Chapter 135 – In the Rain.
From the moment he caught her in his eyes, he couldn’t move. Everything was the same, but only he stopped. He didn’t quite know what this feeling was. The moment he met the golden light of the girl who turned her head as if she had noticed him before long.
“Who?”
He ended up running away. Even as the rain hit him in the face and made a mess from occasional falls, he didn’t care and ran and ran back to the store. The languid dwarf who had been asleep inside the store was nowhere to be seen.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid bastard! Have you become a real idiot after only listening to fools!”
He belatedly realized how stupid and stupid he had been. No matter how embarrassing the situation was, what kind of ugliness is this? At least, if he made a plausible excuse, that would be enough. He ran away like an idiot, and he couldn’t stand it because he felt sorry for himself. He sat down in his chair and banged his own head on the table before coming to his senses. Now that I looked, I couldn’t see the kinky dwarf.
“That man asked me to look at the store, but he didn’t care and went away.”
I didn’t even expect it anyway. He took off the hat that fell behind him as he banged his head on the table. The hard hat was intact without any damage to the brim. However, not even half of the herbs he had collected remained in the basket he had tied behind his back. It must have been dropped while running frantically.
“That’s stupid.”
He reproached himself once again and put the basket down. I’m glad I didn’t drop all of them. After taking off the coat, gloves, and boots I wore to avoid getting caught in the rain, I look like a drowning mouse. I knew that even if I prepared well, it would end up like this, but I think I worked in vain again. Then, suddenly, he realized that the field mouse he was carrying was nowhere to be seen. Well, the herbs were also dropped, but it would be strange if that little thing didn’t fall.
“I’ll live on my own.”
Because it was just a minor whim. He didn’t care and changed his wet clothes. And he divided the herbs he collected by type. Normally, it would have ended later, but as expected, it dropped a lot and ended early. When he finished sorting, he spread the sorted herbs on a cloth on the floor. He also soaked up too much rainwater, and herbs had to be dried this way to keep them for a long time. Besides that, he was able to know that the night had come as he worked on this and that.
It was done on purpose so that he would not think of anything else, but he continued to cling to his work when he saw the image of the red girl who would try to come to mind whenever he had some free time. Thanks to that, he was able to organize all the things he hadn’t been able to do, but because of that, he ended up doing things he didn’t have to do. That way, once he was done with it, he could no longer stop the rising girl from appearing. When it was time to go to sleep, he went to bed, but he could hardly sleep.
“Ha, that’s going crazy.”
It was a moment. It was only for a moment, but that moment never left my mind. The red hair dripping wet from the rain. It seemed that she was trying hard to cover her petite body with a black dress full of frills, but even the thin outline of the girl reflected in the rain. The sweet scent that touched the tip of her nose, the small lips she saw the moment she looked at him, and even the golden color that contained a wariness that was not threatening at all.
“…Looked sad.”
She didn’t know if she was crying because of the rain or not, but she did know that the girl was sad. In the end, he had to sleep through the night because of the discomfort. And the next morning. He was preparing to dig herbs today. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem to take a break for two days after digging for a day, but since most of the herbs were dropped yesterday, it was too much to beat for a day. He stood in front of his shop and looked down his way.
It was raining non-stop today, but it was already far away to go down there. So, whenever I went to collect, I would dig up as many herbs as possible and bring them back. He sighed and moved on. It is also difficult to walk without spikes. I wish I had a pickaxe. He glanced around. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of eyes staring at me through the window, pretending not to be interested. I’m sure he’s hoping he’ll fall and roll down the hill.
“Then you should do as you wish.”
He deliberately stepped on the nearby moss and began to slip exaggeratedly down the hill. Laughter was heard here and there, as if people hadn’t noticed something strange, but it didn’t bother them as much as usual. Right now, I just checked the front and focused on whether there was something wrong. And when at last he saw the same barrier as he had seen yesterday, he jumped over it without stepping on it or holding on to it.
Maybe because of this, he laughed when he saw the kid who was standing in the same spot as yesterday, embarrassed. I hated getting wet in dirty muddy water and it was so annoying and troublesome. He rode the momentum and came down the hill faster than ever. Then Balder, who was guarding the wall, looked at him curiously.
“Huh? Alvis. Didn’t you gather herbs yesterday too?”
“That’s because I couldn’t pick up many herbs yesterday. I thought I should pick up some more.”
“Is that so?”
Balder opened the door so that he could go to collect herbs, although he seemed awkward in his lively appearance today. He crossed the gate and walked slowly through the field until the wall was far away, then searched the field for herbs. I had to find herbs, but I couldn’t find them. Still, every once in a while I find something that catches my eye and put it in the basket behind my back, but at this speed I can’t even begin. He went to the carriage road ahead of schedule and searched for herbs along the way.
As I climbed the horse carriage road, collecting herbs as I saw them and putting them in baskets, I was on my way to the castle before I knew it. I’m sure it’s the same road as yesterday, but I only thought that the water flowing along the small and large stairs in every alley would be an obstacle when I walked, but it looks like a small waterfall and a river, and the pieces of the rain that are breaking down obscure my vision, so I’ll sweep the mold in the white world. It was like a cloud that came down to the ground, not the troublesome moisture to make.
He soon stood in front of the same wall as yesterday. The basket behind his back didn’t contain even half the usual amount of herbs, but since most of them seem to have been dropped here, he thought he should find them here. He came under the wall like that and looked for herbs. Even though I dropped it, since it’s raining like this, the bugs wouldn’t attack or wither.
“As expected, most of them were dropped here.”
He sighed for nothing and glanced around. It was still far from the back of the garden, so I couldn’t even see a single red spot on the girl. Instead, he could see the herbs he had dropped here and there. Unlike other grasses, it was pulled out and spread out on the ground, so it was easy to find and didn’t require much effort to pull it out, so I just had to pick it up. It was then that I was going deeper and deeper into the garden.
“What? It must be around here?”
At some point, he realized that the herbs he had dropped disappeared without a trace, and looked around more, but from there, he could not find any herbs he had dropped. He wondered if he had dropped it somewhere else, but it was strange that the things that fell like this had disappeared. He was estimating how many herbs he had lost yesterday.
“That’s the person from yesterday.”
What a soft, sweet voice tickled his ears. It was a voice he had only heard briefly, but he knew right away who it belonged to. It must have belonged to the same girl he had seen in this garden yesterday. My heart was pounding. If I just turned my head right away, I would be able to see it in my eyes, but I couldn’t turn my head as if my neck was frozen. He thought the ringing in his ears was too loud and disturbing. It was the moment he thought he wanted to hear the girl’s voice a little louder.
“What, what?!”
When he came to his senses, he was surprised by the sensation of something small rising up his body as he was bending over looking for medicinal herbs.
– Squeak!
Riding up on his body was a field mouse that he thought had fallen with the herbs as he ran away yesterday.
“I heard the story from that child. You saved me, right?”
“How do you…”
Thanks to her, he relaxed her, and he turned her head to look at her, but he couldn’t fully capture the girl she expected. She was covering her face with her mask unlike the first time I saw her. Seeing that she was even using an umbrella to keep her from getting wet, it seemed that she knew he was coming. That fact made him swallow his sorrow. If she hadn’t run away yesterday, wouldn’t she have been able to keep the girl’s face in her eyes? Do.
“I left it behind.”
The girl did not answer him and held out a bag made of plain white handkerchiefs.
“This.”
Inside the bag were the rest of the herbs he had dropped. Do you have any knowledge about herbs? Or was it simply divided into categories? The herbs in the bundle were well kept. It seemed that the sweet scent permeated the bundle she gave her. He laughed out loud at the fact that even the smell of herbs, which had been bothering him, felt fragrant just because he was tied to a handkerchief like this. By the time he thought he was seriously insane.
“Is this the one you spoke of yesterday?”
A cold woman’s voice was heard, different from the girl’s lithe voice. Right behind the girl, a woman he had never seen before stood with an umbrella. She was a bob-haired woman who stayed somewhere between pink and purple. Her white and black-toned maid outfit taught her what kind of person she was, but it seemed orphaned, perhaps because of her woman’s cold aura and sharp elegance.
“Yeah, I ran into him in the garden yesterday.”
“This is definitely the lord’s castle. But are you saying that a mere herbalist came in without permission?”
The way she stares at him is fierce.
“You must see the lord.”
“No, that’s it.”
“I’d rather go to prison if you don’t like it.”
He had to follow her without her words. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find out what kind of person the new lord was, but he didn’t want to check it out like this. He thought he was in trouble. Still, he thought it wasn’t bad considering the girl was accompanying him.
“What about Usher?”
“I’m sorry, but I still don’t see any improvement.”
“I’m going to see Usher.”
“Sif is taking care of you now, so you can rest a little longer…”
“I want to go see it.”
“…Yes.”
As her woman had no choice but to allow it, the girl hurriedly ran away as if she had waited.
“You are this way.”
As she stared blankly at her back, the woman urged her. And in front of the lord’s office when he arrived, his nerves were on edge. His life will rise and fall according to the verdict given by the lord, and in the worst case.
“Lord. This is Helena.”
“Oh, come in.”
Before he had time to think, the woman opened the door.
“Oh yeah, I heard that the lord hasn’t been there for a long time, but things have been overdue.”
There was a knight who was agonizing over the pile of papers piled up like a mountain. A knight wearing the same style of armor as the Balder he knew. He was embarrassed by the appearance of the lord, which was completely different from what he had imagined.
“Lord. We caught the trespasser.”
“A trespasser?”
The lord, who was at a loss as he looked at the papers, raised his head at Helena’s words and looked at him.
“Trespassing. In this place?”
“Yes, it seems that it is not a skill that has been done once or twice.”
“Hmm, let’s hear why.”
Fortunately, the lord who had been appointed this time did not seem to be as arrogant or as strict as he thought. Thanks to this, he could at least make an excuse that he had come here out of habit as he had come here to gather herbs because it had been vacant for a long time as many herbs grow well here.
“He’s an herbalist. Do you have any suggestions?”
He watched as the lord asked the woman for her opinion. It would be nice if it wasn’t such a severe punishment.
