Chapter 67
The war that the boy had spoken of finally reached her family.
“Olivia, I’ll be fine. It’s not the first time there’s been a war in this country.”
“You’ve never been drafted! What army in the world would call a crippled man into the infantry?”
The woman was on the verge of tears, her voice breaking.
The man, who had lowered himself to hold his wife, patted her back soothingly.
“Olivia, it’s alright. Everything will be fine.”
“It’s clear what they’re doing. They want to send you to the battlefield, to throw you into that hell!”
Her sobs were muffled against his chest, and his reassurances brought little comfort.
The man’s gaze shifted to the stairs, where their daughter was peeking out, her wide eyes full of fear.
“My dear.”
At his gentle call, the little girl quickly ran down the stairs.
The man seated his wife on a chair and then scooped up the child, who wrapped her small arms around his neck.
“Are you going to fight?”
The boy had said that war meant going off to fight.
So, was her father going to fight too? The child, who had never seen her father angry, was suddenly filled with a vague sense of dread.
“No, Daddy is going to protect our family.”
She couldn’t understand why he had to leave to protect them.
Just as the boy’s letters had stopped coming, she felt as if her father wouldn’t return either.
“My little one is already eight years old.”
The man spoke softly, his voice gentle.
“Before I leave, I need to give you a name.”
“My love!”
Understanding the meaning behind his words, the woman began to cry again. She knew her husband didn’t expect to return from the war.
Their daughter had been nameless for eight years. She wasn’t supposed to have a name. Her existence was meant to remain a secret forever.
“Your name is Beth. Beth.”
“Beth…?”
The child, more accustomed to being called ‘little one,’ tilted her head at the unfamiliar name.
“Before your mother met me, her name was Beth. Now, you’ll take her name and fly out into the wide world.”
But Mama’s name is Olivia. Can someone have two names?
The child had many questions, but her father’s eyes, so sad up close, kept her silent.
“Come back soon, Daddy.”
“I will.”
With that final, heavy word, the man left on his long journey.
And he never returned.
The entire house felt like it had died. The woman wandered through the house, her eyes empty, before collapsing into sleep, while the child climbed up to the attic window each night, waiting for the boy and her father to come back.
“My dear, go play at the cabin.”
All the men in the village had disappeared. Naturally, the visits from the women had stopped too. The child was now free to visit the cabin more often than before.
But it wasn’t much fun.
Without the boy, the cabin was just boring.
“Debert.”
She wrote the boy’s name in the dust that had collected on the floor. Now that she had a name, she thought it strange that the boy still didn’t know it.
The child climbed up to the attic, carrying a letter and a stamp she had sneaked from the kitchen. Gripping the pen tightly, she carefully wrote down everything she wanted to say.
“To Debert. Hello? It’s me, the little one. Since your letters aren’t coming, I’m sending this first. What are you doing in Wayne? I’m so bored without you….”
Her lips moved continuously as she read aloud what she had written.
“Oh, right!”
Remembering the most important thing, the child quickly scribbled a final note in the corner of the letter.
“I’m not the little one anymore. I’m Beth. Remember that.”
Satisfied, she placed the letter in an envelope, attached a stamp, and sealed it, mimicking the letters she’d seen delivered to the house.
Now all she had to do was give it to the postman.
The child pondered deeply.
Her mother had told her never to show herself to anyone outside the house, so what should she do? For days, she climbed up to the attic window, watching for the postman.
But she didn’t know that as the war dragged on, fewer and fewer letters were being delivered.
Then, one day…
She was playing alone at the cabin, her skirt now noticeably shorter, when she heard a scream.
“Mama!”
It was her mother’s scream. The sound carried all the way to the cabin from their isolated house on the outskirts of the village.
There were sounds of things breaking and crashing. The child ran as fast as she could towards the house. The door, always firmly shut, was now wide open.
What she saw through the gap made her stop breathing.
“Mmph!”
“How long did you think you could fool me?!”
A burly man was roughly covering her mother’s mouth.
“I sent you to be Cassius’s mistress, and here you are, fooling around with some Nexus scum?!”
The man slapped the woman hard across the face.
“How far does the deception go? I made you a spy under the condition that I’d spare your damned family, and you’ve been feeding me lies?!”
“The liar is you! I already know our entire family was slaughtered!”
The woman, her hands tied, thrashed wildly in defiance. Once again, the man raised his hand high.
“Stop!”
The sharp scream made the man’s head whip around.
“You stay away from my Mama!”
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on my mother!”
The man’s eyes widened momentarily at the sight of the child, but then narrowed into a malicious grin.
“So, there’s even a brat here.”
“No! No! Beth! Run! Now!”
“What are you waiting for? Catch her!”
Another man who had been standing by the wall rushed towards the door.
With a scream, the girl darted out of the house, barefoot, running as fast as she could. Like a small wild pony, she twisted and turned, making it difficult for anyone to catch her.
As she ran, she pictured the familiar scenes she had often observed from the attic. If she turned right past the cottage, she would see the tree where the women gathered every day to gossip.
If only she could reach that tree.
If only she could call for help.
Indeed, in the distance, she spotted familiar faces. Her heart pounded, and she was gasping for breath, but she mustered all her strength to cry out.
“Help! He’s hitting my mother! Help us, please!”
The women turned their heads in confusion.
“What was that?”
“Is there a little girl in this village?”
“Look! Over there! A girl with black hair!”
“Oh my, who’s that man chasing her?”
Just as Beth was about to wave her hand in relief, a thick hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries.
“It’s just a visit to relatives! The child’s a bit too playful, that’s all!”
Beth shook her head frantically, trying to signal that it was a lie, but her small head was buried in the man’s large hand.
As soon as the man brought her back inside the house, he tossed her to the floor. The pain from the fall seared through her small body, but she didn’t have time to cry. Her mother was lying on the ground in a far worse state.
“Listen closely, little one. You’re the reason your mother is like this,” the man who had struck her mother said, kneeling down to meet her eyes.
Beth, trembling in fear, tried to crawl towards her mother, but the man grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.
“See what happens to your mother because of your insolent words.”
That was the last thing Beth remembered. The last thing she wanted to remember. It was too brutal to even call it a memory.
“What about the child?” a woman in a robe asked from a corner.
Beth, her face blank with shock, clung to her unresponsive mother’s hand.
The woman in the black robe slowly approached, and Beth instinctively shielded her mother with her small body.
“She looks just like her mother. We might find a use for her.”
With a sharp, assessing look, the woman grabbed Beth’s chin and turned her head from side to side, inspecting her.
“Hmm.”
The man now examined Beth more closely, his mind calculating. He was too invested in his life’s mission to stop now.
“Take her to the Sanctuary. We’ll see if she’s of any use later.”
The man patted Beth’s head, not bothering to wipe the blood from his hands. The metallic smell made Beth gag, but the man didn’t withdraw his hand.
“Your mother ended up like this because of your words. So you’d better protect her to the end. Understand? I’ll take good care of your mother at the hospital. Now, say you understand.”
Beth slowly nodded her head.
(T/L: Man so much pain…ugh)
* * *
Beth, now in the Sanctuary, spent her days huddled in a corner, perpetually frightened. Whenever someone approached, she would start to panic, so they left her with nothing more than a few pieces of bread.
The alleys terrified her.
During the day, people lay around like corpses, and at night, those same corpses would rise and go mad.
The constant smell of something burning or rotting was unbearable. Every time a drunken person spewed curses, memories of that terrible day would resurface, making it hard for her to cope.
“Are you planning to starve to death?”
An old woman with a hunched back appeared at the end of the alley. Beth pressed herself further against the wall, her eyes wide with fear.
The dim light from a nearby lantern illuminated the old woman’s wrinkled face.
“I’m taking this child with me.”
“Do as you please, old woman.”
The man counting money waved his hand dismissively.
“Goodbye, little one. Grow up nice and pretty.”
“Spit it out, you wretch! I’ll tear that filthy mouth of yours wide open!”
“Such a nasty tongue, old hag!”
“Beth! Come along now!”
Beth. The name sounded familiar, and she jumped up at the sound of it.
The old woman led Beth through twisting and turning alleys until they reached the deepest part of the district. The room they entered was full of people, all lying about as if in a deep, drunken sleep.
“They say you can’t speak. But if you don’t talk here, you’ll only end up doing the most wretched work!”
The old woman pulled out a large box from a drawer. It was filled with antidotes and syringes. Slowly but expertly, the old woman filled a syringe with an antidote and injected it into a man’s arm.
“Think of it as cleaning up after the nobles, if you must. But it’s all a matter of perspective. I’m the one who runs the hospital in this holding area, you see.”
The old woman checked the man’s pulse after giving him the shot.
“Think of it as saving dying men. You look smart enough to learn quickly.”
Beth carefully touched the bottles in the box. The man coughed a few times, then blinked his eyes open, looking dazed.
“If you’ve come to your senses, leave! If you don’t want to gamble with your life!”
The old woman said curtly as she checked the next person’s breathing. Then she seemed to remember something and turned back to Beth.
Black hair. A pale face. The old woman recalled someone.
The baroness who had secretly given birth with her help.
“What a cursed fate!”
The old woman muttered to herself, then called Beth over again.
“Beth! Don’t just stand there, help this old woman out!”
Beth learned quickly. She grew faster in knowledge than she did in height. In the stagnant environment of the holding area, Beth was the only thing that changed day by day.
Soon, she became more skilled than the old woman at administering antidotes. Word of her talent spread, and even noblemen would come to her specifically for treatment.
Then, on what seemed like an ordinary night, while Beth was administering an antidote as usual, the gatekeeper of the holding area burst into the room, his face pale with fear.
“Old woman! He’s asking for you!”
“He?”
The gatekeeper covered his mouth with his hand and whispered into the old woman’s ear.
“The Duke and his son are here!”
