Chapter 74 – The Hunter (3)
“…”
Mason’s eyes, which had been lost for a long time, opened softly.
The environment inside the unfamiliar house, which she had never seen before, was naturally put into her field of vision. I could feel the sound of the birds outside, the old but soft blanket covering my body, and the sensation of the bed resting on my back.
Seruk-
Mason got up slowly. Due to the clamor of all the muscles in her body, she couldn’t get herself up in a hurry. She slowly raised her upper body and leaned her back against the head of her bed as she naturally lowered the blanket.
Looking down at his body hidden in the blanket, he could see new scars all over his body.
Thin and long scars made by thorns and twigs.
Mason inspected the wounds, which she began to feel stinging, and saw signs that someone had treated them.
Most were shallow wounds, but in the case of fairly deep cuts or pits, they were treated with medicine and bandages.
Who knows, but it didn’t take long to guess what the owner of this house did.
“…”
Mason looked around her again. She wanted to thank her for curing her, but to her regret, the owner of the house was nowhere to be seen.
She lifted her blanket, and as she moved herself to rise from the bed, her limbs started screaming again, but she forced herself to get up.
She was exhausted at best, reminding herself that in the past she had been in worse situations.
Slowly moving one step after another, the moment I reached for her doorknob,
Clap-
“… Uh?”
She was suddenly hit by a door that opened inward, and Mason barely held out, holding her body against the wall as she nearly fell.
The first place where Mason’s gaze, reflexively directed toward the door, stayed,
The face of a woman who had pushed the door inward.
Among them, there were two eyes that looked like shining gold.
In her hands, holding an armful of trees in her arms, as if she had just done it.
Her black hair, rolled up in a bun, and her sweaty tousled hair, she shook her head and put it to one side.
“…”
“…”
Neither of them thought to break the silence. Mason hesitated whether she should speak first, and she didn’t think the woman’s facial expression would change from a slightly surprised expressionless expression.
Eventually, Mason opened her mouth.
“… That one helped me-“
“Who are you, are you at my house?”
At her question, Mason stops what she was saying and looks at her.
Seeing the woman’s expression full of absurdity, Mason was at a loss. Embarrassment, shame, and confusion pass through the facial expressions in turn.
“Uh, um, uh…”
The moment her tongue wanders eagerly in search of something to say, and the moment she struggles to find an excuse while trying to roll her head that does not properly perceive the situation.
“Just joke. Are you okay?”
Peek smiles, and walks past Mason, who is still standing at the door, by her fireplace, pouring her wood out of her arms.
Not knowing how to respond, Mason’s eyes only stay on the back of the woman arranging firewood. After clearing the spilled wood, she turns behind her and looks at Mason, who is still standing blankly.
“What are you doing?”
There was something missing in her actions. Mason thought about the reason for her strangeness for a while, and soon she found the answer without difficulty.
There was no sense of distance in her actions. As if the two of them were old friends, as soon as she saw her, she was embarrassed by her joke.
However, she was also a unique person who made me wonder if she was weird because her behavior was so natural.
“Sit down please. It still looks good to rest a little longer.”
Seeing her saying that and pointing to the bed, Mason sat down on the bed again without hesitation. Soon the woman went into the kitchen, leaving Mason alone to contemplate her again.
… Are you a little weird?
It was the first thought that crossed Mason’s head, but she quickly dismissed it. She wasn’t right in suspecting the person who helped her. In fact, even if she was a strange person, it was rude.
So what to do?
While she thought about that, she heard footsteps in her kitchen again. She appeared and carried a wooden tray, a small teapot, and a teacup in her hands.
She grinned as Mason met her gaze.
Suddenly, I thought that laughter suits me well.
“How long has it been since you woke up?”
She set the tray down on the table, handed her a cup of tea, and sat down next to the bed. Mason accepts the teacup, and after a moment of hesitation, she responds.
“… I just woke up.”
“Is it so? Not too long ago.”
Having said that, he hesitated for a moment as to what to say to the woman drinking her tea, before Mason realized that she hadn’t spoken out yet.
“Ah, the introduction is late. Jeon-“
“Are you a Mason? I know.”
“… Do you know me?”
Mason couldn’t hide her naturally wary expression, and the woman who read her expression laughed and took the teacup from her mouth.
“You don’t seem to remember? Well, I expected it.”
I can’t remember, what could this mean? For some reason, the more I talked to this woman, the more questions I had.
Letting go of her doubting eyes for a bit, she grinned and opened her mouth.
“You really don’t remember? Last winter, I got a carriage once.”
Hearing her words, the memory of her, which had been dormant somewhere in her mind at that moment, awoke.
The day I went to the village to play with Lucia.
It was the day she had her worst experience, which completely broke her.
Only then does her memory come to mind little by little. She suddenly stopped her carriage on her way to her house, and she smirkingly jumped into her carriage and talked about this and that, to the extent that she said it was a little impudent.
“Looking at your expression, you seem to remember a little bit now. My name is Grace. I’m afraid you don’t remember.”
She added with a laugh. Mason was then able to fully recall her vague memory.
Her shame overcame her as she recalled all her memories. Her embarrassment that she doubted the person who saved her, her sorry for not remembering the person who remembered her from their previous encounter, and the fact that she still hasn’t expressed her gratitude to her.
Mason hurriedly bowed his blushing face to thank him, and Grace shook his hand.
“Ah, no. Anyone would have done that.”
After the time to express gratitude passed, the two sipped their tea, surrounded by awkward silence again. No, to be precise, Mason seemed to struggle with awkwardness alone.
Grace just sipped her tea, grinning when her eyes met hers. There wouldn’t have been this kind of awkwardness if she had just thrown her question at her rather than her.
Still, the silence continued, and in the end it was Mason who broke the silence.
“… Aren’t you curious?”
“What?”
“… Why was I doing that?”
The more she talked, the more Mason felt like going down her rat hole. It was a topic she threw up to break the awkwardness, but when she brought it out, it was because she recognized that she could hear it, as if she was asking why she wasn’t interested.
At her words, Grace made a thoughtful expression for a moment,
“Would you like to ask?”
As if tossing and throwing, he asked.
At her words, Mason felt dazed for a moment. With tea in her hands, she looked at Grace.
Grace didn’t care and straightened the teacup for a moment, then she opened her mouth in a calm tone, as expected.
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, but I thought it would be rude to ask.”
Saying that, Grace shrugged her shoulders.
“Something must have happened that I don’t know about. But I guess that’s what I’m going to listen to when Miss Mason is talking about it.”
Saying that, Grace smiled again.
Noticing that she was being thoughtful of herself, Mason nodded her head with a slightly awkward expression.
“… Thank you.”
Mason drank some of her tea while talking.
The warmth of the warm tea warmed her body.
The two of them talked a lot if there was a lot, and if there was a little, they talked a little. Mason learns a few new things about Grace. For instance, what is her job?
“A hunter?”
When Mason asked, Grace nodded her head.
“Yeah, what should I do first?”
It was a bit of a strange answer. If you’re a hunter, you’re a hunter, what else is there? When she asked again, Grace told her that this was not her full-time job, but that she had chosen this job now because it was one of the things she could use the skills she had learned.
It was a bit strange, but Mason said so and she let her go. The more she talked, the more she guessed, that Grace lived a life as unusual as her rare eye color.
“Well, to put it badly, I was demoted… It could be, but it doesn’t matter. Because I am a little lazy.”
She thought it was a little awkward to put the words lazy and hunter together, but Mason just nodded her head.
Time continued to pass, and by noon, Grace invited them to lunch, which Mason accepted.
What Grace soon served was a simple meal of stew and bread.
It wasn’t freshly made, nor was it made by a great cook, but when I put it in my mouth, I realized how hungry I was.
Mason unwittingly gobbled up her food, and Grace offered her another bowl of hers.
Mason did not hesitate.
After her meal, Mason helped her wash the dishes. Grace stubbornly refused her help, but Mason was not ignorant of her shame, so she helped her wash her dishes.
Grace looked at her for a moment as she quietly wiped her water off her plate.
Sensing her gaze, Mason raised her head, and she could see two golden eyes staring at her.
“… Why are you like that?”
When I asked that question, a little bit of her doubt, Grace said with a small smile.
“For the first time since I met Ms. Mason, you seem kind of okay.”
Mason looked at her again with her strange gaze. Her words felt like there was something about her.
Because Mason felt that way himself too.
Is it because she’s out of the house, or is it because she’s been distracted by something new for a while.
Or maybe it was because she really hadn’t been in a while, and she had a pretty decent break.
Although, Lucia’s absence continued,
Although Ciana was still with Isabella.
In the midst of her daily meaningless days, for the first time in a long time Mason seemed to be living her own life.
She talked to people, ate, and she was able to get Lucia out of her head for a while, for the first time in a really long time.
She was not in a bad mood, not knowing how to express it.
It’s like the last summer breeze you feel at the beginning of autumn, such a refreshing feeling.
“… Come to think of it, yes.”
Mason chuckled, then realized she hadn’t laughed in a really long time.
It wasn’t a bad feeling.
