A year has passed and Guts is living with Godo, a swordsmith, and his granddaughter Erica. Guts learns that the Band of the Hawk are now wanted outlaws and Casca is their captain. Guts goes to them and finds them battling foreign mercenaries.

Casca and Guts go into the dungeon under the Tower of Rebirth to rescue Griffith, finding him mute, crippled and horribly disfigured from a year of seemingly endless torture. Meanwhile, the members of the Hawk are slaughtered at their camp by monsters led by a green fairy.