I Picked Up an Abandoned Villain in the Polar Region

Episode 62

 

The dusk of dawn was gradually fading away and the sun was rising. It was now time to get up.

Kyle looked at Brody, who had to be woken up again today, and furrowed his brows.

‘Did she always breathe this loudly when she slept?’

Actually, he had this thought for a while, but he just left her alone because he didn’t want to wake up someone who was sleeping so soundly.

But as the day grew brighter, Brody’s face began to come into view, and something seemed strange.

Her cheeks were flushed, and she let out a slightly ragged breath, while her brows furrowed with tension.

The rabbit usually didn’t even make a sound when she slept, as if she was dead.

Kyle quickly got up from his seat, wondering if something was wrong with Brody’s body.

“Hey, wake up.”

“Ugh…”

Brody squirmed as Kyle woke her up to check her condition, but she was unable to open her eyes properly as usual.

He didn’t think it was a big problem because he always saw her being lazy and not wanting to get up.

He wondered if she had a cold.

He urged Brody to check her physical condition more thoroughly.

“Wake up quickly.”

“It’s morning already…?”

Brody mumbled in a hushed voice, then immediately coughed.

After going in the water yesterday, she felt like she had caught a cold.

Having traveled all the way from the rocky valley to here in wet clothes, it would be more strange if Brody’s already weak body didn’t catch a cold.

“I think you have a cold.”

“A cold?”

Brody, who still felt tired, woke up with a start and put her hand on her forehead.

After feeling it like that, she shook her head and said in a nonchalant voice.

“It’s just a fever.”

“A fever?”

Kyle thought she was lying and immediately reached out and touched Brody’s forehead.

It was an action to check her temperature.

But Brody, who hadn’t expected his touch, froze in surprise for a moment.

This was the first time Kyle had ever touched her directly like this, so she was surprised.

She missed the timing to react playfully as usual and just blinked her eyes in embarrassment.

Meanwhile, Kyle, who had finished checking her temperature, furrowed his brow and opened his mouth.

“It’s not a low-grade fever.”

Brody looked at Kyle, who was speaking with a serious expression on his face.

She also noticed that she didn’t just have a cold, but also a fever.

Because she had been feeling a bit chilly ever since she went into the lake yesterday.

Actually, even now, unlike other times, her whole body ached because of the cold. She just pretended like nothing happened because she was afraid Kyle would notice.

She was afraid that he would get uncomfortable about her catching a cold because of going into the water.

Yesterday’s incident must have been difficult for him, and she didn’t want to let it weigh on him any longer.

So Brody said to Kyle in a nonchalant voice.

“The daily temperature range here is so big. That’s why I’ve been feeling a bit like I’m coming down with a cold. You don’t have to worry too much.”

After saying that, she turned her attention away and checked on Ron, who was still sleeping like it was the middle of the night.

Brody laughed heartily at the sight of Ron, who had been sleeping all night without waking up even once. It was a relief, since he had been crying, whining, and being irritable every day for the past few days, suffering just as much as them.

“Look at him. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him sleep so soundly, oblivious to the world.”

But Kyle immediately frowned at the sight of Ron sleeping soundly.

He remembered the past when this little baby would not sleep and would make them suffer. So he said bluntly.

“Didn’t that person say that since the baby was from the wilderness originally, he wouldn’t affected by the temptations and such that foreigners experience? Then why has this kid been making such a fuss for days?”

“Well, I think…”

Brody slowly stroked Ron’s red hair, which signified his origin being from the wilderness, and thought of a sentence she had once heard from Kaira, the wife of the yak tribe leader.

“I heard from Kaira last time that babies are greatly influenced by their caregivers’ moods and emotional states. So maybe as our condition was very unstable, he made such a fuss because he felt it first. Because Ron became quiet after I came to my senses.”

After wrestling with the child and growing closer to him, she looked at Ron with fondness and smiled.

Kyle, on the other hand, sighed and said, “That kid is really acting all sorts of different ways.”

Still, Ron’s presence was just a burden to him. Not just a burden, but a burden that he had to carry with difficulty, one that he couldn’t let get hurt or cause any problems to it.

But the moment Kyle saw Brody carrying that heavy bundle of trouble, he turned to her and said.

“You don’t have to carry anything except your backpack.”

Kyle decided to carry the baby himself and asked Brody to pull the goat.

But when Brody heard that, she quickly stood up and stopped him.

“No, I’m fine. I can carry Ron.”

It was because she felt sorry.

Of course, Kyle knew what she was thinking, so he snatched Ron away from her and held him in his arms, responding firmly with words she could never refute.

“You have a cold. Don’t think about giving it to the kid. Go get the goat.”

“Ah…”

Of course, Kyle didn’t care whether Ron had a cold or not, but he knew that if he said something like that to Brody, she’d give up.

Eventually, although Brody felt sorry, she could no longer be stubborn and had no choice but to follow his will.

The two people, each carrying their own luggage, completely extinguished the campfire, leaving only smoke behind, and set off south.

The sky was clear and cloudless, as if blessing the reunion of the three people.

Moreover, since the day was not cloudy and visibility was clear, it was not long before they noticed that at the end of the path, there was a shrub-covered area.

“I think there’ll be something to eat if we go there.”

“I don’t know about large animals, but I think there might be rodents.”

A hopeful guess came to the two of them as they saw some vegetation and some rocks where wild animals could hide.

As Brody walked, she noticed edible plants growing among the grasses on the ground and picked them.

Rather than eating it raw, she was thinking of adding it to the goat milk she was boiling later that evening.

But because she continued to look for food, her pace became slower.

Kyle turned around while walking down the road and asked her who was lagging behind.

“Why are you breaking that bunch of grass?”

“It’s edible grass. I think eating something like this will make me feel a little better.”

Brody gritted her teeth as she quickly got up to follow him.

It was because her head had been hurting for a while and her body was losing all its strength.

As she walked with her teeth clenched, her eyes met Kyle’s, and she quickly straightened her stiff expression and smiled.

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up shortly.”

“It’s okay, let’s go together.”

“No. I told you to go first.”

Brody waved her hand as if to say it was okay. In fact, she was too uncomfortable walking with Kyle right now.

Her body was itching so much because of the rash that she couldn’t stand it, but it was hard to scratch when Kyle was next to her.

The rash wasn’t getting better as the days went by, but rather getting worse.

The itchiness was still bothering her in many ways, as she had not yet adapted to it.

She scratched her body without thinking earlier as usual and when Kyle asked her what’s wrong, she barely managed to get away with saying it was because of bugs.

In her already bad situation, her body temperature did not go down and she was losing strength at a noticeable pace.

She was worried that she might show signs of fatigue while walking with Kyle.

That’s why she told him to go first, but today, he just stood there quietly and waited for her to come.

Brody was unfamiliar with Kyle being like that.

Carrying Ron in her place, and waiting without showing any irritation like that.

But as if to mock her who thought like this, Kyle looked annoyed at Brody, who was just standing there blankly.

“Why are you standing there blankly? Aren’t you going to come?”

… After all, it was an eternal truth that humans were animals who did not change easily.

Brody laughed at the thought and answered him.

“Okay, I’ll come.”

 

***

 

Towards evening, the three people who had been walking through the fields all day arrived at the forest area they had seen in the morning.

Because there were shrubs and rocks around, the wind was weaker than the vast plain they had passed through.

Fortunately, the cold wind blowing at night was less noticeable.

Brody and Kyle set up camp in a sheltered spot.

Today they stopped their journey a little earlier than usual because of Brody’s condition.

Her body, which she thought had just a cold, was getting worse as time passed.

Now her throat was swollen and she couldn’t even speak properly, so she decided to rest before she overdid it any further.

They put the grass they had collected in the morning into the goat milk, drank the mixture and went to bed early.

But the next day after spending the night there.

Kyle woke up to the sound of groaning coming from somewhere.

When he first opened his eyes, he immediately turned his gaze to the baby, thinking Ron had started crying again.

He was worried that the baby might wake up Brody, who wasn’t feeling well.

But as he got up to check on the baby, he quickly came to his senses and realized that the groaning sound was not coming from Ron, but from Brody, who was lying across from him with her back turned.

Kyle immediately jumped out of his seat and ran to Brody.

He approached her. And as he turned Brody’s body over, her body fell limply.

“!”

Kyle gasped in surprise.

Brody, who had collapsed, was unconscious, her face frozen white and dripping with cold sweat.

“Brody!”