Volume 1 - CH 27

Unable to stomach the scene of the carnage around Nightfall Town any longer, I did what little things I could do to help the residents out, such as replacing the glass windows and gathering up the scattered vegetables etc…

Compared to a hurricane or a tsunami, this was nothing of note. Yet, it was still an unexpected disaster nonetheless.

Seeing me trying my best to help, the residents weirdly seemed cheerful, as if things were fine. It’s like it didn’t matter how much of a sacrifice that they had to endure even if it was for Xifu and I.

Returning to the bar, the messy furniture scattered on the floor as well as puddles of liquid everywhere needed no explanation of what the soldiers had done to it.

The strong Parker and Lia who could fly soon started cleaning up the mess, with Wolfgang and Simon joining soon after.

As Xifu and I joined in, I couldn’t help noticing maybe because of me that she was being unusually quiet and gloomy looking.

My heart still couldn’t calm down, not because our honeymoon was disrupted, but I’ve just witnessed too many things I never wanted to.

After cleaning up for a bit, Wolfgang moved a few bar stools to the bar and beckoned for us to sit.

“Sorry, both of you had XXXX.”

“No, actually, I should be the one apologizing……”

“It’s fine, this isn’t the first time.”

“……”

I could only remain speechless.

Wolfgang chatted with us for a bit, whose contents could be summarised as him telling us not to worry. According to him, he was the first line of defense for the wealth of Nightfall Town, and he could easily kill 20 soldiers by himself.

I knew that this was a lie, because with the presence of rifles in the soldiers’ hands, he could at most only hold them back.

The gold coins were everything that each and every resident here owned. As the strongest mythical creature here, he naturally became the guardian of their most prized possession.

At that time, rather than even considering both of us as a part of the fighting force, they were more focused on hiding our presence. 

I could understand that they had no intention to drag outsiders into this mess.

“The gold coins, Kingdom, need it?”

“Hmm… need, but not as coins.”

“Oh……”

The Kingdom needed the gold coins, but not to be used as coins itself. In other words, the Kingdom needed them not as a currency, but as a valuable material.

“The white, blue, humans, who are they?” 

“Tiari.”

The term Tiari was used for the army of the Kingdom, but specifically what kind of army, I had no idea. Well, let’s just simplify but call them as ‘City Guards’.

Well, calling them ‘City Guards’ is kind of taking lightly of them. Let’s just call them Celeste Demons.

(T/N: Celeste as in the mix of blue and white color) 

We didn’t stay for lunch, as we left Nightfall Town soon after bidding our goodbyes to Wolfgang and Simon. On the way home, Xifu and I didn’t talk much, with our good mood being swept away and all.

“Lalalalalalala~Lalalalala~”

Standing behind me, Xifu started humming a song. I recognised the melody she was trying to hum as the song       《Treading the Waves》was that I’ve sung in front of her before. Evidently, she didn’t remember the lyrics or the proper tune……

(T/N:Original song here )

“It goes like this, Lalalalalala, lalalalalala~”

“Hehe.”

Placing both her arms over my neck, she shifted half her body weight onto me.

“Xifu, can we, protect ourselves?”

“En~It should be more like me protecting you?

“Then, I’ll protect you too, okay?”

“Can, you?”

“I……”

Yeah, I couldn’t even protect my wife, and I even dreamed of protecting the residents of Nightfall Town.

“That’s why, let’s eat!”

“Uh, okay?”

“Eating, you will be happy, yes?”

“Yeah…you’re right…”

‘Women who love to eat are always happy.’

Well, the quote itself doesn’t make sense, but I’ll believe in it. Even though she is my wife, she didn’t understand me. Therefore, she used the only way she knew to bring me out of my sadness, and that was enough.

“So, what to eat?”

With half of her body on my back, I started preparing our late lunch. Now that we were back home, things seemed like a fairytale once again. There were no cruel soldiers, nor any tortured residents, as if they had never happened. 

The only thing reminding me of that dreadful scene was only the cold revolver on my belt.

After so long, I still couldn’t achieve the goals that I had plotted in my diary. Still, I have unexpectedly improved my living conditions greatly. For example, the storage of meat.

The portion of meat that a single Girabbit provided was enough for me to eat up to a week. Yet, because of storage problems, we had only a few days to eat it before it got spoiled.

I was a modernized person in an urban environment, so I naturally had close to zero survival skills in the wild. Thus, I used the most straightforward way I knew.

How did you keep meat fresh at home? With a fridge.

How did the fridge keep the meat fresh? Because it was cold.

So what was cold around here? The cold stream!

Splitting the meat into two halves, with one portion enough for three days worth of meals, I placed the other portion into a wooden basin. Sinking it entirely into the cold water with stones holding it down in place, it became a natural eco-friendly fridge.

The only con was the wooden basin was unable to be used during this time, and the meat tasted weird after being soaked in the water for too long.

Other than the storage of meat, there was also ‘agriculture’ to think of. To be honest, I was unable to properly plant anything till now. The only thing I really did was replant the wild yam that I found into the field in front of my home.

Well, it was more of a way to store food too, so I couldn’t consider a full cycle of sowing and reaping anything.

Still, I had to bet that common sense must rule here too, so no matter where, plants must follow the natural laws of the world.

It’s autumn now, the season of plants bearing their seeds or fruits. If there are no seeds to be found, then I’ll continue hunting for them when autumn comes until I finally get a grasp of their normal life cycle.

Other than these yams, I also brought back seeds of various fruits and vegetables from Nightfall Town as a backup plan. Still, given that it is autumn now, I’ll have to wait till spring to start planting these.

As for the cave, it actually improved quite a bit. As we had bought quite a number of things, the initially widespread space within the cave became much smaller than expected. Still, it somehow encouraged us to clean our home up properly, which in turn made us arrange the numerous items orderly.

As we both sat on the bed marveling at our clean ‘home’, I immediately understood no matter who, a person needed a home. No matter how much pain and suffering one goes through outside, the home is where happiness lies with the warmest bed, the most delicious food, and the person who loves you the most. 

That’s probably why humans would do anything to protect their own home, or even their own country.

Ever since we came back from Nightfall Town, time slowly went by like the water flowing down the stream. Our lives slowly got quieter as time went by as it gradually fell into a routine. With it, the initial burning hot passionate feeling of marriage slowly cooled down like the weather.

Well, it’s not like we were officially married or anything, but we decided to stay together because we loved each other.

A long time had passed since we last went to Nightfall Town. Well, we had already mostly gotten what we needed, and there was that event too. Even though the people there were really welcoming of us, and even accepted us as one of them, the event still made me feel like a setback that I could never overcome. 

Who knows, maybe if we were there, it would only be more trouble than it’s worth to them?

Around 80 days later, the leaves started turning yellow, with the crisp sounds of leaves being trampled on could be heard, as both of us went on walks.

The forest too started getting quieter than usual, and animals that I could normally spot during summer appeared less than usual, which meant that hunting took longer than expected.

Well, on the brightside, as the weather’s temperature dropped further, so did the number of annoying bugs.

Based on my memory, I managed to sew up a cape with the fur of a Girabbit. Well, it looked more like a fusion of a shawl and a cape though. Still, she liked it very much, even constantly wearing it around her neck.

But the preparations for winter weren’t progressing well, as there was still close to no progress on the completion of the goat fur quilt project. I had already failed it three times already, as I was still stuck on how to hold the wool in the quilt in place.

The initial plan to ask the residents for tips when we left had totally slipped my mind with the chaos and all. And at most in 30 days, winter is coming. I started getting nervous too as I thought about it.

“What’s happening, hubby~”

“Nothing, just thinking, will be cold, next time?”

“En, maybe.”

Xifu turned her body to face me, and with her big bright eyes staring at my face, I for some reason found the corner of her eyes were weirdly charming.

“I’m… cold too…”

She grasped my hands and placed them on her chest. The soft sensation was coupled with a cold touch as she said.

My hands could feel her heartbeat as it slowly caressed her collarbone, shoulders and neck. 

‘As expected, my wife isn’t what I had ever imagined.’ I thought to myself as I sighed in my heart.

”No, not cold.”

“You’re not cold, today is not cold, tomorrow won’t be cold, and it will never be cold in the future.”

As long as there is still a sliver of warmth in my body, it will always be shared with you.