Chapter 61

Liv put the music box on the table, then she crossed her arms and stared at Coryda.

“Also what?”

“No, I mean…”

“What else did you do while I was gone?”

On the verge of tears, Coryda rolled her eyes around, unable to withstand Liv’s gaze, and parted her lips.

“Well… Actually, the broker of this house came the other day to fix the fence. But he worked alone.”

Coryda explained. Not long after Liv left for work, Adolf came by and asked if he could repair the fence for a moment. He said the move was done unprepared, so there were some things he hadn’t checked.

Coryda, who had already gotten to know Adolf, nodded in agreement, and later found out that Adolf was working alone, so she helped him out a bit.

“Coryda!”

“I really didn’t do anything! I just handed him a few things he asked for!”

“He could do it alone, so why did you do that? What if you collapse?”

In Liv’s eyes, the world outside was full of danger.

Adolf might have taken Coryda’s help for granted because he didn’t know anything about her, but if he was repairing a fence, he would have used dangerous tools. What would happen if anything got on her?

Coryda, seeing Liv’s hardened face, said with an exasperated look on her face.

“He said that staying inside too much makes the body weaker. He told me to go out in the yard because the fence was fixed securely!”

“He is not a doctor. He doesn’t know your condition.”

“He sounded more dependable than the doctor who examined me in the past!”

Silence fell between the two of them as Coryda finished her rant. When she saw Liv’s complexion turn pale, Coryda flashed her a regretful look.

“Liv, so, what I mean… I meant to say that I’m healthier than I used to be. I didn’t mean to talk about that doctor. And, and, it was that grandpa who was bad. You did nothing wrong!”

Coryda nervously clasped her hands together and lowered her gaze.

“I know that I look the same in your eyes, but… That was years ago. That’s not going to happen anymore. I won’t collapse because I’ve been taking the medicine. And as you know I’ve been eating a lot of good things lately because you’re making a lot of money.”

Coryda, being careful around Liv who was sitting, added another question.

“Liv, you’re not angry, are you?”

Liv smiled softly, swallowing back the bitter water that was rising in her throat.

“Why would I get angry? I’m just worried about you.”

Fortunately, Liv’s smile seemed pretty genuine, and Coryda nodded in relief. Then she swiftly changed the topic. Liv also complied and changed the talk to Coryda’s wishes.

Yet, in the back of her mind, she felt heavy, like a huge weight had been laid on.

***

It was during a cold winter when Liv was eighteen that her parents died.

A carriage skidded on the icy road and toppled over, knocking over her parents. Her parents died at the scene, and Liv was left alone with her eight-year-old sister.

It was barely a year after Liv graduated and came home. When she didn’t even have a clear idea of what she wanted to do yet. The time when she still had her teenager’s dreams.

At the time, Liv was busy thinking about her future. Coryda, who was sick, was obviously being taken care of by her parents. Liv without doubt had picked up on Coryda’s condition, but it was her parents, who took care of Coryda for years, who knew the details better.

In light of her parents’ sudden absence, Liv felt it necessary to find out exactly what Coryda’s condition was. This led her to pay a large sum of money and call a doctor. He was a gray-haired old doctor, who said he had a very long career. Liv, who had never had what she could call a social life, felt at ease with the confident doctor.

With that quack.

He was the one who drew Coryda’s blood and caused her to bleed excessively, making her hang between life and death. He even made a crazy suggestion that since it is the head that controls the body, they should open up her skulls to get to the bottom of it. He said there was a new treatment by opening up the body.

Thanks to the quack, she found out that Coryda couldn’t stop bleeding very well, so that one really helped.

Anyway, after being so badly screwed by that quack, Liv didn’t trust doctors. Sure, there were good doctors out there, but they were all serving the nobles. None of the street doctors seemed to have a decent brain.

She believed in medicines instead. The only thing she had seen that really made a difference was medicine after all.

All she had to do was buy the same medication her parents had always bought for Coryda. It was much more reliable than experimenting on Coryda’s body with an uncertain diagnosis.

Liv took a deep breath as she remembered the past she had forgotten.

“Come in, please.”

Liv’s head snapped up at the call of the usher.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know via our discord so we can fix it as soon as possible.