Shadow Slave

A carriage was rolling down a forest road, pulled by a black steed. Its curtains were closed, and there was no sound coming from the interior. There was a young man sitting on the coachman’s bench, holding the reins with a steady hand. His skin was like porcelain, and his eyes were like glistening onyx; with nothing but rustling trees in sight, he seemed to be enjoying a moment of peace.

That peace did not last long, though. Suddenly, one of the trees fell across the road, barring the path of a carriage, and a ragtag crowd of armed men burst from the underbrush to surround it.

”Well, well, well... what do we have here?”

Their leader was a towering man with a bushy beard, wearing makeshift leather armor. Resting a monstrous cleaver on his shoulder, he gave the gilded ornaments of the carriage a look of avarice and then shifted his menacing gaze to the coachman.

”Hey there, little friend. Where are you heading?”

A sinister grin split his face apart.

The coachman scratched the tip of his nose awkwardly and remained silent for a few moments. Eventually, he sighed and said:

“To be honest, I am heading to the Shadow Realm.”

The bandits exploded with laughter. Their leader, too, was amused by the answer.

“Prepared to die? Ha! It seems you’ve recognized me, the Forest King — the butcher of men, Ascended Cleaver! Ah, but do not worry. I am not at all as bloodthirsty as stories tell.”

He chuckled menacingly.

”Tell you what. Give us the horse, the carriage, all the money you have, and your clothes. Then, after we dragged your master from the carriage and stripped them of all earthly possessions... if you kill your master with your own two hands, we will spare your life and allow you to join us!”

The coachman looked at him with a hint of confusion in his black eyes.

After a short while, he decided to clarify.

“Just to be sure. You want me and the person in the carriage to fight to the death... naked?”

The leader of the bandits — the self-proclaimed Forest King, Cleaver, blinked a couple of times. He glanced back at his subordinates, who were giving him weird glances, then coughed.

“On second thought, you can strip naked after you’ve killed them.”

The coachman frowned slightly.

“Won’t I be one of you guys by then? Why would I strip naked?”

The towering bandit sighed.

”Are you giving us money or not? I’ve already decided to cut off your tongue, smartass, but you can still make it out of here alive.”

The coachman waved a hand.

”No, no... you can have my money.”

With that, he pulled out a small pouch, untied it, and shook it a few times. A dozen or so coins poured into his palm, some of them glistening gold. The eyes of the bandits shone when they saw it.

Before the coachman could hand them the money, though, there was the sound of something falling inside the carriage, followed by the clinking of bottles and a low, tortured groan.

Then, one of the curtains was pulled back, and a devilishly handsome young man with a crescent moon mark on his forehead emerged, hanging out of the window.

He seemed to be in his early twenties. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked extremely miserable, as if suffering from a dreadful hangover.

The bandits who stood close to the carriage paled and took a step back, pinching their noses. The stench of alcohol was almost unbearable.

The young man looked at the scene in front of him with blurry eyes. Then, he seemed to regain a sliver of awareness.

Looking at the Forest King and the coachman, who froze with a pile of coins in his hand, the young man rubbed his eyes. Then, he studied them for a few more moments and let out a startled chuckle.

”Who are these clowns, Shadow?”

His eyes widened.

“Wait... are we getting robbed? We are actually getting robbed?!”

The coachman nodded.

”That’s pretty evident.”

The young man stared at him in utter disbelief.

”And you are actually giving them the money?!”

The coachman shrugged.

“I don’t really need money. They seem to have more use for it.”

His supposed master scoffed.

Then, his gaze suddenly turned sharp.

”Wait... is this one of your sick games? It is, isn’t it?!”

He shuddered, then looked at the bandits with a strange expression.

Cleaver could have sworn that it was... pity.

“It’s not. Really.”

The young master opened the door of the carriage and stumbled out of it, making the bandits grimace and take another step back.

“As if I’d believe that!”

At that point, Cleaver’s patience ran out.

”Hey, bastards! I don’t think you two are taking this situation seriously enough! I am going to cut off your limbs, make you eat them, and then skin you alive! I’ll mince your bodies into tiny pieces and feed you to the dogs!”

He huffed angrily, but then hesitated for a moment.

Finally, he asked in a lower tone:

“But just in case... what do you mean by sick games? What sick things can this little brat be guilty of?”

The young master rolled his eyes.

”Don’t get me started!”

Looking at the coachman with resentful eyes, he spat.

”If I were you, I’d apologize and run away. No, better walk away slowly! Don’t make sudden moves... don’t provoke him! He made an oath not to kill anyone!”

The bandit leader tilted his head in confusion.

“Wait, isn’t that good news for me? Here I was, feeling a little apprehensive. But if he can’t even kill anyone, then there’s nothing to fear?”

The young master shook his head energetically, then paled and grabbed it, letting out another groan.

“No, no... that just shows how uncultured you are, with no foresight! You’d think that if a person can’t kill you, you are safe. But it’s the opposite! Just because he can’t kill you doesn’t mean that he can’t make you wish you were dead!”

He leaned tiredly on the carriage.

“Like that time we passed through a sinful city stricken by a mystical plague. That guy found the Spirit Rat responsible for the plague, and, well... I had never seen a rat shedding tears before, let alone a Sacred Rat. But that one! That one was crying and rubbing its little paws together, as if begging to be killed. Actually, there were a myriad of them, and they all begged at the same time.”

The bandit leader blinked.

The young master wasn’t done, though.

“Or that other time, during the Divine Vigil... all the heroes of the mortal realms gathered to send War God’s avatar on her way, and a few Supremes came as well. That sick bastard developed a dislike for the Second Wandering Archon, so he challenged the poor man to a debate and argued with him for seven days straight. On the seventh day, the Archon spat blood and collapsed, his hair turning white, tears flowing out of his eyes like ceaseless rivers. His Domain completely collapsed! I hear he hasn’t uttered a word since.”

The bandit scratched the back of his head.

“The Second Wandering Archon? No way. That elder withstood two blows from the Demon of Dread once...”

The young master scoffed.

“The Demon of Dread?! Let me tell you about dread, fool! Once, we met an arrogant Spirit who ravaged a realm over a perceived slight. That guy over there couldn’t kill it, so instead, he broke its body, shattered its soul, and extinguished its spirit — not enough for that unfortunate deity to die, but just shy of it. Spirits are pretty hardy, though. So, he waited for that one to heal... then repeated the whole thing, ten times in a row. And he had no plans of stopping, either! Eventually, the High Priest of Heart God’s cult had to arrive and personally plead for their Spirit.”

The bandit leader waited for a few moments, then asked cautiously:

“Well? And what happened then?”

The young master groaned and covered his face with a palm.

”The Heart God’s cult has a new High Priest now. The old one retired and became a hermit... after he regained the ability to walk without crutches, that is. He still screams in his sleep, though!”

The coachman gave him a gloomy look.

”I did spare the Spirit though, didn’t I?”

The bandit leader studied the two of them silently for a while, then growled and pointed his enormous cleaver at the young master.

“Who do you take me for, noble scum?! A complete idiot?! Sacred Beasts, Supreme monarchs, Spirits, and High Priests?! What kind of human is capable of facing them in a fight, let alone surviving it?! And what, that bastard is serving as a coachman?! Who are you then, a god’s avatar?! Let me guess, that horse is a Sacred Beast as well!”

The young master spared him a pitying glance, then sighed and shook his head.

”You made three mistakes, blockhead.”

He pointed at the horse.

”First, this is not a horse. This is a mass of shadows shaped to look like a horse. Why? I have no idea. That guy just seems to like black horses, for some reason.”

Then, he pointed to himself.

”Second, I am not a god’s avatar. I am merely a god’s grandson. Her favorite grandson, of course! But still, not an avatar.”

Finally, he pointed to the coachman.

”And finally... that thing is not a human. It’s a Supreme Titan created by the God of Death to punish all living things. It’s just pretending to be human because... well, I don’t know. He’s just perverted that way, I guess.”

The bandit leader scoffed and stared at them with murder in his eyes, clearly unconvinced.

But then, his eyes shifted slightly toward the black horse.

At some point in time, the horse’s silhouette had grown strangely vague, and wisps of ethereal black smoke were drifting from its mouth.

The horse slowly lost its shape, like a melting candle. And beneath that deceptive shape, he saw...

A terrified scream resounded in the forest, sending a flock of birds flying in fright.

”R-run! Run!”

Dropping his cleaver, the bandit leader turned around and dashed away, his eyes full of primal horror. His subordinates were of lesser Ranks, so they weren’t quite as fast — still, in just a few moments, all of them disappeared into the forest.

Several black tentacles shot from the shapeless mass of shadows.

Instead of pursuing the bandits, though, they simply grabbed the tree barring the road and flung it aside.

A heartbeat later, there was a normal black horse in front of the carriage once again, nibbling docilely on the fallen leaves. Shadow sighed and dropped the coins back into the purse.

“I only got into a spat with that Spirit because you kept threatening to fight it yourself, you know. So... that was unfair.”

Noctis waved a hand and climbed back into the carriage.

”Whatever. I am hungover... wake me up when we’re there.”

Closing the door, he lowered the curtains. Shadow nudged the horse, and the carriage continued to roll forward.

A few minutes later, Snuggle climbed out of his pocket and jumped down to the bench, sitting beside him.

She pretended to yawn.

”See? That’s progress! You didn’t even want to kill them, did you?”

Shadow spared her a glance.

“Wrong. I did want to kill them.”

He leaned back and looked into the depths of the forest with a wistful expression.

“This time, they stumbled onto us. Who will be their victim the next time? Someone weaker than I am, no doubt. How many people will lose their lives because I spared these few?”

He shrugged with a detached smile.

“Not that I care. It’s just for the sake of the argument... mercy is not always a virtue, Snuggle.”

The little doll stared at him for a while, then shook her head.

“This is not to save other lives, though. It’s to save yours.”

Shadow laughed.

”I am neither truly alive nor something that can die. So saving me from death is a misguided endeavor.”

Snuggle studied him some more, then looked away dejectedly.

Soon enough, they reached their destination.

Up ahead, the forest receded, making space for a vast expanse of emerald grass. In the distance, golden fields stretched as far as the eye could see.

The air was permeated by a sense of bliss and tranquility.

The dirt road turned into one cobbled with stone, and the carriage rolled through a beautiful stone arch.

At the top of the arch, a few runes were carved into the white stone...

They read:

Kingdom of Hope.