Chapter 45

Chapter 45

She couldn’t understand Fiarca’s kindness. In fact, she had never understood the behavior of the people of the Nervana forest until now. No one had ever run through the streets at night to defend her and her man in this way.

As Enya glanced up at Fiarca with a dazed face, who gently brushed off her soiled knees, at that time, Servia shouted to the people of Nervana Forest in a clear voice.

“It is past time to listen to the witnesses! Outsiders who have nothing to do with this incident, please return to your place!”

Then Lehizin, an old man from Nervana Forest, who had thought of standing still until then, spoke up. From the gaping mouth between the full beard, a booming voice that was hard to believe belonged to an old man came out.

“Then, we can’t avoid this place all the more… because a member of Nervana Forest is involved in this.”

With those words, the faces of everyone present darkened.

Enya also hardened her expression. The only person involved in this trial was Fiarca, who saved Gernan when he tried to attack Enya. Moreover, wasn’t Fiarca now denied to stand in this trial as a witness?

Servia mocked Lehizin in a sneering voice.

“…It seems that the old man is deaf and can’t understand what’s going on. No need to think twice. Expel them immediately.”

Kiyan, who had been silently watching all this, took a step forward.

Servia, who trembled as she thought she was coming to her, saw that Kiyan was not heading for her but was heading towards Enya, who barely raised her body, supported by Fiarca in the corner. She frowned.

He stood in front of Enya without any hesitation.

Upon seeing this, Tarhan’s face also hardened into an expression of doubt, disbelief, and uncooled anger. Eventually, he stood in front of Enya as if protecting her and proclaimed.

“I would like to take this opportunity to reveal to everyone here that this woman is a member of our Nervana Forest. From now on, all the insults and ridicule against this woman will be regarded as a direct attack on Nervana Forest, and I will respond actively.”

Enya wasn’t the only one surprised by that shocking statement.

Everyone in the room froze in amazement at Kiyan’s remark.

“…Wait. No way. That idiot is from the Abandoned Fields! Some halfwit Aquilean woman who did not even know that the baby had a disease and nursed her and raised her, and then abandoned her at last! How can that woman be from the Nervana Forest…?!”

Servia shouted in a high-pitched voice.

Just then, as another urgent sound of hooves came, Kiyan, who heard the sound, muttered with the corner of her mouth slightly raised.

“They arrived on time.”

Soon, everyone there recognized a stout Nervana young man riding on a mule had arrived.

Reyhald quickly got off the mule with a serious expression in contrast to his usual cheerful appearance. The shadow of a very small person was reflected behind him.

“I have brought a witness to prove my words.”

Kiyan added an explanation, carefully dragging the person Reyhald brought with him, and gestured at Reyhald as he approached.

Enya opened her mouth when she saw the wrinkled face of Old Lady Piache, who was revealed under the torch. While Piache clearly revealed that she was not happy about being here, when she saw Enya and Tarhan, who were not talking, she looked surprised and widened her eyes.

“Isn’t it Piache who runs the pharmacy? What the hell does that crazy old woman have to prove—”

Servia shouted, throwing her ferocious gaze at Piache, but the elders were quicker. They hurriedly answered,as if they knew that it was this newly appeared witness who would give an answer to the sudden turn of events.

“I will give you a chance. Speak.”

It was unknown if Piache had heard of the situation in advance, but with a fairly calm face, she glanced over at the people present. As she hesitated for a moment at Gernan’s completely muddy face, she finally stopped at Enya.

Enya could read the anguish and pain on the face of Old Lady Piache, whom she had known for a long time. She began her testimony with a timid mouth, even though she could not hide a hint of reluctance.

“I remember… when I first found that child, Enya. It was a cold winter when the barley started to freeze. On that day, flocks of crows in the empty field cried noisily.”

Enya couldn’t hide her shocked expression. She gazed intently at Piache, who slowly opened her mouth.

“As some of you here know, and very gratefully over fully, I go and tend to the sick in the abandoned fields… just an old woman’s little pastime. That day, too, I heard that there was a woman’s corpse near the field. I hurriedly arrived with the intention of burying the body, and sure enough, it had already cooled down and was on the verge of becoming prey for birds. All of a sudden, I heard the cry of a baby in my ears.”

Old Lady Piache’s cloudy eyes came to Enya and did not fall.

“She was a very weak woman. While was almost nothing but bones, there was a newborn in her arms… it was like a lump of blood that had just been born. It seemed certain that she was the woman’s own child, judging from the marks of childbirth left on the woman’s body. It seemed that the baby would die along with the mother who had gone away like this.”

She paused for a second before continuing.

“Still, I don’t think I have the talent to nurse a newborn baby. Inevitably, I left it with the mother of a young child who had recently taken a bunch of herbs from me and didn’t pay for it. She said that she would take care of it until she was weaned and that it wouldn’t matter if the village left it to grow on its own.”

As silence fell over Piache’s testimony, she began to speak in a low voice.

“I heard that the child was not walking even though many sun’s had passed and it was time for her to walk. When I went and checked, indeed, one of her legs was deformed and twisted. If the people of the tribe found out that the woman who was looking after the baby nursed a crippled baby, she would stone her to death… so I had to let the child go back to the abandoned fields.”

Enya felt her eyes grow distant.

Through someone else’s mouth, her past was exposed in front of dozens of people. Something she didn’t know, whether it was shock or a tingling pain, came rushing in and disturbed her eyes.

“That child is Enya… She was not the child of an Aquilean woman.”

Eventually, when Old Lady Piache spoke as if to affirm the words, Servia shouted with her disheveled hair shaking like a mad woman.

“Still, there is no evidence that she was a Nervana forest woman!”

Then, Piache sent tiger-like ferocious eyes to Servia. Servia flinched backwards at the blaze-like anger emanating from the cloudy eyes.

“The woman’s forearm had the same mark as the Nervana Forest people here. I remember it clearly.”

With those last words, the situation spiraled out of control. Everyone present was now looking at Enya.

Enya endured the stares pouring down on her with confused eyes. With her swaying eyes, what she found at that moment was Tarhan, who was on his knees, subdued by many men like a criminal, even though he had not committed any crimes.

She couldn’t see his expression in the shadow of the fire.

Kiyan, who had been silent until Piache gave her testimony, stepped back in front of her and opened her mouth.

“That is not all.”

With Fiarca’s help, she barely stood up as Kiyan strode towards her with a heroic expression. Her scarred body growled as if she wouldn’t stand by if anyone tried to harm Enya, and she opened her mouth.

“She was not an ordinary Nervana Forest woman. I am certain that she is the biological daughter of Eireke, the ‘daughter of the forest’ who was born with the blood of the forest, my daughter whom I lost decades ago.”

At that, even Avisak took a step forward in surprise.

“If she is the daughter of the forest, then she is the legend that was said to control the Skull Spider, a catastrophic monster in Nervana Forest…”

Kiyan answered with her eyes shining.

“Exactly. She is indispensable to us, and she is my family that I do not want to lose again.”

At her words, she put her hand on her cheek with a look that dared not express in words. Enya instinctively flinched at the touch on her cheek, then opened her eyes, startled by the warmth of her hand.

She couldn’t believe it.

There were so many things that came to light in an instant that she couldn’t come to her senses. Eventually, Lehijin, who had been waiting for Kiyan to finish her words, led his hunched back to the elders of Aguilea and opened his mouth.

“Well, that should have sufficed.”

The eagle-like eyes of the elder of the old Nervana Forest came with a flash and demanded.

“Now, all the safety and authority of that woman no longer belong to Aquilea. The job of protecting her will be taken over by our Nervana Forest. So all of her offensive remarks towards her, any insults, will be interpreted as antipathy towards the whole of our Nervana Forest. Now that we have managed to find the precious daughter of the forest, we will stand by this position without retreating an inch.”

“Who says so?”

At that time, a deep, low voice that could hardly be thought of belonging to a human rang out.

The voice was so powerful that everyone in the room pulled their heads away from Lehijin and turned in the direction of the sound.

Enya’s shaky eyes followed a voice she could never mistake.

At the same time, she felt excruciating pain, as if someone had stabbed her heart with thousands of needles. The moment she saw the expression on the kneeling man, surrounded by nine men, she had the urge to pass all the men around him and walk up to him and hug him by the neck.

She was gasping for breath without realizing it.

“…Who says that they want to protect her and take responsibility for her? Did you guys just say that you would protect Enya in front of me right now?”

Tarhan’s expression is so badly distorted that no one dares to speak recklessly. His mouth opened, quivering slightly as if revealing fangs.

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