Chapter 8.2

“Tomorrow, I’m going to tell him ‘you’ve worked hard, so consider the debt repaid’ and let him go. So make the most out of him today, but don’t be by yourselves. Okay? It only takes an instance for your nose to be skewered!”*

*T/N: means something similar to getting caught in a trap

“Mom, you sure are acting weird. When I took in other people, you didn’t say anything. But you’re unusually harsh this time.”

Carla looked as if she had been taken off guard.

“…..Have I?”

“Yeah. Oh, come on, Mom, I’m telling you there’s nothing to worry about. I mean, all the villagers are being watchful too.”

“That’s true, right.”

Carla agreed vaguely. But why was it that the thought ‘this time is different’ did not leave her mind?

At that moment, Bertram looked into the restaurant and spoke towards the mother and daughter.

“Mrs. Carla. Guests have arrived.”

“But we haven’t opened yet?”

“They are not paying customers.”

The two who were ‘not paying customers’ stepped out from where they were hidden behind Bertram’s back, their faces scrunched up.

It was Dieter and the village chief.

The village chief gestured at Carla and went towards the restaurant, while Dieter remained and approached Anna before he stopped.

“Anna….. Oh, you just woke up. Sorry, I’ll come later.”

“Eh? Why?”

“…..you need to wash your face before you greet a guest, don’t you?”

“It’s just you, so why would I?”

Anna scratched the back of her head roughly. Every spot her fingers passed by, her hair curved up in upside-down U shapes.

Without tidying her hair, Anna chomped on the raspberries Carla had left behind as she talked.

“What’s up, this early in the morning?”

“I came because I was worried, alright? Did the guy do anything weird to you?”

“Hm? Mr. Bertram is always weird.”

Dieter’s forehead creased.

“Ooh, your face right now is weird, too.”

“Please, Anna!”

“Seriously, why is everyone like this? Haven’t I picked people off the road and given them work and food for days now? Mom might have a reason to act like this, but what’s up with you?”

“W-well, I mean….”

Now that the world is settling down, it seemed like there would be no more people for Anna to bring in, so he was slowly preparing to propose; but suddenly a beast-like man just drops out of the sky. Wouldn’t you be anxious too? Especially since you even stayed out with him by yourselves in the middle of the night with the excuse of sharing some onion porridge with him?

—or so words flowed through Dieter’s mind.

But there was not a single phrase he could bring out from any of them.

Even Dieter had the common sense enough to know that he should not be telling a girl who he was only friends with yet the bullcr*p that ‘I like you so don’t hang out with other men’.

“Th-this is a man’s instinct. That man, he’s suspicious.”

“Oh my! What a very reasonable statement!”

“Listen to me seriously!”

“Isn’t that what I should say? As if I would believe you when you say something about a ‘man’s instinct’ or whatever after seeing someone two times. I’d rather you say that you don’t like him because he has a horrible impression. Then I’ll ask Mr. Bertram that ‘Dieter is afraid of you so please don’t go near him’ for you.”

Dieter’s face burst into angry red flames.

His lips twitched and wriggled as he tried to squeeze out whatever rebuttal he could come up with, but Anna ignored him to go wash her face at the well.

It was the nature of the human mind to think of something more if they were told not to think of it. Anna purposely looked around for Bertram, and soon found him next to Carla and the village chief.

The chief was saying his final words to Carla.

“Then send him to us after lunch. Okay?”

“Yes, I understand. Please don’t overwork him, though. Especially Dean, don’t ever let him see that b*st*rd at any time.”

“Alright. Oho, isn’t that Anna? Still as small as ever, I see.”

“And Chief, I see you’re still breaking all stereotypes and living backwards!”

Words directed to the bald but prolifically bearded man, whose beard reached all the way to his solar plexus.

Carla ran up to give a hearty slap on Anna’s back, while the chief chortled and offered a handshake to Bertram before leaving the restaurant.

“What did the chief want, Mom?”

“You know how a wolf came down to the village yesterday. Because of that, the chief is gathering all the young men to go investigate, and he asked to borrow Mr. Bertram.”

“Is he an object?”

“He said he’d do it, too. Isn’t that right?”

Bertram nodded his head.

“Yes. It will not be of any burden to me.”

“See? Look at him. So much more reliable than my own daughter.”

Eavesdropping up to that point in the conversation, Dieter ran out of the restaurant. His target was the village chief. His shout could be heard dimly—

“Chiiieeeeef!! Let me join the wolf patrol please!”

As nobody was interested whether the chief would let Dieter join or not, not a single person of the three people listened for the chief’s response.

Anna energetically rolled up her sleeves.

“Nice! Then I’ll have to make something hearty for your lunch. Do you have anything you want to eat? Or anything you’ll need during the patrol.”

“I do not have any needs, but….”

Bertram turned his body towards Anna. As her line of sight was blocked by his body, it felt as if they were the only two in the world. Anna swallowed nervously.

“I, do want to know what happened during the night.”

With one of the most serious expressions and voices in the world, Bertram reached into his pocket. What he drew out of it was…..

A flower-patterned apron.

The very object that Anna had used to cover up his feet during the night.

Anna burst out laughing.

“Ahaha! That’s nothing special. I went to see if you were sleeping well at night, and seeing your feet poking out of the blanket, I just covered them for you.”

“Are you alright with using an apron to cover feet?”

“You worry about the smallest things! It’s an apron we don’t use, so it’s fine.”

Though she had been worried about what he would say, her anxiousness loosened in a flash. Anna took the apron and cheerfully chattered away.

“You can use it to your heart’s content today, too. And I’m not sure if I should say this, but when you had this on, you looked really adorable.”

“…….sorry?”

‘Adorable.’

A modifier that he had heard for the first time since he’d become self-aware.

Anna soon turned around and headed back to the restaurant, but the word that she had left behind, fluttering like a petal, created a small ripple in Bertram’s chest.