“Can I see it up close?”

Asking to see the fish up close clearly meant she wanted to take it.

Reluctant to give up the fish, I had no choice but to ponder while hugging the trap close.

Was it right to give the minnow to the girl?

A week’s accommodation, a spoonful of the most delicious soup I’d ever tasted in my life, luxurious clothes and even a car ride I experienced for the first time in this life.

After all my thoughts, I concluded that I should probably give the minnow to the girl.

“Here you go…”

I approached the girl with the trap in my hands.

The lively minnows inside the trap were leaping about.

“Wow, these fish are really big, aren’t they?”

“Yes. It might be the biggest minnow in the world…”

“Really?”

The girl’s eyes widened in amazement.

Her surprised look didn’t seem fake.

Perhaps this minnow could settle the debt of a spoonful of soup.

“Shall I cook something with this for you?”

“With this? You, Gyeoul?”

“Yes. This is the biggest minnow in the world…”

I kept emphasizing the size of the minnow.

It was my way of asserting that it would be a delicacy to chew.

“Um… then, shall I try a dish made by Gyeoul?”

“Yes!”

My debt was gone!

I happily ran to the tent with the trap in my hands.

As I filled a dented pot with stream water, the girl crouched beside me.

“Gyeoul, I’m curious about something.”

“What are you curious about?”

“Like, what do you do when there’s a typhoon, or when wild boars come out?”

She wanted to know how I dealt with emergencies.

The more capable I seemed, the more troublesome it would be for the girl, who was a kidnapper.

I didn’t want to tell her, but I needed to make it clear to the girl that I was not to be underestimated.

“There’s a shelter over there.”

“A shelter? You have that?”

“Yes. Want to see it?”

I led the girl to a huge rubber container tucked in a corner of the tent.

It was large enough for an adult woman to fit in with room to spare.

“This is the shelter…?”

“Yes. It’s very sturdy. It even withstood a wild boar attack last time.”

“A wild boar attacked…?”

“Yes. But it held up.”

To prevent it from toppling over, I buried the bottom of the container in the ground.

I also filled it with fist-sized rocks and soil to add weight.

It was a safe and comfortable shelter that would never fall over, even in a typhoon.

‘Impressive, right?’

I gave her a look of pride.

I was quite proud of the shelter I spent an entire day creating.

“…This withstands typhoons?”

“Yes. I’ve survived four typhoons in it.”

“That’s… impressive.”

The girl’s expression hardened.

My competence must have taken her by surprise.

I decided to be a bit more assertive here.

“Once, the stream overflowed, and I almost floated away with the container. After that, I moved the house farther away and made the container heavier.”

My ability to handle crises and make quick decisions, earned through experience.

I showed the girl all my skills without holding back.

Realizing that I was not an easy opponent, she tightly closed her eyes.

She also sighed deeply while wiping her face.

“Amazing…”

“Yes. I am amazing.”

She must have felt deeply that I was not a person to be taken lightly.

Satisfied with this not-so-bad outcome, I began preparing the minnows.

There were about twenty minnows in the trap.

“We can’t eat the tiny ones. They’re too hard to clean.”

“Really? So, you’ll release them back into the stream?”

“No, I dry them and then crush them to spread over the garden. It helps the plants grow better.”

To think of releasing such precious catch.

That’d be a waste.

“Ah, you use them as fertilizer…”

“Yes, as fertilizer.”

I spread the minnows on a large flat rock and picked up a blunt knife.

With practiced movements, I cleaned the scales and gutted the minnows.

The extracted innards would be dried and used as fertilizer.

“You’re really good at cleaning them.”

“…I am a master at removing innards.”

Wow.

Did I just say something really scary?

I glanced at the girl, but she was just curiously looking at the minnows.

Apparently, words like ‘innards’ weren’t much of a threat to the crazy witch.

“Are you going to eat these raw?”

“No, we need to boil water…”

Eating freshwater fish raw.

That’s something only a crazy witch would think of.

Unwilling to stay with her any longer, I took the cleaned minnows and ran out of the tent.

“Where are you going?”

“To start a fire!”

Right outside the tent, there was a barbecue grill I had found once.

Instead of expensive charcoal, I filled it with twigs and leaves and lit it with a lighter.

‘The lighter fluid is almost gone.’

Why doesn’t my life ever get better?

Sighing deeply in sadness, the girl approached me.

“Thank you for inviting me to your home today.”

“Yes…”

Now that she knows where my home is, I can’t escape.

Her ominous intentions were clear.

“Hey, I have a favor to ask Gyeoul. Will you listen?”

“A favor?”

“Yes. It’s nothing much, but I want to spend the night at Gyeoul’s place today.”

Choke.

She uttered such a dreadful suggestion without hesitation.

I knew she was trying to torment me.

“It’ll be hard, you know? A spider might crawl into your mouth while you sleep.”

“That’s okay. I’m an adventurer, remember?”

“Right…”

Talking about filth and danger in front of an adventurer.

It was like boasting about a fan in front of a peacock.

Knowing I couldn’t push her away, I reluctantly nodded.

“Thank you. I’ll definitely repay you.”

“Yes…”

What kind of terrifying repayment might she have in mind?

Too frightened, I just stared at the ground for a long time.

Maybe I was destined to never escape her clutches.

—

—

That dawn.

In the pitch-dark tent, Yeoreum cautiously opened her eyes.

Beside her, Gyeoul was curled up, sleeping.

“Umm…”

The child lay on torn clothes used as a pillow and covered with a worn-out blanket.

Perhaps due to the chilly morning air in the mountains, Gyeoul’s body was shivering.

‘There isn’t another blanket?’

Looking around, Yeoreum found nothing else.

Reluctantly, she took off her coat and laid it over Gyeoul.

‘The time is…’

Two in the morning.

The time she had agreed to meet her colleagues.

Yeoreum quietly slipped out of the tent, careful not to wake Gyeoul.

“Yeoreum, over here.”

“Okay.”

As Yeoreum headed towards the voice, two figures emerged from the darkness.

A man of enormous stature, about two meters tall, and a fierce-looking woman holding a staff.

“So, how was it?”

“Worse than I imagined.”

“How bad could it have been?”

The man and woman looked at each other.

“Today, Gyeoul caught minnows and cooked them. She didn’t even add salt, just boiled them plain.”

“Eaten completely raw?”

“Yes.”

Yeoreum told the two about everything that had happened that day.

From picking dandelions to the story of the shelter she had made herself.

Just hearing about a single day’s events had turned the faces of the man and woman pale.

“I, what should I do? I laughed when I saw her being chased by a horned rabbit.”

The thought of someone being pierced and killed by a horned rabbit never crossed their minds.

They only thought of it as a situation where someone might run away from a hamster in fear.

Had they known the child was mana-less and was in a life-threatening situation, they would never have made such foolish decisions.

‘How scared she must have been.’

Thud-

The woman dropped her staff and covered her face with her hands.

However, no one comforted her.

Everyone was equally guilty of unintentionally tormenting the child.

“…I also told her to stop causing trouble for the guild.”

At least the guild members never hit her, which was some consolation.

The man sighed in relief but then realized something.

The child was often harassed by other novice adventurers.

She had been hit on the back of her head and pushed around for no reason.

Although he had told the adventurers harassing the child to ‘stop it,’ he had never actually intervened.

He had hoped that the child, always depending on the guild’s help, would just stop coming to the hunting grounds.

‘Ugh.’

The man tore at his hair in frustration.

The woman seemed to collapse from weakness in her legs, falling to the ground as if bowing.

Child abuse.

If the guild were to be torn apart because of this, there would be no excuse.

“Calm down, both of you. It’s better to know now than never.”

“Yeah… it’s good that we know now.”

What would have happened if Yeoreum hadn’t checked the child’s information that day?

They might have lived with regret forever after realizing the truth, or they might have ended up just dealing with a lifeless body without ever knowing the truth.

What they had thought was the worst situation was actually the best one they could be in now.

“For now, both of you go to the guild and let them know about the situation.”

“Right. We are the ones who will take care of her, aren’t we?”

“Of course.”

It was their own doing, after all.

They had no choice but to resolve it themselves.

As Yeoreum nodded, the man who had only been silently listening spoke up.

“This won’t be a short-term thing.”

“…I know. She’s been suffering for a long time.”

Gaining the child’s trust would require an equal amount of time.

It was a lengthy period of patience, but no one complained.

At least, not in the Yeomyeong Guild.

—

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep