Chapter 221 – The Hunter’s Invitation

When it came to opening his eyes after falling asleep and finding himself staring at the Black Forest, Yu Sheng wasn’t actually all that surprised.

After all, the Fairy Tale Otherworld had never disappeared, An-Ka-Ai-La’s activity had never ceased, and the children of the Orphanage had merely survived that one dangerous night unscathed. At any moment after that, any subset of the Fairy Tale could reopen—and whether it was the Shelter Wasteland or that valley, both were essentially just safety nets, meant to prevent children who fell into nightmares from suffering severe mental damage or being directly parasitized by An-Ka-Ai-La.

In other words, nightmares would come when they were meant to come.

But none of that stopped Yu Sheng from finding the whole situation absurdly hilarious, while at the same time harboring a nagging suspicion that the Black Forest had come specifically for him.

He drew a light breath, and once he’d calmed down, the feeling that his intuition was correct only grew stronger.

The Black Forest had come for him—or rather, something inside the forest had come for him.

Faint wolf howls echoed in the distance, the ceaseless crying of an infant grated on the nerves, wind swept through the nearby bushes, and the air intermittently carried a strange, droning buzz.

That odd buzzing noise made Yu Sheng wonder if he was experiencing tinnitus. He smacked his forehead hard and dug at his ears, but the noise didn’t diminish in the slightest. Instead, it mingled with the infant’s wailing, becoming even more maddening.

“Are the weird noises in this godforsaken place getting worse…” Yu Sheng couldn’t help muttering, as if trying to drown out the irritating sounds with his own voice. “Sounds like an alarm going off.”

A rustling sound suddenly came from a nearby pile of grass, and the next second, a small reddish-brown furry figure wriggled out of the dry, decaying undergrowth and came bounding toward Yu Sheng.

“You’re okay! You’re okay! Little Red Riding Hood is okay too! Squirrel is okay too!”

Squirrel bounced happily around Yu Sheng’s feet, letting out tiny, shrill cries, looking especially excited.

Yu Sheng bent down and picked up the little creature, rubbing her head with his fingers, a smile on his face. “That’s right, we’re all fine. It was a close call, but we made it through the night safe and sound.”

Squirrel happily hugged Yu Sheng’s finger, then immediately cast an alert glance around her surroundings, cautiously pressing herself low and whispering, “Shh, we still can’t talk too loud… An-Ka-Ai-La is still roaming the forest. Just now its gaze swept past this area again… Squirrel thinks it’s very unhappy. It’s going to cause trouble again…”

“I know,” Yu Sheng instinctively lowered his voice as well. “But I came here looking for it. This time—”

But Squirrel seemed not to have heard him. She simply shook her lowered head, then abruptly cut him off with a non sequitur: “Hunter!”

Yu Sheng froze. “Hunter? What about Hunter?”

“Hunter!” Squirrel repeated anxiously, that neurotic and somewhat confused state seeming to overtake her again. But she quickly regained clarity and began rapidly wiping her face while muttering, “Squirrel is thinking, Squirrel is trying to think… Hunter, Hunter?”

She suddenly stopped, straightened up, and gazed into the depths of the forest. After two seconds, she smacked her tail emphatically. “Hunter is at the cabin! Right, Hunter is at the cabin—they’re waiting for you!”

“Hunter is waiting for me?” This time Yu Sheng was genuinely stunned. His mind flashed back to the scene he’d witnessed during the evacuation from the Orphanage—that phantom that had suddenly appeared in the Great Hall only to vanish in the blink of an eye. A premonition that something was about to happen surged through him, and without bothering to ask for details, he spoke immediately. “Take me there!”

Squirrel raised a paw and pointed into the distance. “This way, this way.”

Yu Sheng looked in the direction Squirrel’s paw was pointing. He saw the dark recesses of the forest—no Lanterns, no paths, and no candlelight from a shelter cabin in sight.

Yet he chose to trust Squirrel—because he could feel the blood-bond connecting the little creature in his palm to himself. This was no trap manufactured by the Black Forest.

Yu Sheng broke into a run toward the depths of the forest. It was only while on the move that he had time to ask questions. “How do you know Hunter is waiting for me at the cabin? Did they show themselves? Did they communicate with you?”

“Mm,” Squirrel nodded vigorously. “Hunter just appeared out of nowhere. No Grandmother Wolf—Hunter just walked out of the forest alone. They were hiding from An-Ka-Ai-La’s gaze and didn’t make a sound—but Squirrel heard what they said directly in her head…

“They said to send the person who has touched the umbilical cord and the bullet, to the first cabin. They also said there isn’t much time—the angel is about to wake up, but because someone interfered with the angel’s connection to ‘the outside,’ there’s now a brief window of…”

Squirrel suddenly trailed off, apparently encountering some complex vocabulary that was extremely difficult for her to comprehend or recall. After struggling for a while and still unable to remember the right words, she could only gloss over it. “Squirrel can’t remember what it was. Anyway… Hunter said they finally have a chance to speak. The angel’s control over them is weakening. They want the person who touched the umbilical cord and the bullet to hurry over—Squirrel has seen you holding the umbilical cord, but doesn’t know what a bullet is… Squirrel didn’t get the message wrong, did she?”

“No, that’s me.” Yu Sheng nodded. He responded to Squirrel while simultaneously parsing the little creature’s somewhat jumbled and fragmented account, his mind racing.

Hunter, as an “entity,” had always acted in strict accordance with the Black Forest’s Rules. They only appeared when Grandmother Wolf appeared, and the sole action available to them was to shoot and kill Grandmother Wolf, or to kill other Little Red Riding Hoods who had fully undergone Wolfification. In all recorded cases to date, there was no instance of Hunter ever speaking—not in Squirrel’s memory, nor in the memories of any past Little Red Riding Hood.

But now, Hunter had actively communicated with Squirrel, had even moved freely without the forest generating a Grandmother Wolf, and had at one point appeared in the Real World.

—Because someone had interfered with the angel’s connection to “the outside.”

Yu Sheng lowered his gaze and looked at his own hands. In order to bring all the children under protection, he’d shed quite a bit of blood these past few days.

“…Now that’s truly an unexpected side effect.” Yu Sheng slowly broke into a pleased grin.

Even without understanding the exact mechanism, he could now be almost certain that his decision to perform the Blood-Sharing ritual on every child in the Fairy Tale had successfully disrupted the connection between An-Ka-Ai-La and the Real World. And as it turned out, this disruption had not only produced the intended protective effect on the Fairy Tale’s members, but had also inadvertently created an opportunity for Hunter.

So they had been searching for a chance to act freely all along—beneath that hunting garb, there truly remained a glimmer of humanity and reason.

In the shadowy depths of the distant forest, the faint outline of a cabin finally materialized.

Yu Sheng drew a light breath and slowed his pace as he neared the cabin, continuing forward while cautiously monitoring the slightest movements around him.

Hunter might bear no ill will, but the Black Forest itself was “alive.” He had to be careful and vigilant, in case the forest produced some violent reaction during his contact with Hunter—after all, he’d entered through a dream this time, without Ailin, without Hu Li, and without even his “Reasoning” staff. If something actually happened, it would be very easy to die on the spot.

Of course, dying on the spot wasn’t the real problem—holding things up would be the real headache.

All around was deathly quiet. Even the wolf howls had faintly subsided. Only the muffled infant cries and that strange droning buzz persisted, but Yu Sheng had more or less grown accustomed to these odd sounds by now.

He could feel Squirrel trembling slightly in his palm.

She was afraid of this place—afraid of this location that symbolized the “ending” for every Little Red Riding Hood.

“If you’re scared of this cabin, then don’t come in,” Yu Sheng gently stroked Squirrel’s head, intending to set her down on a nearby tree stump. “Wait for me outside.”

“No!” To his surprise, Squirrel flipped around and clung to his finger, swinging back and forth in midair while putting on a brave front. “Squirrel… Squirrel Knight fears nothing!”

Her body was still trembling, but that fear had clearly begun to dissolve—the shadow that had once been enough to send Squirrel into a complete breakdown had become something she could try to face.

Yu Sheng paused at the sight, then gradually smiled.

“Alright, then come inside with me—but if you’re still too scared after we go in, wait for me outside. A Squirrel Knight who knows when to retreat is still a brave Squirrel Knight.”

“O-okay!”

Yu Sheng placed Squirrel on his shoulder, stepped forward, and pushed open the old, darkened wooden door.

A faint creak broke the silence. Yu Sheng peered inside.

Dim ambient light filtered through the window into the room. He saw red cloaks of every shape and size hanging everywhere, and there in the midst of all those Red Cloaks, the figure clad in hunting garb stood silently at the center of the room, just as expected.

Their head was slightly bowed, and beneath the hollow hood there was still nothing but shadow. When Yu Sheng walked in, the hood shifted ever so slightly.

An invisible gaze seemed to emanate from beneath the empty hood.

“Uh, I’m here,” Yu Sheng said, walking toward Hunter and greeting them somewhat stiffly. “Squirrel told me you were looking for me.”

Hunter nodded.

Such a simple gesture, yet it made Yu Sheng’s breath catch for half a beat—they actually responded!

“What did you want me for? Do you have something to tell me?” Yu Sheng asked.

Hunter was silent for a moment, then abruptly took two steps forward.

They came to stand before Yu Sheng, and under his instantly wary gaze, the empty hunting garb raised a “hand” and pointed at itself.

“Put it on.”

A hollow, indistinct voice resonated directly inside Yu Sheng’s mind.

(End of Chapter)