Elodie had more talent for escape than she appeared to have. So the child didn’t slow them down, but taking the wrong path was the problem.

Of all places, we ended up at the valley.

Erica took her eyes off the raging rapids with their white foam and glared at the man in front of her. The leader who had chased her and Elodie smiled vilely like a cat that had cornered a mouse in a dead-end alley.

“Miss, for your daughter’s sake, come quietly.”

Erica caught her breath, which had risen to her chin, and retorted.

“I’ll say it again, I’m not that woman, and this child isn’t mine. The child I left behind is mine.”

“With the same hair and eyes, anyone can see you’re mother and daughter, don’t deny it.”

At the leader’s mocking words, Elodie’s eyes widened as she looked up at Erica.

“I see words won’t work.”

“You bastard, are you trying to touch me?”

The man, apparently thinking he should take the child first, charged toward Elodie. Erica pushed Elodie aside and drew her hand axe.

Whoosh.

The man who nearly had his nose cut by the hand axe quickly backed away. He snorted.

“Well, I almost paid dearly for underestimating a delicate-looking woman.”

Shing.

The man drew his sword.

“Elodie, hide behind that rock over there.”

Erica pointed with her eyes to a large boulder and gripped her hand axe more firmly, ready to fight.

Fighting a large man with a sword was foolish. Yet she stood her ground because she knew he wouldn’t kill her.

‘He’s just trying to scare me into going with him.’

As expected, the man swung his sword, prowled around, pretended to charge, and repeatedly made meaningless threats, narrowly missing Erica and stabbing the air.

‘If all else fails, I’ll just surrender at the last moment and let him take me.’

Elodie, watching this situation from behind the rock, had no way of knowing Erica’s intentions. The child stomped her feet with a tearful face and muttered to herself.

“Dad said I shouldn’t…… But he said I did well gathering herbs. But Dad said I shouldn’t.”

She was in conflict, fidgeting anxiously, when the man raised his sword hilt high above his head and rushed toward Erica. As if he might strike her head with the end of the hilt.

Erica instinctively closed her eyes tightly while blocking her head with the axe blade. Just then, Elodie let out an incomprehensible scream from behind.

Thud.

The ground rumbled. When Erica opened her eyes, the man who had been charging vigorously was now sprawled ungracefully on the grass.

“Damn it, where did this come from all of a sudden!”

The man, perhaps embarrassed at falling like a toddler who had just learned to walk, flushed red and kicked an innocent tree root repeatedly.

“W-why won’t this come out!”

It was quite a spectacle. He had dropped his sword when he fell. The sight of him struggling to pull his sword stuck between vines not far away was amusing.

Now’s the time.

Erica quietly backed away and extended her hand to Elodie. When the child ran to her without making a sound and took her hand, she slowly moved in the opposite direction from the man.

Now.

After creating a distance of about six steps, Erica turned and ran. But uphill terrain is disadvantageous for someone trying to escape. Erica was quickly caught by the ankle by the man who had abandoned his sword to chase her.

Erica resisted by kicking the man and swinging her hand axe while lying face down. He tried to take the hand axe, but the leather strap at the end of the handle was wrapped around her wrist, making it impossible.

After several failed attempts, the man grabbed Erica’s wrist and made an ominous remark.

“I just need to keep you alive.”

“……What?”

“A broken arm will heal perfectly on the way home, won’t it?”

‘No! I surrender! I’ll go with you!’

……She was about to shout when:

“Waaaaaah!”

Elodie, who had been standing by her head watching, began crying loudly, perhaps out of fear.

As the crying echoed throughout the valley.

Rumble.

The mountain roared. It was surely just a coincidence, but it seemed as if the mountain was crying along with Elodie.

Was there going to be a landslide? The man who was about to break Erica’s wrist looked startled, quickly got up, and looked at the mountain above the valley. He didn’t need to see or hear it to know. The ground beneath their feet had begun to shake violently.

“This is bad.”

But a determined bounty hunter never returns empty-handed.

“I’d better get her out of here quickly.”

The man reached out to Erica as she was getting up.

“Just grab a woman by the hair and she’ll follow obediently.”

“You crazy bastard! Ha!”

I’ll cut your hand off. Just as she was about to swing her hand axe at the man trying to grab her hair,

“Elodie, stop crying.”

Along with a familiar gentle voice, a sharp sound cut through the air.

“Ugh!”

A throwing knife lodged firmly in the man’s left chest right before Erica’s eyes. She kicked away the large body that was about to collapse on her and rolled to the side.

“Haa…… I survived.”

As Erica caught her breath in the silence where neither the child nor the mountain was crying anymore, a sudden thought made her lift her head.

My child! My child!

She could see the silhouette of a man standing at the top of the slope. Even with his back to the sun, she could recognize that it was Roderick.

“Ah……”

Only when she saw Eric safely in his arms did Erica feel relieved and collapse onto the grass.

* * *

The commotion didn’t end that day.

A few days later, thugs barged into the pharmacy during business hours and caused a disturbance.

“Whose permission did you get to do business here?”

“And who paid you to interfere with someone else’s business?”

That day, Roderick knocked down thirteen thugs with just a broom he had been using to sweep in front of the shop.

This created such a buzz that even more customers started coming. Eventually, even male customers came to see Roderick and left with armfuls of medicine that supposedly made them stronger and more manly.

This meant that products sold out faster and that they needed even more herbs.

The herb merchants firmly denied any collusion, but when they learned that the “pharmacy employee” who followed Erica was that man of incredible strength, they handed over herbs again, trembling with fear of getting beaten like the thugs. Thanks to this, there was no need to go to the forest to pick herbs anymore.

‘I’m so traumatized I couldn’t go back there anyway.’

Erica glared at the large pharmacy in the market, the source of all the commotion. Even though it was a weekday afternoon, the pharmacy’s doors were firmly closed.

She heard that the thug handed over to the security forces had confessed to being hired by the competing pharmacy. The owner of that pharmacy eventually had to pay Erica compensation, and as customers disappeared like the ebbing tide amid people’s cold stares and criticism, he closed the doors, saying he would reflect on his actions.

‘Six months at most.’

He would probably reopen as if nothing had happened.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“Huh?”

Only when Eric called her did Erica remember what she had been doing.

‘We were on our way to see puppies.’

Eric with a sullen expression because Erica had stopped in the middle of their journey before an important event. And Elodie looking up with curious eyes. Behind them, Roderick was standing firm like a bodyguard.

The four of them had come out to enjoy some rare leisure time.

‘They say strike while the iron is hot, but let’s dock the boat by the riverside and rest for a day. The water won’t all drain away in just one day.’

She meant the time gained from closing the shop and the financial abundance from receiving substantial compensation.

“Mom, I want this one.”

But bringing home a puppy was out of the question. They hadn’t saved enough money to buy a house with a yard yet.

“Goodbye. Eric and Elodie, you stay there. Mom and Dad will go.”

After practically threatening the children who were sitting glued in front of the puppy stall with no intention of moving, they walked along the market road, and something began to bother Erica’s eyes.

It was Roderick’s face.

That face that suddenly started smiling brightly as if he had won a big lottery. A strong adult man who had knocked down thirteen people with just a broom was smiling innocently. It gave her goosebumps.

‘Why is he like that?’

Erica pondered, tracing back events in reverse chronological order, and immediately found the answer.

“Mom and Dad will go.”

He was smiling, lost in his own misunderstanding.

Erica raised her index finger in front of Roderick’s eyes. Then she pointed at the adult and one of the two children walking ahead, as if drawing lines in a matching problem.

“Eric’s mom. Elodie’s dad.”

Not Eric’s mom and dad.

“And the relationship between Eric’s mom and Elodie’s dad is……”

She was about to say employer and employee, but that didn’t seem right, so she corrected herself.

“Neighbors.”