The Villain Carries the Holy Sword – Chapter 69.1

Chapter 69.1: On a Spring Day (1)

「My father never told me how to live.

He just acted and showed me.

This is how you should live.

━The inscription on an unnamed tombstone」

🔹🔹🔹

A brief silence followed.

Rude, feeling awkward in this situation, turned his head away.

“Brother?”

Brown eyes peeked through the slightly opened door as Mia entered, and Abel cautiously opened it.

At first, Cain frowned when he saw him standing there, but he quickly relaxed once he noticed Mia and Rude.

“Yes, you come in too.”

“Yes.”

Without any further questions, Abel stood beside Cain. Thus, Cain, Abel, Oleciren, and Isoel all looked at Mia.

She spoke, holding Rude’s hand once more.

“As you all know, there have been many hardships in Count Crowl’s family. All of it is my fault.”

“…….”

Both Oleciren and Cain tried to immediately refute her statement.

However, the nape of the woman who had endured decades of oppression was too pale and delicate.

They couldn’t bring themselves to speak, as if they were denying her own way of overcoming the scars of time etched on her body.

“As a result, neither he nor this child could spend much time together. Recently……”

“Yes, I understand without you having to say it.”

From Arian.

From the ‘Commons’.

Since it was Cain and his companions who liberated Count Crowl’s territory, they didn’t want her to voice the painful wounds herself.

However, Cain spoke while observing Rude, whose eyes were trembling unlike usual.

“Lady Mia. Rude is already all grown up.”

Squeeze.

Mia once again grasped Rude’s rough hand. Rude could have pulled away at any time, but he simply lowered his head and remained silent.

Gently—.

Oleciren tugged at Cain’s sleeve and shook her head slightly.

It meant he should stop.

Cain shook his head more firmly.

A child in one’s arms cannot remain an eternally young bluebird, and sometimes they grow faster than expected.

Although he didn’t want to acknowledge it, Cain knew that this realization would eventually hurt them both, so he continued.

Mia spoke a little louder, directing her words at Cain.

“Although Cain-nim may see it differently, Rude is still a child with many years left before adulthood.”

“Do you know when a child becomes an adult?”

“…….”

Mia bit her lower lip at Cain’s question. She didn’t know the definite answer, but she instinctively felt that it wasn’t simply about ‘age’.

Click—.

Cain grabbed Abel’s wrist, which was beside him, and spread his palm open. The parts where he gripped his sword were cracked and calloused.

Although older than Rude, it couldn’t be considered the hand of a boy who hadn’t yet reached adulthood.

“It’s time. Not the time of age, but the time of how much one has lived their own life.”

“That’s…”

“Show us. Rude’s hand.”

Mia glanced at Abel, who was holding his hand out blankly, and his hand trained as a knight. Then, she cautiously turned Rude’s hand as if opening a dangerous box.

Fingers covered in scars, as if deeply scratched by something sharp.

A palm where the skin was slightly stuck together due to burns.

A rough back of the hand from handling dirt and sand.

Just like Abel’s hands, the time of adulthood was embedded in Rude’s hands.

“…….”

Mia blinked her large eyes and clasped Rude’s hand with both of hers. And Cain continued speaking calmly.

“Therefore, you shouldn’t be asking us for that favor. It’s Rude’s choice, as a grown adult, how he wants to interact with his father, Count Garick.”

“It seems my son has already left my side.”

Mia embraced Rude.

Rude didn’t resist and went into her arms.

It was as warm as before, but as Cain said, Rude could not stay in this warmth alone.

Although he was still young, Mia had endured as much as Rude, and that had made him an adult, a warrior.

“Do you hate Count Garick?”

Cain asked Rude.

Only then did Mia release her embrace, and Rude lowered his gaze to the floor.

“……I don’t hate him.”

“Then are you scared?”

“Rather than that…… I’m not sure if that Count Garick Crowl is really my father…”

Looking at Rude trailing off, Cain chose his words carefully.

“At least the Count Garick I saw is a good person.”

Nod—.

Rude also acknowledged that part.

Whether it was before being manipulated by Arian’s brainwashing or now, Rude knew that Count Garick Crowl was quite a decent man.

However.

“I understand that, but I’m still not sure if he’s really my father.”

“Rude Crowl, Lady Mia asked us for a favor just now, but I refused.”

“Yes.”

“But if you ask, we can always help.”

Oleciren and Isoel both nodded in agreement. However, Abel, uncharacteristically, was fiddling with his fingers and looking away.

Cain naturally committed that image to memory and gazed at Rude.

“It takes courage to help. But it also takes just as much courage to be helped. What will you do?”

Cain grinned and extended his hand as if to shake.

At the bright smile, unlike his usual bitter smirk, Rude paused for a moment.

Clap.

Then he took his hand.

It was a warrior’s handshake, calluses rubbing against calluses.

“Is it possible?”

At Rude’s question, Cain shrugged.

“Even if it’s not, making it possible is what a warrior does.”

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