ERTHMB Chapter 116

I’ll Slowly Forget

Samte also glanced at Ian following her lead, then lowered his head again.

“I heard that the master doesn’t remember his childhood.”

“Ah.”

“It must have been too much for a child’s mind to handle.”

“It’s not exactly that, but…”

This time Helena awkwardly lowered her head and rubbed her forehead. Samte straightened his bent back slightly and glanced sideways. Through the strands of hair covering Helena’s forehead, a small scar was visible.

The day after he had taken his lord’s hand, he now seemed to understand the depth of the resolve that Ian had vowed like an oath.

[That child is waiting for me. Even if she forgets me herself, she asked me to find her. We promised that. That’s why I must complete this seemingly impossible journey and return.]

Ian Fevernheim was a prince abandoned like trash. Like dusting off accumulated dust from a shelf, so lightly, just like that.

Yet what was this about becoming emperor over a single promise made to a country girl? For someone who had nothing, it was truly absurd talk.

However, those words had the strength of a tree that had put down roots for 500 years. Samte couldn’t help but believe in that groundless strength.

Whether it was luck or good judgment, Ian had proven more than that through every path they had walked together. So now it was his turn to prove it.

“I don’t know my mother’s face.”

Samte released the wrinkled cloth hem in his grasp and pulled out a past even more creased than that.

“She ran away when I was a baby, and I was raised entirely by my father’s hand. But even my father was captured as a slave when I turned twelve. He hadn’t committed any crime or harmed anyone. There was no reason other than being a foreigner with a different appearance.”

“…”

Samte swallowed hard for a moment. Helena’s blue gaze looking at him tickled his throat as if it might induce a sneeze.

It was the first time, except for his lord and the fellow knights he had known for a long time. Being looked at with such eyes.

Eyes that didn’t take the obvious for granted were so warm they were frightening. For the first time in a very long while, Samte looked straight into another person’s eyes and continued his story.

“But my father returned. He said he was able to escape with the help of a young girl he met at some country house in Instantia.”

Helena showed a slightly enlightened expression.

“…That was me.”

“Yes. And from that day on, I no longer resented the world. Instead, I came to hold hope. If this land doesn’t want to acknowledge us foreigners, let’s become people they have no choice but to acknowledge.”

Thanks to his father’s stubborn persistence, Samte had learned something. In the end, the warmth between people goes around and comes back.

She might think she was alive and not dead thanks to his lord, but that wasn’t it. It was simply receiving what was due to return.

It was simply the warmth that a small girl had kindled more than ten years ago coming back around. Even if it had been nothing more than a whimsical kindness, for someone it had been a turning point.

“As such people increase one by one, someday a world will come where I’ll be acknowledged for my existence itself without having to prove my worth.”

The small ripple that young Helena had created changed someone’s despair into determination and made him ascend to the throne. It also changed someone’s purposeless resentment into hope and made him leave the forest.

What Samte wanted to show Helena now was exactly that. Not something grand or growing like a snowball, but exactly the kind of warmth he had felt at that time. The life he had carried without extinguishing it for this moment.

“I don’t know if I dare to be evidence for you, miss, but this is my evidence.”

Samte put his hand inside his shirt and pulled out a necklace. A coin faded by long years swayed like a pendulum before Helena’s eyes.

“Evidence that I may live in this land, that I can live like a human being.”

Samte had to tell her. She needed to know. That I, thanks to you, have survived this well.

“…Evidence.”

Helena muttered, chewing over Samte’s words, and slowly reached out her hand. She slid her finger from the necklace chain and took the coin at the end into her palm.

As she carefully caressed the mottled metal surface, Samte’s voice continued to fall over her.

“This is the travel money you gave my father and other slaves when you freed them.”

Now Samte dropped it completely into Helena’s hand.

At the same time, Helena’s lower lip was bitten and curled inward.

Even in the sunset covering the heavens and the vast lake, Samte could see her reddening eyes. If he watched quietly, he could also see her fingertips trembling slightly.

She was the one trembling, but somehow Samte felt overwhelmed himself. His father had probably left him this shabby coin for this moment.

Samte hoped he too could do the same.

“Miss, you helped my foreign father without any compensation. Just the fact that such a person exists allowed me to resolve to become a knight.”

He hoped he could leave such a moment for someone, for her. Clearly, like footprints left on a dirt path not yet dry.

“It was the master who recognized and guided my abilities, but it wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t made that resolution in the first place.”

Samte gently bent Helena’s fingers. The hand with the necklace naturally formed a fist. Samte now recited without hesitation.

“I think turning stones into gems is easier than giving without thinking of compensation. What you did, miss, was such a difficult thing. Of course, the opportunity to repay it is not given often either… but to be able to return it to its original owner’s hands, I feel like a really lucky fellow. I also feel like I’ve finally completed something that has been long, so very long.”

Samte pushed the necklace entirely into her embrace so Helena couldn’t return it.

“So even though you may not remember, please know this: among all the steps you’ve taken, miss, there was never a single step in vain.”

Helena looked back and forth between Samte and the necklace slowly, then reluctantly accepted it. The 1-katara coin, worth enough to barely buy half a loaf of bread, sparkled despite being covered with grime.

Like the lake before them that had fully received the burning sky.

Like that wedding day when all the ground I had stepped on seemed to shine so brilliantly.

That day Helena had thought: If walking on water was a miracle, then walking down the wedding aisle with Eugene was like stepping on the water’s surface.

So she had vowed:

[I like you so, so much. I will love only you.]

As if that were my destiny, as if it were my reason for living and breathing.

I will love you like that until I die.

Helena raised her head following the glimmering light on the lake. Just then, Ian was waving his hand widely from the other side of the lake. As soon as Helena’s gaze reached him, he cupped both hands to his mouth and shouted.

“Samte! If you’re done talking, please escort her well to the lodging!”

At the command that flew from afar, Samte hurriedly put his robe back on. As he lifted his bottom from his seat, Helena also stood up. While Samte was gathering his loosened sword, Helena also cupped both her hands to her mouth and called out.

“You too, come back quickly before it gets dark!”

But whether her voice was too small, or whether he heard but pretended not to, he only added what he wanted to say and yelled.

“And don’t just look at the ground, watch ahead as you walk! You need to stay alert for me to trust you with Helena! She’s someone I really care about!”

Then a small laugh was heard nearby. Samte’s laughter was calm and heavy like pebbles rolling on a stream bed.

Though she might have been surprised by Samte’s smile, which she was seeing for the first time, Helena squeezed her eyes shut. She wished the sun would just stick right to the treetops thick with trees.

That way she could at least blame the sunset for the redness that had spread like wildfire up to the back of her neck.

Throughout the return journey, Helena kept her hand in her pocket, fiddling with the coin. They arrived at the guild when the sky had darkened like sunset and her fingertips had also become grimy.

When she entered her room, a glass of milk sprinkled with butter cookies and cinnamon powder was placed on the desk. Since she had skipped dinner, Sakin seemed to have left it.

Helena slowly but cleanly emptied the plate, washed up, and threw herself onto the bed.

If she turned her head slightly, she could see the navy blue sky studded with stars through the transparent window. Observing it until it would be dyed even blacker, Helena thought. Thought again.

‘As if it were my destiny, as if it were my reason for living and breathing… until death…’

And so the present Helena realized.

‘So I guess that’s why I died.’

So I had loved.

So now,

Now…

Helena closed her eyes and exhaled evenly. Even with her vision covered by her eyelids, the starlight seemed to shimmer. She quietly mulled over that.

‘I thought of only you every single day. There wasn’t a day I didn’t think of you. Until I fell asleep, I thought about what clothes I should wear for you tomorrow, what expression I should make, what I should prepare to make you happy.’

Of course, the starlight did flicker, but it wasn’t clear. It was blurred light like the afterimage of someone already standing far away.

‘But now….I only think of you once every three days. Sometimes once a week, once every two weeks. If a little more time passes, I’ll probably think of you only once a month. That’s how I’ll forget you.’

Her closed eyelids grew even heavier. Drowsiness pressed down on her eyes like a sandcastle. Muttering to herself, Helena carved a final resolution into her fading mind just before falling asleep.

‘Slowly, I’ll forget.’

****

In Berat Forest, close to Evergale Grand Ducal residence, there was a villa. It was a pretty villa with a neatly trimmed plant garden, even without flowers normally.

However, as winter’s beginning approached, the garden and various parts of the villa became desolate, untouched by the caretakers’ hands.

And now, with the particularly cold wind blowing, there were those who enjoyed that desolation as if it were a unique charm.

The shadows of two women stretched beneath the legs of ivory bistro chairs. One of them was drawing a curved silhouette that bulged from below the chest.

The woman with pinned-up blonde hair placed her hand on that curve and gently stroked it.

The woman soon raised her head with a bright smile.

“Mother, I think a really beautiful child resembling him will be born. What would be good for the name?”