Chapter 27: The Space Between a Step
The forest knew nothing of kingdoms.
It did not care for Heroes, nobles, monsters, or the countless invisible lines humanity had drawn between themselves and everything else that breathed. The trees continued to sway beneath the afternoon wind, birds resumed their songs whenever danger passed, and the river that wound lazily through the heart of the woods carried its waters downstream with the same quiet indifference it had shown for centuries.
For the first time since escaping the capital, Sora found himself appreciating that indifference.
The forest did not stare.
It did not whisper.
It did not lower its voice whenever he passed by.
It simply accepted that he existed.
Perhaps that was why he hadn't left.
The little girl he had rescued sat only a few paces away, humming quietly to herself as she threaded tiny white flowers into a crooked crown. Every so often she glanced toward him before returning to her work, perfectly content in the strange silence that had settled over the clearing.
She wasn't afraid.
That still surprised him.
She had seen the glow in his crimson eyes.
She had watched him effortlessly kill monsters larger than houses.
She had even noticed the black tendrils that occasionally escaped his sleeves whenever his emotions became unsettled.
Yet she had simply asked if he would help her find her way home.
Children were... difficult to understand.
Sora rested his elbows on his knees and looked into the river.
The water reflected a young man who looked entirely human.
Black hair stirred gently in the breeze.
Thin round glasses rested neatly against his face.
His hoodie hid the bandages wrapped tightly around his torso, concealing wounds that still had not healed properly.
His reflection looked ordinary.
Until his eyes met their own.
The crimson glow beneath the surface was impossible to mistake.
He looked away.
"...You keep checking."
The unfamiliar voice drifted across the clearing so naturally that Sora almost mistook it for the wind.
Almost.
He turned his head.
Ares had moved.
The smiling man was no longer leaning against the tree where Sora had first noticed him. Instead, he had wandered toward the riverbank, boots stopping just short of the flowing water. His massive chained weapon rested casually over one shoulder as though it weighed nothing at all.
He wasn't watching the child.
He wasn't watching the forest.
He was watching Sora.
"I've noticed something," Ares continued pleasantly. "Every few minutes you look into the water."
Sora remained silent.
"But you never keep looking for very long."
"..."
"You always turn away."
The observation wasn't accusing.
It wasn't mocking.
It was simply... accurate.
Sora frowned slightly.
"You observe too much."
"I enjoy people."
"I am not people."
"No?"
Ares tilted his head, genuinely curious.
"I've read the reports."
"So have I."
"They describe a catastrophic-class mutated black slime."
"They do."
"And yet..."
His blue eyes drifted toward the little girl weaving flowers beneath the tree.
"...the reports neglected to mention that said catastrophe spends its afternoon making sure a lost child doesn't wander into danger."
Sora followed his gaze.
The little girl smiled to herself as another flower slipped free from the crown she was attempting to make.
"...She cannot protect herself."
"So you chose to."
"It was the logical course of action."
Ares laughed quietly.
"There it is again."
Sora looked back at him.
"What?"
"'Logical.'"
The word rolled off Ares' tongue with surprising amusement.
"You say it every time your actions betray your heart."
"My..."
"You insist everything is logic."
He crouched beside the river, absentmindedly trailing his fingertips through the current.
"But logic didn't make you jump in front of that carrion drake."
"It was attacking civilians."
"Logic also didn't make you cry in the capital."
Sora's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Ares noticed.
"...That," Ares said softly, "wasn't logic either."
The clearing fell quiet.
The only sound came from the flowing river and the distant chirping of birds hidden high among the trees.
Sora's hand unconsciously drifted toward his chest.
He still remembered the tears.
Not the sadness.
Just... the tears.
They had appeared without permission.
His body had cried before his mind had even realized something was wrong.
He still didn't understand why.
"I didn't choose that," he said after a long silence.
"I know."
"I wasn't sad."
"I know."
"I wasn't angry."
"I know."
Sora frowned.
"Then why?"
Ares withdrew his hand from the river and watched droplets fall lazily back into the current.
"I imagine," he said thoughtfully, "because some parts of us react before the rest has caught up."
The answer lingered in the air.
Sora didn't dismiss it.
Neither did he accept it.
Instead, his gaze slowly drifted back toward the water.
His reflection looked exactly the same.
Human.
Almost.
His thoughts wandered somewhere they had stubbornly returned to ever since escaping the capital.
The prison.
The nobles.
The chains.
The sky.
No matter how hard he tried to remember those moments objectively, one memory always surfaced before the others.
Thalia.
He remembered looking down from the shattered wall.
He remembered her looking back.
He remembered the way her eyes widened.
And then...
The hesitation.
It had been impossibly brief.
Less than a heartbeat.
Most people wouldn't even have noticed it.
Sora had.
He noticed tiny things.
He always had.
As a slime, noticing the smallest changes in mana had often meant the difference between life and death. Over time, that instinct had carried over into people.
He noticed shifts in breathing.
Tiny changes in posture.
The slightest flicker in someone's expression.
Thalia had stopped.
Only for an instant.
Then she'd run after him.
The memory replayed itself so often that he had begun wondering if he had imagined it.
But he knew he hadn't.
"...You're thinking about her."
Sora's eyes lifted slowly.
Ares wasn't smiling anymore.
Not because he'd become serious.
Because, for the first time, he seemed genuinely interested in the answer.
"I don't know who you're referring to."
"You do."
"..."
"Lady Thalia."
Sora looked away.
"I wasn't."
Ares didn't call him a liar.
Instead, he smiled again.
"Then allow me to ask something unrelated."
"...Go on."
"When you escaped the prison..."
He spoke almost absentmindedly, as though discussing the weather.
"...what was the first thing you saw?"
Sora answered automatically.
"The sky."
"And after that?"
"The wall."
"And after that?"
He hesitated.
"...The Heroes."
"And after that?"
"..."
Sora's fingers tightened slightly against the rough bark beneath him.
"...Her."
"What was she doing?"
"..."
He closed his eyes.
The memory came immediately.
Not because he wanted it.
Because it refused to stay buried.
"...She looked surprised."
"And?"
"..."
"She hesitated."
The words left him so quietly he almost didn't hear them himself.
Ares nodded once.
"I see."
"She only stopped for a moment."
"I believe you."
"I..."
Sora swallowed.
"...I frightened her."
He had meant for the sentence to sound objective.
Instead, it sounded tired.
Very tired.
Ares remained silent.
He didn't tell Sora he was wrong.
He didn't tell him he was right.
He simply allowed the silence to exist.
Sometimes silence was more persuasive than agreement.
Sora continued speaking without realizing he had chosen to.
"I understand why."
His eyes remained fixed on the flowing river.
"The appraisal identified me as a catastrophe."
"My mana darkened the sky."
"My body..."
His hand instinctively brushed against the bandages beneath his hoodie.
"...produced wings that tore through my back."
He looked down at his own hands.
"They looked at me..."
He paused.
"...the same way humans look at monsters."
Ares listened.
"And she..."
Sora's voice grew quieter.
"...looked the same."
He laughed softly.
It wasn't bitter.
Merely exhausted.
"I thought..."
The sentence refused to continue.
Ares waited.
Sora finally shook his head.
"...It doesn't matter."
"No?"
"...No."
The words sounded strangely empty.
"I expected something that was never possible."
Ares slowly rose to his feet.
"What was that?"
Sora smiled faintly.
It was the same gentle smile that had confused the little girl earlier.
Beautiful.
Lonely.
"I wanted someone..."
He looked toward the distant horizon where the capital lay hidden beyond the endless sea of trees.
"...to see me before they saw the monster."
He stood.
The river continued flowing behind him.
"I don't think that's possible anymore."
Ares regarded him quietly.
Then, for the first time since they'd met, he offered no clever observation.
No manipulation.
No comforting lie.
Only a single sentence.
"Then perhaps," he said softly, "you should stop asking people who have already decided what you are."
Sora didn't answer.
Because, somewhere deep inside him...
He had begun wondering if Ares was right.