for a moment and looked at Ahim.

“What kind of medicine you were holding?”

“That is a medicine made by the palace. It restores the body and gives more vitality, and it was given to the officials and nobles.”

“By the palace? Is it made by a doctor?”

“Yes.”

The man furrowed his brow while still holding his strength.

“Did you know what that medicine is and have you taken it?”

“No. But I know that addiction symptoms occur when taking medicine. And when you take it, for a moment there is a feeling of unease in the stomach… I don’t know anything else.”

“I see.”

Only then did the man’s gaze move away from Ahim.

Ahim finally realized that his mind was coming back to him.

‘What just happened to me?’

Opening his mouth, Ahim looked at the man and felt him smirk.

“The eyes are the mirror of the soul. If you have something to hide, don’t look someone straight in the eye. Or learn to hide well, boy.”

“Oh no… I just… It was just…”

He wasn’t just looking into his eyes.

There was definitely a special power in his eyes.

“I have purified all the magic left in your body. That’s why there was a delay in my schedule. And this forest… why are the spirits hiding from fear like that?

However, the man didn’t seem to have any intention of answering Ahim’s question.

On the contrary, he muttered under his breath, as if answering his own questions, and frowned.

‘The spirits were scared?’

In the pause where the man was considering his words, they had somehow entered deep into the forest.

At that moment, Ahim felt his body float in the air for a brief moment.

The man stopped and muttered something, looking off into the distance.

“We finally arrived.”

* * *

The Fairy Forest where Kalexia stayed was the forest that the fairies established as their birthplace at the very beginning of this world.

The place where the Primordial Tree, which is said to have been one since the creation of the continent, guarded the center.

A world completely cut off from the outside world, where hundreds of fairies and even more spirits lived freely.

The mysterious fauna and flora, extinct outside, still lived in this forest, and no natural disasters could penetrate inside.

In this place, where the power of the natural world was most concentrated, when a person entered, the body was naturally cleansed and vision cleared.

Refreshing feeling like rebirth.

Now Ahim distinctly felt this freshness.

“Um, where exactly is this?”

“The deepest part of the forest.”

“The deepest part…?”

The man gave a short answer without further explanation.

He moved further inside before putting Ahim down and removing his clothes, but what the boy saw was his short, thick dark gray hair.

As well as pointed ears that Achim hadn’t noticed before.

‘…Fairy? Wow, I can’t believe it… this man is a fairy.’

With a somewhat shocked expression, Ahim looked at the man puzzled. The boy who imagined fairies as small and cute creatures was shocked to see a tall, slender man as a fairy.

To be honest, he was even a little disappointed.

‘Well, there are even dark fairies. Yes that’s right. It can be a little comforting to think that way.’

The boy sighed alone, looking gloomy, and the man looked down at him as if he were strange.

“Follow me, kid.”

“Um, where are we going?”

“There is someone you need to meet.”

“Who is this…?”

“Will you understand if I tell you?”

“Well, just in case…”

“Gosh, this kid asks a lot of questions.”

Ahim, irritated by the boy’s constant questioning, looked at him with a slight frown. His gaze made Ahim flinch, and he hastily shut his mouth.

Even in the palace, he received disapproving looks if he asked too many questions. Despite being told more than once to improve, he couldn’t help but ask more questions due to his fear.

Nervousness made his shoulders tighten.

The man stroked Ahim’s head, ruffling his hair with a thick hand.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not trying to scare you. You won’t meet anyone scary, so for now, just follow me.”

‘Oh…’

This dark fairy turned out to be kinder than he expected.

Come to think of it, didn’t this guy say he purified the magic on his body? Perhaps that is why he felt light even when he lost consciousness and just woke up.

‘…But what did he mean by magic?’

The tone of this word didn’t sound very positive.

As he followed the man, thinking about it, someone called out to them from behind.

“Tokan?”

Turning around, the old man with gray hair and beard looked at Tokan and Ahim with surprise.

“Elder Kanal.”

As Tokan smiled happily, Kanal rushed over to him and hugged him, exchanging greetings.

His wrinkled face was full of kind smiles.

“How much time has passed? 20 years? Haha. How much have you travelled, boy?”

“I went to the end of the world. And how are you? Your white beard is still the same.”

“When you were little, half of my beard fell out because of you. Don’t you remember?”

“Aren’t you talking about something 60 years ago? Even after 60 years, you still have a beard.”

“Haha. You still tease me.”

The two were happy to see each other.

This was inevitable because Kanal was none other than Tokan’s teacher.

He took Tokan, who was still young, and showed him a world he had never seen before, while taking care of the forest to the south, which he protected.

‘Southern forest? Come to think of it… Wasn’t the Akan Forest outside of Kanal’s territory?’

Part of the seventh forest that barely touches the southeast corner.

Although it intersected very thinly with the eastern border, this area was clearly Kanal’s territory.

When Tokan was about to ask about it, Kanal got ahead of him and asked about the child behind him first.

“But who is this boy?”

“Oh, this boy…”

“Tokan-!”

A voice was heard calling Tokan from afar.

He looked up and saw Ganini running towards him.

In contrast to his usual calmness, his steps were somewhat insistent.