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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Jjescus ]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
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Chapter: 183
Sannyeong leaned back in her chair, looking exhausted, and let out a deep sigh.
The shock from the village chief's death was evident in her demeanor and eyes. However, she seemed to suppress her emotions and decide to face the cold reality.
"I will help you with the necessary preparations, but it's your responsibility to find the materials you need."
I nodded my head.
"That's fine. I understand."
Sannyeong sighed again and said, "If you're not going back to the village, you can stay here, but don't cause any trouble while you're here."
"What kind of trouble could there be? I'll be quiet."
"I hope so,” Sannyeong replied resignedly. Then she looked at Aro.
"Why are you still clinging to him?"
Sannyeong frowned. If she keeps doing that, the child won't want to leave... I clicked my tongue inwardly.
"Didn't I tell you repeatedly? Since he's going to leave, you shouldn't get attached to him."
"I don't want to."
Aro shook her head vigorously. Her voice was tearful again.
"Why do you keep saying that Uncle is going to leave?"
Tears fell down like raindrops. I reached out to wipe her tears with my sleeve, but stopped midway.
"I made a promise with Uncle. Uncle, isn't that right? You promised me."
I had to stop in an awkward posture, unable to wipe her tears or withdraw my arm.
"Why don't you answer? Hurry up and answer. Uncle, you promised me, didn't you? Huh? You promised, didn't you?"
Sannyeong's gaze, still frowning, slid towards me.
"......Did you really make a promise?"
"Ah, no. That is."
It was a very embarrassing situation. First of all, I had never made a promise.
I had only reluctantly said yes, and I swear to heaven that I had never promised this girl that I would stay in a position where I could interact with her forever.
"You promised."
I was in a difficult situation. The child was crying, and I had nothing to say.
A situation where I couldn't affirm or deny. Only the sound of sobbing continued in the silence, and then Sannyeong pushed the chair away with a thud and stood up.
"I won't go anywhere, so I'll get up for a while."
"Where are you going?"
"I need to rest a bit. I haven't slept a wink for three days, so I'm dying."
Well, when I saw her in the village, her complexion was already very bad. The dark circles under her eyes and her dull, rough complexion revealed that she hadn't been able to rest properly for a long time.
And that was probably to take care of the village chief. She hadn't been able to rest properly because she had been taking care of the village chief in a critical condition day and night.
"You're not going to run away, are you?"
"Of course not. Where would I go?"
Sannyeong nodded her head slightly, then left the room and headed down the corridor. Since I can sense any movement within the shrine's building even while sitting in this spot, there was nothing to worry about even if Sannyeong was out of sight.
The problem is this girl. How should I get her off me?
...was what I expected her to think.
"Stop,” I said firmly. Then Aro looked up at me as if glaring at me with resentment.
"Stop crying. Shall I get you some water?"
But the sobbing continued.
"You don't even know where to get water."
"That's true... But if I look for it, there must be somewhere. Or do you want to go to the village? Shall I take you to the village?"
Aro strongly shook her head.
"I don't want to. You're planning to leave me behind and go away, aren't you? Do you think I don't know, Uncle?"
Sniffle.
"Stop sniffling."
"Uncle is a fool."
This girl…
"Listen."
Then Aro looked up at me with teary eyes. However, she became a bit quieter.
"I don't think it's impossible or extremely difficult to take you outside, as you said."
What's so difficult about it? The most difficult thing would be to escape from Sannyeong's sight and run away with this girl.
If I know the way and can get a means to resist the thick energy outside the border, it wouldn't be difficult to leave the village with this girl and return to the capital.
When I said that, her eyes quickly lit up and she asked in an expectant voice, "Then are you going to take me with you?"
"I'm not sure about that."
At my answer, her expression immediately turned to disappointment.
It was too early to be disappointed. My words weren't over yet.
"First of all... can you answer me this one thing? What will happen to the village if you disappear?"
If this girl has to take over the role that the village chief had in the village, what will happen to the village if even this girl disappears?
Apart from my desire to fulfill what this girl wants, I didn't want the villagers to suddenly face a disaster.
Even if I haven't made any special friendships with them, I don't want them all to be sacrificed as food for the monsters.
"And... this is just in case, but do you know where it connects to if you go upstream along the river where the water flows from?"
Aro began to answer the first question first.
Perhaps because it was an answer related to the village chief, her tone was much more somber.
"I can't protect the village as well as Grandma."
"Why?"
"I haven't learned enough yet."
"Ah."
I didn't think that she was still learning. But didn't the village chief not foresee this kind of situation at all?
Wouldn't she have made some arrangements so that Aro could stand on her own even after she passed away?
Since the village will continue to exist unless all the residents move somewhere else together, I'm sure she must have made some arrangements.
"Everything I need to study is in the library."
The girl who said that hesitated.
"But..."
She hesitated for a long time and then answered.
"I haven't been able to fully open my eyes like Grandma. So even if I study, I can't be as good as Grandma anyway. It's better for me to be in the village, but it's not a big difference. Even if I'm here or leave, the monsters will continue to get closer."
She seemed to be trying to say things in the most advantageous way for herself, but anyway, those words meant that she had to stay in the village.
"What do you mean by opening your eyes?"
"Grandma said she could see everything. That was my Grandma's special ability."
She added, looking unsure, "And mine too."
But that means her ability is much weaker than the village chief's.
"Then is that something you're born with? Can't you change it with effort?"
"Grandma said that she needed a trigger to fully open her eyes."
A trigger?
"But actually, even my Grandma hadn't fully opened her eyes."
"Do you need some kind of condition?"
But judging from her unsure voice, she didn't seem to know what that trigger was.
"Don't you know, Uncle?"
"Huh?"
"You don't know?"
What is she talking about? How would I know that?
"How would I know?"
"Because Uncle is also someone who can see."
"......What?"
"Huh?"
Then she started saying something confusing.
"Grandma said that. She said that Uncle, like me and Grandma, is a descendant."
Then she slowly blinked her eyes.
"I can't see as much as Grandma..."
Suddenly, I realized that her eyes were strange. And I remembered the moment when I first met her.
Her eyes seemed to pierce through me. I felt like even the parts under my skin were being dissected.
Soon, I realized that she had the same look in her eyes as when we first met.
It wasn't for nothing that I felt it was strange.
"Uncle is also a person born here, isn't he?"
Aro said that and then suddenly turned her head. She looked at one side of the wall in the room. There was nothing there.
Suddenly, I realized that what she was looking at was not just the wall. She was pointing to something beyond the wall.
What was beyond that wall? Recalling the scenery outside the shrine building, I soon remembered a shrub with leaves that were purplish on one side.
Outside the building, in the middle of the front yard, that shrub grew widely.
The moment I remembered that, I felt a chill run down my spine.
"The same as us."
I instinctively understood the true meaning of what she was saying. She wasn't talking about the origin of Prince Yegyeong of the Mokryeo Kingdom.
What she was trying to say was...
"Grandma has been waiting for someone like Uncle for a very long time."
So that's why the villagers treated me differently from Jawoon.
Jawoon was a real outsider, and I was a person who had the same roots as them but lived outside for some reason. That's what Aro was saying.
But I couldn't understand. Prince Ikwon must have been born with many people watching.
Wouldn't he be a person who is surrounded by countless palace people for the rest of his life, and even his coughs and other small actions are recorded?
No, actually, it wasn't that I couldn't understand. But... I couldn't be sure whether what this girl meant and what I was thinking were the same. It's too absurd.
"But she also said it was strange."
"......What?"
There were already more than one or two things that could be said to be strange. I couldn't get out of the shock.
"Uncle is clearly a descendant of the enemy..."
Aro pondered, touching her lower lip with her finger.
"A descendant of the enemy... But he's still the same kind of person as us. It's really strange, this is."
Enemy?
At that moment, I felt like all the blood in my body was cooling down.
"Maybe, like, a king... are you talking about something like that?"
Could it be Taejo?
When it comes to blood relations, it was obvious that she was talking about the Ye family.
But the Ye royal family is the village chief's enemy?
In the first place, the era didn't match, and it couldn't be a close place. It was impossible to make sense of it, since I had started from north of Wolhan Fortress and came here.
Taejo's main area of activity was from the capital to the south of the Mokryeo Kingdom, that is, the Seopyung region. There wasn't even a situation where resentment could be formed.
That's definitely going to be the case.
"I don't know about that."
"Ah, okay."
She doesn't know. That answer made me feel drained.
I realized that I was too nervous while listening to Aro's words, and then I stretched out and loosened my body.
"Then, let's just keep that in mind... Can you tell me what's at the upper reaches of the river, as much as you know?"
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Jjescus ]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
Join our Discord for release updates!
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