71 . Revealing the past (3)
A name that I barely forgot because of my happy life with my children, or I tried to rationalize that I forgot.
She left only unpleasant memories with the other guys, but I couldn’t easily forget her smiling at me until the last moment. No, she couldn’t erase it.
As if her lingering feelings remained, she still clutched a piece of her memory with her in her hand. Just like the traces of her on her hand holding the sand, the time she spent with her was naturally integrated into my life.
Cassandra’s words that Maria was the problem came as quite a shock to me.
Did you just spit out the words to shake me?
To say that, Cassandra’s detached attitude at the end did not seem like she was telling a lie.
“Dad! What’s the matter?”
It was only after I put my hand on my shoulder and saw Stella look worried that I was finally able to come back to reality.
Let’s put it aside for now. Because the truth will be revealed someday if these outstanding children are by your side.
“Sorry, were you worried?”
“Yes… You were surprised to suddenly stand there and not say anything.”
Stella wrapped her arms around my waist with a teary-eyed expression. I felt her feeble trembling through her blood-stained body, and I gently caressed her head to reassure her.
I didn’t want to be in this environment anymore. I lifted my head and looked at the children’s faces carefully, one at a time, then spoke quietly.
“Let’s go back.”
I wanted to get out of Eradoi’s cellar right away, but Cassandra stepped in her eyes.
No matter how hard it was, I couldn’t leave it here like that. I’m unconscious now, but I don’t know when I’ll wake up and change. It was risky to take him.
Olivia thought for a moment, then she gave her answer.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to take him with me first? If you release it, you can attack Dad again like today.”
Certainly, Cassandra was too dangerous to be left unattended. Even taking her with her involved certain risks, but seeing her would be at least reassuring.
If the children took advantage of the opportunity when I was not by my side and took advantage of me, I could not resist properly, and I could be held hostage like yesterday or even lose my life in the worst case.
I nodded her head, and Stella understood Cassandra, undid her rope, slung her back over her shoulder, and followed me out of the cellar.
Without talking to each other, as we climbed the stairs, we could clearly feel the air change.
Opening the iron door, holding Olivia’s hand as she reached out to me, I climbed to the ground, and fresh air that was different from the underground filled my lungs.
But isn’t this situation strange? Clearly, when I left the house, the sky over the Great Forest was eroded by the spreading flames, and a thick gray lay beneath it.
But what is the current situation? Apparently, it hadn’t been that long underground, but the trees had regained their original color and were emitting blue light, and the cries of chirping birds could be heard again from all directions.
I thought I was dreaming because there was no trace of the fire that was filling the Great Forest.
Elia added her words to me who was standing there blankly.
“Dad, do you think the Great Forest centered on the World Tree will just disappear in flames?”
Well, there have been a lot of hands targeting the Great Forest so far, and there’s no way they didn’t have the simple idea of setting fire to the forest. Even so, the reason why the Great Forest has survived so far is because it is a sanctuary that has been prepared for it.
The moment I closed the door to the basement completely and welcomed the clear air of the Great Forest again, I heard a woman’s high-pitched voice.
“You! Where have you been until now!”
Turning her head towards the sound of her voice, Sharon was panting and glaring at me with her reddened face.
I forgot.
Sharon moved her stride and came to me in her single breath, then she grabbed me by the collar, her quivering eyes whimpering and only breathing heavily.
She seemed to have no intention of doing any more harm to Sharon. She gently rolled her eyes and looked at the children next to her who seemed like they would move at any moment if she lifted her hand. Spoke to me again.
“How many elves have suffered because of you alone… Do you know!?”
Sharon’s words and actions, which had been consistently respectful from beginning to end, had changed considerably.
She still had to say what she had to say.
“It’s my fault, what the hell are you talking about?”
Technically speaking, I was also a victim. It was very unpleasant to accuse people as perpetrators in this way.
Sharon didn’t even answer me, she muttered, pressing her temples, that her headache hurts.
“Ha… I managed to put out the urgent fire somehow, but I didn’t mean to let you into this town… What will happen if this man stays longer….”
Sharon kept complaining about me in front of me.
Leon, it was unpleasant to limit Cassandra’s reason for raiding the Great Forest to me, but I can understand it. Because I am the only one in this town who has contact with them.
Wait, then, as Sharon said, is it my fault?
I thought for a moment and chewed on Sharon’s words.
What if the reason they raided was really because of me? Being in this town itself was a nuisance.
After all, having heard the truth about the children, there was no reason to stay in this village any longer.
I had nothing to say.
I bowed my head to Sharon, who still couldn’t hide my anger in front of her, and carefully spat out a word from her, expressing her sorry feelings.
“Sorry.”
Sharon let out a deep sigh and crossed her arms.
“Well, it’s me who gave permission in the first place… I also have my responsibilities. But I hope I never come to the great grove again. You and those four evil gods. Please leave us alone. This is my last request.”
It was a request, but in fact it was more like a notice.
Now that the children know that Great Forest is not their hometown, they will never come here again, as Sharon wished.
Just as I packed my things and was about to leave Daesoorim, there was a person who suddenly came to my mind.
Normally, she grunted and complained to me, but I couldn’t see her.
I looked around and asked in a trembling voice as if confirming.
“Wait a minute… Where is Rihanna?”
Until then, the eyes of the children who had been calm until then grew round, and the moment I saw them, I was convinced. They weren’t so foolish that they didn’t know what it meant to have such a surprised look on their faces, who were never surprised under any circumstances.
Something was going terribly wrong.
●
The discomfort of a throbbing headache spreads throughout the body.
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Fatigue overtook me, but I couldn’t stay still in this situation. The last thing Rihanna remembers was Cassandra storming the Great Forest and Leon following her.
She lost her mind for a moment in the aftermath of Stella and Leon’s fight, but Rihanna, who thought nothing was going to happen, got up from her seat and looked around her, pressing her temple gently.
However, her reality was not as smooth as she thought.
“What the f*ck, what is this?”
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Faced with her reality, Rihanna’s mouth came out with her automatically familiar voice.
The beautiful woods of her botanic forest are nowhere to be found, her drab trees and mud greet her.
Not only that, she had nasty mosquitoes and scarabs clinging to her limbs.
As she got up from her seat and removed the bugs from her body, she heard her familiar voice.
“Are you awake?”
Leon asked, not even looking in Rihanna’s direction as he lit her campfire.
Rihanna looked blankly at Leon with an expression that she didn’t understand.
“Why are you here?”
The last thing Rihanna remembers about Leon is being beaten by her Stella without even using her hand properly.
It is said that now is not the time to be leisurely lighting a fire here.
Taking a potato or sweet potato from the fire, Leon wiped her hand and threw one at Rihanna.
Leon, who had been munching on potatoes without peeling them, added casually.
“Since Ain took Cassandra, shouldn’t it be fair that I bring something too?”
Rihanna, who roughly threw her sweet potato on her floor, approached Leon with a much sharper tone than before and opened her mouth.
“Is it still the same to talk about people as objects? I’m not even at your party anymore, so why don’t you stop talking like that?”
“Really? So, is there a way to deal with it a little more brutally? It’s not even my party anyway.”
After her words were over, Leon quickly overpowered Rihanna and pressed her face to the floor as she did.
Because it happened in the blink of an eye, Rihanna, who couldn’t properly resist her once, screamed in spite of her embarrassment, but in her deserted forest, there was no one to help her. Couldn’t exist
Leon kept her cool expression, grabbed Rihanna’s hair by her hair, and began to drag her in the direction of the campfire.
“Wait a minute!”
Rihanna, realizing the seriousness of her situation and the heat passing near her face, spoke to Leon as if pleading.
“My, I was wrong!”
“Wrong? The fault is not what you are doing. That’s what i’m doing Well, if I had to find fault with you, it would be the sin of being born weak.”
Leon brought her hand to Rihanna’s hair close to her campfire, and the burning heat from her immediately began to blaze across Rihanna’s face.
This was the first time I felt a terrifying sound of a crackling bonfire. Rihanna closed her eyes tightly, and she braced herself for the pain that was about to come her way.
But the worst that Rihanna imagined did not happen. Leon looked at Rihanna at her wordlessly, then clicked her tongue and relaxed her hand just as she was.
Rihanna, who had barely regained her freedom as her Leon loosened her grip on her hair, quickly stepped back from her and ran her hand through her face. It burned a little bit, but I’m glad it ended like this.
Rihanna caught her breath, and she glared at Leon again.
You weren’t such an outrageous guy in the past, right? Rihanna couldn’t easily adjust to Leon’s change.
“What are you staring at? I’m sitting there and filling my stomach. I have to move soon.”
Rihanna clicks her tongue once, and she picks up the sweet potato she threw on the floor and brushes off her dirt as she speaks to Leon in her menacing tone.
“You don’t regret bringing me, do you?”
There was a corner to believe.
Elves, the confidence that they will surely find themselves.
Rihanna came to the conclusion that if she is one of those girls who prioritizes not wanting to hurt Ain, then she can’t let herself become friends with Ain.
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For that moment, I was able to satisfy the mad hero in front of me.
Just as Rihanna was making her desperate resolution, Leon, who had finished eating the potatoes in her hand, stood up from her seat.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Didn’t you hear I said I had to move soon? A stupid bitch like you can’t understand it in words, so you’ll have to see it with your own eyes.”
She didn’t explain anything, and Rihanna’s expression quickly hardened after being cursed at, but she didn’t bother complaining.
Still, I couldn’t understand Leon’s words.
You want to see it with your own eyes? What?
Rising from her seat and finishing her stretch until she could hear her crunch at her waist, Leon didn’t look back in the direction Rihanna was, and moved her steps toward the center of the dark forest.
“Follow me. I will show you the truth of this world.”