You Will Pay With Your Life For Deceiving Me

Ayla was surprised by Cloud’s words while picking up tree branches with her head down and raised her head to look at him.

Capella will come to get her. That means……

It meant that Ayla would soon return to the arms of her parents, and the couple would die at the hands of Cloud.

Two months had passed quickly since Ayla had been with the couple.

Since this was halfway up the mountain, she didn’t feel the heat too much, but summer had passed and fall had arrived.

“… ….”

When she stopped picking up firewood because her mind was busy with various thoughts, Cloud silently came to Ayla’s side and squatted down. He was there to pick up her twigs for her.

“Are you okay, Miss?”

He asked her with a worried look on his face. It seemed like he couldn’t figure out why she suddenly broke down.

“Okay.”

Ayla looked at him, biting her lip.

Originally, she planned to move on her own, but it occurred to her that she might be able to get Cloud’s help in her plan to save Debbie and Scott.

It was an opportunity to test whether he had really turned to her side and whether he could be trusted completely.

“Cloud…”

“Yes, Miss. Please speak.”

“I’m going to save my uncle and aunt.”

In her words, Cloud was so shocked that he unknowingly broke the tree branch he was holding in his hand.

It was because he couldn’t figure out how on earth she knew of the plan to kill the couple.

After Ayla came to stay in this forest cabin, it was Byron’s order to kill the couple. He didn’t even have time to eavesdrop.

He had no choice but to ask this with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

“How did you know that?”

“Isn’t this something you can figure out if you think about it just a little bit? There’s no way that vicious person would let them live.”

There was no need to add something incredible, like a regression or something, to Cloud’s confusion. She just shrugged and explained it.

And fortunately, Cloud seemed to accept her excuse.

“Okay.”

“I want you to run away with two of them immediately after I leave. So you just… All you have to do is lie and say that you dealt with the two of them. okay?”

She was worried that Debbie and Scott might not be able to reach the safe house she had prepared and would be caught by Byron, but if Cloud could lie to him, they could buy time until they could hide safely.

“Umm.”

And Cloud groaned as if he were embarrassed. It seemed like he was still hesitant about actively helping Ayla.

Ayla got angry at that indecisive attitude, stood up, holding a tree branch, and fired a sharp shot. 

“Think about it carefully. Is it okay for an innocent aunt and uncle to be sacrificed just for Byron’s desires? Where did the conscience go that was tormented by the fact that you deceived me? Don’t you get stung by things like this?”

She said it was a conscience that was activated selectively in her, and then she snorted angrily and turned around. 

And Cloud, who was left alone, pondered her words.

The couple did nothing wrong. It was just unfortunate that Byron’s eye caught him and took advantage of him. Even if he killed a couple like that, he could not be okay with it.

Although she only spoke about the incident, her words caused huge ripples in his heart, like throwing a stone into calm water.

He tried his best to pretend not to know that he had been harming countless innocent and weak people under the pretext of doing it for his family. It seemed as if the guilt he had barely managed to sink beneath the surface showed up and disturbed his heart.

‘You’re a child who always puts adults to shame.’

Cloud laughed abruptly and looked in the direction where Ayla had disappeared.

“Oh, my Ayla!! Why do you look so bad? What happened? Why are your clothes so dirty? Did you fall?”

“Did you fall? Is she hurt anywhere?”

When Ayla returned to the cabin holding a bunch of tree branches, the couple was surprised by her pale face, ran up to her, and made a fuss.

“Clothes? Why are my clothes…?”

Ayla, who didn’t even know that her clothes were dirty, looked at the hem of her skirt in embarrassment. While squatting down to pick up a tree, fallen leaves and dirt were stuck here and there on her skirt.

“Oh, it’s not that I fell.”

When Debbie was told that this was what happened while she was just trying to pick up a tree branch, she shook off the hem of her clothes with an upset face.

“I had to get down on my knees to pick it up.”

It was unfortunate that the child appeared to be being monitored because she was living in a stranger’s home because of adult mischievousness. 

And Debbie’s warm touch even added guilt to Ayla, who was already distraught.

Even though it was not her true intention, as she had been deceiving such a good couple, it brought tears to her eyes for no reason.

As Ayla burst into tears, Debbie and Scott were even more puzzled.

“Ayla, why are you crying? Are you upset? huh?”

Debbie wiped Ayla’s tears with a handkerchief she had made. Scott’s hands were fluttering in the air with nowhere to go. It was obvious that he was in embarrassment cause he didn’t know what to do.

Ayla barely swallowed her tears and opened her mouth. She had to explain to protect Debbie and Scott; that’s why she just cried like this. She felt sorry for herself.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, uncle. I fooled you two.”

“You’re cheating. “What do you mean?”

When Ayla confessed her mistake in a tearful voice, the couple tilted their heads in confusion.

“Tomorrow, the woman who came with me will come get me.”

“You mean your mother?”

‘The woman who came with me??’. 

It was strange for her to hear a word referring to one’s mother. When Debbie tilted her head and asked, Ayla raised her voice and denied it.

“That woman… is not my mother! It’s all a lie that she’s being chased by debt collectors and that her older sister lives in a neighboring village. I’m sorry for cheating.”

She bit her lip to keep from crying again.

She felt relieved to reveal the truth she had been hiding, but she also felt sorry for the couple who felt betrayed.

“What do you mean it’s not your mother?”

“Were you kidnapped by that woman? Well, if that’s the case, you should go to the government office and ask for help.”

However, rather than blaming Ayla for deceiving them, the couple first worried about her, and their kindness made the deceiver’s heartbreak even greater.

“I can’t explain the details, but if I go back with her tomorrow, they’ll have to run away from here. Otherwise, she will try to harm you both.”

She handed the couple the note Winfred had given them.

She wasn’t sure if the couple would believe her and follow her instructions, but she would have to persuade them somehow.

She didn’t want to lose this good couple again.

“Where am I?”

The couple who received the note looked at each other with embarrassed expressions. They looked like they didn’t know what the hell was going on.

“It’s a place where there are people who will protect you two. I’m sorry that you got caught up in this, but… Can you please believe me just once?”

Ayla looked at the couple with a desperate voice. She looked desperate as if her life and death depended on this matter.

Debbie, who was looking at Ayla in silence, held her hand tightly and opened her mouth.

“Well then… Ayla, Would you like to go together?”

“Huh?”

“If you follow those who put us in danger, won’t you be in danger too?”

At her words, Ayla looked blankly at Debbie’s face. She was surprised because she never imagined she would receive an offer like this.

She was grateful for that feeling. She never thought they would care so much about her, even after deceiving them and lying to them for two months.

She liked them even more because they were such a nice couple, and she would like to get more of them.

“Thank you for your words, but I… I have to go back to that woman. Otherwise, my life will be in danger.”

As she spoke, she gradually lost confidence. Even when she thought about it herself, it was an unconvincing statement.

However, since the curse on her body had not yet been lifted, Ayla had to leave this place with Capella, whether she liked it or not.

‘Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, does something seem strange?’

It was before she came to this house that she performed a ritual to lift the curse from her last life. But why in this life? Didn’t they lift the curse first?

No, that was not the time to think about this. It didn’t matter what the order was. It was time to focus first on persuading the couple.

“Ayla …”

“I will resolve the matter as quickly as possible and then visit you two. Until then, you must hide well in the place written on this note.”

Ayla tightened her grip on Debbie’s hand. She hoped that her true feelings would be conveyed through their skin.

And, finally…

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’ll do as you say.”

The couple looked at each other for a moment and nodded.

However, not all problems were solved.

“By the way, Ayla, because we are blind, we don’t know what was written on the note.”

Scott confessed, blushing as if he felt ashamed. But it wasn’t that embarrassing by commoner standards. Because they had little opportunity to learn to read, they often only knew how to write their names.

“Oh… ”

And Ayla sighed softly. It was a fact she already knew from her past life, but she had forgotten.

“What should I do? I don’t know much about geography either.”

If she were well versed in the geography of the Empire, she would have drawn a map, but she had been wandering around all her life without knowing where she was going. So she had no time to learn geography.

She read the address Winfred had written with a distressed expression. She hoped Scott and Debbie would find the address and make their way home.