GDTEA Chapter 10

Sharti bowed her head deeply.

‘Not my face!’

The distance was too close.

But immediately, a large, hard hand grasped Sharti’s chin hidden inside the hood.

Swoosh-. The man’s rough touch pulled off the thick hood.

“……!”

Her carefully concealed hair and face were exposed pathetically.

As Sharti hurriedly turned her head away, the man’s pupils widened when they met her vermilion eyes.

Taking advantage of the man’s momentary hesitation, Sharti tightly shut her eyes.

‘No!’

Sharti bit her lip firmly.

Thwack! She raised her knee forcefully.

“……argh, ugh……!”

The muscles in the man’s upper body twitched and convulsed slightly.

In the position of being pinned down by him, her attack was effective even in that brief moment.

“What, just, now……!”

As the man bowed his head deeply, Sharti twisted the end of the staff and pressed firmly on the man’s shoulder.

“……ugh!”

With a low death cry, the man clutched his shoulder and hesitated momentarily. Sharti hurriedly raised her upper body and covered her head and face with the hood again.

Listening to her violently beating heart, Sharti exhaled rough breaths.

‘He was surprised to see me just now. He might be someone who knows me.’

In that instant, seeing the man freeze in shock after seeing her face, Sharti was certain.

He might be someone connected to the Krianet Kingdom that disappeared five years ago.

‘How stupid of me!’

Sharti hurriedly rummaged through her pocket.

Whether he had immunity or not, a quantitative offensive was needed at this point.

“……ugh, the wound…….”

Sharti, who was about to take out a powder pouch, flinched and raised her head.

The man’s face had turned pale blue, and he was holding his hand to his abdomen. The man’s trembling groan seemed ominous.

‘Did I, did I attack his abdomen instead of a vital point?’

If so, his barely healing wound might have reopened.

She felt a reflexive sense of guilt.

“……it might have, reopened…… I think.”

Sharti’s eyes wavered at the man’s words, muttered with a groan.

He jerked his head up. When her eyes met with his teal ones, an inexplicable pain brushed past her chest.

As Sharti shrank back, unable to even think of approaching, the man raised both hands.

“I won’t do…….”

“……?”

“Anything. Could you check if the wound, has reopened?”

Reflexively, Sharti’s gaze moved toward his abdomen.

‘Can’t see well.’

Because the cave wasn’t very bright, she had to get closer.

‘But if I get too close, it’ll be hard to react to a counterattack.’

When wearing the hood, her field of vision narrowed, making it difficult to prepare for the man’s counterattack.

After making a big decision, Sharti gripped the staff tightly again. She glared at the man with all her might.

‘If you try anything stupid, it won’t be just your wound that bursts.’

Thinking this should be enough of a threat, Sharti crept on her knees across the bed.

For a moment, the corner of the man’s mouth trembled.

“……here.”

Fortunately, the man put his hands behind his back on his own. Kneeling on the bed, he looked like he was in a position to receive punishment.

‘There’s no visible blood though.’

While still wary of the man, Sharti bent her upper body.

As she examined the wound on his thigh after the abdomen wound, the distance between her and the man shortened.

During this time, the man’s gaze remained fixed on Sharti.

“…….”

He wanted to see the face hidden by the hood again.

Her face, which had been concealed again in an instant, kept flashing before his eyes.

“-ugh.”

Suddenly, the man urgently pulled his upper body back.

Slap. However, Sharti immediately glared at the man and hit his thick arm with her hand.

‘How can I examine you if you keep moving?’

In the end, the man awkwardly resumed his position.

Each time Sharti’s thin, long fingers pressed around the bandaged abdomen, the man’s body trembled. Each time, Sharti looked up at the man with a frown.

The vermilion eyes were faintly visible beneath the hood.

‘If you move again, I’ll knock you out before examining.’

Though the vermilion eyes narrowed in warning, the man found it ridiculous. It was torturous for a conscious person to have their body pressed indiscriminately.

Unable to help it, the man opened his mouth.

“……It hasn’t reopened.”

“……?”

Sharti, who raised her gaze at the man’s words, blinked.

“If it had reopened, it would have been the part where you kicked me earlier.”

“……!”

Sharti’s face turned bright red as she was about to lower her gaze to the area the man indicated.

He had been acting again.

As Sharti immediately tried to punish him, the man calmly opened his mouth.

“But the pain is real.”

The man’s gaze seemed a little sad.

“Here.”

The man moved his arm opposite to the shoulder that couldn’t move from being hit with the paralytic poison-coated staff and tapped his own head.

Sharti looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

‘But the head wound has already healed?’

There were cuts and bruises, but no major wounds.

“That’s not what I meant…….”

The man took a deep breath. His chest rose and fell greatly.

His hesitant appearance somehow didn’t suit him.

“I can’t remember. Anything.”

For a moment, Sharti, who didn’t understand his meaning, blinked slowly.

Tsk. The man who turned his head away quietly clicked his tongue.

“My name, age, home. I can’t remember anything. Not even why I ended up like this.”

‘Sha’s’ mouth gradually opened.

‘So…… he doesn’t have any memories at all?’

Among the books Tein sometimes read, there were also books explaining the disease called amnesia.

But ‘Sha,’ who had no academy certificate or qualifications, couldn’t possibly know much about symptoms that appear in a part as difficult and complex as the brain.

When Sharti cast a suspicious look at the man with a record, he refuted uncannily.

“……It’s true.”

He deliberately made an aggrieved expression.

“That’s why I couldn’t speak for a while even after regaining consciousness.”

“…….”

“Every time I opened my eyes, you were either putting me back to sleep or fully prepared to attack, so I was scared.”

The man shrugged his good shoulder.

‘Sha’ became embarrassed at his point.

“I’m not blaming you.”

The man glanced at Sharti and assumed a comfortable position. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, the man was looking down with a miserable face.

‘The atmosphere does seem different.’

The man at their first meeting, who pointed a sword at her and exuded bloodthirst and killing intent, had quite a different expression and atmosphere from the man before her.

‘At first, he really seemed like a huge beast.’

Now he looked languid, like a large herbivore.

Of course, the man was currently doing his best to act to put Sharti at ease.

It was clumsy acting, but Sharti’s vigilance diminished.

‘No. He could be lying about losing his memory.’

Although she felt pity for the man, her distrust of people didn’t easily disappear.

Sharti raised her eyes as much as possible toward the man. Perhaps sensing Sharti’s defensive attitude beyond the hood, the man took a calm breath.

Indeed, she wasn’t to be taken lightly.

“You’re the only one I can communicate with, having no memories.”

The man who confessed honestly raised his gaze. The man neither tried to narrow the distance pretending to be friendly, nor acted as if he had any intention to attack.

The calm teal eyes held Sharti.

“So, I’d like to talk. Peacefully this time.”

“…….”

A pitiful and miserable patient with a head injury.

The man knew well which aspect to show between danger and sympathy.

“You probably don’t like my attitude.”

The man muttered to himself and suddenly sprang up.

Sharti flinched.

‘What is he doing?’

Is he trying to fight after securing an advantageous position?

Contrary to Sharti’s expectation, the man who stepped down from the bed stood two steps away. Then he prostrated himself on the cold cave floor in front of the bed.

“……!”

His well-defined back muscles entered her view.

Sharti blinked in surprise.

The man spoke with his forehead pressed to the cold ground.

“Help me.”

A small, low voice echoed throughout the cave, traveling along the ground.

Sharti stared at the man’s head prostrated at her feet.

“I don’t want to be alone here. Not remembering anything makes me frustrated, scared, and lonely.”

“…….”

“I’ve been going outside the cave for a few days. But leaving, I couldn’t. I wanted to meet someone who knows me, but I gave up after seeing my condition. I can’t even distinguish between hostility and goodwill now. Only this cave remained. It was, the only place where I could keep myself safe.”

The man’s earnest and sincere plea shook Sharti’s heart.

The anxiety and fear he was feeling was a terror that Sharti had also experienced.

‘But I had Grandmother Vireta, Virena, and Tein.’

Five years ago, she had closed her eyes expecting to die in the fire. And when she lifted her heavy eyelids, Sharti was not in the hot fire but inside thick blankets.

At first, she thought everything that happened in the Krianet palace was a dream.

Until she discovered the indelible traces and disability marked on her body, as if to remind her not to forget that day.

Far from being relieved to be alive, the thought that someone might come to take her away again tormented Sharti every day without fail.

She was broken at that time.

‘I lost my voice, and that person lost his memory, so I can’t really compare.’

Sympathy with a sense of shared experience.

That’s why Sharti couldn’t help but waver.

“Right now, you’re the only person I can ask for help.”

The man still spoke with his head pressed to the ground.

“Please help me a little more. Please.”

The man penetrated Sharti’s vulnerability in the most effective way.

Sharti was weakest to the words ‘please help me.’

Slowly, the man raised his head to gauge Sharti’s reaction.

“Wild beasts could come here anytime, and the temperature drops at night. Moreover, it might collapse if there’s a strong wind and rain.”

Every word was absolutely correct.

The man didn’t even give time to gather her swaying heart.

“If I seem threatening, you can tie my arms or legs. You can blindfold me too.”

Meeting Sharti’s gaze, the man smiled pitifully.

“Take me with you. Please.”

“…….”

Sharti admitted it.

‘I want to help this person.’

However, she couldn’t readily extend her hand to the man.

‘Is that even possible in my situation?’

She was also in a position of hiding in the mountains.

How could someone in such a predicament hide and help others?

Perhaps she should go down to the village and ask for help for him.

‘Wouldn’t it be best for both of us if I request Grandmother Vireta to protect the man’s identity?’

The man’s expression became slightly crooked as he watched Sharti’s growing conflict. Even with him pleading from below, Sharti was still hesitating.

Then he had to change his approach.

The man erased the pitiful appearance he had been acting.

“It would be better for you to hide me, or at least keep me with you until I recover my memory? For the safety of both of us.”

The man’s low and chilly voice, instilling a sense of crisis, resonated formally.