“Then I…… I will take the child to the entrance of the village.”
“Okay, then.”
He said bye and went out. Although he felt miserable because he couldn’t lift Ayla’s curse, he still wanted to see her off on the way.
When Cloud came out, Ayla was waiting, looking as if she had fallen down a slope. Blood was flowing from the scratch on her cheek; her knee was badly broken and looked very painful.
“Is it necessary to do this?”
Cloud frowned at the wound and asked Capella. He couldn’t believe that all these wounds were inflicted on purpose.
Capella glared sharply at her brother-in-law, saying she only did it because it was necessary. It was the look she made every time she showed unnecessary sympathy to Ayla.
And Ayla, who was injured, could not feel the pain at all. This was because she had not yet recovered from the shock of skipping the ritual to remove the curse.
“Miss, please come here.”
Cloud put Ayla on the horse’s saddle, and he got on the back. It looked like they were going to ride the horse until they reached the village.
They ran through the forest in silence. When they reached a place where the lights of the village could be seen in the distance, he hugged Ayla and lowered her from the horse.
Cloud faced the young gaze staring at him in the dark.
When they first met, the child was so small that it could barely reach his knees. But she had grown so much that she was at his eye level.
The guilt of having committed an unforgivable sin against this child throughout those years tormented him.
“I will do something about the curse. So don’t worry, young lady.”
“……You? What are you going to do? When I return home, you won’t be able to properly contact me except through Laura.”
When she struggled to open her mouth, Ayla snorted.
After returning to the duchy in her last life, she never met Cloud until the moment she died.
He must have finally realized the blind spot in her words and made an expression that said, “Oops.”
Ayla laughed at his silly appearance, which boosted her determination once again.
At first, she was embarrassed. She was afraid that she would have to live her life in Byron’s hands forever.
But as she rode his horse and passed through the dark forest, she let go of that fear.
Until then, she was alone, but this time … … Just by existing, she would have strong parents by her side.
Things like curses were not important.
“I will find my way to live, so you……”
Ayla looked at the man standing in front of her. The man who had been her enemy once was standing by her side.
“I want to be forgiven…… On that day, I decide to attack the Duke of Weishafen, reveal the whole truth, and surrender. Then I will take responsibility and save Laura.”
She said this and walked towards the village. Without even looking back at Cloud.
Ayla’s broken knee was hurting because Capella had hit it with a stone. Still, Ayla walked diligently towards the light, even though she was limping.
Then it was time to go home.
* * *
Einschnitt, a small village located at the edge of the Herzig territory, was a quiet village.
The small village had only a few households, a small general store, a blacksmith shop, a mill, and an old inn. Thanks to those, the villagers were close enough to know how many spoons were in the houses next door.
For the first time in a few years, an uproar broke out in such a small town.
One morning, a young girl who seemed to be thirteen or fourteen years old appeared in the village covered in wounds.
When the guard dispatched to protect the village discovered the girl, he had to rub his eyes several times to see if he was seeing a ghost.
It had been three years since he had been dispatched to this peaceful village. During that time, not a single incident occurred. So he was also stuck in inertia.
Then, the guard, who soon realized that he had not seen anything in vain, screamed, causing everyone in the village to wake up, and the quiet village became noisy.
“You know, who’s that? A weirdo who built a cabin and lived on that mountain. Didn’t he stop by the general store sometimes? She said she was the family’s daughter. It seems like the couple were killed by bandits, and only the daughter survived.”
“Ah, you mean Scott? That friend is dead……”
“But I don’t think I’ve heard that. Had he a daughter?”
“He was such a quiet person. I thought he was a person who couldn’t speak. I only heard his name five years ago when we met.”
As Arbo, who worked at a blacksmith shop in the village, grumbled, dissatisfied, several men around him murmured their agreement.
It was because Scott was so wary and sharp that he was harsh with the residents who spoke to him every time he came to town.
“Guys over there, won’t you be quiet? The kid hears it! That kid lost both her parents last night.”
When Griselda, the owner of the mill, got angry and pointed at the crying girl, the village men who had been talking about how unfriendly Scott suddenly fell silent as if their mouths had become glued together.
They were the people who could empathize so much. So they felt very sorry for a child who went through such a big thing.
“So? How did you escape?”
The security guard asked, scratching his head.
First, he contacted the Lord, but he felt like he needed to hear the situation before instructions were given, so he had the child sit down and do something similar to an interrogation.
“My mother hid me under the bed…… I barely escaped the house after the bandits set it on fire and returned.”
The girl, Ayla, started crying and confessing the events of last night.
Of course, it was only according to the script that Byron had written, and not in reality. Still, it wasn’t that difficult. Perhaps because it was a theater stage she had already performed on once in her past life.
The villagers who were watching her and surrounding her clicked their tongues. Some people even shed tears because of her sad feelings.
Not long after, the village became noisy once again.
The lord, Baron Herzig, had personally visited Einschnitt.
After hearing in detail about the location of the house from Ayla, the Baron sent guards to investigate the house. He even took the poor girl to his castle, where she had nowhere to go.
‘……He’s still a good guy.’
Seeing Baron Herzig, taking a scraggly commoner girl in his carriage, Ayla briefly remembered the past.
This was a similar trend to past life too.
Eventually, the carriage carrying her arrived at the Lord’s residence.
Baron Herzig was not very wealthy. So even though he had a castle, it wasn’t that extravagant. There were only a few employees, so Baron’s wife and daughter had to help out with some of the chores.
The reason Byron chose this village was because of Baron Herzig’s upright personality. That made it too easy for him to use it as he pleased, but Ayla thought that the choice wasn’t a bad one anyway.
The poor Baron Herzig will be receiving a reward for finding Ayla.
And there, Ayla was able to meet one of the people she had been missing again.
‘Lisa…… !’
It was Lisa Herzig, the Baron’s daughter, who would join the dukedom with Ayla and become a maid.
Unlike Laura, she was a maid who truly cared for her and was also Ayla’s closest companion during the two years she spent as a princess.
Unfortunately, Laura, who was in trouble because she could not brainwash Ayla, framed Lisa as a thief, and she had to return to her hometown of Herzig.
Stealing the owner’s jewels was a serious crime, but since Baron Herzig was Ayla’s benefactor, he covered up the incident and sent her back.
‘…… And this time, I will protect Lisa too.’
Just as she stole Scott and Debbie away from Byron, Ayla vowed that she would also protect Lisa from being kicked out due to Laura’s plot.
Because she had met Lisa earlier, she looked a little younger than Ayla remembered. It was still nice to see her with reddish-brown hair braided and wearing a large ribbon, which was not much different from what she remembered.
The kind eyes that resembled her kind father and the bright smile that always smiled were just as she remembered.
However, Ayla tried harder to suppress her excitement and pretended not to know.
Moreover, there would be surveillance by Byron somewhere nearby, and Lisa would also be wondering if a girl she had never met suddenly pretended to know her.
“Hello, I’m Lisa Herzig. What’s your name?”
Lisa smiled sweetly and asked for her name.
“……My name is Ayla, my lady.”
She slightly bent her knees and showed courtesy to Lisa.
Her status would soon be overturned when it was revealed that Ayla was the lost daughter of the Duke of Weishafen, but Lisa was a noble daughter, and she was an orphan from a commoner background.
“I heard that you went through something sad. I don’t know how long you will stay at my house, but I hope you will feel at ease while you stay. Let’s get along well with each other. Our age difference is not that much.”
Lisa said while holding Ayla’s hand tightly, which was covered in charcoal black. It was something an ordinary noble lady would never do.
“Thank you, my lady.”
Lisa’s hands were warm, and her simple smile put Ayla’s heart at ease.
A few days passed in an instant at Baron Herzig’s mansion.
In the meantime, she spent her days doing chores with the employees, but she felt at ease in comparison with the life she lived under Laura’s care.
Today, Ayla was helping out in the kitchen, chopping vegetables as usual.
“Ayla, the Lord is looking for you.”
The mansion’s manager entered the kitchen and reported Baron Herzig’s call. It looked like the time had finally arrived.
