I Picked Up an Abandoned Villain in the Polar Region

Episode 52

 

Brody had a lot of work to do, including helping Kyle build a fire, pitching a tent, and pasteurizing goat milk, but Ron wouldn’t let go of her, so she couldn’t do any of that.

“Hey, aren’t you going to help me pitch the tent?”

Kyle struggled to pitch the tent, which was supposed to be pitched by two people, and after trying to do it alone and knocking it over once, he eventually called Brody.

But Brody, who was too weak-hearted, couldn’t just leave Ron behind, because she was worried about Ron crying and refusing to eat.

“Wait a minute, Kyle! I’ll just feed him and then come help you!”

Ron had been crying nonstop since a while ago and Kyle was on edge because of that.

He couldn’t understand why Brody was so restless over the baby.

Especially when he saw Brody unable to act firmly towards such a baby.

He originally hated babies, and the main reason he hated them was because they could only cry, so naturally Kyle didn’t like this situation.

Eventually, Kyle, who had grown tired of waiting for Brody, turned around with a sigh as she looked at him with a sad expression, unable to put the crying baby down.

Then again, he started setting up the tent by himself. It started out well, but things didn’t go as planned, and the struggle continued, making the atmosphere even more tense.

Only after Kyle finished setting up the tent and starting the fire all by himself was Brody able to feed Ron and free herself from the little bugger.

But later, while milking the goat and sterilizing the milk, Brody couldn’t even speak to Kyle because his mood was so bad.

When she lay down in bed, Brody spoke carefully to Kyle who was dozing off next to her.

“Kyle, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you earlier.”

Accomplishing the task at hand was an essential part of the journey.

This was especially true on such an arduous one.

Kyle didn’t answer for a moment.

Brody was about to lay back down, wondering if the man was already asleep, when he finally answered back after some silence.

“From now on, whether the baby cries or not, you just do what you have to do. What’s going to be solved by holding the baby and shaking it like that?”

His voice was extremely cold and detached, but Brody’s heart felt warm at the sound of that cold voice.

She suddenly felt like asking him if she would have been so beaten if it was that easy to leave the baby be.

But she was in no position to talk back to him now.

Because of that, she agreed to his words and tried to lighten the mood by smiling and talking.

“Yeah, I got it. Honestly, if Ron hadn’t been crying, I would’ve just left him there, but he was crying so much that I panicked for a moment. Why did he suddenly start crying like that…?”

However, Brody, who was talking, couldn’t continue her one-sided conversation when she saw Kyle turn around and lie down without listening to the end of what she said.

Kyle’s behavior just now was an indication that he didn’t want to talk anymore.

Brody’s face fell down for a moment when she realized what it meant.

Even if she was in the wrong, there was no reason for him to act like that, right?

Brody, who was starting to feel bad, suddenly had the thought that maybe he was still in a bad mood from this morning.

And if that’s the case, then Brody couldn’t have been more upset.

Because it was Kyle’s problem.

She glared at his broad back with a spiteful gaze, then gave up and lay down.

‘Ugh-, let’s just be understanding.’

Brody closed her eyes, hoping that tomorrow would be better.

But maybe because she wasn’t concerned about Ron’s feelings…

Not long after Brody, exhausted, fell asleep, she heard Ron, lying on the bed next to her, whining like a puppy.

Brody opened her eyes wide in surprise at the sound.

“Ron?”

Ron woke up in the middle of the night, fidgeting and groaning as if something was wrong.

Normally, he would go to sleep after eating and the day would end like that, but now the baby, who had been sleeping soundly, woke up in the middle of the night and started to fuss.

Brody quickly picked Ron up before she could continue her thoughts, it was a harried gesture fearing that Kyle would wake up.

She spent the night trying to coax and comfort Ron so that he wouldn’t cry out loud.

But whether he knew of her hardships or not, Ron would not sleep no matter how much he was coaxed and continued to whine, making Brody extremely anxious.

“Shhhhh- sleep sleep, little baby-.”

It didn’t make a difference whether she whispered in his ear as she had learned from Kaira, or sang him a soft lullaby.

No, he would seem like he was sleeping, but if Brody tried to put him down, he would notice like a ghost and get annoyed.

Moreover, this was the time when Kyle would normally be fast asleep due to the exhaustion of the journey, so she was so worried about Kyle tossing and turning, seemingly unable to sleep due to the sound of the baby crying.

And so Brody had to wrestle with her fussy baby all night long, unable to sleep.

 

***

 

Brody, who finally woke up to the morning sun with her eyes wide open, was exhausted.

She traveled all day and didn’t sleep at night, taking care of the baby.

Of course, her condition couldn’t have been perfect. And oh, this was the same for Kyle.

He too had been stressed out with his own problems all day.

But every time he tried to sleep because of tiredness, he would hear the baby whining, so he couldn’t sleep properly until morning.

Like a cloudy sky without rain, their morning mood was full of fatigue, irritation, and depression.

They knew each other’s fatigue, so no one said a word.

As they headed south, the season moved further away from winter, and the frozen ground began to melt.

Then, the grass started to appear little by little. However, there was a subsequent problem with this good news.

Due to the warm sunlight during the day, the frozen surface of the ground would melt, making the ground muddy.

“No, my shoes!”

Brody frowned as she looked at her muddy shoes.

The mud stuck to their shoes the more they walked, making their already tired feet even heavier.

This also meant that after walking for some time, they had to constantly wipe the mud off their feet with a cloth.

No one could feel happy when only unpleasant things continued to happen.

This journey, which was as twisted as it could be, continued for three days.

The sky was overcast the whole time, as if it was going to pour down rain at any moment, and the humidity in the air, which was making the mood even more unpleasant, was rising.

Not only that, Ron’s day and night routine was completely reversed, he slept during the day and threw tantrums at night, which pushed them both to their limits.

Everything was at its worst.

“We’re completely out of jerky.”

Brody with her eyes darkened, rummaged through their food bags and spoke in a voice full of disappointment.

At this, Kyle turned his head as if he had not expected it.

After four days of entering the wilderness without finding any source of food, their food bags were finally emptied.

They could only survive for four days on the food provided by the yak tribe.

Unlike when traveling in an animal body, when traveling in a human body, energy consumption was faster.

Moreover, they, who had been walking around alone without any luggage or anything, now had to carry luggage, pull a goat, and even take care of a baby, so it was inevitable that they would get tired quickly.

It had been four days now without any signs of improvement. So when night fell, Kyle, the leader of this trip, was in a state of absolute despair.

Kyle, who had been unable to sleep for the past three nights due to the sound of the baby crying and Brody trying to soothe Ron, tried his best to fall asleep today.

If he stayed up all night today, he felt like his mind would really be in shambles tomorrow.

But it seemed as if the entire universe had conspired to disturb his rest.

For the past few days, whenever Kyle slept for even a moment, he had dreams of the past.

It was truly a strange thing.

He had never had dreams like that before, but since he saw Zelda in his dream last time, he had been dreaming of unpleasant memories from the past.

And when he woke up, he would inevitably feel bad all the time, as bad feelings from the past would plague him.

It was the same today.

Kyle, who had managed to close his eyes for a moment while Ron was luckily asleep, began to dream again.

The dreams he had were always the same.

‘Did you hear that? Abel won the harvest festival competition this year.’

‘He arrived at the destination after Kyle, but he still led his team with great leadership and the elders unanimously gave him the win.’

‘Abel was really weak when he was young, but he is becoming stronger the older he gets.’

‘I think he is a better successor than Kyle.’

In his dreams, people were all harassing him with hurtful words.

And whenever he heard such words, his father would call him without fail and vent his displeasure.

‘What did you think when you heard that your younger brother was better than you? Did you sleep peacefully after smearing my face with the shame that I’d spent the past dozen years raising you as my successor?’

But Kyle wasn’t the type of son who would just sit there, lowering his head and listening to rebuke.

He always stood up to his father who trampled on him, and because of this, at some point, the relationship between the two completely went wrong.

At the moment when Kyle was struggling with the suffocating memories of his clash with his father…

“Waaaah!”

The shrill sound of a baby’s cry pierced his brain with unpleasant force.

Kyle opened his eyes in surprise when he heard the sound.

Seeing that it was still night, he was so annoyed when he realized that he had woken up to that crying sound not long after he fell asleep.

It had already been three days. He had been suffering from not being able to sleep properly for a while.

Because of Ron’s crying, and because of the painful memories from the past that were forcibly brought up both in dreams and reality.

Finally, an uncontrollable sigh burst out from his mouth, when was half-asleep and not in his right mind.

And unfortunately, Brody, who had been struggling alone all night, heard that sigh.

“…”

Kyle wasn’t the only one who had a hard time.

While Kyle tried to sleep, Brody continued to care for Ron, forgoing her sleep.

She was already on the verge of death from staying up all night for several days, and it was difficult for her to do this alone.

It only lasted a day or two that she felt sorry for Kyle who couldn’t sleep because of the baby.

Now, she, who had become extremely sensitive, was beginning to find it unpleasant to see him sleeping with his back turned in front of her.