Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

I felt a burning pain in my perineum.

A groan of excruciating pain flowed out from the pain I had felt for the first time in my life.

Not only that, but the pain that felt like being beaten all over my body shook my consciousness and woke me up.

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

“Oh my, are you awake?”

My vision was blurry and the smell of sweat rushed into my nostrils and seemed to clog my pores.

Haa, haa…….

My eardrum was hot as if someone had put a heated iron skewer in my ear.

An unfamiliar voice rang in my ears, but I didn’t feel like answering.

It was that overwhelming.

I blinked vigorously.

As my blurry vision gradually became clearer, the ivory ceiling I had never seen before caught my eye.

“Aahh…….”

A hoarse voice came out of my throat, as if it had been rubbed with coarse sandpaper.

It was clear that it was my voice, but it was just terribly unfamiliar.

At that moment, something cold brushed my forehead.

“You worked hard, miss. Oh. I was so nervous when I thought something was wrong with you…….”

The old woman I saw for the first time took a deep breath as she tapped her chest with her palm.

I couldn’t even ask who it was.

As if wandering in a dream, everything was unrealistic.

An unfamiliar blanket, an unfamiliar bed, an unfamiliar ceiling, and the creepy pain between my legs.

It was a place where I had never felt any pain except when I had been holding in my pee for a long time.

The pain I felt below gave me such a terrible feeling that I was afraid to even see it with my own eyes.

“Oh my, why are you like this, huh?”

“Ah, ahh…….”

“Drink some water. It’s warm water. Slowly. Oh, oh, it’s all dripping. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

A good-looking old woman with small wrinkles around her eyes gave me water with her palms on my back.

A little bit of confusion came back.

It was then that an unexpected explosion occurred, and the sudden situation caught my eye.

“This, what is this…… how…….”

“Oh, look at my mind. Robin! You can come in now!”

The old woman shouted at the old wooden door behind her.

As if waiting, the door opened and a man wearing a black leather hunting cap appeared with a thick duvet in his arms.

The aunt took it very seriously, as if it was a treasure.

And…….

“Look. He’s a sharp-faced son that resembles his mother. He’ll make a lot of girls cry later.”

An unknown child was wrapped in a white cloth.

I couldn’t comprehend how good-looking the face and small fern-like hands were.

But what I don’t understand was why were you giving this child to me?

I knocked her hand with a weak move.

“I…… Why am I here? No, what time is it…… Cough, I, I mustn’t be late for the departure time…….”

“Miss…….”

The words spewing out of my confused head were so haphazard that it was difficult for me to even understand.

The aunt was looking at me with a pitiful look at the gibberish words.

“Uh, uh…… Urrghh…….”

For a moment, that sympathetic gaze was so close that it was hard to bear.

My throat groaned in a sense of nausea, and my eyes were distorted as if they were crushed clay.

A startled voice called out to me several times, and I could feel my body twitching helplessly, but I couldn’t do anything.

Nothing but helplessly accepting that my pupils went behind the eyelids.

The smooth hull of the white ship cuts through the blue and expansive sea and stretches out coolly.

My mother, who remained at the port, shook her hand while wiping her tears with her handkerchief, and my father gently wrapped his arms around her shoulder and looked at me as I walked away.

My father smiled warmly at me as I struggled to capture the growing worries with his reassuring eyes.

I shook my hair, enjoyed the cool sea breeze passing by, and embraced the salty scent of the sea in my arms.

I couldn’t control my heels shaking with excitement.

Ten days.

I had to spend ten days on the sea, but I didn’t feel tired at all.

If I am still imagining my dream of a study abroad life, the week will pass in the blink of an eye.

“Gasp, gasp…….”

I felt like I had been splashed with cold water.

I wiped the sweat from my eyelashes by rubbing them with my hands.

I couldn’t see my parents seeing me off, the sparkling horizon, or the ship carrying my dreams.

All I was left with was an indoor coat drenched in rough wool, soaked in cold sweat.

The intense pain in my body had subsided a lot.

There was a subtly throbbing pain, but it was tolerable.

I wiped my sweat-soaked face.

There was a faint warmth in my pale, tired hands.

The scene of me setting sail was a dream, and I soon realized that this situation, which had no way to explain it, was the reality.

To calm my confused mind, I poured all the water on the narrow table into my mouth without the owner’s permission.

“What happened?”

Even if I asked, no one could give me an answer.

The sun shone through the window and scorched down my cheeks.

I frowned and looked outside.

Tree branches were thick under the clear, high sky.

“Where else is this?”

Even a single sunlight hitting the corners of my eyes stung me.

I couldn’t concentrate on my thoughts, so I lowered my throbbing legs under the bed.

As I took one step, I felt a horrific pain in my perineum.

It wasn’t painful enough to sit down right away.

Just that part…… Although it was my body, it was a very unfamiliar place, so fear took precedence.

I chewed my teeth and walked pretending not to know the pain.

As soon as the curtain was pulled, the darkness that came in calmed my heart.

But as soon as I took a deep breath, the door swung open.

The sudden intruder was the good-looking old lady.

I…… gave birth to a child I didn’t know.

The old woman’s brown pupils swelled in surprise.

She set the tray she was holding down on the side table, and walked swiftly to support me.

“If you wake up suddenly without eating, you’ll collapse.”

As the savory smell of soup spread from the tray, my calm stomach suddenly shook.

My saliva was pooling under my tongue.

I sat down on the unfamiliar bed again, supported by the aunt.

“Are you awake now? You’ve been down for a week since the baby was born.”

“…….”

“You opened your eyes for a while and then fell asleep, and I thought you would be okay again, but then you fell asleep. Robin went down to the village to find a doctor, but why would a doctor come to this forest? All doctors these days are merchants. Don’t see the sick as sick, just look at them as money. When the abacus is pounded, if it seems like a loss-making examination, they don’t even move their heavy butts.”

The old woman grunted over and over, as if she was offended, and squeezed the towel in the basin.

Then she familiarly wiped the sweat from my neck.

I pushed the woman’s hand away.

“Call my mother and father.”

“…… What?”

There was no way my parents would have allowed me to study abroad.

I must have been secretly moved to a new villa while I was sleeping.

Even the pain in my body was difficult to understand, but for now, this guess seemed the most probable.

Still, this was too much!!

My stomach was boiling.

How could they do such a cruel thing when they knew how much I had been wanting to study abroad?

“Officer Mitchell, His Majesty’s Tumgold’s Royal Guard Knight.”

Even when I gave my father’s name, the aunt had a puzzled look.

She couldn’t have not known Father if she was the one hired by Father.

Even if it was not for that reason, if she was a citizen of the Crovatium Kingdom, she must have heard my father’s name, who was an officer of the Guards, at least once.

“…… Miss, why are you like this, it’s scary?”

“What?”

“It’s already been 10 years since His Majesty Tumgold passed away, what are you talking about?”

“…….”

Even though I heard the words of the old woman clearly in my ear, I did not understand as if I had heard a foreign language.

I must have read in the newspaper that His Majesty Tumgold was in critical condition.

But…… I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since His Majesty passed away.

What kind of nonsense is this?

Were you trying to make fun of me?

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