Chapter 97 – In the Woods (3)

The first floor of the magic tower was hidden by the hill and was no longer visible.

After a beautiful farewell, we fell asleep leaning on each other’s shoulders, tired of the afterglow of our all-night sex. Rumia patted my chest without saying anything or fell asleep with her body bent over, and I lay on her lap and enjoyed her breasts swinging like pendulums in front of my eyes.

Sylvia, who had waved at us from across the hill, wiped away her tears and went back to her lodgings. All that was left was for her to go home and give Isabel and Elena a hug. I said, stroking Rumia’s hair.

“I want to go home soon. Yes?”

Rumia answered my question with a nod of her head.

“So do i.”

I nodded and started listing the things I want to do when I get home.

“First of all, Isabel and Elena and we all have a meal together. After eating, we talk more seriously about our future work, take a bath together, and then sleep together in bed.”

“Aren’t you having sex?”

For me, sex was life itself. Just like no one puts a plan to ‘wash your face and brush your teeth’, sex was just something I didn’t say because it was a matter of course.

“I have to. I didn’t mention it because I do it as naturally as breathing. Isn’t that strange? When I’m at home, I try to go outside to become stronger, but when I finish working outside, I want to go home like crazy.”

Rumia stroked my hair and closed her eyes. As she stretched her hand toward her lips, which tinged with a faint smile, her moist texture was intoxicating. Rumia stuck out her tongue, licked her index finger, and nodded.

“I heard that Evan was a slave.”

“It did?”

Even if she tries not to show off, her face hardens when she mentions the past. Her voice cracked on its own, and her mood plummeted. Rumia caressed my cheek, she said.

“In a way, Evan-nim is the first to create a family. It’s natural that I’m attached to you and want to stay by your side.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t brainwash either Isabel or Elena. These two were women who voluntarily turned their backs on the world for me, the devil, and still continue to support me.

“I don’t know. What exactly do I want?”

A person who has never had a proper wish come true, he doesn’t even know what he wants. I, too, was born at a time when wishing was a luxury, and I lived my life in a class where making a wish itself was a laughing stock.

What do I wish for? At one point, I thought I wanted to kill everyone who laughed at me. After realizing the power of the devil, I even thought that I wanted to eat all the women in the world.

But now my wish was not like that. I could feel Sowon, slightly deviating from his primal desire, moving wildly next to his instinct to fuck and eat women.

“You don’t have to worry too much. Evan… !”

Thud!

Just as Rumia was about to say a few more words to me, she abruptly stopped her carriage. I was about to fall to the floor, but Rumia grabbed me and I managed to get myself up. I couldn’t understand the situation.

“What? Are you a robber? Is it an attack?”

“I’ll have to check it out first. Could you please wait a moment?”

Rumia opened the window wide. I grabbed my temple, which was dizzy from lying down, and raised myself up. I saw the coachman gesticulating and trying to explain the situation to us. Rumia tilted her head with her puzzled face, then looked at me and said,

“Evan. It looks like someone is blocking the carriage outside.”

“Who?”

I stuck my head out the window asking that question. A small child, now about ten years old, was standing in front of his avenue with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched. I looked at her and frowned at her.

“What?”

“Let’s check what’s going on.”

“Wait a minute, don’t get off.”

I knew a story similar to this one now. A story about a story in which the front of the wagon is blocked by trees or other small children, and when people get off the wagon, thieves attack. I spoke to Rumia in a low voice.

“Is anyone around?”

“Doesn’t exist. It doesn’t feel popular. It seems that he is alone.”

But that child did not seem to have stopped the wagon for that purpose. The coachman looked at us and the child alternately with a look on his face, and the child cried out with a teary face.

“Help me too! Please give me a ride! Mommy is sick!”

“Huh?”

At the unexpected story, both Rumia and I blinked at her. The coachman did not understand what her child was saying, so she struggled intently, pointing to her ear, and the child stamped her feet and shouted again.

“My mother had a fever and passed out! We have to call the priest quickly!”

Shedding tears didn’t seem like a lie. When I really doubted whether I could trust him, Rumia put on a pitying expression and said,

“Oh, that’s a big deal. I need to burn it quickly.”

“Huh?”

“Why is that? Evan. There is a village on the way, so there is no problem with driving there, right?”

“…No, you’re a priest.”

Rumia shut her mouth. We didn’t have to give her a ride. It was because Lumia was a high-ranking priest among her priests. No matter how strong the priest of the nearby temple was, she couldn’t beat Rumia.

“…It was. Really.”

Rumia nodded and opened the door of her carriage. I let out a deep sigh as I looked at the still-crying child. Rumia said as she sat down in front of the crying child and stroked her head.

“Little boy. Can I take you to your mother? Her sister is a priest.”

Even though she was a minion of the devil, she could still use divine power. At her trusting and affectionate voice, the child cried out with more tears pouring out.

“I, really? Uh, Mom just got a fever and sweats, so she can’t come to her senses… ! Ji, be alone now! We have to go fast!”

The child was flustered as he explained the situation. The fact that the priest has arrived, he is busy moving his body because he doesn’t know what action to prioritize. Rumia signaled something to her coachman with her hand and stroked the child’s head, she said.

“Okay, guide me. Things seem urgent.”

“Yes… ! Yes!”

*****

Facing divine power was more unpleasant than breathing in the smell of a gutter. It was because the visceral nausea and discomfort soared and made it impossible to be there. So I sat on the floor facing the dirty walls of the old cabin. Outside, the coachman was smoking a cigarette and enjoying the atmosphere of the forest, and I scratched my head, paying attention to the sounds inside.

“Uh, is Mom all well?”

“Okay. The urgent hurdle has passed, but for the time being, it seems that someone will have to take care of it diligently by the side. If your health is low, you can’t recover it with divine power.”

“I will nurse you! I will take good care of you and take care of you!”

Confident speech. When I was young, I used to say things with confidence like that. There must have been a time when I also talked like that in the past.

“By the way, are you and your mother living alone here?”

“I have an older brother, who is in the army now.”

“I don’t think I can be alone…”

Rumia rubbed her chin and frowned. I looked at the scenery inside the house through the crack in the door. The room was a total mess. It was full of dust because it hadn’t been cleaned properly, and the meal was probably made only with dry bread, and one large loaf had holes in it, like a rat had eaten it.

Dishes were piled up in the kitchen and the floor looked like a garbage dump with all sorts of rubbish rolling around.

However, the child did not recognize what was wrong even in this unpleasant and dirty space.

There was a rustling sound, and a mouse poked its head out from the corner of the room. Rumia frowned for a moment, then shook her head and pulled herself up. Her mother was fast asleep, breathing softly.

“Go, thank you! This, how to wrap this grace… !”

The girl’s words made me laugh. Where the hell did you learn that word? Rumia laughed too and stroked her child’s head, she said.

“Little boy, do you know where your brother is working?”

“Yes! What fort? I heard he works in a fort or something!”

“These days?”

“It’s a fortress over there if you go across the forest!”

“Okay?”

Rumia removed her hand from her child and she whispered to me.

“Evan. Can’t we just have this child and mother?”

“Sure. Sooner or later, the rats will eat the mother too.”

The child was still clumsy with her household chores. She seemed to know nothing about cleaning or nursing in the first place. Was it fortunate that she knew that if she got sick, she would have to find her priest? If she left the child and mother as it was, her mother could get sick again before she regained her physical strength.

“It doesn’t make sense for me to continue nursing, but can you tell that older brother that your mother is very sick right now?”

“Yes. Isn’t that the way to go anyway? Looking at the direction, it seems to be similar.”

“It’s a place called Amaranth Fort, and it’s a place where we turn a little on the way back.”

“Then let’s stop by. It’s not like there’s anything big about it. It’s kind of like that when you’re having a hard time taking care of your child.”

Rumia grinned at me and then she said:

“You are not devilish.”

“The devil has no blood or tears? After I killed a few of them, they all cried well.”

“Thank you. Evan.”

“Then let’s go quickly.”

Rumia explained the location of the fortress to the coachman through sign language again. In the meantime, I learned the necessary information from the child, such as her brother’s name.

The coachman took the reins, and Rumia had told the child that she should not disturb her, as her mother had to rest for the time being, and that if she was hungry, she would soak bread in water and feed her.

“I wanted to cook and go, but there were no ingredients at home. It seems to have been down for quite a while.”

“Let’s say something quickly to that older brother. I want to go home.”

Rumia said.

“If this time goes well, wouldn’t it be possible to come back later to repay the favor?”

I shook my head at those words.

“Patience. It’s good if you don’t fuck with us and ask us to pay you for compensation because you think your mother got sick.”

“Of course there were cases like that, but there are a lot of good people in the world.”

“If there were really good people in the world, I would not have lived as a slave, right? Isabel and Elena wouldn’t have been beaten up by Carlson.”

“Well. Even though I’ve come to follow Evan, I still believe in the old things. Those old-fashioned words that people are good. I want Evan-sama to believe in people too.”

“I don’t believe in people like that. Just… This time, I just felt sorry for him and helped him.”

I don’t believe in human goodwill. I believe that even if you do good things, nothing really comes back.

I just didn’t want to see an ignorant child become an orphan at a young age.