Beginning Beyond The Horizon

Hajime, Yul, and Michio, stood in front of the old dense forest and looked at each other. The surrounding air was filled with the stench of carrion. Large silken cocoons hang from almost every branch. Yul draws his sword from the scabbard on his back and cuts a cocoon closer to them.

A thick black rotting fluid gushes from the cocoon. After the fluid drains, the bone begins to fall out of the opened cocoon. Michio picked up a stick on the ground and began to push the bones away from the rotting flesh.

As he dug, Michio said, "Who do these bones belong to. It doesn't look human to me." His heart almost stops when he dug out a skeletal hand from the jumble of carrion. "This is human flesh..."

Hajime raised his head and said, "I don't know how many of them are human flesh."

Yul said, "It doesn't matter right now. We've got to find a new one. If we have any chance of saving Abrafo."

Michio frowned, "So many." He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Yul said, "Let's spread out so we can better find Abrafo."

Hajime said, "Okay, I will go to the left."

Michio said, "Then I'll go to the right." He pointed to the right side of the forest.

Yul pulls out the map and notices that the lotus flower on the map is still glowing. Yul folded the map and tucked it back into his inner robe. He said and pointed to a mountain peak. "We'll meet there in two hours. If you need help or find Abrafo, send a signal," he said, watching the two men begin walking away. "Hajime…"

Hajime turned around. "What?" he asked.

Yul said, "Be careful."

Hajime smiled and said, "Oh, I thought you wanted me to die so you wouldn't have to marry me after completing this journey." He laughed.

Shaking his head at Hajime's stupidity, Yul said, "We don't have a white dragon tail in our hand; therefore, you can't die yet."

Hajime taunted, "You only care about that white dragon's tail, you're so heartless... I promise to haunt you forever..." He turned and took three steps towards Yul. "Yul, you need to forget about marrying someone else."

Yul said, "It has not crossed my mind."

Hajime chuckled and said, "Just fun talks. You should also be careful." He left Yul quickly.

Yul watched Hajime disappear from a distance, then started walking away.

Standing protected by the bangle, U-ri watches as Abrafo removes the sticky silk from his clothing, but Abrafo refuses to approach U-ri.

Abrafo asked, "Why are you in that thing? Get out."

U-ri refused, saying, "Come in, Hajime has repeatedly told me that I should stay inside."

"Hajime is the one who asked me to get you, we need to get out of here," Abrafo said.

U-ri asked, "Why are we leaving?"

"Hajime is dead. We need to get out of here now," Abrafo said.

U-ri still insists on letting Abrafo into the bangle, but the more Abrafo refuses to come closer, the more U-ri wants to believe that the person standing in front of him might not be his colleague. U-ri looked at Abrafo and said, "I will not walk out of this protective wall. You must come inside." As soon as U-ri finished speaking, an arrow flew from nowhere and hit Abrafo in the abdomen. "Abrafo! Quickly come inside."

Abrafo fell to the ground, holding out his hand. "U-ri pull me in," he moaned in pain. "Help me... U-ri."

Still being dragged away, Abrafo slowly reached for the blade on the side of his trousers. After struggling for a long time, he finally pulled out one of the three blades. He began to slowly cut the dragline silk with the blade.

Michio walked for nearly an hour, but found nothing, not even a cocoon. He stood among the towering trees, tilting his head. "I don't think it's the right way," he said to himself, before he dodged as a spike came straight at him. He quickly rolled behind the tree.

"Come out, come out, don't be shy," said the mixed voices. The sound of giggling. "Come out, come out, don't be shy..."

As soon as Michio poked his head out, countless dark spikes rushed towards him.

Michio sighed heavily, and said, "I don't remember who I offended recently? Did those monks follow me? No, they can't cross the endless river of sorrow." He said to himself behind the big tree. stuck his head out again, and countless dark spikes struck him again. "Hey…hey…why are you shooting at me?"

The woman said, "He asked why you shot him?"

The man said, "No, he was asking you, not me."

The woman said wildly, "No, he asked you."

The man screamed, "No... Let go of my hair... He asked you."

Michio called from behind the tree, "I'm asking you two."

The mixed voice said, "Well, it's because we haven't tasted human flesh for a long time…"

Yul continued to walk up. As he walked further up the hill, he noticed that the land was wetter compared to the base of the hill. Suddenly he heard the sound of a waterfall. He thought to himself that since he heard a waterfall, there must be a waterfall nearby. He slowly stepped forward to investigate.

As Yul approached the top of the mountain, he found that the waterfall was rushing down, forming a stream that flowed down the mountain. He found a dilapidated bamboo water pipe on the ground. Yul walked to the edge of the waterfall pool, looked down at the dark green pond, and then looked at the center of the pond, the color was darker, which told Yul that the middle of the pond is deeper. Yul decides to wash his face before continuing his search for Abrafo.

While Yule was washing his face, a pair of red eyes were watching him from the depths of the water.

U-ri fell to his knees. "Abrafo, crawl beside me..." He stretched out his arms. "Crawl to me."

Abrafo stretched out his arms and said, "I can't...I feel like I'm dying..."

Wolves were howling behind the trees, and when U-ri turned to look, he saw red eyes staring at him and Abrafo. "Abrafo, you must hurry. We have companies...lots of companies," he shouted at Abrafo.

As soon as U-ri finish speaking, a pack of wolves jumped up from the side of the road and began to attack Abrafo.

Abrafo screamed, "Help! Help me! U-ri!"

U-ri saw that the wolves started to bite Abrafo, and he wanted to go out to help Abrafo fight off the wolves but he knew that it didn't matter because there is no way he can beat a pack of wolves.

U-ri closed his eyes and sobbed. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Abrafo…" He saw Abrafo's body lying in the middle of the old road. "Sorry... Hajime..." He stood up slowly and was about to get out of the protection of the bangle when Abrafo suddenly stood up from the ground and stared at U-ri angrily.

"You old fool," Abrafo sneered. He conjures a sword and throws it at U-ri, but the sword hits a solid magic wall and falls to the ground.

The fake Abrafo shook his head, and slowly turned into a wolf beast. The beast walked back and forth in front of U-ri, but the beast still hesitated to attack U-ri. The beast said, "I promised you that if you would come out of that thing voluntarily, you would die quickly and painlessly...but if you don't, when I find a way to break through that thing, I promise I will toy with you like a cat toying with a mouse until your last breath…"

U-ri said with trembling lips, "If you want to eat me, you must break Hajime's spell."

The alpha wolf roared into the sky. "Children!"

U-ri suddenly saw hundreds of red eyes pouring out from both sides of the road. Slowly walking into the light were hundreds of smaller beasts staring at him.

U-ri looked at the many beasts standing a few meters away from him, feeling a wave of fear in his heart. He tried not to think too much and took his eyes off the hungry beast. "Hurry up, everyone," he murmured.

Hajime went out from the right, walked for a while, and found himself standing in front of the small village. Hajime thought it was wrong because he was heading towards the top of the mountain.

Hajime put his hands on his waist and sighed. "It's funny...I obviously went up, not down," he said, looking at the dilapidated shabby houses.

"Over here," he heard a girl's voice calling him.

Hajime saw a little girl running ahead of him and into the second house to his left. He walked slowly to the second room and was about to open the door to go in when another child ran past him into another house.

"Over here," the child giggled and disappeared into the house behind Hajime.

"No, over here," another child giggled and ran to another house.

Hajime turned around and saw many children giggling and running from house to house. Then a girl ran out from the other side of the street and disappeared into the house where Hajime was standing by the door. Hajime pushed open the door and walked slowly into the room. When Hajime was inside the house, a gust of wind blew past him. He closed his eyes to keep the dust out of them. He rubbed his eyes, opened them, and found himself standing in the living room of his old house.

"Hajime-kun," Asa smiled down at him. "it's time for lunch."

Hajime looked up at Asa who smiled brightly at him. With tears in his eyes, he held out his hand to Asa. "Papa," Hajime said in a toddler's voice.