Chapter 85 :

Episode 85 - The Next Person

Thud!!!

Thanks to greeting the floor with an ominous sound, silence briefly settled inside the shop.

A book with a torn cover, which had fallen together with her, made her appearance look even more pitiful.

What followed was the sound of the men who had gathered to persuade Edan clicking their tongues.

“She’s like that every time.......”

The man who had been coveting Jing and Ratel even muttered openly.

Seeing the woman’s ears turn red, it seemed that the reason she could not get up was more because of shame than pain.

Unable to watch any longer, Jing turned from the body he had raised and headed toward her as she lay face down, unable to rise.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

At Jing’s cautious concern, the woman finally lifted her face.

“I-I’m fine. I’m clumsy, but I don’t get hurt easily. I’m needlessly sturdy, so.......”

The woman, who smiled awkwardly, really did not seem to be hurt anywhere aside from the scratches on her face.

Still, perhaps the ominous sound of her fall bothered him, because Jing asked for permission with his eyes and carefully helped her up.

I saw Jing’s eyes narrow as he grabbed the woman’s arm and raised her.

Edan, who had appeared from the kitchen after hearing the loud noise, set down what he was holding as if throwing it and rushed over.

The problem was that the things he had set down as if throwing them were the food we had ordered.

He knocked away Jing’s hand, which was holding Lia’s arm, with a roughness that bordered on rude.

“B-brother, I fell again, and this person helped me.”

Edan’s younger sister, who was called Lia, quickly explained.

But Edan still did not lower his guard toward Jing.

“I-I’m sorry I’m late. I’ll help quickly too.”

Lia grabbed her brother’s arm and pulled it inward.

Thwack!

At least, she probably meant to.

Though she failed as she struck her knee hard against the table.

“Aaagh!!!”

At the slovenly sight of his younger sister letting out a death cry of pain, Edan finally took his eyes off Jing and turned his body.

“Just go inside. There are many customers today.”

At his rather generous consideration, telling her to go inside and rest because there were many customers, Lia opened and closed her mouth.

“Go in and treat your face.”

Lia, who had been following Edan with her eyes as he entered with a sigh, bowed deeply to Jing, then brought us the food Edan had set down as if throwing it.

Then she soon disappeared inside after Edan.

Jing nodded once and returned to the table.

When he sat down, the sound of the men whispering came from the next table.

“Lia won’t be the one cooking our food too, right?”

“Surely not. Edan probably already made ours.”

“Only Edan is pitiful. Even something like that is his only family, so he hangs on to her every day.......”

The men’s pitying gazes did not know how to leave the inside of the kitchen where the siblings had disappeared.

“That man named Edan seems to cherish his younger sister greatly.”

Jing muttered while clenching and unclenching his hand a few times.

“They said she is his only blood relative.”

When I answered, Jing nodded as if he could understand it a little and turned his attention to the food Lia had left behind.

“.......”

But the one who should have focused on the food first did not move.

I looked at Ratel, whose gaze was still fixed on the inside of the door where the two had completely disappeared.

Perhaps Jing also sensed something strange about him, because he pushed the plate with steamed salmon toward Ratel.

“Is something bothering you?”

Ratel opened his mouth without withdrawing his gaze from the door.

“Isn’t it unpleasant?”

“What is?”

At my answer, Jing frowned.

“I mean the person who will participate in the match with us. We just found them.”

The problem was that both of them were far too different from how they appeared in the novel.

* * *

Ratel, who lightly ignored Jing’s question, turned his head back down and buried it into the steamed salmon placed before him, starting his meal just like that.

I slowly lifted my spoon while looking down at that guy’s black crown.

Jing, who had been waiting for Ratel’s next words, realized there was nothing more to hear when he began focusing on the food, and turned his head toward me.

He looked at me and Ratel, who had already begun eating, and soon lifted his utensils along with us.

“Lord Ran, once we finish eating, I will quickly find someone who will help us.”

“There is no need for that. We already found them.”

“What?”

Having enough travel expenses was convenient.

Thanks to Jing’s generous support, the three of us enjoyed the luxury of resting in individual rooms.

Ratel set his luggage down on the hard but clean-looking bed and recalled the black-haired prince who had left the lodging, saying he had business to attend to.

He disliked those eyes of his, which seemed to know everything, but right now, there was no choice other than receiving his help.

Moreover, he was definitely hiding something.

A liar who subtly slipped past crises without revealing important things.

He could not follow such a liar’s guidance forever.

After organizing his luggage, Ratel left the room.

Partly to monitor the liar.

Click.

“Squeak!”

Squeak?

Ratel, who opened the door, stopped in place at the sudden sound of an animal’s cry and met eyes with the thing standing stupidly in front of his room with its front paws raised.

“Squeak......squeak.”

It was a squirrel.

It was definitely a squirrel looking up at him with a stiffened face.

The pitifully tiny animal did not run away and stared at Ratel.

The moment he felt that its small face seemed to distort slightly, the squirrel dashed away just like that.

Ratel stared for a long time at the place where the squirrel had disappeared.

More precisely, at the door of the room next door, where the squirrel had run off to.

While thinking that the liar’s lies had increased by one more.

* * *

Once the sun fully revealed itself, the village streets gradually began to fill with life.

Since it was a village whose population itself was not large, it was not as bustling as the capital, but the eyes of the people held just as much passion.

Were they not similar to the men who had caused a commotion in the tavern?

They were filled with excitement before the major event called the Lucha tournament.

One could tell just by seeing them earnestly looking through leather gloves they would not even use, in front of a leather workshop that, on normal days, might get caught by visitors two or three times a year at most.

And among them, one figure that seemed out of place caught my eye.

It seemed today’s luck was not so bad.

Since I had been saved the trouble of passing by the workshop and heading to the bookstore.

Slightly hunched shoulders, a tall height, dark brown hair tied high, and, more than anything, a book in one hand with its cover clumsily patched together.

It was only a back view, but among people busily choosing gloves to enter the fighting tournament, she stood out enough.

The owner of the workshop, who had come out of the shop for a moment to stretch, also seemed to spot that different kind of customer at once.

He boldly moved his steps and cheerfully spoke to the person standing awkwardly in front of the shop.

“Lia! Are you on your way to the bookstore?”

“H-hello.”

Meanwhile, Lia, who had been flustered and unsure what to do from the moment the shopkeeper approached, awkwardly returned the greeting.

“Edan says he’s not participating in the tournament this year either?”

“......Yes. It seems he has no intention to.”

When Lia answered quietly, he smiled and subtly examined her complexion.

“Why? Is there some reason he can’t leave the village?”

Even from where I stood, I could clearly see Lia’s shoulders flinch noticeably at his question.

“W-who knows.”

“If his one and only younger sister doesn’t know, who would? Come on, Lia, why don’t you put in a good word with Edan? Ask if he has any intention of going out with my son.”

“Y-you should ask my brother directly about something like that.......”

“Your brother glares as if he’ll kill me whenever I say anything, that’s why!”

Lia protested with what courage she could muster, but the man raised his voice as if he had heard something ridiculous.

Whether he knew or did not know that the words he had just spat out ultimately meant he had grabbed Lia because he looked down on her, he continued clinging to her.

“I’m saying this because I cherish you siblings, since I’ve watched you for a long time. Hm? Why live narrowly when he has the ability?”

“.......”

“Ah, don’t be like that. Lia, do you want to come inside and look around a bit too? Go in and choose a gift for Edan or something. While you’re at it, it wouldn’t be bad to coax your brother a little.......”

The man, who had kept rambling and eventually blurted out his real intention, seemed to realize his mistake and awkwardly tried to guide Lia inside.

“No, I’m fine!”

Lia, who had been quietly listening to him until now, was horrified, shook him off, and ran away.

At least, that was probably what she intended to do.

If only she had not run straight into the display stand.

Thwack!!!

With a crisp sound, the display stand where the man’s gloves had been displayed tilted forward.

That alone was enough commotion to draw people’s attention.

But it seemed that today, the heavens had decided to completely turn their back on Lia.

The moment Lia grabbed the display stand and pulled it with all her might, trying somehow to stop the goods from spilling, the stand, which had been tilting, failed to overcome the recoil and tilted toward Lia.

“Ugh......!”

With Lia falling on her backside beside it, the display stand collapsed with a clattering crash.

The man’s leather gloves rolled through the muddy water together with the broken fragments of the display stand.

“Oh no!!! What is this!!”

The man, who had been blankly watching the scene, shot forward like the wind and shouted.

As he alternated his gaze between his shop goods scattered around and Lia clutching her knee, anger slowly bloomed in his eyes.

“You, you......! You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Just because you heard something unpleasant, now you......!”

“No, no! I accidentally bumped into it. It’s true!”

The flustered Lia waved both hands and expressed her unfairness, but the man had already reached his conclusion.

“You shameless thing! I spoke to you out of pity, and this is how you take revenge? You.......”

The louder his voice grew, the more Lia’s shoulders shrank.

It was not a pleasant sight.

There had been no disgusting scene like this in the novel.

That meant there was no need to keep watching this scene.

As it happened, my pocket was currently heavy with the money Jing had given me, since he had not completely abandoned noble standards and had poor sense of money.

“How much is one glove?”

“What?”

The man, who had been busy cornering Lia, suddenly turned to look at me as I intervened in his venting.

Pushing through the people, I came forward and picked up a glove that had fallen on the ground.

“I’m asking how much this costs.”

When I asked irritably, his gaze quickly scanned my outfit up and down.

I had no intention of waiting one by one for the other person’s calculations.

I lifted a pouch and threw it in front of him.

The man quickly picked up the thing that had fallen with a heavy sound.

After checking its contents, his eyes widened, and he looked at me again.

“I’ll buy all of them.”

“T-this, you mean?”

He asked with his eyes pointing to the goods covered in dirt.

“You don’t want to? That much money should be enough to make another display stand.”

When I stretched out my hand as if to take back the pouch, he quickly shook his head.

“No, no! I’ll sell them all! I will! Please wait a moment! Still, they are goods I am selling, so I should at least brush them off a little.......”

“No need.”

What would I do if I took all of these?

They would only become luggage.

I chose the most intact and cleanest one among them and picked it up.

“As for the rest, throw them away or wash them clean and sell them again. Do as you like.”

“Ah. Yes, yes. Then, gratefully.......”

Leaving him behind as he answered in confusion, I gestured with my eyes toward Lia, who was standing there blankly.

Though she caused many accidents, Lia was not lacking in tact, and she quickly followed behind me.