Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku Side Story: Forest of Misfortune

This special side story, created to mark the debut of the *Hell’s Paradise* anime, ventures into a shadow-laced fable set in a small, insular village. Against the backdrop of a dense, foreboding forest, the villagers live in quiet trepidation, but their unease reaches a fever pitch when a mysterious stranger takes up residence on the outskirts of their community. While the adults hesitate, paralyzed by superstition, the village children—possessed of a fierce, unyielding protectiveness—decide that the outsider cannot be allowed to remain. Viewing him as a blight upon their fragile sanctuary, they resolve to eliminate him by any means necessary, believing their youth and cunning will grant them the element of surprise. Armed with whatever crude tools and traps they can fashion, the children launch their assault with reckless determination. They strike under cover of darkness, ambush him along the forest paths, and resort to increasingly brutal tactics, each more savage than the last, certain that their coordinated efforts will swiftly end the threat. Yet, to their mounting horror, nothing they do proves effective. He withstands every blow, shrugs off every wound, and rises from each apparent death with an unsettling calm that shatters their resolve. As their desperate gambits fail one after another, the children's initial bravado curdles into sheer terror. They are forced to grapple with the horrifying realization that the man they set out to destroy may be utterly immortal—an entity beyond the reach of mortal violence, leaving them trapped in a waking nightmare with no solution and no one to turn to.