TWCMH 05

Chapter 05

The frightened woman stiffened so much she barely dared to breathe, crouching for a long while, but fortunately, no presence was felt from beyond the forest.

At that moment, a butterfly fluttered from somewhere and flew into the dark forest.

Despite her tension, there was nothing inside the forest. It seemed the resting birds had simply been startled by the wind and taken flight all at once.

Letting out a long, pent-up breath, Roelia finally registered the sky tinged with orange. She had been so absorbed in gathering herbs that she hadn’t noticed the sun was already setting.

“Oh my, has it gotten this late already? I need to hurry.”

She had to move before it got completely dark. As she stretched her knees, which had been bent for a long time, and stood up, a groan of pain escaped her lips involuntarily.

“Ouch, my back.”

She tapped her throbbing lower back with her clenched fist, then took off her sweat-soaked hood. As she did, her face, mottled with yellowish pus, and her hair, a murky greyish-brown so dull that its original color was unrecognizable, cascaded down like a waterfall.

Habitually, she moved to wipe her sweaty forehead, then flinched and lowered her hand.

‘I almost broke the pus again.’

Perhaps because she wasn’t used to it, her hand kept instinctively going there.

With careful fingers, she dabbed away the beads of sweat that had risen on her forehead. The pus-yellowed skin on her face would wound easily with even a rough rub.

This pus that disfigured her face was a side effect of the ‘medicine.’

A medicine that erased the scent emanating from her body and disguised her face…

It was a method she had learned from a wanderer she had encountered by chance during her time moving from place to place.

It was barely worth calling a recipe; all she had to do was mix a few herbs and boil them to drink.

Originally, it was a medicine taken by the Roma to treat boils, but they discovered that when healthy people took it, their bodies emitted a musty smell and their hair color changed.

—

“…I’m telling you this because you remind me of my lost sister. If I had known this method back then, my sister might not have been captured.”

—

The elderly woman had instantly recognized Roelia’s identity and offered her advice.

In this state, she was bound to be discovered by someone anyway.

And if discovered, it would mean death or a life worse than death, so Roelia and Dietrich, with their backs against the wall, had followed the Roma’s instructions to find and consume the herbs.

The result was truly astonishing.

The subtle fragrance that would emanate no matter how disheveled she looked instantly turned into a foul stench, and the color of her brilliantly shining golden hair also changed.

Her complexion, which had been smooth even without eating, turned dark, and then pus rose to make it a sight hard to bear.

Who would call such a sight a ‘flower’?

Her disfigured appearance was deplorable, but it was far better than being discovered and killed.

Dietrich held his sister, who had become like this, tightly in the world’s most reliable embrace, comforting her.

—

“It’s okay. Everything will be alright.”

“Diet…”

“It’s not your fault at all. So don’t make that face. Are you trying to make your already ugly face even more miserable?”

“What?”

“So I’m telling you not to pout, but to smile, Ella. There won’t be any more suffering from now on. Okay?”

—

How dependable that young one was…

From then on, Roelia kept her wits even sharper and, together with Dietrich, diligently sought a way to survive.

They spent days on end lying on the streets begging, and even knowing they were being short-changed as outsiders, they sewed through the night to earn wages.

The place where the two of them finally settled after wandering the streets was right here.

The mountain keeper’s old hut deep in the mountains was shabby and secluded, looking as if it would collapse at any moment, but for the two who had lived well even in a moldy gravedigger’s house, it wasn’t such a bad place.

‘Rather, it’s good. It’s better to meet as few people as possible.’

Roelia thought coolly and looked down with satisfaction at the generously filled herb basket.

She had found quite a lot of good herbs today.

With this much, she could get at least 3 gold, so Dietrich wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of gathering wood or hunting for a while.

Thinking that made her heart feel proud, and even her frozen hands didn’t hurt at all.

Blowing warm breath onto her cracked fingertips, which were like dry pieces of wood, she hurried down the mountain path.

Just as she was rushing to get back to the hut before it got too dark, a white butterfly fluttered around her from somewhere.

Roelia stopped in her tracks and reached out her hand toward the butterfly.

The butterfly, flapping its wings as lavishly as a blooming flower, gently landed on the tip of Roelia’s finger.

“You should go now too. I’m calling it a day and heading home.”

At Roelia’s whisper, the butterfly, its white-shining wings trembling, quietly flew into the air and then, at some point, shattered into pieces and disappeared.

The remnants of the butterfly, scattered in the wind, sparkled brilliantly like jewels. Roelia stared at them blankly, as if entranced.

She didn’t know when it started, but she could summon ‘butterflies.’

It seemed to be an ability that had manifested from ‘that power,’ but she wasn’t sure.

Back then, she had denied everything that had happened to her, so there was nothing she remembered clearly.

She had hastily erased her traces and fled frantically from the cemetery reeking of blood.

She had run away so well from that place she had thought she would never escape, that she would never leave.

Like floundering in a mud pit with no view ahead, everything placed before her was uneasy and frightening. So there was no way she could have welcomed the butterflies that had started circling around her at some point.

However, whether Roelia hated them or was wary of them, those white butterflies always flew around her, helping her and her brother escape.

They found her escape routes, showed her places with drinking water, and guided her along paths where she could avoid people’s eyes.

Without earnest prayers, without any grand incantations, whenever Roelia merely thought of what she needed in her mind, the white butterflies would fly in and provide the answer.

She couldn’t help but rely on that miraculous power. If it was an ability that manifested along with the power of the Flona, she would use it to its fullest.

‘I gathered this many herbs today, thanks to the butterflies.’

Now she no longer denied her situation.

If she just closed her eyes and turned away from reality, she never knew when a threat might come. She had to keep her eyes open, her ears alert, and stay sensitive. She had to accept her situation and hide herself as much as possible to be safe.

‘Still, it’s already been a year.’

…Perhaps, no one knows.

That a new ‘Flona’ has been born.

The thought that perhaps no one knows because she fled before anyone could notice was her last hope.

‘So let’s be strong. I just need to hold out a little longer…’

Roelia, who had been looking up at the increasingly darkening sky, quickened her pace. She had to hurry so she could prepare dinner before Dietrich returned.

Dietrich had gone into town early in the morning to sell the furs of the rabbits, wild boars, and deer he had worked hard to hunt last month.

Because the winter in the forest had been particularly harsh, she hadn’t been able to gather herbs all that time, so Dietrich had suffered. To support the two of them, he had hunted all through that cold winter, skinned the hides, dressed the meat…

He had endured such hardship over the past year that the now nineteen-year-old’s shoulders had broadened considerably.

Now, anyone could see he was no longer a boy, but a full-fledged young man.

Because of this, many people saw Roelia and Dietrich as a young couple, and the two of them didn’t bother to correct them.

It seemed that people would find them less strange as a couple than as siblings.

In their situation of living in hiding, they had to be careful of people’s eyes. Fortunately, pretending to be a young couple was perfect for hiding their suspiciousness.

“Thank goodness. Dietrich isn’t back yet.”

Returning to the hut, Roelia quickly washed her hands and put on her apron. Her hands busied themselves preparing dinner.

Nights in the forest were long.

They arrived much earlier than in the city and remained dark for a long time.

The darkness was even more terrifying in its silence. The sounds of birds in the pitch-black forest were almost welcome.

Roelia, who was inherently very timid, bolted the small hut’s door several times over and waited for Dietrich to return.

Even if it was this scary and uncomfortable, living in the forest was far better than mingling among people.

At least beasts do not pluck the flower.