Chapter 106 : Chapter 106
Chapter 106 : Cabin Father and Son (1)
Seen from up close, the cabin looked a bit old, but perhaps due to diligent maintenance, it maintained a neat appearance for something built in the woods.
The boat moored by the river was the same.
“Come, come, please come in.”
A man with an impatient personality, ill-fitting for the peaceful and quiet atmosphere, guided us inside the cabin.
The welcome, intense to the point of being burdensome, continued inside the house.
“Welcome!”
As soon as we stepped inside, someone waiting within greeted us with a flushed face.
It was a child who was skinny compared to his height, with long arms and legs.
With a face that looked exactly like the man's without needing to be said, we could infer the relationship between the two.
The brat, who looked to be about fifteen, looked at Ratel, Jing, and Ria with eyes mixed with half excitement and half nervousness.
When his gaze finally turned toward me, a question arose on his face.
“Are you also a Lucha Competition winner…… right?”
The brat ended the sentence as a question as if he found it hard to believe.
It seemed I looked the weakest among this group.
He had an eye for things.
Though he lacked a bit of tact.
“Why do I look like I have no talent for fighting?”
When I asked, the brat only then realized his mouth had been loose and shook his head.
“N-No. It’s not that, it’s just that the atmosphere is a bit different from the winners who have visited until now……. I didn’t mean anything bad.”
The guy urgently made an excuse.
I looked down quietly at the flustered guy and opened my mouth.
“That’s right, actually I can’t fight. The three here are all people I hired.”
At my answer, the brat looked at me with surprised eyes.
“Do you know what that means?”
“N-No. I don’t really know.”
As the guy shook his head, I lowered my voice.
“It means the one you need to listen to the most is me.”
The guy, who had a naive side, gulped and nodded at my serious nonsense.
“You’re teaching the kid something really good.”
Ratel muttered as he pushed me aside as if to show off and entered the cabin.
At the attitude that was quite arrogant for an employee, the brat hesitated, unable to understand the situation for a moment.
Jing and Ria, who entered afterwards, laughed at the brat's blank appearance and put their luggage down on the floor.
“It would be difficult to hire me unless it’s a considerable amount of money.”
“I have loyalty, so I’ll work for cheap.”
Only after Jing and Ria said a word each did the cabin kid seem to realize he had been deceived.
A sense of betrayal filled the child’s face where the nervousness had been erased.
“What is this, from where to where is it a lie?”
The heated guy pouted and argued with me.
“It’s true that I can’t fight.”
“Huh? Then how did you win the Lucha Competition?”
The curious brat forgot he had been deceived by me in that short time and asked another question.
“Ahem, stop being rude and stand aside since the guests need to go inside.”
Although he stepped back pouting at his father’s scolding who followed in.
Inside the single-story house, which looked no different from a normal home, a large table sat awkwardly, clearly prepared to welcome guests.
“Now, please come this way!”
The brat, who was glancing around, led us upstairs this time.
“You must have had a hard time coming all this way. Bedding is prepared upstairs, so please rest comfortably.”
The brat tried to take our luggage while displaying kindness to the point of being burdensome, but the only one who handed over his bag was the temple guide.
The brat, who had also reached out to Ratel, flinched at his fierce gaze and had to awkwardly withdraw his hand.
“……You are people with a very different atmosphere from those who came last year.”
The child scratched the back of his head sheepishly and muttered.
“I said stop bothering the guests for no reason and come out of there!”
The man who welcomed us in front of the house scolded the talkative brat.
“Ah, I said I can do it. An old man with just a loud voice…….”
The child climbed the stairs muttering complainingly.
The middle-aged man who had been standing the whole time also tried to climb the stairs following us.
When he climbed about three steps, I noticed that he was limping slightly on one leg.
“I’m enough on my own so just wait downstairs.”
The brat spoke softly, perhaps out of worry, but it had no effect.
“Who are you treating as an old man?!”
The child’s father got angry instead.
He was a man with a tough personality, but his son also seemed to resemble that side of his father exactly.
“If you’ve aged that much, you’re an old man, why pretend you’re not.”
The brat muttered as if for him to hear, scratching the man’s nerves.
“You rascal, what did you just say?”
“See, you can’t even hear well.”
It was none other than the guide who ended the conversation between the two that made people uncomfortable, completely contrary to the intention of serving the guests well.
“I’m dying of fatigue, what are you doing right now?!”
As he threw a tantrum once, the father and son shut their mouths tight and began the room tour.
Ria, who was climbing the stairs, watched the mood for a moment and approached the brat carrying the luggage.
“Excuse me, did people from Lucha Village come here last year too? You definitely said that earlier, right?”
When a positive reaction returned for the first time, the brat who had been a bit dispirited nodded his head with a brightened face.
“Of course, my father and I welcomed the Lucha Village people last year too. Everyone was truly brave and strong.”
“Then my father must have stopped by here too. Although it was a bit long ago…….”
As Ria spoke as if it was fascinating, the brat showed a slightly pitiful expression.
“If it was a long time ago, I probably wouldn’t have seen him. It’s only been 6 years since my father and I started welcoming people here. Before that, other people guarded the cabin.”
At his answer, the excited look on Ria’s face faded a little.
But as if the fact that Lucha winners had passed through this place was still fascinating anew, Ria looked around.
Perhaps bothered by having given her disappointment, the brat opened his mouth again.
“But if it’s last year’s winner, I remember clearly. He was definitely the son of a shoe store…….”
“Can’t you just shut up!!!”
But this time too, a roar stopped his words.
The child, startled by the hysterical and loud voice ringing through the entire second floor, was surprised enough to hiccup.
Surprisingly, the one who interrupted the conversation between Ria and the child was not the hysterical guide but the brat’s father.
There was anger in his voice to the extent that the previous shouting could be called a joke.
The guide standing next to him was also glaring at the child with his face hardened stiffly.
“Do you want to blow the opportunity you barely got by chatting about useless things?”
At his fierce words, the brat’s face turned pale white.
“N-No! I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I always get scolded for talking too much but because I’m stupid…….”
At his prostrating appearance, the guide’s expression softened a little.
“Be careful. If you make a mistake one more time…….”
“No, I will really do well!”
As the child spoke desperately again, the man snorted Hmph and turned his body.
The skinny brat struggled to carry the luggage and followed behind him.
I, who alternately looked at Ria making an uncomfortable expression at his desperate appearance and the expressionless Ratel, also moved my steps to an empty room.
***
“There is one single room on the 3rd floor, and three rooms on the 2nd floor.”
The cabin brat said, looking around at the guide and the three of us.
“I will use the single room on the 3rd floor.”
The guide, stepping forward as if it was obvious at that gaze, entrusted his luggage to the brat again as if throwing it.
“Ah, yes. Since there are two single rooms and one slightly larger room on the 2nd floor, only two people will need to share a room.”
The child, who spoke quickly while holding the guide’s luggage, disappeared following the guide who was urgently climbing the stairs.
The problem was who among the three remaining, excluding Ria, would use the single room.
“Jing and I can share a room.”
As I quickly preempted the room, Ratel’s eyebrows went up immediately.
“Why are you deciding that on your own?”
“Because you and I sharing a room is no different from three people using a double room.”
Ratel shut his mouth at my answer.
He must know too.
That Jing, who worries a lot anyway, wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably leaving me and him in one room.
Since the time he was stubborn in Lucha Village, Jing had been strangely observing the relationship between Ratel and me.
Jing was more likely to spend time in the room Ratel and I used than in his own room.
“Why is the premise that you and I share a room? I could share a room with Jing.”
Ratel, who had been caught up in my words for a moment, crumpled his expression again and said the words I was waiting for.
“If you want to share a room with Jing that much, it can’t be helped. Then do that.”
I, who was waiting for him to spit out those words, answered promptly before he could take them back and quickly entered the remaining single room.
Although Ratel’s voice saying harsh words was heard behind my back belatedly, I pretended not to know and closed the door.
Fortunately, Ratel’s voice cut off before long.
It seemed Jing calmed him down and dragged him in.
Who he ended up sharing a room with wouldn't have been a particularly important issue.
He just challenges whatever I say first.
Simple-minded guy.
Inside the room, like the exterior of the cabin, maintained its neatness.
I glanced roughly around the room, threw my luggage next to the bed, and put my hand inside my clothes.
As I grabbed and pulled out the fur ball that had been hiding in my bosom as if dead, El awkwardly raised his head.
I looked down at him and signaled toward the window with my eyes without a word.
Having put the fur ball down on the floor, I soon changed my form and went out the window.
A small squirrel also followed behind me.
***
Only after the distance from the cabin widened to some extent did I stop my diligently moving legs.
Because of the two whose hearing exceeded the human range, I had to endure this trouble to talk with him.
“Why were you like that earlier?”
I, having turned into a human, asked El who was looking at the river with a somewhat uneasy face.
“…….”
But making my effort to come out avoiding Ratel’s eyes was futile, he couldn't concentrate on my words and was only looking at the river.
As if wary of something.
Come to think of it, if he lived for a thousand years, he must also know what is hiding inside there.
“Are you that scared of what is inside there?”
“Who says I’m scared?!”
The guy, who had strong pride if nothing else, showed a flared-up reaction to my words only then.
“As expected, it seems you know what is inside.”
When I spoke to the guy who finally turned his head to me, El hesitated for a moment and nodded his head slightly.
With an appearance that was clearly nervous no matter how positively one looked at it.