PRM Chapter 36: The Forest After Rain

Chapter 36: The Forest After Rain

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Sulo

 

Myka and Sylar were walking on the forest path. After breakfast, they left his Majesty’s castle. Myka was going back to the store, and the elves wanted him to stay and help. Finally, they came up with a compromise: let Morning Mist continue to live in the castle. Once they find a suspicious person, they would let her throw magic to blow him up. If there is a strange appearance related to pink magic, they would contact Myka with feather charms, and Sylar would send him directly.

In this way, Sylar had to be with Myka in a way that they could be found.

The forest was very wet after the rain. Probably because it was hard for long hair to stick on the neck, Sylar tied up his hair with a leather rope, held his cloak and leather armor in his hand, and only wore loose cotton clothes that fit his body.

This Sylar looked fresher than usual. He was taller than Myka, because he had lived in the forest and wilderness for a long time, and his physique was much stronger. When he first met Sylar, Myka thought of him as “a shy muscled druid”. Now Sylar had no grass crown and little wildflowers on his head, no green cape matching his red hair, so he was no longer full of girlish flavor, and looked like a handsome ordinary young man.

The only surprise was that Sylar had a clear scar on the back of his neck and upper back, which was a disordered shape. It was speculated how terrible the wound would have been. Fortunately, it looked like it was from a long time ago.

“Why do you look at me like this?” Sylar asked.

Myka pointed to the scar, “What happened…”

“I was picked up by a wolf when I was a child,” Sylar said, touching the scar. “Actually, I don’t remember the details of things. I was very young at that time. It was Lord Atan who saved me. He had to bite the wolf in the pack… “

“Bite?”

“Yeah, it’s rare in druids,” says Sylar. “In principle, we don’t interfere with the hunting of wild animals. Like the antelope, we will try our best to protect our cousins and cubs, but we will not take extra revenge on the beast, but do all kinds of efforts to save the victims, or try to avoid such things happening again.”

“So what happened?” Myka asked.

“It seems that I was born in a nomadic tribe on the wasteland, I don’t remember,” said Sylar, who was raised by Atan and other druids and only heard about it. “The livestock was attacked by wolves, so people drove them away and killed some of them. Later, somehow, the wolves got on with them. They chased and ambushed them, and they began to hunt and kill. I don’t know how old I was. Anyway, I was too young to remember things. My family died from the wolves, and I was almost killed by wolves. Atan saved me. He became a wolf with a silver back line and then, with the leader of the wolves, he dueled.”

Myka thought it was incredible. He’d heard of Druids’ ways of doing things. They usually communicate with beasts to make them timid or isolate them from humans without causing too much damage. In a word, they would use divinity to solve it, because this was the ability that nature gives them. And fight with the wolf in person… This was unheard of.

“It’s not the most exaggerated,” said Sylar, who knew how surprised Myka was, as he had just heard about it. “You should understand that the wolf transformed from the high-level Druid is still stronger than the ordinary wolf, so in order to be fair, Atan even deliberately hurt himself. In the end, he won. He didn’t kill the wolf, but he took over the wolves… He became the leader of the wolves “

“So, some people call him ‘silver wolf.’”

“Yes, since then, his thinking has been very strange. Generally, druids do not choose this approach. Later, you also heard that he raised me and followed his younger brother, Sylander. If it wasn’t for the purpose of following Sylander, Atan would not be so close to the society of ordinary people as he is now.”

“He didn’t live with Sylander?”

“No, they were separated for a while when they were children,” says Sylar. “I don’t know exactly. In a word, Atan and he were separated, but they met again by the token left by their parents. Atan began to track and protect Sylander. He said it was an instinct, just like adult animals protect young animals. As a result, Atan is getting closer to the society of ordinary people.”

“I see,” Myka nodded. “So when the priest got married, Atan stopped following him? I thought it was… “

“What did you think it was?”

Myka didn’t explain. He thought that Atan had special feelings for his brother, so he was disappointed to see his brother married. He realized that although his speculation seemed complicated, it was very consistent with the concept and logic of ordinary people. But in Atan’s and even Sylar’s logic, ‘when he has a spouse and his own family, he will no longer belong to the original family, and no longer need to be protected’ is more natural, just like the idea of wild animals, rather than human beings.

Similarly, many of Atan’s behaviors cannot be understood with the common sense of urban people. And Sylar had a little bit of this tendency.

“Sylar, have you ever realized you’re weird.” Myka asked.

“I’ve been told about my style of dress…”

“No, it’s not about clothes. You can wear whatever you like, and you can wear flowers,” Myka said, glancing at Sylar’s red hair. In the morning, his little flowers fell out, and now he hadn’t found any new flowers on the ground. “I’m talking about tracking. I’ve always wanted to say that before. You always switch subjects.”

Sylar lowered his head and didn’t speak, walking in front of Myka in silence. He had planned to spend some time patrolling the forest since Atan captured Sovili and Illican, and even wanted to fight against the Lansuo elves, he needed at least a place to live.

Igor, the seal, couldn’t say the route, but from the conversation with him, Sylar knew that Atan was indeed in the nearby forest.

Sylar was going to find him alone, but Myka had to go with him, saying it was better that  way.

“Sylar, do you think I’m a human or a tree?” Myka asked.

“Human, of course.”

“Humans talk and communicate with each other. Trees don’t respond to people around them.”

Sylar stopped. “I didn’t make you unresponsive…”

“You didn’t want me to follow you.”

They had now left the footpath that had been trodden on by people for years, and walked to the dense forest full of moist plants and weeds. Sylar used a wooden stick to remove the sharp plants and let Myka follow him.

“I just don’t think you should come and do this with me…” Sylar sighed.

“Then what do you think I should do?”

“Live a mage’s life? Copying spells and doing research is what mages usually do, just like the people in northern Fenglin or mage college,” says Sylar. “Because you’re a mage, you shouldn’t be affected by my business.”

The more advanced the forest was, the more dense it was, and the sky was almost blocking out the sun. Myka took out a lighting stick and polished it. The cold light was as bright as the light of a torch.

“I’m a mage, but before that, I’m a normal person,” Myka said. “What do you think I should do? Don’t eat or drink for magic? Or spend decades turning myself into a lich? If there were a lich that was a pink robed mage, it would be shocking… There are many great or evil mages in a hero’s story, but I’m not that far. I’m just a businessman living in a small village. I mean, you didn’t affect my life. Why don’t you understand?”

Sylar stopped, put on the expression he often used when he was confused, and slightly frowned with his head askew. “But you will accompany me to find Atan, and he caught you with the wall of roses, which was caused by my influence.”

Myka almost tried to grab the stick and hit him on the head. “So, are you following me because of my interference? Did I make you go to the cave of King Hollis to find me? Are you helping Sovili with me as a result of my interference? Didn’t you volunteer?”

Sylar turned to explain, “No, of course I did it voluntarily! I have been… It’s not your problem that I wanted to do it out of my own desire… “

“Then why don’t I have the right to ‘volunteer’?” Myka asked. As soon as he finished, he felt as if there was something wrong. It’s as if he was digging a big hole for himself and pouring sand into it.

Sylar looked at him in surprise. “Myka, don’t you understand? I thought you knew. I like you. I told you how I feel. You should understand what I mean. But you can’t accept me, can you? First of all, I’ve liked you for nine years, and you’ve only known me for a few months; second, I am a man, obviously you are also; finally, I know that I am strange in the eyes of ordinary people,” now he answered the question from Myka, “because I can never be separated from being a wild son, and I know that my custom and character are not compatible with the city. And you are mage, who studies Pink Magic. You can’t accept it…”

“So, do you think I am a human or a tree?” Myka said in a fretful voice, “You’ll run away after you’ve finished speaking. You’re not going to ask me what I think. Do you think I have no idea like a tree? Or have read my thoughts and knew that I couldn’t accept anything without asking?”

This time, as soon as he finished speaking, Myka found that he was actually digging a big hole and filling it with fine sand.

And… now he had stepped in.

Sylar’s crooked head was slowly realizing it as well, his eyes were shining more and more.

“Well, I’m finished. We should keep looking,” Myka said awkwardly, pointing to the front. “The map of the Lansuo elves says that there’s a low cliff ahead, and there’s a stream under it. After that, it’s not the area of Lansuo Valley…”

Sylar looked in the direction he was pointing, but instead of rushing forward, he came over. Myka felt that he had started to sink in the ‘quicksand pit’ he dug himself. The mage stepped on the soft soil and stepped back a step, behind which was the crooked trunk covered with moss. Sylar came up with a look reminiscent of a hungry wolf.

Sylar put one hand on the bark and stood in front of Myka.

In Myka ‘s mind, there were numerous vulgar love comedies performed by poets and singers in taverns. He didn’t figure out what to say next. He was trapped in a quicksand pit dug by himself and couldn’t get out.

“Myka, I see,” said Sylar, looking down at him slightly, while Myka looked away from him. “I shouldn’t have… Thank you. I’ll start asking you what you think.”

He showed his shy expression again and reached out his other hand to touch the trunk. Myka feels like he was about to be overwhelmed by the pit – he was now enclosed between Sylar’s arms.

“But I have to point out,” said Sylar, closing his eyes gently and smiling softly. “You may not know. In fact, I can talk to trees, they are not without ideas.”

“Ha?” Myka was surprised at the direction of the conversation.

“Young trees often don’t know what’s going on around them, and there are a lot of trees that don’t care,” says Sylar, “and older trees sometimes want to talk to us…”

Well, now Myka finally has the courage to look up at him and felt awkward.

Sylar was propping his hands on the tree trunk, closing his eyes slightly, as if communicating`with the tree behind Myka.