Volume 1 - CH 35

“When I was finally unravelling the worries that were lingering in my heart, it was only then I realised the truth wasn’t so important anymore.”—— Day 124 entry of the diary.

Big Sheep was so much weaker than before. It was much less lively from when I first saw it in Nightfall Town.

I still remember the satisfying feeling when I first carried Xifu onto its cart back home. At that time, I would always keep an eye out for it, fearing that it may slip and fall into the cold stream, or get eaten by wild beasts, or even freeze to death during the winter.

Although Big Sheep didn’t know how to speak, it dutifully did whatever it was assigned to. Without it, there was no way these pots and pans could have made it way from Nightfall Town to here.

Massaging the soaked fur on its body, it rubbed its head against my hands in return.

“I’m sorry, my sheep bro. Today, we shall say our farewells.”

“When the next spring comes, I will spread your ashes in the Southern Plains.”

“If there ever is a next life, I hope you will become a big sheep in the Pampas plains.”

(TLN: A vast grassland in Argentina. Link here)

As if it understood a bit of my words, it nodded its head and licked my hands.”

When Xifu brought the axe down cleanly separating its head and body apart, it didn’t even struggle one bit. It was probably already frozen stiff……

The huge sheep fell to the ground, its neck spurting out bright red blood, instantly staining the greyish-white fur into a dark red colour.

Although I was really hesitant to kill this companion who had been with us for a long time, we didn’t even have any food left to feed it with.

The reason this sheep could pull a cart was due to its body size. Looking at the back which reached around the height of my chest, you could imagine how strongly built it was.

After spending a great effort, Xifu finally dismantled the really big sheep. The amount of meat and organs combined was around 200 kilograms, just barely enough to last us through this winter season.

Looking at my wife who was enjoying the small bits of meat, I suddenly thought what a weird cycle it was, as if I went back to the earlier times where we only ate raw meat.

My wife and I huddled together around the fire as we waited for the mutton soup to cook . Looking at her chewing as she stuffed bits of raw meat into her mouth, I suddenly had a lot of questions. 

“Xifu, how did I, at the time, come to this place?”

“You at that time?”

“Yeap, at that time.”

I put my hands behind my back, signalling the earliest point of time where my hands were tied behind it.

‘Oh~you at that time……you weren’t like this at that time.”

“Huh?”

“Erm……you at that time, is not you at this time.”

“I am not me?”

“Yeap, you didn’t have this.”

Xifu made a gesture of a pair of glasses with her blood soaked hands.

What does that mean? I didn’t wear a pair of glasses initially? It’s impossible. I remember clearly that my glasses were always on me.

Well, unless she was describing another person.

Another person……If it was like this, in other words, the one initially getting tied up by her was another human.

“Then…how did I come here?”

“You don’t know? Weren’t you caught by me?”

“Huh? I was caught by you?”

“Yeap.”

Xifu wiped her mouth with her nails, and nodded her head along with the small snakes.

“Hold on, let me think for a bit.”

Combining my guess from just now, what should have happened was that another person was caught by Medusa, and then tied up and held in the cave. And at that moment, that person became me.

“Eh, that means, I was caught by you, then in the cave, I became how I looked right now?”

“Yeap yeap, that’s right. At that time, I also felt it was really strange~”

My hypothesis was correct. When I was drinking water initially at that time, she was staring at my face, because ‘my’ appearance changed. In reality, that person had become me.

Isn’t this just too weird?! How could I so coincidentally get isekai’ed into the body of another human that was kidnapped by Medusa?

“And then?”

“What and then?”

“I mean……why…why kidnap, me?”

I slowly voiced out my question. It was connected to the cause of everything, and involved a lot of things that she had never mentioned to me. 

For example, why did she share her food with me, or why did she kiss me. I could bury all these questions deep inside my heart, but I will never know how the origin of this marriage started. 

I had already swore to myself to always love and accept her, no matter how scary the truth was.

“You, don’t know?”

Shooting a gaze at me, she held the meat she was going to eat tightly in hands and averted her gaze, only using her snakes to peek at me.

Looking at how she reacted, I was even more confused at what she was pointing to.

“It has already, happened a lot of times……”

Her tail slipped under the fur I had used to cover my legs, and she used to touch the inner part of my thigh gently.

……

I instantly got what she meant. If by this time I had still not understood what she meant, then I was practically a homosexual!

It seems that originally Medusa would kidnap human males to satisfy her lust. It was just too scary.

No, wait. It was just the best!

I suddenly felt I was kind of perverted.

“Ah, I-I see, haha…”

‘Why……why did you not run away?”

“Did you mean…that morning?”

“Yeah.”

I recalled that morning, that fateful morning where my heart was shaken to the core by the monster named Medusa. She’s right, why didn’t I escape?

At that point of time, I was following the thought of ‘more chances of survival by being together with the snake-headed monster instead of running away alone’, But I gotta admit, I had already fallen in love with her since that morning itself.

“At that point of time, I…needed you.”

“Then…do you love me?”

“Yeap, it was around that point of time where…I started, loving you.”

“Hehe~actually, I knew.”

“Ah? You knew?”

“Yeah, for a human to come, and touch me……”

Xifu turned her head away, and made a hand gesture of kissing.

“Eh…I…”

She’s right. Why did I kiss her? It wasn’t so easy as the sentence ‘I was looking for death’ could explain.

“You were really beautiful.”

I bluntly told her the plain reason why I kissed her that night. How many people had the chance to see the real Medusa? Even if Medusa wanted to kill me, I also hoped that it would be only after something happened between her and I.

For me who had nothing to lose, there was almost nothing that I didn’t dare to do.

“R-really?”

“Yeap. But, Xifu, if you can, stop moving your tail, please……”

If this continued, she was going to scratch a wound on my thigh.

“Oh, ah, sure, hehe.”

“Then, why didn’t you leave me?”

‘’I……you are different from the other humans. Last time, they all left……”

They, erh, in other words, there were a number of men kidnapped back here. It was obvious why no one wanted to stay on. After all, they had their own homes, and no one was willing to stay with a Medusa.

But I couldn’t return to my own home, so the Medusa who I had the luck of knowing became the only family I had in this world.

“I will never leave, so only love me, okay……”

“En, you too.”

The mutton stew was done, and I poured some into a bowl. Thinking back on all the things I had gone through, the me who after having known the truth was calmer than I expected, because the so-called truth wasn’t important.

What’s important was whether she was still smiling by my side.

I was a man who didn’t carry many responsibilities. I was always putting on a pretence, always going along with my clientele’s laugh, hoping to give them a good impression, or lighting up their cigarettes for them, as if I was their faithful dog wagging its tail.

Getting a salary that was barely enough to cover my daily expenses, cursing my daily repetitive job, I didn’t know how long it had been since I had smiled truely from the depths of my heart.

I was fed up with my pointless life, fed up with the me who had achieved nothing. And the one that saved me was a Medusa.

Although I had eaten raw meat, had a knife pressed against my neck, and to have been totally tired out just to catch a single girabbit here, we had also relied on each other’s power to improve our quality of life.

For the first time ever, I felt like I was standing firmly on the land here with my own two feet, not like before where I was practically begging on all fours on a daily basis.

Sipping on the mutton stew with my wife, our bodies had warmed up considerably from before. I had given Medusa love she had never had, and she had given me something a human had never ever possessed.

Although the road ahead may be a path filled with thorns, if the days ahead were always filled with sunshine just like she wished for, then it was enough.

“Hey, once winter ends, want to go on a trip?”

‘Ah, sure. As long as it’s with you, anywhere we go would be fine~”

“Ah, me too.”

“Why, did you ask me these today?”

“Actually……I always wanted to say, thank you, for everything.”

“Hah, it’s because I am your wife~”

I once again held Medusa’s blood-stained hands.

Amongst the long winter nights, we waited for the arrival of spring, continuing our talk regarding the pasts and future ahead of us. After all, there were still too many things out there unknown to us, awaiting us to discover them.

(TLN: And there goes the first volume! That took me 7 years to complete translating LMAO. There are a few more side stories and the afterword left, then its onto volume 2 we go! There’s almost 70 chapters including the side stories combined in the next volume, may god have mercy on my soul.)