CWWV 4

Chapter 4

“Yes! It’s always been that way. And from today, I’m the one doing that job!”

“To Roddy’s… cabin?”

Roddy’s cabin, he says.

The short casual speech and speaking only in words made her think that a fully grown adult was talking like a child.

“Yes. Today we ran into each other here, but next time I’ll…”

“Let’s agree to meet here every time.”

“Pardon?”

“You said earlier that the bear was scary. If you go up from here, there are an enormous number of bears like that.”

For the first time, Roddy spoke clearly and decisively.

Until now he’d been speaking so briefly, like someone who couldn’t even speak properly…

But that’s strange. If there were that many bears, how has my sister been coming to this mountain every week all this time?

My sister had never once mentioned encountering a bear on Mount Tolto.

But it was also true that she had just encountered a bear. In any case, if this woodcutter came down this far, Sella had no reason to refuse.

That said, though…

“I don’t have a fixed time for coming. I have a lot of work to do at the orphanage.”

Cleaning, cooking, laundry, dishes, looking after the children, and so on.

“No matter when you come, I can meet you here.”

“…?”

She didn’t quite understand, but it wasn’t bad for Sella.

If she didn’t have to go further up the mountain, she could save time. That meant she’d also have room to secretly buy snacks for the children with the 10 gallops.

That said, though… things were going too smoothly somehow.

“Roddy.”

“……”

“It’s 40 gallops, right? Here, in this place, and you can meet me no matter when I come?”

The more advantageous a deal was, the more she needed to nail it down so there was no backing out.

“Yes.”

“No changing your mind!”

“…What? What does that mean?”

“I mean no going back on your word! Please keep your promise.”

“……”

Sella confidently handed him the 40 gallops, as if she had nothing to feel hesitant about.

But the man was just blankly staring at the money.

At the man’s dumbfoundedness that didn’t match his appearance, Sella let out a small sigh, took his hand, and personally placed the coins one by one into it.

She felt guilty for knocking off 10 gallops, so she should at least give the 40 gallops properly.

“You know you’re delivering to the Bishel Orphanage by dawn the day after tomorrow, right?”

Sella, who had become quite uneasy about the man, confirmed once more what should have been obvious.

“…Bishel Orphanage?”

Had he been delivering without even knowing the orphanage’s name all this time?

This person… he’s not… an idiot, is he?

“Yes. Bishel! Bishel Orphanage. The ‘Bishel’ Orphanage in ‘Pallen’ village down below! You know it?”

Sella said again, clearly, as if speaking to a young child.

“Why are you talking so loudly? It’s noisy. More than that, are you an employee there?”

What’s with this reaction? I was just trying to explain properly because he seemed to not know anything!

His way of speaking grated on her anew. Why is he using casual speech from the first meeting? Is he someone who wasn’t educated?

“I’m an orphan who grew up there, and now I work there as an employee.”

Sella answered politely despite the man’s rudeness.

‘Learn a thing or two from watching me.’

Well, this man seemed to have a lot to learn besides manners. The orphanage system was something anyone in this world knew, and yet he was even asking about that.

“Orphan… Sella.”

The man repeated Sella’s name like a monologue. Slowly, like a child first learning to speak memorizing words.

Tsk tsk.

The man was strange no matter how she looked at him. His build was fine, but for him to be such a naïve person who knew nothing of the world…

Sella thought it was a bit pitiful, and decided that instead of skimming a little money, she should treat him well.

“Um, then I’ll be going now.”

Anyway, the quick transaction was good. Thrilled by the 10 gallops left in her hands, Sella gave a courteous greeting and turned around.

She felt the man’s gaze following her back, but Sella quickly descended the mountain without even looking back, afraid he might change his mind about the price.

Rodiac watched the woman’s back as she disappeared quickly without even looking back, like someone with fire on her rear.

He knew there were several cabins for woodcutters on this mountain. But to think she’d mistake him for a woodcutter.

Was it because he had torn all his proper clothes, so he was wearing all sorts of ridiculous garments?

When his pain became severe, he tended to tear his clothes. At least it was fortunate when it was only clothes. There were also many times he terribly harmed his own body.

After he came to live buried alone in this rural mountain without a single servant, Rodiac handled almost everything himself. But clothes alone he couldn’t make himself. So in the end, he had no choice but to go to the village to buy clothes.

The clothing shop he used was a place called ‘Bliss’ in the village at the foot of the mountain. There was no other reason—it was just that there were fewer people there.

Rodiac would always order a pile of clothes of the same design there, then periodically visit to pick up only the clothes and leave immediately. Going to places where people were was a terribly tiring thing.

Today was also a day to go pick up clothes, which was why he had come out…

Just meeting a person on the way there had already put him in a bad mood. He had no room to listen to the woman’s story, so he was thinking of telling her to get lost.

His madness happened to be flaring up, and the pain was pushing in, sharpening his nerves, so if he made a mistake, he might have thrown the woman to the bear that happened to appear.

But the moment the woman grabbed his hand, his insides, which had been gradually boiling, instantly returned to their normal temperature, and the pain that always accompanied him vanished cleanly. As if a volcano on the verge of erupting had in an instant become a dormant volcano that had ceased activity.

It was pain that had continued for nearly ten years. So the feeling of the pain vanishing cleanly the moment he touched the woman felt like the ultimate pleasure.

A pleasure that seemed like it would become an addiction from just one taste. So even knowing the woman was looking at him strangely, he absolutely could not let go of her hand.

“Cooler.”

So that woman was… the very being he had only heard about in words, a ‘Cooler.’

A ‘Cooler,’ said to eliminate the pain that follows as a backlash of the ability.

And the fact that just briefly holding hands could produce that much effect must mean she possessed the highest level of ability.

That was why he didn’t want to let go of the woman’s hand. Far from letting go, the desire to cut off the woman’s hand and keep it, if only he could keep feeling this sensation, was creeping up.

Of course, he absolutely must not do that.

Letting go of her hand while looking into the woman’s eyes was unavoidable, but the single act of releasing her hand required the greatest self-control of his life across several years.

That was why. Why he had let the woman mistake him for a woodcutter.

To use the woman’s misunderstanding, to obtain the hand of that woman who could extinguish the ball of fire inside him.

Rodiac looked down at his hand.

The hand that still retained a refreshing, cool sensation.

The energy that had seemed about to surge with madness any moment had also cleanly disappeared.

“Do you only order once a week?”

“Yes! It’s always been that way. And from today, I’m the one doing that job!”

A week.

“That’s too long…”

If he didn’t know, it would be one thing, but the pleasure he had briefly tasted was already tempting him like an addiction.

On the way back to the orphanage, Sella, having bought snacks to give to the children, tried to secretly hide the snacks before reporting her return to the director.

But there was no need for that. The director happened to be out, having left the orphanage.

“The director went to a clothing shop called ‘Bliss.'”

Patrick told her.

“Ah…”

This village was quite far from the capital and wasn’t a very large neighborhood, so the only high-end clothing shop was ‘Bliss.’

Because the clothes were quite expensive, ‘Bliss’s main customers were nobles, and among commoners, only the wealthy used that shop. The orphanage director, while skimping on money for firewood, didn’t skimp on money for himself, so he used that expensive shop.

What a greedy director. Ah…! Come to think of it, didn’t Ceselia say she was going there earlier too?

A lot of people are going to ‘Bliss’ today, huh?

Bliss is…

“Ah! Bliss!”

Something she had forgotten came to mind. The place where the female lead and the hidden villain male lead first met.

In the original story, Ceselia gets a dress fitted for her debutante at the imperial palace banquet held after her twentieth birthday. The dress shop’s name was ‘Bliss,’ and it was right there that she first meets the hidden villain male lead, the deposed Crown Prince Rodiac Festrique Günther.

Come to think of it, didn’t Ceselia say earlier that she was going to try on a dress? Good heavens! Was that today?

If Ceselia really met the hidden villain, Rodiac, today…

In that moment, goosebumps prickled all over her.

If so, that meant the hidden villain male lead’s massacre to claim the female lead would begin soon.

No…!

She felt she had to go right now and get Betty out.

But Sella, who had been about to run to Betty, ended up running into the director at the orphanage entrance.

“Where are you going?”

“Um, Director, I’m sorry, but may I quickly go and come back to meet Betty? There are various things I still need to ask her!”

“Betty is in no position to meet you right now, so don’t even think about going to that house!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Betty, that foolish girl, caused a huge incident! She’s only just gotten a job. Idiot.”

An incident?

At the word ‘incident,’ unease suddenly rushed over her.