GDTEA Chapter 30

While Tein took care of Sharti, who was burning with fever, Virena cleaned the messy old log cabin, and Vireta went out to the balcony with Ren.  

It was still chilly, but neither of them seemed to mind.  

To be precise, Ren’s mind was solely focused on the bedroom, and he seemed oblivious to everything else.  

“You mutt.”  

“……”

At the insulting term, Ren looked at Vireta.  

A blank face. A stiffly raised head. Sharply raised eyebrows.  

He looked every bit like an ill-mannered mutt.  

Vireta clenched and unclenched her empty hands a few times. She missed the staff she hadn’t brought.  

“How long do you intend to stay here?”  

“……”  

The emotion on Ren’s blank face subtly shifted.  

Clear displeasure, and annoyance.  

Vireta suppressed a scoff that almost escaped her in disbelief.  

“With that attitude, how can you stay by her side?”  

“What do you mean?”  

Perhaps his sore spot was hit, as Ren opened his mouth.  

Vireta scrutinized Ren’s face.  

It was definitely a face she seemed to have seen somewhere before.  

Living as a mercenary, she would skim through hundreds of wanted posters.  

So it wasn’t strange that she’d seen a face similar to Ren’s.  

“With no charm whatsoever… tsk tsk.”  

“What’s that got to do with anything?”  

“Do you even use that head of yours?”  

“Why do you keep…”  

Ren frowned, and Vireta burst into laughter.  

“A runaway slave, a master—how long do you think that act will work? Look. Just because we hid you, the poor child is lying sick like that.”  

“……”  

The moment Sharti was mentioned, Ren’s demeanor softened.  

As if he’d never been rude to her, Ren began to listen to Vireta.  

Thinking it was fortunate that this mutt was at least reasonable, Vireta relaxed her expression.  

“Do you have any idea how much of a burden it is for Sha to take in someone like you?”  

“……I know.”  

“What know, you bastard. It’s bad enough that that child has so many secrets, and now she’s taken on someone else’s!”  

Ren silently endured Vireta’s scolding.  

The words weren’t offensive.  

They were all true, and it was a reprimand born from concern for Sharti.  

“Listen carefully, you mutt. Sha may have taken you in out of pity, but I didn’t.”  

Vireta tilted her head from side to side, and a cracking sound was heard.  

Her hunched back, which she’d been patting, was now as straight as a middle-aged person’s.  

The image of a bent old woman was nowhere to be found.  

“How can I trust you, claiming amnesia that may or may not be true, and hiding everything from your name to your identity and family history?”  

Strong.  

Ren instinctively tensed his body.  

Vireta, who was watching him, gathered her energy.  

“Hmm, the body speaks the truth. Unlike the mind, the memories left in the body naturally reveal themselves.”  

Vireta patted her bent back again.  

“Mutt. If you want to find your memories, follow me.”  

“……”  

“Staying inside the house under Sha’s protection won’t help you recover your memories. I travel outside the village often, so it’ll be much better with me.”  

“I need to receive treatment.”  

“You can move around without any problems. My grandson can take a look at you. You call my grandson doctor, so you know he’s skilled.”  

It was a perfect invitation with no way out.  

Staying with Sharti wouldn’t help him recover his memories.  

Sharti, who covered herself from head to toe with a dark robe, would leave the log cabin early in the morning and return around evening. After dinner, she would go out again to gather herbs.  

And she would return late at night.  

Conversation between the two was lacking.  

There was nothing to stimulate his memory, and he simply spent most of his days waiting for Sharti’s return.  

“……”  

His mind gave a clear answer.  

His body was also trying to nod in agreement.  

But strangely, Ren couldn’t say anything.  

“You need to find your memories to leave, don’t you?”  

Vireta was right.  

He couldn’t live like this forever, with no memories.  

His family or friends might be worried about his well-being.  

They might be waiting for his return.  

It was right to find his memories as soon as possible.  

‘……It’s right, but.’  

Vireta quietly observed Ren, who seemed unable to make up his mind and looked complicated.  

His amnesia seemed genuine.  

Ren, suffering from amnesia and wandering anxiously without a place to rely on, looked like a lost boy.  

“Tell me, mutt. Do you want to stay here, or do you want to be with Sha?”  

At Vireta’s question, Ren reflexively frowned.  

It was a stupid question.  

Weren’t they the same thing?  

But he was the most pathetic and foolish for not being able to answer that question.  

‘Wasn’t she just a benefactor?’  

Doctor and patient. If that was all their relationship was, there would be no problem in staying with Vireta.  

He didn’t understand why he was so concerned about Sharti.  

“If you want to stay here by Sha’s side, you’ll have to choose.”  

Vireta’s eyes became serious.  

“Whether to find your memories and leave. Or… to build new memories by Sha’s side.”  

“Can’t I stay by Sha’s side even after finding my memories?”  

“You’re all talk. That won’t happen. I guarantee it.”  

Her confident words provoked Ren.  

A coldness flashed across Ren’s face.  

“What’s the basis for your certainty?”  

Ren himself had thought that he should leave once he regained his memories.  

But Vireta’s words, bluntly stating that he was someone who would leave, grated on him.  

Seeing his very displeased expression, Vireta raised one corner of her mouth.  

Look at this guy?  

“It’s because you’ve grown up seeing different things, so you’ll clash.”  

“Don’t people in the world live together despite growing up seeing different things? People of different statuses, genders, and even those not related by blood all live together.”  

“Then why is our Sha living separately?”  

“……”  

Vireta pondered for a moment.  

This ill-mannered mutt seemed honest about his feelings but didn’t seem to acknowledge the signals his instincts were sending.  

“Have you ever seen Sha’s face?”  

Ren, who was about to reflexively say he had, barely managed to keep his lips sealed.  

He couldn’t confidently say he had seen it, because if he told Vireta he had seen it, she would ask if Sharti had willingly shown it to him or if he had seen it against her will.  

“Have you ever heard her voice?”  

“……Yes.”  

“What was it like?”  

Ren paused.  

It wasn’t a question about how he happened to hear it or what she had said.  

‘What was it like?’  

Sharti’s voice, low and rough from not speaking often, was thick and thin, wavering with emotion, and the harsh sound of metal was mixed with her breath, making it sound unsteady.  

It wasn’t the voice Ren had imagined.  

But what he could say for sure was that her voice, which she herself considered terrible, sounded as if she were crying.  

“It sounded sad.”  

A smile flickered across Vireta’s lips and then disappeared.  

“Your world, where your face and body are fine and your memories are intact, must be vast. Seeing someone like you will always make Sha feel her own world is shabby.”  

“I don’t understand why you’re being so negative, but couldn’t I bring Sha into my world?”  

“Tsk tsk, you mutt. That’s why you’re a mutt. Do you think Sha will share the same memories as you if she goes out into your world? She’ll be the only one hurt. What’s normal for you won’t be for Sha.”  

Vireta pointed out the reality, and Ren only made assumptions about a reality he hadn’t yet faced.  

So, unlike Vireta, Ren couldn’t be sure and couldn’t argue back.  

Ren once again tasted his own powerlessness.  

“Why are you saying all this to me? If you don’t like me being here, you can just kick me out, can’t you?”  

“Because Sha picked you up and brought you here.”  

It was a simple and clear answer.  

Vireta turned her back to him and looked up at the sky.  

The dark clouds of the previous night were nowhere to be seen in the fading dawn sky.  

“And because you seem somewhat useful, I’m thinking of keeping an eye on you.”  

“……”  

“Because of you, she’s been getting meat, which she usually can’t afford, she chose to confront instead of running away, and the child who used to tremble at the sight of soldiers can now even meet their gaze. It’s not bad.”  

Sharti is pure but quick-witted, fragile but strong. She longs for human warmth while also wishing to be isolated by her painful memories.  

Vireta slightly turned her head and glared at Ren.  

“But in the end, you’re just a burden, a mutt, nothing more or less.”  

“I have a name too.”  

“Right. Sha probably gave you that name too. You’ll continue to receive many things. Until you leave this place.”  

His clenched fist tightened.  

Vireta chuckled.  

“Is the reason you want to stay here to repay Sha’s kindness? Because you feel sorry and grateful, and you’ll feel indebted if you leave like this? Or are you pitying Sha? Do you feel sorry for a woman living alone in these mountains?”  

“Watch your words.”  

As if his spirit had never been broken, Ren glared.  

Thwack! Vireta immediately flicked his forehead.  

Ren, who was caught off guard, narrowed his brows, and Vireta hit him again.  

“I’m the elder here, you bastard!”  

Perhaps because of his pride, Ren didn’t even touch his reddened forehead.  

Vireta put her hands behind her back and chuckled.  

“Decide by three days from now. Whether you’ll continue to leech off here as a mutt, or come with me.”  

“Didn’t you just say you wouldn’t kick me out? I’m here…”  

“I’m telling you to make it clear. Whether you’re here as a patient, a slave, or a mutt.”  

…Or as a man.  

Vireta didn’t bother to say the last part.  

It wouldn’t do any good to make that dark-hearted mutt aware of his feelings.  

No matter how sharp-witted Sharti was, the only time she had ever held hands with a man was when treating a patient.  

Sharti was an adult and of age to be interested in the opposite sex, but Vireta had a bad feeling.  

It felt like Sharti would be kidnapped and taken advantage of by Ren in the distant future.  

“I understand.”  

Ren also needed time to pull himself together.  

His plan to gain Sharti’s favor and use her had gone astray as he began to rely on Sharti and genuinely worry about her.  

Before being swept away by the changes spreading around Sharti, he needed to regain his composure.  

‘I should abandon any further greed and keep my distance.’  

But even though his mind was aware of this, his body was the problem, being honest.  

‘Or is it? Has my mind also become strange?’  

Ren thought to himself with self-mockery.  

Even while facing Vireta, his mind was focused on Sharti in the bedroom.  

As he became conscious of Sharti again, Ren suddenly realized what he had to do.  

“There’s something I want to ask.”  

…He wanted to know what Sharti had been doing while he was lying in the cave.

Now it was Ren’s turn to do something for her.

****

Just as she was gradually regaining her sense of a heavy head and a sluggish body, Sharti opened her eyes.

It was dark all around.

‘Am I dreaming?’

Trying to rouse her hazy mind, Sharti repeatedly closed and opened her eyes.

Sunlight was visible under the loosely drawn curtains.

‘Has the sun already risen?’

Her body felt as heavy as if she had fallen into water, and Sharti only slightly turned her head.

Then, something fell off her forehead.

It was a roughly wrung-out wet towel.

‘Ah, I have a fever.’

Belatedly, Sharti touched her forehead to check her temperature.

She felt a slight fever.

Just as Sharti was about to raise herself,

“Stay still.”

“……!”

Along with the familiar low and deep voice, the damp towel was placed back on her forehead.

The moment she saw those turquoise eyes, the strength drained from Sharti’s body.

‘Ren.’

It was the face with the spiderweb-like broken blood vessels from the poison still visible.

Avoiding Sharti’s gaze, Ren carefully covered her with the blanket.

He began with the news she would be most curious about.

“The soldiers have returned. It doesn’t seem like they’ll make an issue of this.”

Adding that Vireta’s family had left a little while ago, Ren paused to choose his words.

For some reason, Sharti thought he looked like someone who was about to leave, and her lips twitched.

‘Why?’

Ren let out a deep sigh.

Sensing his unusual reaction, Sharti also became nervous.

“Turned out to be useless.”

“……!”

Sharti’s eyes were about to widen at the chilling evaluation, but he lowered his head.

With a look of self-reproach, he confessed seriously.

“The herbs gathered were all weeds.”