Chapter 18
“Give us all the remaining rooms. We’ll need meals and heated bathwater for five days.”
“Understood. And do you perhaps need a doctor….”
“Please call one as soon as possible. Her body temperature is too low.”
The innkeeper, who had disappeared somewhere, quickly found and brought a doctor who was staying at the inn.
The doctor first lit a fire in the fireplace and meticulously wrapped the unconscious woman’s body in blankets that had been warmed by the fire. Fortunately, the frostbite was not severe, and he said that if she warmed up in a warm place, she could recover without permanent damage.
The problem, however, arose after the woman woke up.
As soon as the woman regained consciousness for a moment and realized she was in an inn, she was startled. She tried to get out of bed, stumbled, and then had a fit when she saw Esdel extending a hand.
“Who are you? What happened?”
“Calm down. This is….”
Esdel spoke as gently as she could, but it was no use.
“Please, please spare me! I don’t know anything. I have nothing!”
The woman, pale with fright, found strength from somewhere and, in a shrill voice like a scream, said she had no money to repay, fell to her knees, and when told she didn’t have to pay, she immediately tried to run out of the inn, which gave Prince a hard time trying to catch her.
Only after being cajoled and soothed that she didn’t have to pay any money and could just rest for one night before leaving did the woman finally calm down. Even that would have been an impossible outcome if Cess hadn’t whispered something to the woman at the last moment.
After the woman finally fell asleep, Esdel turned her head towards Cess. Cess was leaning against the wall, staring silently inside.
“Just now… what did you say to that woman?”
“I don’t think there’s a reason I have to answer you.”
Cess shot back sharply and flung the door open.
“You did something unnecessary.”
She could feel the cynicism in the words that were tossed out.
Thud, she heard the sound of the door closing. Esdel looked at the closed door, then rubbed her face with her dry hands.
The woman lying on the bed had lost consciousness again in the meantime, and the blanket was messily thrown on the floor. It felt like surveying the aftermath of a violent wave that had swept through.
‘Unnecessary…’
Cess’s words echoed in her ears. A breath that had welled up from deep within her chest escaped her lips.
Esdel couldn’t understand why she had acted that way. She had made a firm decision before entering the Gridion Republic. That no matter what she saw here, if it wasn’t related to the mission, she wouldn’t pay it any mind.
She never thought she would break that resolution on the very first day of her arrival.
Affection and responsibility, though they seem separate, are deeply connected emotions. The order may differ, but one inevitably brings about the other. When you like something, you want to be responsible for it, and as you take responsibility, you grow more attached.
This was not the Reinhardt County, and the people here were not her responsibility. If she concerned herself with every person she saw like this, she would end up losing sight of what she truly needed to protect.
So, if she didn’t want to get involved, it was best to keep her distance from the start. Esdel had no intention of breaking the principles she had set for herself.
Cess was right. She had done something unnecessary. It wasn’t that there was no way to handle it, but she might end up taking a detour on a path she could have taken in one go.
Esdel tried to calm the creeping sense of self-blame and left the room. The room she was assigned was next to the woman’s. As she took heavy steps, she saw someone standing in front of the door. It was Theodore.
Her face reddened a beat too late. She was embarrassed by her disheveled appearance from grappling with the woman. Esdel quickly combed her messy hair with her hands and said.
“What were you doing here? You should have been in the room….”
“I was waiting to go in together.”
“You should have washed up first.”
Esdel said, sounding embarrassed, and walked with him to the room they would be staying in. And she paused as soon as she opened the door.
“The bed….”
‘Didn’t he clearly say it was big enough for two people?’
No matter how she looked, she could only see a bed for one person in the room. It seemed impossible for two people to sleep without some part of their bodies touching.
As she stood at the doorway with a blank face, Theodore spoke from behind her.
“The ‘two-person size’ they talk about at inns usually means that two people can lie down if they hug each other tightly.”
Esdel was at a loss for words for a moment. A greater sense of bewilderment than when she had confronted Cess while bringing in a woman on the verge of freezing to death on the street swept through her mind. As she was doing her best to figure out how to navigate this situation, she heard a chuckle.
“You said you were going to make me fall in love with you.”
Esdel turned her head in surprise at the hand that touched her shoulder. She saw blue eyes looking down at her intently. It was a blatant gaze that seemed to ask where last night’s bravado had gone.
Esdel, momentarily forgetting that she had been wrestling fiercely with the woman just a moment ago, timidly averted her gaze.
“Um, Theodore… first, uhm… go in and wash up first. We can get another blanket and lay it on the carpet or something.”
“You plan to make me sleep on a carpet that’s been trodden on with muddy feet.”
“…That’s not it.”
The words that she would sleep on the carpet just wouldn’t come out right away. Esdel’s expression changed from moment to moment. It was a troubled expression, then it flushed red, then it was at a loss again. Theodore, as if intending to peer into the mind of the woman who was red all the way to the tips of her ears, stared down at the top of her head for a while before finally taking a step back.
“I’ll go wash up and come out. Once the woman leaves tomorrow, we can use that room, so staying up for one night won’t be a big problem.”
“Stay up all night? Don’t do that.”
One of Theodore’s eyebrows shot up. As if asking what she planned to do then.
“Couldn’t we just sleep sticking to the edges on either side? Actually, we’ve already spent over three days alone together….”
“If you’re talking about the time we spent in Reinhardt, we didn’t share a bed then.”
Theodore’s hand landed softly on her silver hair. Her hair, which had become a mess from rushing on horseback from the gate, was swept down. Every time a strand of hair was caught on the man’s fingertips, her scalp was pulled slightly, making her frown.
His gesture was subtle, but his gaze was plain. She was on the verge of being moved by the gentle touch, like someone combing a child’s hair.
To talk about sharing a bed or not with such eyes was the height of contradiction.
Although she had boldly declared last night that she would win his heart, Esdel knew well that she was still far from it. At least, not when that man’s eyes were so unclouded and clear.
‘His eyes do look a little different when the marks are in them, but…’
That side seemed to be more tinged with appetite or murderous intent than love, so it was out of the question. She had said she would win his heart, not that she would offer her life to him.
“Stop with the nonsense and just go wash up. Hurry up and go in, hurry.”
Esdel removed his hand from her head and pushed him into the room. He yielded obediently to her weak force.
Only after the sound of water splashing began to come from the bathroom did Esdel catch her breath. Now that the man was out of sight, the blush on her face finally seemed to subside. She took off her cloak and unbuckled the sword from her waist, placing it near her luggage.
Esdel, who was about to sit at the small table, paused at the unfamiliar sound of breathing in her ear. And she soon realized. It was the breathing of the woman who had fallen asleep a while ago. The walls were so thin that even the sound of the woman panting and whimpering in her sleep could be heard in this room.
‘I can forget about sleeping peacefully.’
Listening to the faint, thread-like breathing, she recalled the sensation of the woman’s dry skin. Esdel fiddled with her fingertips and hugged her knees. The temperature of the skin, which had been as cold as an inhuman thing, seemed to have transferred to her own body.
‘She must have been so cold.’
She must have been, and yet the woman tried to go outside as soon as she opened her eyes. She had thrown aside the warm fireplace and blankets and tried to leap into the middle of a winter so cold it turned lips blue.
Why?
The hands wrapped around her curled-up body tightened.
Why on earth? What could be more frightening than freezing to death?
Esdel frowned slightly. For her, nothing came to mind.
The biting wind cannot be blocked even with layers of clothing. After just an hour or two, the whole body would freeze, and soon the extremities would turn red and swell, then quickly turn black and die. By then, the numb feet would not move, and there would be no way to escape the cold anymore.
It would be better if a lot of snow fell and she was buried in it, it would feel warm. The moment of death, thinking like that, would be lonely. Really, really lonely….
“Ah.”
Esdel stopped her thoughts as she felt a stinging pain in her palm. She must have clenched her fist so hard at some point that blood had beaded on the skin pressed by her fingernails.
Clenching her fist until it bled. What was she doing? It seemed she had imagined dying in the winter cold a little too vividly.
‘Anyone would think I froze to death in a past life.’
Finding it absurd herself, Esdel quickly wiped her palm lest anyone see.
While she was putting a few more logs in the fireplace, the sound of water from the bathroom stopped. As she was staring blankly at the bathroom, the door burst open. Theodore was coming out, wearing a bathrobe.
Water from his hair trickled down his forehead. After ruffling his hair once with a towel, he looked around the room and suddenly hardened his face. Theodore strode over, bent down, and picked something up. It was the handkerchief she had dropped.
“What is this?”
“I just wiped my hand because it was bleeding. It’s nothing….”
“Hand, give it here.”
Theodore grabbed her hand with a stern face.
“No, it should be all healed by now….”
Esdel, with an embarrassed expression, kept her fist clenched, but at his urging, she reluctantly opened her hand. On her palm, only a stain of dried blood remained; the wound had been cleanly erased by The Unknown.
“See. It’s all healed.”
Theodore, without seeming to listen, wiped her palm with his thumb. She was surprised by his unexpected persistence, but no matter how hard he looked, a healed wound was not going to reappear.
Esdel said once more.
“Don’t worry about it. It was really nothing. My mind was just distracted by a trivial thought for a moment.”
“What kind of thought?”
“……”
“What kind of thought makes you clench your fist so hard that it pierces your palm?”
The voice, repeating the question with a stubborn attitude, was dry. If she didn’t know him, she might have been scared, but now Esdel felt she was beginning to understand. This man was simply anxious. So much so that he had no room to act out his usual kindness.
She was bewildered, having no clue what had agitated him, but Esdel obediently opened her mouth.
“…The weather is very cold, you know.”
“And so?”
“It occurred to me that freezing to death must be a lonelier death than I thought. That’s all. It’s really nothing.”
Esdel said it with a deliberate chuckle, but Theodore showed no sign of laughing it off. With a face that gave no hint of his thoughts, he was gently pressing Esdel’s palm.
“Um, excuse me. Theodore?”
“……”
Esdel glanced back and forth between the silent man and his thumb moving slowly over her hand.
The spot on her palm where his fingertip was touching felt searingly hot. Theodore’s attitude was too serious to pull her hand away, and leaving it still made her feel ticklish inside.
“My hand… can I take it back? I can take it back, right?”
“…Of course.”
Theodore answered a beat too late, but he immediately let go of her hand. Esdel felt a subtle sense of disappointment at the disappearance of the warmth that had been there and gave a faint smile.
“W-well then… shall we lie down now?”
Esdel was about to get up from the table. There was a knock at the door.
“E-excuse me, are you in there? I have something to tell you for a moment….”
After the cautious knock, a voice, presumed to be the innkeeper’s, was heard.
While Esdel hesitated in front of the table, Theodore stood up first. He walked to the door where the presence was heard and pulled the handle. Through the half-open door, the innkeeper from the counter could be seen.
Theodore, with his hand still on the doorknob, asked.
“What is it?”
“Well… it’s about the woman you brought in today. Are you perhaps thinking of taking her as a maid?”
“We have no such plans.”
Hearing Theodore’s answer, the innkeeper nodded his head in visible relief.
“Ah, I see. I was thinking of having her work here while we protect her at the inn, so I asked just in case. I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest. Well then….”
“Wait a moment.”
“Yes?”
The innkeeper, who was about to retreat from the door after a deep bow, stopped at Esdel’s call.
The innkeeper asked Esdel with a slightly anxious expression.
“Is there something you wish to say….”
“Did you already know the woman I brought in?”
“No. I saw her for the first time today.”
“Then are you so desperate for help that you often have to entrust work to people you don’t know? From what I saw earlier, it didn’t seem like you were short on staff.”
“W-well, of course, that’s not it. But you know how it is. She won’t be able to find work if she leaves anyway, so it’s a good thing for both of us if she can at least have room and board here.”
“I’m not so sure. Are you saying the person I brought can’t find work elsewhere because her body is weak? Then how can she work here?”
“That’s…”
The innkeeper looked at Esdel, who was questioning him point by point, and then his eyes widened.
“Could it be, you didn’t know we were protecting unregistered Awakeneds here?”
Protecting who, how?
Esdel closed her mouth.
Only then did the two realize they had been talking about different things and faced each other with expressions of bewilderment. The innkeeper, in particular, seemed to think he had let a secret slip to Esdel because he had spoken carelessly.
But the first thing that came to Esdel’s mind was the face of the person who had guided her here.
‘Theodore.’
Esdel tilted her gaze upwards. The man standing at the doorway raised his lips slightly as soon as their eyes met. It was a smile with a clear meaning.
He knew. What kind of place this was, and what would happen if he brought the woman from the alley here.
Knowing everything, he had led her to this place to let all of this happen.
‘He already told me. That everything he does is related to me.’
He was spoon-feeding soup into her mouth; she had no choice but to swallow. Esdel beckoned the innkeeper to come inside. He hesitated, but he couldn’t refuse her firm invitation and sat down at the table.
Esdel placed her hands on her knees and began to speak.
“Unregistered Awakened, what kind of people does that refer to exactly? As far as I know, there was no such thing as an Awakened registration law in the Gridion Republic. Come to think of it, the guards earlier said something similar. That the woman was an unregistered Awakened, so I couldn’t take her.”
“It’s natural that you don’t know. It’s only been about three months since it was established. You’re aware that there were originally many Awakeneds living together in the Gridion Republic, right?”
Esdel nodded.
It was something she had read about in the materials her mother had given her.
The first The Unknown transference incident occurred ten years ago, in the heart of the Blake Empire’s capital. The Blake Empire was completely swept away by the transference overnight, and the speed at which the transference spread only slowed after reaching the Lifta region, a desert on the border.
The closest country to the Blake Empire is the Gridion Republic. Therefore, most of the Awakeneds who managed to escape across the desert at that time were living and settled in the Republic.
He continued, watching Esdel’s expression.
“Awakeneds from the Blake Empire are, in principle, illegal residents. Because they don’t have permanent residency. But for ten years, it was possible for everyone to find work through connections and make a living. The Republic also had an atmosphere of generously turning a blind eye. But… suddenly, three months ago, they announced they would implement an Awakened registration law.”
“What kind of law is that exactly?”
“They say they’ll conduct a full survey of the Awakened, register their residence and personal information, and then issue permanent residency in stages…. But the money it takes to register is no small sum. It’s not an amount that people like us, who live from hand to mouth, can gather. We can’t just suck our thumbs and die without being able to work.”
The initially cautious voice gradually became filled with emotion. It was unclear whether it was because he was convinced that the two of them would not punish him, or because he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he couldn’t see anything else.
But either way was fine. What Esdel needed was honest information.
She nodded her head silently.
“Then they must have started cracking down on unregistered Awakeneds after that.”
“That’s right. If an unregistered Awakened is caught working secretly, not only they but also the business establishment is held responsible, so it’s become difficult to even make a living. As a result, unregistered Awakeneds have fewer and fewer places to go… and since they’re not protected by the law, there are cases of exploitation….”
“So that’s why you asked. If we were thinking of taking her as a maid. In case we were going to take the woman and use her like a slave.”
“…If I offended you, I apologize. But the stories I’ve been hearing lately are so grim. I really didn’t think you two were that kind of people.”
The innkeeper glanced at Esdel with a face that feared he had incurred her wrath.
Esdel let out a small breath. At first, she wondered if he was making things up, but he was too bold for that. He wouldn’t have told a lie that would be easily exposed if she asked the people staying here.
“You can go now. My questions are finished.”
As soon as permission was granted, the innkeeper disappeared from sight in a flash. He seemed to have relaxed a bit, but it must have only been on the surface.
Learning about the woman’s situation made her feelings even more complicated.
‘If you don’t register, you can’t get a job, and if you get caught working, you get deported.’
