Chapter 5: 5

Chapter 5

The village where Karina and the children arrived was just an ordinary rural village found everywhere in the Empire.

Young children ran around screaming among sour tired people moving for labor. At their feet, the rats and cats were playing tag.

But for Karina, who lived in a mansion, it felt like a different place.

Of course, they had no time to spare, and Karina inadvertently passed the sight away when she normally would have looked.

The children’s eyes glistened continuously as if they knew the anxious burning sound of Karina.

Karina soon realized why.

The children grew up in an orphanage and were trapped in Lord Lenque’s forest mansion. There was no chance for them to see a small town.

If Karina didn’t have the memory of her past life, she would have thought that the world was only the forest, the mansion, and a small stream that she would go to once a year.

But Karina knew, they just haven’t had a chance to go, and now there’s an infinite world ahead of them.

“…?”

Karina blinked her eyes.

She felt something heavy, Roland was timidly hanging on her bag.

As soon as Karina noticed the fact, it was pitiful to see him step back and read her expression.

“Roland.”

Karina sighed inward.

“Come here.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Karina raised the bag in her hand to her shoulders.

There was not much inside anyway, so it looks more like a handbag rather than a regular bag.

“You can hold my hand now.”

“…”

Roland hesitated for a moment, unable to hold Karina’s hand, which was held out to him.

“You don’t want to?”

“Ah, no!”

Roland hurriedly grabbed Karina’s hand, she felt the little hand is burning with tension.

Karina busily grabbed the children’s hands and drew them.

There’s still a long way to go.

When they arrived at a place where they could ride carriages leaving for other cities, she took a deep breath.

Karina was nervous as she tried to carry out what she had only imagined in her head.

Even more so, she held the hands of two young children who only looked at her.

“There are too many people.”

Melissa was terrified and dug into Karina’s side.

“It’s all right.”

Karina reassured Melissa.

“This isn’t much.”

It was as she said.

The building at the top of the village, Abelau’s building, was always bustling, but not to the point where the child was scared.

Melissa nodded, but Karina didn’t try to get away from her. Karina didn’t bother to take Melissa off of her either.

They walked around the building to the back of the stable.

One of the gatekeepers who worked to keep them from sneaking into the top carriage looked down on her.

“Do you have any money?”

Instead of answering, Karina jingle the sound of her money pocket. The gatekeeper’s face instantly softened.

“Where are you going?”

“Even Edmoor.”

Karina spoke of the capital of the Great Plains.

“Edmoor?”

The gatekeeper frowned.

“To that far?”

“There’s a relative living there.”

The gatekeeper glanced at Karina and the children’s shabby and worn patterns.

“Edmoor leaves tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow!”

Karina wrote down her dried mouth. She wanted to stamp her feet early, but she held back thinking about the children who would be more anxious than her.

“Then where is the carriage going today?”

“Tors, depart in an hour.”

Tors, Karina rolled the name of the place in her mouth.

It was her first time hearing it, but she clearly remembered seeing it on Lord Lenque’s imperial map, which she secretly peeped at.

“It’s in the South, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s not a place I usually went to, but recently I was asked for a special piece of wood from that area, so I transported it around a year.”

“Tors is fine.”

“You’re completely away from Edmoor.”

“It’s okay, though.”

“Do you have any relatives there?”

“…Yes.”

The gatekeeper squinted his eyes and looked at Karina.

“Now I see what happened, you’re running away.”

“Is it not okay?”

Her heart was about to fall, but Karina responded coldly.

“No, because if you’re running away, Tors is the best city!”

“…”

“If you don’t mind sleeping with the logs, I’ll cut the cost as much as I can.”

“I-it doesn’t matter!”

The gatekeeper turned and walked to the wooden horse cars as if he had heard everything. Karina hurried after him, holding the children’s hands.

The gatekeeper opened the lid of the parked cart and looked around, found a carriage with less wood, and pointed to it.

“Go in.”

“The money…”

“It’s on me.”

Her mouth began to burn again.

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“B-but…”

“You’ll need a lot of money in the future. It’s even more so because you have two children with you.”

“No, I’ll give it to you.”

The gatekeeper might not be well off either.

He couldn’t have afforded to pass all the costs of transporting an adult woman and two children.

“It’s an experience, so you better believe it.”

“…!”

Karina opened her eyes round.

Instead of looking at her, the gatekeeper was looking at the children behind her.

“You have to stay calm, alright little ones?”

“Yeah, they have to.”

Karina gently tailed, but they were so scared that they didn’t say a word.

The gatekeeper gave her a big smile and then looked her straight.

“I will roughly erase the traces of you all.”

“Th-thank you…”

“Put the gratitude aside. I’ve had the same experience as you.”

At the end of his sentence, the gatekeeper disappeared. Karina sat halfway down on the floor, relieved.

The children, who were scared at first, began to look everywhere for a moment, wondering if the carts and timber picked their interest.

Karina told them a few stories to keep the children away from the wood, fearing that they might damage the goods.

“You know, there’s a carriage that runs on its own without a word?”

“It’s magic.”

Roland replied with a slightly sullen look. Karina shook her head.

“Without magic.”

“Is that possible?”

Melissa glistened her eyes.

“Yes, it’s not all magic in the world. Somewhere on the continent, there’s already a silent carriage.”

It was a lie.

Karina was fully aware of the fact that the world of her previous life and the current world was completely different.

But speaking of this, somewhere on the continent seemed to have a world of her previous life where Karina was much happier than she is now.

“Are we going there?”

Melissa grabbed Karina’s hand and wriggled it as if it were a joke.

“No, Tors is in the South. It’s a warm place.”

“I can’t wait to go.”

Roland trembled.

It’s probably not just because of the chilly early spring weather.

“You’ll have to wait for a few nights.”

“We’re not going to get caught in the meantime?”

“We won’t get caught.”

It wasn’t just wishful thinking.

At first, she planned to go to Edmoor and hide in the crowd of the capital city, but it would be better to hide in the south, where even the transport carriages will only travel once a year.

‘I don’t know how much I should trust the gatekeeper… but it won’t hurt to try.’

Karina hugged the children.

She did everything she could.

All that was left now is waiting for the result.

* * *

“What, there’s a passenger? You said there’ll be no one.”

“I said yes. I asked him to be quiet instead.”

“Why?”

“Tyson is a reliable man, and if it’s what he says, there’s nothing to lose.”

Karina’s body stiffened while chatting quietly with the children.

The children, too, began to hide behind her with their mouths shut, as if they were thinking differently from her.

The shaking of two small bodies has been passed on to Karina.

The footsteps and the sound of the conversation went off moment by minute.

Karina gulped down her dry saliva, soothing the burning stomach and waiting for her work to come.

As the cover was lifted, the light and two horsemen suddenly appeared.

“Children… two of them?”

The horseman muttered with a dazed face.

“You’re taking two children while going to Tors?”

“I’m their guardian.”

Karina tried not to look frightened, but it was unclear whether the effort worked.

“A girl?”

The other horseman asked back with an unbelievable face. A curious look gradually changed into a suspicious look.

“There’s a big age gap… and you don’t look alike, are you family?”

This time Karina was flustered, the horseman poked at the curious eyes that she will have to endure in the future.

Many relatives don’t look like each other, so if she wants to call them in-laws, she might be able to.

But the problem was that the age difference between Karina and the children was too much to be siblings.

The first is twenty-three years old, the second and third are eight and seven years old.

Isn’t that too much?

However, she couldn’t confess that the maid, the master, and the lady were in a relationship.

She didn’t know she’d be suspicious.

If Karina had known a little better about kinship, she would have used the excuse of her being their aunt.

But Karina at the time knew nothing about the common family.

The only thing that came to her mind was brother and sister at best, and under the current circumstances, even that excuse wouldn’t work.

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Melissa and Roland called her out in one voice.

“Mom.”

“Mom!”

* * *

(T/N: Hi! I just wanted to say thank you to the people who vote, comment, and put this story on their reading list. I hope you enjoyed the translation :>)

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