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Introduction
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Forêt d'argent — Chance Encounter is the twenty-fourth chapter of Jun Mochizuki's The Case Study of Vanitas.
This article contains plot and/or ending details for The Case Study of Vanitas.
Read at your own risk.
Summary[]
“Are you… the witch? The Hellfire Witch… Jeanne?”
The wind howled like a wolf calling to its pack, the night sky was a deep endless black, and the snow blizzarding down forth from the heavens blanketed everything in pure white. Jeanne was here. She was younger, hair long, face stained with blood, and she stared, stricken, at the person she was facing down. They smiled, relieved that she’s finally come. They beckoned her forth with their bloodstained hand, making Jeanne, despite her bared and ready fangs, waver in place. They told her to use her fangs, her claws, her flames, and…
“Go on, go on, go on, go on…!”
Noé writes a letter to his Teacher and reports that he is with Vanitas in a place far from Paris: Gévaudan. The clattering wheels of the horse-drawn carriage carry their group forward, and Noé’s eyes shine with excitement when he spots a peaceful little country town surrounded by hills, possibly Saugues. Noé while holding Murr marvels at how pretty the place is, which reminds him of Averoigne. But as for Vanitas, he’s struggling much more in comparison, crouched down in the cart and bundling himself deep into his coat, shivering heavily. Noé asks why Vanitas looks about to die, and Vanitas snaps that it’s cold, annoyed at Noé’s energetic attitude. Vanitas is laughed at for looking pathetic, and he snaps back that he’s delicate, unlike them—that is, the two Dhampirs Dante and Johann. Vanitas asks why they’re even here, and Dante brushes it off. Noé recalls that the Dhampir duo had caught up with the Vampire-and-human duo on the way in the town of Clermont-Ferrand. Noé had thought they also wanted to investigate what was going on in Gévaudan, but Dante retorted that Dhams like them don’t care about humans or Vampires. Noé was surprised, and Dante answered that they were there to gather intel that would earn them money. And then, Dante expresses annoyance about the incident with the Chasseurs, that Noé and Vanitas instantly went in to solve it without even telling the Dhampirs. Dante and Johann surround Noé with dark and angry expresses as they both recall the “reinforced humans” who had attacked and injured them previously, and Noé in the middle of them is pale. Vanitas is just exasperated though, because while they may want information, he guesses they didn’t come for that reason alone.
Soon the four arrive at their destination. They plan to leave their luggage at the inn, and then directly head into the forest where the corpses had been found, in order to find traces of the Beast before nightfall. They try asking the locals, but everyone they meet either calls their mission a death wish or rebukes them for being nosy outsiders, some even slamming doors and outright avoiding them. Noé is discouraged from how wary everyone is, and Vanitas sighs and decides to find the place themselves using their own information. A small voice asks if they are here to kill the Beast, and they turn to find it to be a little girl, along with an older boy who comes to embrace her protectively. Vanitas smiles at the children and asks why they think so. The boy, seemingly the girl’s older brother, tells them that people from the Church had come asking for a guide as well. Dante and Johann are surprised and wary to find out the Chasseurs had already arrived. The boy tells them to stay away, because in the Silver Forest lives “a terrible witch.”
The four immediately go there. The stand together before the Silver Forest and enter into its depths, instantly surrounding themselves with the creaking and rustling and ominous sounds of a totally nature-enclosed place. Dante clings to Johann, quivering and hoping they don’t encounter any bears. Johann mildly says that’s unlikely, more that they’ll probably run into wolves. Dante shrieks and Johann asks why he even came. Meanwhile, Noé is completely happy-go-lucky and recalls all the times he would play in the forest with his friends during his childhood, irritating Dante. Noé makes to run off in his excitement but Vanitas grabs him by his coat’s belts and pulls him back to prevent him from straying too far. Dante watches this interaction with bewilderment. He comments to Vanitas how unexpectedly well they’re getting along, considering it’s Vanitas. He’d expected Vanitas to instantly leave the moment things went wrong, to Vanitas’s surprise. He admits that he intended to, but Noé had stayed up all night and ambushed him to prevent exactly that. Dante teases Vanitas, that his “sugar daddy” is quite bold, irritating Vanitas. Meanwhile Noé catches sight of something and turns to look at it, but he bumps his head on a branch overhead which knocks his hat off and sends it tumbling down a hill. While engaged in a poking war with Dante, Vanitas tells Johann to keep a close eye on Noé, lest he instantly disappear “just like that.” Johann confirms that it truly was “just like that,” and in a cold sweat gestures to the completely empty spot where Noé had once been. Vanitas screams Noé’s name.
Noé successfully tracks down his hat where it landed, and as he picks it up Murr hops off and starts walking around. Noé scolds Murr that they have to stay with the group, but turns around and finds himself completely alone. He freezes in complete confusion. His mind starts spinning and his heart starts racing once he realizes the rest of the group have vanished. He instantly comes to the conclusion that this is the power of “The Witch’s Forest,” never once realizing he got lost all on his own. Then a certain noise resounds. An eerie creaking that’s almost metallic in its tone, almost like the turning of old gears of some worn piece of machinery. Noé is startled to hear this. With Dante, Johann, and Vanitas, the latter has stopped and turned his palm to the sky. The noise of the gears increases and gets faster and faster. Vanitas looks at his palm and recalls what the children from the village told them, that the reason the Silver Forest is called such is because “it’s just what it sounds like.” At once Vanitas and Noé look at their palms, where little frozen crystals have formed.
Noé is completely surrounded by snow. Every single square inch of the ground, the trees, the rocks, the air itself is filled with blankets of white. He stares up, astonished. The exact same has happened with Vanitas, Dante, and Johann. A sudden snowstorm has erupted out of nowhere around them, whipping up their clothes and swirling the snowflakes around them. Dante is appalled, from how cold it’s suddenly gotten and the fact that all the snow appeared in literally the blink of an eye. Johann calls to Dante in a panic—because Vanitas isn’t breathing. He’s totally frozen and as white as the snow that covers him, practically a standing corpse at this point. Dante brushes the snow off his head and Johann starts ushering him under the shelter of the trees. Then Johann notices someone’s presence, and the two Dhampirs bodily carry the incapacitated Vanitas away into hiding.
A group of soldiers wielding bayonets, one on horseback, talk amongst each other. They’re talking about some suspicious people who had claimed to be with the Church. One soldier makes to report to a “Monsieur Antoine” but his commanding officer instead orders all of them to find the Beast, put an end to it themselves, and present the corpse to the King in Versailles. Dante wonders about them, why they’re dressed in such a way, and the way they talk about the “King.” Vanitas calls them “dragoons.” In the Beast of Gévaudan incident of the eighteenth century, Louis XV ordered dragoons to investigate it. In addition, “Antoine” refers to the King’s first Gun-Bearer, François Antoine. Dante goes pale. He tries to deny it, that all this together means that they’re somehow in the past. Vanitas laughs mirthlessly and remarks on what a troublesome place they’ve found themselves in.
A wolf howls. Vanitas and Dante jump in alarm. The howling increases, with several more wolves joining in on the chorus, their combined voices reverberating throughout the entire forest. Dante is terrified. Noé stares skyward in alarm at the sound. A lone figure clad in a robe also stares silently at where the howling originates. Vanitas is also on edge, looking around himself, when he hears it. A panting, low and rumbling and animalistic, sounding extremely close by. Vanitas freezes. Just next to him, the eyes of an immense Beast appear and stare him down.
Noé is running through the snow, calling to Vanitas and Dante, desperate to find his companions after hearing such a noise. He hears a scream from nearby and turns towards it with alarm. A dragoon, clutching his arm and covered in blood, runs away from something. Someone, rather, from the figure looming close by. Noé dashes down a hill to where the injured man is. He watches as the dragoon, still in the middle of calling for help, is attacked and impaled by a figure jumping atop him and stabbing their weapon right into his back. Noé comes to a stop right in front of none other than Astolfo, who himself stops with his spear impaled into the dragoon’s back. Noé stares at the boy with alarm. Astolfo looks up at Noé, then his irises narrow and turn frenzied. He yanks the spear out the dragoon’s body. Noé detects this, and the Vampire jumps out of the way just in time to avoid Astolfo’s spear. He grabs onto a tree’s branch to stay out of range, noting the clothes that mark Astolfo as a Chasseur. Astolfo spins his spear and remarks on how familiar Noé looked to him. Noé’s eyes widen as he notices—beyond where Astolfo stands is an absolute massacre, countless dead bodies staining the snow from white to red. Astolfo smiles and brightly greets Noé once again. Noé sees the bodies staying dead rather than turn to ash, and becomes bewildered as to why a Chasseur would attack humans. The howling returns and echoes overhead, this time more massive and deafening than ever. A quaking shakes the land, causing the snow atop the trees to fall to the ground, and Noé jumps down in alarm while Astolfo grips his arm and becomes flushed with excitement.
“—They say it looked like an enormous wolf.”
Vanitas and Dante stare with growing panic at the sound of something absolutely huge approaching from deep within the forest.
“It had a hugely twisted mouth, pointed ears, and sharp claws.”
A single eye, greatly distorted in shape, with three pupils fused together, stares them down with a set of gnarled fangs.
“Its whole body was covered in red fur, with a black ridge running down its back.”
The dragoons and Dante both cry with terror as they see it arrive.
The Beast of Gévaudan.
Dante gapes at how absolutely huge the Beast is, easily the size of an average building. Vanitas himself is on edge from the sight of the Beast. The dragoons point their bayonets upward and shoot simultaneously, nailing the Beast directly in its face. Johann reassuringly grips Dante’s shoulders as the latter yells if they got it, but Vanitas knows they didn’t. The human doctor stiffens, and the Beast rushes forward. It completely rips apart the dragoons, leaving not a shred of them untouched. Dante screams that guns do nothing, and Vanitas notes it heals too quickly. The Beast’s eyes narrow at their voices, and it turns its head skyward to howl. Behind Vanitas and Dante appear countless pairs of eyes, red and glaring and dangerous. Wolves jump out from the woods, and Vanitas whips out his knife while Dante reaches for his gun. The group fight back to defend themselves as a huge pack of wolves descend upon them all at once. A scream sounds from the dragoons from a survivor of the Beast’s attack. Dante makes to go help the man, but Johann holds him back lest he die, and the wolves descend to kill the remaining survivor. Dante grits his teeth.
Vanitas is fighting off the countless wolves with both daggers, and as he does he mutters to himself about what he knows. A red-eyed Beast, a Witch living in the woods, the incident from the eighteenth century, time wound back—is it the past? Vanitas quickly dismisses this. Frantically he wonders, just what Malnomen causes all this? Vanitas’s foot slips on the snow and he falls backwards with a curse as a pair of wolves rush him. He curses out Noé for not being present when it matters as the wolves make to descend. The wolf is smacked right across the face and sent flying away. Vanitas watches as a figure stands between him and the other attacking wolf, and with worry on his face he makes to call Noé’s name.
A muscular leg kicks upward and strikes the remaining wolf right in the chin. Vanitas openly gapes as he stares at the leg, clad in a familiar armor. Jeanne, her eyes red and fangs bared, stands in the snow ready for battle. Vanitas calls her name in surprise. The Beast hears this and freezes, staring directly at the Vampire as it breathes out her name.
“J… Jea… nne…?”
Characters[]
- Jeanne
- Chloé d'Apchier*
- Noé Archiviste
- Murr
- The Teacher (Mentioned only)
- Vanitas
- Dante
- Johann
- Astolfo Granatum
- Beast of Gévaudan (First Appearance)
(*) - Denotes that the character did not appear physically, but as a part of another character's memories.
Terms[]
Trivia[]
- Forêt d'argent is literally translated as "silver forest" from French.
- Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat with swords and firearms from horseback.[1]
- Louis XV was the King of France reigning from September 1st 1715 until his death on May 10th 1774. During his reign was when the real Beast of Gévaudan incident occurred.[2]
- "Monsieur Antoine" refers to François Antoine, a historical figure who served as Gun-Bearer to King Louis XV and Lieutenant of the Hunt. He is most notable for having pursued and slain the real Beast of Gévaudan.[3]
References[]
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| v - e - t | The Case Study of Vanitas Chapters |
|---|---|
| Parisian Excursion Arc | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 |
| Bal Masqué Arc | 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 |
| Hunters of the Dark Arc | 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 |
| The Beast of Gévaudan Arc | 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 34.5 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 38.5 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 |
| Amusement Park Arc | 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 54.5 • 55 • 55.5 • 56 |
| Miel Incident Arc | 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 61.5 • 62 • 62.5 • 63 • 64 • 65 |
| Intermissions | 15.5 • 46.5 • 51.5 • 60.5 |
| Volumes | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 |
| Omake | Vanitashu no Karute • Romance is a✰LOVE MISSION • Confessional Counseling Office |
| Other | Author's Notes |