The Everfree Forest is a very unusual place. A place filled with its wild, unbridled magic. A place full of surprises and dangers awaiting careless travelers at every turn. From the local flora, like a poisonous joke, to the fauna of tree wolves or cockatrices. And don't even try to attribute some category to this forest; everything is so confusing here that at first you see a dark oak, and after a moment there is already a palm tree or a birch in front of you. Also in the forest, there are various anomalies of space and time or something like that, but this happens extremely rarely, even for a place like this. And on one of those days, as you might guess, an anomaly happened.

***

Guts' morning didn't start with a warm bed on a ship. Still asleep, he rolled over onto his back, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the song of the birds, and the gentle rustle of the leaves.

Wait a minute!

Rising abruptly to a sitting position, he looked around. He was surrounded by a variety of trees and bushes, and birds were singing somewhere nearby. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary forest, but it only seems so. Guts has been to different forests many times and even came across living trees! Well, live first. They met with "Uncle Gun in Hand" and were no longer alive.

Something that diverted our attention away from the main topic, namely, "What the fuck am I doing here?"Even though the sun sometimes peered out of the trees and hung high in the sky, it was still darker than usual in the forest. By the way, about the trees, they are very different here: somewhere there are needles, somewhere there is an oak, and here there is a birch. In short, Guts had no idea where he was.

"What am I doing here? How did I get here? And why am I in the forest and not on a ship at sea?"

There are lots of questions and zero answers. He looked around and noticed his two-meter sword, "Dragon Slayer," gleaming in the light of the rare sun beside him. The sword was in excellent condition! As if only recently from the forge. Guts examined himself, just in case, because it's not every day that you get from a ship somewhere in the sea into a strange forest. After checking the circle for enemies but not noticing anything, Guts began to slowly remove the armor. After removing part of the armor, he did not notice any wounds, only his scars, so he began to remove the armor on his arm, where the prosthesis should have been, but immediately flinched. What he saw shocked him. Instead of a prosthesis, he had a full arm! Guts, trembling slightly, brought the other to his hand and, feeling the touch, pulled it back.

"Soft and warm skin," the black swordsman said very quietly. "But that's impossible! How?"

Continuing to examine the arm, he noticed strange patterns in the palm area, similar to the muzzle of a cannon, and almost imperceptible, something similar to the straps of a prosthetic shoulder. Unfastening the straps, his arm began to "detach" from the body. A little frightened, Guts grabbed his hand and began to take it off little by little. Guts thought the healing of his hand was the weirdest thing that had happened today, but he was wrong. In the place where he cut off his hand, there was its continuation, but already in the form of a translucent blue limb, inside which blue threads were intertwined, giving off a blue glow. And when he looked inside the severed arm, he saw flesh and bone. Without thinking for a long time or guessing, he attached his hand back and, fastening the straps, checked his hand for performance. Worked great, as if it had not cut off. Guts definitely liked it. Yes, he got to hell knows where, but now he has two capable hands. Hoping for another miracle, Guts checked his eye. But the miracle did not happen to him. Putting his armor back on and hanging his sword behind his back, the black swordsman began to consider what he should do now.

"First of all, it would be nice to find people." Guts said it more cheerfully.

So he did, heading wherever his eyes looked, towards the exit from the forest.

Two hours later

"Okay, so where am I?" Guts scratched his head.

The same forest surrounded Guts, but this time there were sometimes strange apple trees with rainbow-colored fruits. Guts would have simply ignored them if not for one thing. He was hungry. Logic told him that picking and eating unknown fruits was a bad idea, but Aunt Hunger said: "Either you eat or you die. Guts knew that hunger was not to be trifled with, so he plucked the fruit anyway and took a careful bite, expecting the worst. Starting to chew, he took another bite, and then another, and another, until the apple ran out.

"Juicy and incredibly tasty fruit!" Guts thought enough

He started picking more rainbow apples to satisfy his hunger. Having finished the meal, the black swordsman took some fruit for himself, saying that although he does not believe in the gods, it is a sin not to pocket a couple of such beautiful apples. Guts was continuing his journey towards "I don't know where but toward the people" when he suddenly heard a child's cry. Guts, shaking his whole body, turned towards the sound and immediately ran towards it, putting his hand on the hilt of the sword. Having reached the source of the scream, Guts again did not understand anything.

Five wolves, made as if made of wood, growled at a small white filly with a lilac-pink mane and horn. She was wounded in the rear leg, which, in turn, was bleeding. The wolves growled louder and began to slowly approach the filly. Coming out of prostration, Guts ran out of the bushes and, with a sharp movement, decapitated one of the wolves. Other beasts started up and fixed their attention on the black swordsman. Three of them jumped at Guts, who, with a creepy grin, slashed them all with a single blow. The two remaining wolves did not rush to the black swordsman, but he did not care, and still smiling creepily, he had already pounced on them. He cut one in half across, causing the chips to scatter everywhere, and on the second, he split the head lengthwise. When he finished, he turned towards the filly, who was looking at him with fear in her eyes. Suddenly, he heard strange noises from behind and turned around to see the wolves he had killed begin to gather together, forming a large tree wolf with what looked like a crown on its head. Without waiting for the creature to form, Guts, out of habit, raised his hand where the cannon should have been. Remembering that his hand was no longer a cannon, he wanted to lower it and take the sword, but flames appeared on his fingers, and a blue ball formed in the center of the palm. The lights rushed into the ball, and he, having absorbed them into himself, instantly flew into the wolf, burning through it and thereby leaving a large hole in it. The wolf finally fell to the ground, decomposing into smoldering branches and roots. After making sure that the beast was completely dead, Guts went towards the filly and, hovering over her, sat down on one knee. The filly trembled like an aspen leaf, and she quickly chattered:

"Please don’t kill me."

"Hush, hush, calm; I'm not going to kill you." "I'm trying to calm the filly, said Guts. "You have a wound; let me bandage it." The dark swordsman spoke with the most tender smile.

Taking out a bandage and ointment from his pouch, he began to bandage her wound. The wound was a shallow cut with claws, left by someone who knew. The filly stopped
tremble and, waiting for Guts to finish, said quietly:

"T-thank you..."

"Not at all, um... "What’s your name?" asked Guts, looking inquiringly.

"Sweetie Belle." "Smiling a little," she said.

"And I'm Guts." "Let's get acquainted."

Author's Note

And here she is! Long awaited new chapter
I hope you will enjoy!
Until then, I say goodbye to you. Until the next chapter!