His shock was impossible to describe in words.
Clinging to the last tree, he hurled himself straight into a field of bloody flowers.
There was no turning back now.
"Ghk...!" There were no more footholds for the hook, so the landing was very painful.
The speed was already high, but the fall from almost 5 meters only increased the danger of the stunt. He could compare it to jumping off the roof of a speeding train, but it was probably even more dangerous.
Fortunately, he knew how to roll to absorb the impact of the fall, and that saved him a little. However, at the same time, it did not prevent the wound on his back from worsening. It opened up even more, and he felt that the injury was now flirting with death.
And yet, right now, he was concerned about something else entirely.
"B-but how...?" he whispered in disbelief.
He couldn't believe that the trees he had trusted as allies had led him straight to the place of harvest.
"RRAAH!!!" Ryskar roared right behind him, forcing him to endure all kinds of pain and start running straight through the bloody flowers.
It was truly a beautiful field of poppies. Only now did he notice that dawn was breaking in this world, and the red-orange sky further emphasized the unprecedented beauty of nature. However, the smell here...
The smell was like a mixture of hundreds... no, thousands of chopped-up corpses that had been twisted three times in a meat grinder, then ground again and spewed back out.
"N-no, no, no, it's just..."
"RRRWAAA!!!
The monster's roar left no room for regret and mercilessly drove him forward.
But where could he go? Besides, his strength had long since been exhausted.
'D-damn…' he thought painfully, feeling a terrible mix of bitterness and despair.
Right now, his run bore little resemblance to that of a human. Using his back was so painful that he almost had to lean on all four limbs.
He resembled a hunched old man, almost crawling along the ground. Just like prey in its last breath.
However, the worst was yet to come.
When Ryskar almost caught up with him, he saw something that made him fall to his knees in unprecedented despair.
His eye began to twitch.
"... " He could only stare, unable to say or think anything.
He was kneeling right in front of the very "heart" of this place.
Music was one of his greatest passions. If he were asked to choose a suitable melody right now, he would undoubtedly choose a requiem.
The heart was a circular space on the ground filled with a mixture of gears with extremely sharp ends. It was a huge meat grinder.
There were traces of dried blood, ground bones, and flesh pulp everywhere. There were many other disgusting things, but it was impossible to look at them without vomiting.
Even now, the meat grinder was working, and the sharp teeth were spinning at a frantic speed. However, the mechanism made almost no creaking or eerie sounds.
And yet he thought that soon the silence of this beautiful construction would be broken by the crunch of his skull, bones, and the slurping of his heart along with the rest of his flesh.
"Rrrrr…" Ryskar switched from screaming to a long, vibrating growl.
"...?!" He turned to face the predator and realized that it was only a few meters away from him.
Then he collapsed helplessly onto the ground on his backside and watched his own end approaching.
Right behind him was a huge meat grinder, and in front of him was the mouth of his hunter.
"D-d-dam…"
"RRRRAA!!!" The beast, with a blade stuck in its eye, let out a piercing growl, and the smell of blood and flesh intensified to the limit.
Tears streamed down his face.
He began to cry, even though he had promised himself he wouldn't be afraid. That would have been the case, but he really believed...
He believed he could save himself.
And because of that belief, he would not even be able to die with dignity, as he had done in his previous life. Although to call what happened then "dignified"... That would be monstrous.
"Rrrr..."
"..."
Ryskar and his lamb were finally face-to-face. He had lost, and the predator had caught up with him...
However, the beast was in no hurry to kill him.
Its mechanical limbs slowly approached, forcing his own to crawl back.
Only when his hand was one step away from the "meat grinder" did he finally understand the reasons for Ryskar's behavior.
'It wants… It wants me to crawl in there… by myself.'
His heart nearly leapt out of his chest in horror. It was cruel. Monstrously cruel.
But perhaps...
'Perhaps this is exactly what I deserve.'