Chapter 32

“Hasn’t she suffered for too long? She will find peace there.”

“She must have reunited with her family by now.”

The people wiping their tears turned toward the source of the sound.

Most of them looked puzzled, and then one person gasped and abruptly stood up.

“What’s going on?”

“What is the matter?”

Kanis couldn’t take her eyes off the bed.

An old man sat at the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands.

The sobbing Kanis had heard upon entering the house had been the old man’s.

Someone placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder and whispered something urgently into his ear.

The sobbing stopped, and the old man slowly lifted his tear-streaked face.

“You are……?”

As the old man straightened, the face of the person lying on the bed became visible—pale and serene.

The disheveled hair spread across the pillow was unmistakably silver.

Kanis didn’t know this person, but her heart felt as if it were being squeezed.

The old man asked again.

“Who are you?”

His breathing grew rough. It seemed he already knew the answer before hearing it.

“You are, you’re…….”

“I am Kanis.”

At that answer, the old man’s expression crumbled.

His face twisted as he clenched his teeth, unable to suppress his emotions, and he clung to the woman on the bed.

“Wake up!”

The people in the room surrounded the old man, trying to console him and guide him away.

“You said you wanted to see her just once before you died. Didn’t you say you desperately wanted to see her? Wake up, Olivia! Open your eyes!”

The old man collapsed, almost falling, as the others held him and moved him to a chair.

In the commotion, the blanket covering the woman’s arm slipped, and a necklace she had been holding fell limply to the floor.

It was a pendant necklace with the faces of three family members engraved on it.

Two unfamiliar faces and the face of a young Kanis.

Kanis found the image of her smiling face strange.

The old man broke into helpless sobs.

“She’s alive and well, so why are you the one who’s dead, Olivia?”

The old man appeared utterly lost.

“If only you had come a little earlier. Last night, even this morning.”

“…….”

“If only you had come just a little earlier. She missed you so much. She wanted to see you.”

“She…… died?”

At Kanis’s question, the old man wiped his tears in silence for a while.

“……Yes, she died because of you—.”

“Calm yourself, Sir. I’m afraid something might happen to you as well.”

A stranger approached and draped a blanket over Kanis’s shoulders.

Kanis’s hands were as cold as ice.

“Kanis. Say your goodbyes.”

With the old man’s sobbing as a backdrop, Kanis slowly approached the bed, guided by the person beside her.

She held the hand of her deceased mother, which might still have held a trace of warmth.

The old man burst into tears once more.

But this time, he pushed away the hands trying to support him and opened his arms toward Kanis.

“Child, come here.”

The old man’s embrace was warm and damp.

Held tightly, Kanis stayed in his arms for a long time before tears began to flow.

“No one came looking for you, so you found your way here on your own.”

The old man repeatedly patted Kanis’s back.

“I should have believed your mother when she said you were alive. If only I had believed.”

Perhaps there was no place for Kanis here either.

But the warmth made her want to ignore such truths.

For the first time, Kanis leaned completely on someone and cried.

Time passed, and the scene shifted to another place.

“Monster!”

Someone threw a stone at the back of Kanis’s head.

Of course, Kanis didn’t turn around; she simply tilted her head to dodge it.

She found their petty antics tiresome, almost enough to make her yawn.

Turning around, she saw a group of boys sitting on a tree in the village square, throwing stones at her.

They were the type to run away without making eye contact when alone, yet they acted fearless in moments like this.

“Hey, monster!”

Dodging the blind throws, Kanis was unlucky enough to get hit on the temple by one.

As the boys doubled over in laughter, Kanis sighed as she watched them.

Her grandmother had told her not to engage in unnecessary fights.

“Hey! Are you scared? Afraid?”

“An orphan with no mom or dad—.”

Before they could finish their taunts, the boys were suddenly lifted into the air in a heap, screaming like newborn ducklings.

One of them even wet himself mid-air.

A passerby, hit by the unexpected stream, shrieked in horror.

Clicking her tongue, Kanis waved her hand, safely lowering the boys to the ground.

After all, they were the ones in the wrong.

Kanis, with nothing to feel guilty about, confidently headed home. But when she met the gaze of the old woman glaring at her from the yard, her shoulders flinched.

Kanis entered the gate like a guilty child.

“I told you not to use that outside.”

“……I’m sorry.”

“How many times have I told you not to draw attention to yourself?”

The old woman approached, touched Kanis’s cheek, and led her back into the yard.

“Your cheek is cold. Let’s go inside. Are you hungry?”

Watching Kanis nod timidly, the old woman softened her expression and smiled.

“After we eat…… how about a game of chess?”

Kanis, meeting the old woman’s gaze, smiled faintly in return.

Kanna couldn’t take her eyes off the two of them.

“By the way, where could His Highness Michael be?”

“……Who knows.”

The visions continued to flow seamlessly.

By now, Kanis had grown considerably and stood before a bulletin board in the village center.

“Did you hear? Monsters have pushed down to the neighboring village.”

“We might need to start thinking about evacuation.”

“Should we start packing our belongings?”

“It’s not easy to leave a village you’ve lived in your whole life.”

“Does that matter? My family’s safety is what’s important.”

“You could end up a vagrant and die miserably on the streets.”

“In these times, they’re recruiting for an expedition to kill the Demon King.”

“Instead of wasting money on that, they should give it to us.”

“The leader of that group is supposedly from a ruined kingdom.”

“Isn’t it harder to find a kingdom that hasn’t fallen in this era?”

“They’re looking for volunteer mages, I hear.”

“To kill the Demon King? If that were possible, they’d have done it already. Bah, nonsense!”

The bulletin Kanis was looking at was about that very recruitment.

It invited people to join the cause, regardless of age or gender, as long as they were ready to contribute to peace and fulfill their duties.

“……Prince Felix?”

Rumors about him being an oddball were widespread.

Since his kingdom had fallen, he technically wasn’t a prince anymore.

He was scraping together the remnants of his kingdom’s treasury to gather mages from across the land.

Mages…….

Though she had never been called one, Kanis knew what she was.

She had only encountered other mages once.

They had tried to capture her and drag her away to some unknown place.

Kanis shook her head, dispelling the memory.

She had promised her grandmother.

Never to use her powers in front of others again.

That was the only way they could live together for a long time.

Just then, someone tapped Kanis on the shoulder.

They held up a wanted poster in front of her face.

“This is you, isn’t it?”

“…….”

“You’re quite notorious for thievery, aren’t you? Your reputation precedes you as part of a trio of thieves.”

Kanis slowly turned to look at the man.

He clearly wasn’t from this village.

Perhaps he was one of the refugees from the neighboring village.

“Don’t bother denying it. I saw you use ‘that’ before.”

The man whispered slyly into Kanis’s ear.

“It seems the villagers don’t know about the dirty deeds you’ve been doing behind their backs with that innocent-looking face of yours.”

“…….”

“If they found out, they wouldn’t be able to live in the same village as you, especially in times like these.”

When Kanis tried to walk away, the man blocked her path.

“You’re going to steal something for us.”

Ignoring his suggestion, Kanis moved past him, deciding she’d rather think about what to have for dinner.

“Come to the field outside the village by midnight tomorrow.”

“…….”

“Don’t forget that there’s still a bounty on your head.”

Realizing he needed another tactic, the man added,

“Or do you want your grandmother to be kicked out of the village? She’s not in good health. Imagine her wandering around after being forced out of her home.”

Kanis froze in her tracks.

“Well, suit yourself.”

Confident, the man walked away, but Kanis grabbed his arm.

“……What do you want?”

The man grinned, showing his teeth.

“Now that’s more like it.”