Towards the Winter Cabin of Serenity and Madness, Cinderella Runs - Chapter 2

Roniti began persuading Ger.

“What’s wrong with Hetter? She’s practically an adult once her birthday passes, so what does an age difference matter? Besides, she’s got no parents, no savings, just a burden. Roel’s in no position to be picky about men.”

Sending Roel to the bachelor Hetter would mean no need for a dowry. Considering Hetter’s desperation for marriage, they might even receive a bride price for her.

Roniti’s eyes gleamed with the thought of recouping the cost of feeding and housing Roel for the past four years.

“And where will you find a man more diligent than Hetter?”

“You’re probably the only one who thinks Hetter is diligent.”

“As long as she doesn’t starve to death, it’s fine!”

Roniti was determined to persuade Ger. As Roel finished her bowl of soup, the heated argument continued at the table.

Roel glanced around with a dark look, observing the people casually discussing her fate.

In her eyes, Roniti appeared like a black venomous snake. Celua, laughing beside her, seemed like a crow with blood-red eyes. Howson, sitting across, resembled a fat black pig. The indecisive Ger was like a scarecrow, guarding the field, without a mouth or legs.

‘Hetter…’

Roel was well aware of Roniti’s intentions. She might really be sold off in marriage as soon as she becomes an adult. The mere thought of Hetter turned Roel’s face pale.

Hetter was known for sitting in front of the inn, leering at women passing by and throwing s****l jokes. He had made crude remarks to Roel too, asking her to shake her hips, show her ankles, thrust out her chest, and recently, even whistling and suggesting she spend the night at the inn.

Roel’s grip on her spoon tightened.

‘I should have talked more to that man…’

The man filling Roel’s thoughts, a stranger whose name she didn’t even know, was her constant preoccupation.

She felt an irrational desire to rely on him, despite never having had a conversation or knowing his name. It was a dangerous hope, but the cornered Roel clung to it.

* * *

On her way back from the market the previous evening, Roel encountered a man in a dark alley.

He appeared once a week at the edge of the village, his large build and intimidating presence causing even the village youths to tread carefully around him.

Roel often crossed paths with this towering man. It might have been her imagination, watching him so intently. But she only encountered him when she was struggling, like after doing laundry with swollen hands, carrying a heavy basket from the market, or fetching water. It was always during her most arduous moments.

Whenever Roel gazed blankly at him from afar, the man would meet her stare with his heavy, sunken eyes. Encountering his bright yellow irises, she felt her heart drop and a peculiar sensation of the ground beneath her feet giving way.

Though they never exchanged words, Roel felt comfort in his gaze, as if he too was enduring hardships no less severe than her own.

The previous evening, when she was burdened with a heavy basket, he was shouldering a boar as large as a man. On previous encounters, he had been selling orc byproducts with a bloodied face, and before that, he was carrying a large horn, wounded.

He was a mercenary, a hunter, taking on any job if it paid well. Yet, due to his lack of sociability and eloquence, he didn’t engage in the safer jobs like escorting merchants or nobility.

His features were hard to discern beneath the unkempt beard, and despite reportedly earning well, his lack of interest in material comforts was evident from his tattered clothes, worn day and night.

This man stirred fear among the village women. His reticence made him an enigma, and his beast-like yellow eyes were unsettling.

Moreover, his broad shoulders and shield-like chest, conspicuously more robust than the average villager, led to rampant speculation that he might belong to the aggressive and belligerent Ger race from beyond the mountains.

Whenever he appeared in the village, the elderly and women would cast sharp, wary glances, certain he would cause trouble someday.

However, Roel didn’t share their wariness.

She found his diligent work ethic reliable, and she held a positive view of his mercenary work, a profession many avoided, fearing sudden death. After all, her own father had been a mercenary.

On that day, weighed down by the burden of Roniti’s treatment, Roel impulsively spoke to him.

“It’s, it’s getting late. It seems you’ve finished hunting for the day.”

He lived outside the village, his lack of a proper resting place resonated with her, sparking a sense of kinship.