Looking around pensively, Eric finally realized.

“Ah! Where’s Mom? Geez, she told me to stay close to her. I’m aging rapidly because of Mom!”

When he was about to go look for his mom, someone suddenly grabbed him. He thought it was the girl, but it was the man.

“Why, why are you doing this?”

The man was incredibly tall. He blocked the sun completely, making his face appear dark and difficult to see.

“Could it be……”

But judging from his voice and the hand on Eric’s shoulder, the man seemed to be trembling.

“Is your mother’s name Erica?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

The man’s voice and hands began to tremble even more from that moment.

“She has pinkish blonde hair……”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“She smiles as beautifully as a princess and speaks as elegantly as a princess.”

“That’s right. But she’s more like a shepherdess princess.”

Ha, the man laughed briefly. From his voice alone, Eric thought he might be crying, so he was relieved to hear him laugh.

But suddenly, the man dropped to his knees as if collapsing to the ground and embraced Eric.

“I’ve finally found you.”

Mom always said if you laugh and then cry, you’ll grow hair on your butt.

“…It was a son.”

The man pressed his forehead against Eric’s, then pulled back and caressed Eric’s face with his large hand. Mom had told him to shout if a stranger touched him and he hated it.

But didn’t that mean he didn’t need to shout if he didn’t hate it?

“Ha, you look just like me.”

The man stared intently at Eric’s face, then said this with a joyful smile. Come to think of it, the man did look somewhat similar to Eric.

But why would I resemble a man I’m seeing for the first time?

“Damn it, you’ve grown so much.”

Mom said not to use bad words. And Mom said growing quickly was my job.

Eric couldn’t understand why this was sad for the man.

The strange man continued to say puzzling things. But the most puzzling thing was something else.

“Who are you to know my mom?”

As soon as he asked, the man released his embrace and adjusted his posture like a knight kneeling before a lord. Then, with a serious face just like real knight, he solemnly said:

“Eric, I’m your fa……”

“A stranger. A stranger I don’t know.”

The person who cut off Roderick’s words and snatched the child away was none other than Erica.

She had come here thinking he might have gone to see the puppies. She saw Eric and thought her guess was right, but then found an unexpected figure embracing her son as if he were his own.

‘This is unbelievable. If I had been one second late, something terrible could have happened.’

She needed to leave this place quickly before something else happened.

“Let’s go, Eric.”

As Erica struggled to carry the child, who was heavier than a sack of flour, Eric looked back over her shoulder and asked:

“Mom, who is that man?”

“A stranger, I told you!”

“Erica!”

“But that man knows you, Mom?”

Erica’s lips parted in a ㅆ shape before she managed to close them without making a sound.

I am a mother. I am a cultured mother. I want to throw away all culture and manners, but I am the mother of a child who repeats everything I say like a parrot.

Just as she managed to regain her composure and take a step, she heard footsteps behind her, and someone grabbed her shoulder. She didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“Don’t go. Let’s talk for a moment.”

Ah, I really can’t keep playing the role of a cultured mother!

The moment her anger surpassed its critical point, she whirled around. What Erica pulled from her waist and aimed at Roderick’s wrist, as if to cut it, was none other than a hand axe.

As the blade gleamed blue in the morning sunlight and barely touched his skin, all the market people watching the commotion held their breath. But Roderick did not withdraw his hand.

“Erica.”

His deep blue eyes, steadily gazing at her, were saying that he wouldn’t back down even if his wrist were cut off.

When the threat didn’t work, Erica looked around at the gathered spectators. The moment she spotted a patrol officer, her green eyes sparkled.

‘Should I accuse him of being a molester? Or a kidnapper?’

Then she could easily shake him off and escape safely without revealing where she lived.

“This man……”

Erica, who was about to shout that he was trying to kidnap her son, had to close her mouth when she saw someone peeking out from behind Roderick, looking up at her with frightened eyes.

‘Ah……”

A platinum-blonde girl about Eric’s age.

‘Is that the child from back then?’

The child she had delivered with her own hands. The child who had to be separated from her mother forever without even tasting her mother’s milk once.

That child has already grown so much.

In her excitement, she only now noticed that Roderick had a child with him. She couldn’t send a father to prison by accusing him of being a kidnapper in front of his child.

Erica backed away while still aiming the hand axe.

“I don’t know you and have nothing to say to you, so don’t follow me.”

Fortunately, Roderick didn’t take a single step from his spot until Erica disappeared around the corner of the market. Of course, he never took his eyes off her either.

As soon as she turned the corner, she put Eric down and walked almost at a run. She occasionally looked back, but Roderick was nowhere to be seen.

She had expected him to follow immediately once she was out of sight. It was fortunate that he didn’t.

Still feeling uneasy, she deliberately took a roundabout way home and questioned Eric about how he had encountered that “man.”

“So I chased after the girl, and that man was there.”

‘Then it wasn’t that he knew and came looking for us, but just a chance encounter? Why is my luck so bad these days? Should I get an exorcism done?’

Where and from whom could she request an exorcism here? Erica sighed deeply and firmly instructed Eric,

“Eric, I told you not to talk to strangers. Have you already forgotten?”

“But I know that girl!”

“Seeing someone once doesn’t mean you know them.”

“But! You told me to clear up the misunderstanding if we met again.”

Son, “but” is also confiscated.

But what’s the point of blaming the child?

“Yes, it’s Mom’s fault.”

No, actually it’s that bastard’s fault.

Before turning toward home at the end of her purposeful wandering, Erica asked, just in case,

“Did you tell him where we live?”

“No.”

“Good job.”

“But is he really a stranger? He seemed to know you, Mom.”

“He must know someone who looks like me.”

Had she underestimated a four-year-old? Eric stared at Erica with suspicious eyes, then asked an even more troubling question.

“Mom, why do I look like that man?”

Her heart sank.

“W-what do you mean you look like him? Just because you both have black hair, blue eyes, two eyes, two ears, one nose, and one mouth, that means you look alike? Then everyone in the world would look alike!”

The more nonsensical the explanation, the longer it tends to be.

“But……”

Eric gazed deeply at his reflection in the shiny blade of the hand axe tucked at his mother’s waist. As the child fell silent, Erica’s mind grew increasingly noisy.

‘Should we leave this city?’

A new worry had begun.

* * *

After staying up all night worrying, she made a difficult decision.

She would not leave.

If she didn’t have money to live here, how could she have money to leave? And why should she be the one to leave? The guilty person should be the one to go.

Instead, she decided to keep a low profile for a while, as that bastard might be searching the city for Erica.

“Eric.”

“Mmm?”

“Until Mom says it’s okay, don’t go outside to play. You must only play inside this building.”

“Why? Are werewolves taking children again?”

“Yes.”

A wolf named Roderick might take you away.

After giving this warning, she went out to the corridor outside their home. But somehow, there was a commotion behind the door across from them.

Heavy footsteps and the sound of furniture being dragged.

“Did someone move in yesterday?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Just then, the landlady came up the stairs with a basket tucked under her arm and answered.

“That room was finally taken last night. It’s all thanks to you.”