Ch.10Roommate (1)

*

Despite staying up all night due to the commotion, I didn’t feel particularly tired or sleepy—perhaps because the truth I’d learned about her was so shocking.

As the darkness outside gradually brightened into a bluish hue, Silvia and I silently began clearing away the traces of the previous day from the table.

She picked up the basin containing dishes to wash and headed toward the river, while I dampened a cloth to wipe down the table.

It took some time to scrape off the hardened meat grease that remained on the table.

As I erased the remnants of last night’s farewell dinner, I suddenly let out a hollow laugh.

When I spilled that grease on this table, I had no idea I’d end up living here permanently. From my parents’ deaths to Laila’s, my fate had been changing far too rapidly.

“They say you can never know what life has in store, but this is ridiculous.”

I muttered my complaint in a small voice.

As I’d told Miss Silvia, I had no real grievances, but it was true that not knowing what would happen next made me anxious.

Still, complaining wouldn’t change anything.

“I should report to Laila first. Tell her that her brother isn’t going anywhere.”

After rinsing the dirty cloth and hanging it by the window, I walked out of the cabin toward the cemetery.

A cool breeze blowing through the forest, rustling the branches, gently swayed the wildflowers growing by the graves.

As I approached Laila’s grave, a dragonfly that had been perched on the marker I’d placed flew away.

I slowly sat before her grave, clasped my hands together, and prayed.

The cemetery, once so unfamiliar, and the prayer, once so awkward, had now become routine.

Only the fact that Laila was dead still felt strange.

“I promised I’d protect you, and you probably wouldn’t accept this form of protection… but I’ll watch over you somehow.”

I raised my head as I finished praying.

I was mentally prepared to accept my life here.

But how long would it take for me to adapt to this forest life…

*

I became completely accustomed to life in this forest cabin in just three days.

Despite my initial tension and worries, forest life turned out to be rather unremarkable—even leisurely.

Of course, this was probably because Miss Silvia had told me not to overexert myself and hadn’t assigned me any difficult tasks yet.

As a result, I was currently spending my days in considerable leisure.

With no burdensome studies or hard work, I would start my day by waking up around noon and taking a quick wash in the river.

Afterward, I would tend to Laila’s grave and, while at it, pull weeds from the other graves, clean the cabin, go for walks, or fish in the nearby river before returning in the evening to have dinner with Silvia—and that would conclude my day.

Even cleaning was a task I had barely obtained after begging Silvia to give me something to do.

Having experienced the helplessness of being unable to do anything while my family died had left a wound on my heart, and I was occasionally overwhelmed by a miserable sense of powerlessness.

Perhaps I didn’t have the capacity to endure an intense daily routine. So the current situation actually felt quite pleasant and comfortable.

Evening had arrived once again.

I watched Miss Silvia as she blew on her fingers while peeling the skin off roasted potatoes at the table.

I must have spent well over ten days here by now, excluding the days I was unconscious, yet I had only shared meals with her two or three times.

She had tied back her beautiful blonde hair with a rough cord and was now smacking her small, well-shaped lips.

“…Haha.”

Spending leisurely days and then having dinner with a beautiful, strong warrior every evening.

Who would dare call this the miserable fate of someone caught in a curse?

Her slightly opened red eyes must be traces of the curse, but perhaps due to the mysterious atmosphere created by those uncommon-colored eyes, she looked quite alluring even while just eating a potato.

Suddenly, the image of her naked body that I had seen before flashed through my mind.

My face instantly burning hot, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to forget that image.

What are you thinking about your benefactor? How ungrateful.

She must have felt my gaze, as she raised just her eyes to meet mine.

“What?”

Startled by her sudden question, I stammered a response.

“N-nothing… I just… ah, I was thinking that even warriors find hot potatoes uncomfortable to peel.”

“Hehe, of course. I feel pain when cut by a sword and cold when I go into water.”

“Ah… I see.”

“Yes, whew—whew—goodness, I’ll lose all the skin on my fingers. It’s too hot.”

Silvia dramatically dropped the potato onto her plate.

I rose slightly and picked up the potato she had dropped.

“Ash? What are you—”

“Just wait a moment.”

I quickly peeled the skin off the steaming hot potato.

Silvia asked with a small sound of admiration:

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“I can handle it well. I used to peel potatoes and shrimp for my sister and brother.”

I brushed the potato skin off my fingers and placed the cleanly peeled potato on her plate.

She broke the potato with her wooden fork, put it in her mouth, chewed it, and gave me a slight eye-smile.

“Heh…”

“…What is it?”

“Nothing really… it’s just delicious.”

“A plain potato?”

“I know, right? I got tired of potatoes a long time ago.”

I stared at the potato on my plate.

It’s understandable that she’d be tired of them.

No peddlers would bother coming all the way to this remote place, so for years her meals must have consisted only of hunted meat, freshwater fish, and a few crops.

Among the plants growing in the small garden in front of her cabin, excluding medicinal herbs, there were no more than three or four varieties, including potatoes.

Being of noble birth and having spent her life learning only how to fight, she probably knew only a few edible crops, and even fewer that she could actually obtain.

Silvia looked at me and said in a gentle voice:

“It might seem like nothing, but it’s a good skill.”

“Pardon?”

“Being able to endure well.”

Caught off guard by her sudden compliment, I replied with an awkward smile.

“Oh, it’s hardly a skill…”

“It really is. The woman who becomes your wife someday will be happy when you do that for her.”

“…What?”

“Hmm…? Ah, sorry, I misspoke.”

There’s no way I could have a wife.

I can never meet anyone else from now on.

Silvia quickly acknowledged her mistake.

Seeing her stiff expression, I countered to show I didn’t mind.

“Do you have any skills you’d show a future husband, Miss Silvia?”

Her rigid expression gradually softened at my words.

During these past days, I’d observed that despite her grand title of warrior, she was the type who secretly enjoyed jokes and idle chatter.

She must have been like that during her adventuring days too.

Or perhaps she had been more taciturn then, maintaining her charisma.

Maybe being abandoned to a life of solitude with no responses to her words had made her desperately crave conversation.

I never pried into her past carelessly.

Whatever kind of person she had been in the past wasn’t important to me.

What mattered was that the current Miss Silvia was someone who took jokes well.

And true to that thought, she responded to my mischievous question with a chuckle:

“My cooking skills.”

I laughed and countered:

“When all you do is grill and boil things.”

“In a forest like this, being able to start a fire makes you a master chef.”

“…But you use magic to start fires.”

“Well then. Ash, are you good at cooking?”

I grinned.

A slightly bewildered expression appeared on her face.

“…You can cook?”

“Hehe.”

“…Even though you’re nobility?”

No matter how long she had spent adventuring or camping in forests, she was still nobility.

She seemed to have little experience with proper cooking in a kitchen, beyond the simple meals prepared at campsites.

Evidence of this was that her cooking was always poorly seasoned.

At first, I thought she might have deliberately cooked that way for me as a patient, but after seeing how she failed to properly drain blood from meat, I was convinced of her lack of cooking skills.

I, on the other hand, was nobility of commoner origin.

Moreover, my father had been the head chef at the Count’s mansion.

“This works out perfectly.”

Though it was because of the curse, the fact that I had intruded into her home made me feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Although she had said she wanted me to stay partly because of her loneliness, I felt my debt of gratitude would only grow if I remained like this.

I had been wondering how I could repay her, how I could pay this emotional rent.

I confidently declared:

“I’ll prepare tomorrow’s meal.”

*

Early the next morning, Silvia grabbed her bow and dagger and left the cabin.

She was going hunting for meat for tonight’s dinner.

Hunting was quite physically demanding.

It wasn’t just the movement that was tiring; relaxing your entire body, holding your breath, waiting for prey while focusing all your senses on your surroundings—it was more draining than one might think.

That’s why Silvia usually only went hunting once a week.

She had already gone hunting twice this week for Ash’s recovery and the farewell dinner, so she had planned to rest for the remaining days.

However, seeing Ash’s confidence in cooking, she couldn’t help but go hunting again.

It wasn’t that she was looking forward to the cooking itself.

The pleasure of eating had ceased to bring her much happiness long ago, and she wasn’t particularly moved by the taste of food to begin with.

But…

“Hehe, he was cute.”

Silvia smiled softly, recalling Ash’s confident expression.

If Ash wanted to cook, she wanted to let him.

That poor boy, bound to this forest—to her side—against his will because of the curse.

When he showed such confidence, she didn’t want to refuse him just because she was a little tired.

Besides, this was only a little bit.

Really, just a tiny bit.

But she was curious to taste his cooking.

“Yesterday… why…”

Somehow, even though he had only peeled the skin, yesterday’s potato had tasted twice as good as usual.

So what would food he actually prepared taste like?

Although she didn’t normally find much happiness through her sense of taste, it was hard to say she wasn’t looking forward to it.

After about two hours of searching for animal traces, Silvia found a small rabbit burrow.

Rabbit meat.

A common meat used in everything from high-end restaurants to home cooking.

In truth, ingredients like wild boar or deer were far from typical home cooking fare.

No matter how confident he was in his cooking, he was probably limited to home-style dishes, so rabbit meat would likely be familiar to Ash.

While it might be fun to see him flustered by unfamiliar ingredients, she decided not to be mischievous this time.

After all, Ash would be with her for a very long time.

Silvia smiled pleasantly, recited a spell, and snapped her fingers.

Instantly, fire ignited at the entrance of the rabbit burrow, and the acrid smoke that rose was sucked into the burrow without needing to be fanned.

After a brief wait, a plump gray rabbit rushed out of the burrow to escape the smoke.

With nimble movements, Silvia caught two rabbits that came scurrying out, whimpering.

“Two rabbits.”

Even after she had quickly broken the necks of the whimpering rabbits, she could still hear faint grunting sounds from somewhere.

It seemed there was one more rabbit in the burrow.

“Three should be enough.”

It was noon when Silvia returned to the cabin from hunting.

Perhaps because she was in a good mood, even today’s weather seemed exceptionally nice.

Maybe I should ask him to go for a walk together.

With that thought, she slowly opened the door of the cabin.

“Ash, are you still sleeping?”

Silvia wanted to wake Ash and show off the rabbits she had caught.

The last time she tried to show off a deer, he had suddenly disappeared, which had startled her greatly.

This time, she made a childish resolution to definitely receive praise like “That’s amazing.”

Imagining Ash’s delighted face upon seeing the rabbits made her feel oddly shy.

“Ash?”

Ash wasn’t in the cabin.

He really did have poor timing in these matters.

“How predictable.”

Silvia headed to the cemetery with the rabbits.

It was quite amusing, even to herself.

Though she stayed near the cemetery out of a sense of obligation to the villagers,

Until a few days ago, she had avoided going near it whenever possible due to crushing guilt and the nightmares that surfaced every night.

Yet now, simply because Ash was there, she was walking toward it without hesitation.

How pathetic she was.

Her conscience pricked her heart like a sharp thorn.

But she felt that seeing his smiling face would make it all worthwhile.

She would carry all the deceased in her heart for the rest of her life, so please allow her to do her best for the living one now.

That was her silent prayer.

“Ash.”

She called out to him as she approached Laila’s grave.

“…Ash?”

Ash wasn’t there either.

.