Ningen no Mori was not a forest.
Forests were alive in gentle ways—they whispered, they sheltered, they listened. Ningen no Mori did none of those things. It watched.
Akira had known that long before he stood at its edge.
The boundary was marked by nothing physical—no fence, no sign, no warning carved into stone. Yet every villager knew exactly where it began. The grass stopped growing there. The earth darkened. Even the sky above seemed heavier, clouds lingering unnaturally, as though reluctant to move on.
Akira stood alone at that invisible line, the weight of the moment pressing down on his shoulders.
Behind him lay the village of Hoshimura, small and fragile, clinging desperately to the illusion of safety. Wooden houses lined the narrow paths, lanterns already lit though the sun had not fully set. Curtains were drawn. Doors locked. Mothers pulled children inside the moment Akira turned his head.
They all knew why he was there.
They just didn't want to say it out loud.
Three children had disappeared in the last month.
First was Emi, only six years old. She had gone to fetch water from the stream at dawn and never returned. Her bucket was found tipped over, water still dripping into the soil, small footprints leading toward the forest.
Then Kenta. Then Yui.
Each time, the trail ended the same way—right here.
Ningen no Mori.
Akira clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms. He could still hear the cries of the mothers, still see the fathers staring at the ground in shame. They had begged the village elders to act.
The elders had shaken their heads.
"Hunters no longer exist," they had said. "The old ways are dead."
Akira had listened in silence.
Then he had gone home, opened the floorboards beneath his bed, and taken out the blade his father had hidden there before he died.
A blade meant for ghouls.
A blade meant for him.
Now, standing at the threshold, Akira adjusted the satchel across his chest. It was old and frayed, stitched together more times than he could count. Inside it lay talismans, salt wrapped in cloth, and a small journal filled with notes written in his father's sharp, hurried handwriting.
Notes about creatures that should not exist.
Notes about how to kill them.
The forest exhaled.
The temperature dropped suddenly, enough to raise goosebumps on Akira's skin. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, instincts screaming at him to turn back.
He didn't.
"Once you cross," his father had told him years ago, voice low and serious, "Ningen no Mori will mark you. It will remember your scent. Your heartbeat. Your fear."
Akira took a slow breath and stepped forward.
The moment his foot touched the soil beyond the boundary, the world changed.
Sound vanished.
The distant chatter of the village. The rustle of wind. The faint call of birds. All of it was swallowed whole, as though he had stepped into another realm entirely.
The air inside the forest was thick and damp, carrying the stench of rot and old blood. The trees were massive, their bark twisted into unnatural shapes that resembled screaming faces if one looked too long. Their roots rose from the ground like coiled serpents, forcing Akira to step carefully.
Light barely penetrated the canopy above.
Even though the sun still lingered outside, here it felt like night.
Akira reached into his satchel and drew out the blade.
It was shorter than a sword, longer than a knife, forged from dark steel that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, faint crimson symbols etched along the metal stirred.
They flickered.
Then glowed.
Akira's breath caught.
"So you still work," he whispered.
The blade pulsed faintly, warm against his skin, as if responding.
Crunch.
Akira froze.
The sound echoed far too loudly in the unnatural silence. He had stepped on a twig—but in Ningen no Mori, even the smallest sound could be a death sentence.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his head.
Nothing.
Yet the feeling remained.
That sensation of being watched.
Akira forced himself to move forward, counting his steps the way his father had taught him. Ghouls were drawn to panic. Fear altered the scent of the blood, made humans irresistible.
Control your breathing. Control your heart. Control your fear.
The ground beneath him suddenly shifted.
Before Akira could react, the soil erupted.
A pale hand burst from the earth, fingers long and crooked, nails blackened and sharp. Another followed. Then a head forced its way free, mouth stretching wide in a grotesque grin.
The ghoul pulled itself out of the ground with a wet, tearing sound.
It was once human—Akira could tell. Most ghouls were. Its skin clung tightly to its bones, veins bulging dark beneath the surface. Its eyes were sunken pits of yellow, darting wildly as it sniffed the air.
"Human…" it rasped, voice like gravel dragged across flesh.
It lunged.
Akira moved without thinking.
He stepped to the side and swung the blade in one smooth motion. The moment steel met flesh, the crimson symbols flared brightly, burning with unnatural heat.
The ghoul screamed.
The sound was piercing, wrong, echoing through the forest like a warning bell. Its head separated from its body, and before either could hit the ground, the creature disintegrated into ash.
The ashes scattered, carried away by a wind Akira could not feel.
He stood there, chest heaving.
His first kill.
Again.
He knelt briefly, pressing his fingers to the ground where the ghoul had emerged. The soil was still warm.
"They're close," he murmured.
As if in answer, the forest stirred.
Branches creaked overhead. Shadows shifted where no light existed. From deeper within Ningen no Mori came low murmurs—voices layered over one another, hungry and amused.
Akira straightened, lifting his blade.
The stories were true.
The ghouls were awake.
Somewhere in the heart of the forest, beneath roots older than the village itself, something far worse was watching. Something ancient. Something that commanded the others.
The Ghoul King.
Akira clenched his jaw and took another step forward.
"If the children are alive," he said quietly, voice steady despite the terror clawing at his chest, "then I'll find them."
The forest responded with a sound that might have been laughter.
Akira walked deeper into the darkness, unaware that Ningen no Mori had already made its decision.
The last ghoul hunter had returned.
And the forest was hungry.