Sharti, who was burning with fever, was being cared for by Tein, while Birena cleaned the messy interior of the old log cabin, and Bireta went out to the balcony with Ren.

It was still chilly, but neither of them seemed to mind.

To be precise, Ren’s mind appeared to be focused on the bedroom, oblivious to anything else.

“You mutt.”

“……”

Ren looked at Bireta at the insulting address.

An expressionless face. A stiffly raised head. Raised dark eyebrows.

He looked exactly like an ill-mannered mutt.

Bireta clenched and unclenched her empty hands a couple of times. She missed the cane she hadn’t brought.

“How long do you plan to stay here?”

“……”

Ren’s emotionless expression subtly changed.

It was clear displeasure and irritation.

Bireta swallowed a chuckle that threatened to escape.

“How do you expect to stay by your master’s side like that?”

“What do you mean?”

Ren’s mouth opened, as if a sensitive spot had been hit.

Bireta scrutinized Ren’s face closely.

It was a face that definitely seemed familiar from somewhere.

Given her mercenary profession, she had scanned hundreds of wanted posters in her lifetime. So it wouldn’t be strange to have seen someone with features similar to Ren’s.

“Tsk tsk… With not a shred of charm like this…”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“What do you use that head for?”

“Why do you keep…”

As Ren frowned, Bireta let out a scoff.

“How long do you think that act of runaway slave or master will work? Look. She’s lying there ill just from hiding you alone.”

“……”

As soon as Sharti was mentioned, Ren softened his demeanor.

As if he had never been hostile to her, Ren started to listen to Bireta’s words.

Thinking it fortunate that this mutt was at least reasonable, Bireta relaxed her expression.

“Do you know how much of a burden it is for Sha to take in someone like you in her situation?”

“…I do.”

“What do you know, you fool. She already has many secrets of her own, and now she’s shouldering someone else’s secrets too!”

Ren silently took Bireta’s scolding.

It wasn’t even unpleasant words.

It was all true, and the scolding stemmed from concern for Sharti.

“Listen well, you mutt. Sha may have taken you in out of pity, but I haven’t.”

As Bireta cracked her neck from side to side, creaking sounds could be heard.

Her hunched back, which she had been thumping, was now straightened like that of a middle-aged person.

The appearance of a bent old woman was nowhere to be seen.

“How can I trust someone who claims uncertain memory loss, hiding everything from their name to identity and family history?”

Strong.

Ren instinctively tensed his body.

Watching this, Bireta gathered her strength.

“Hmm, the body is honest. Unlike the head, memories left in the body naturally show through.”

Bireta thumped her curved back again.

“Mutt. If you want to find your memories, follow me.”

“……”

“You won’t recover your memories just by staying inside, protected by Sha. I go out of the village often, so it’ll be much better.”

“I need treatment.”

“You have no problem moving around. That’s enough for my grandson to look after you. You know his skills since you called him a doctor.”

It was a perfect invitation with no way out.

Staying with Sharti wouldn’t help him find his memories.

Sharti, covered from head to toe in a dark robe, leaves the log cabin early in the morning and returns only around evening. After meals, she goes out again to gather herbs. And she returns late at night.

As for conversation, neither of them were good at it.

There was nothing to stimulate him, and he just spent most of the day waiting for Sharti to return.

“……”

His head gave a clear answer.

His body was trying to nod on its own.

But strangely, Ren couldn’t say anything.

“Don’t you need to find your memories to leave?”

Bireta was right.

He couldn’t keep living like this without his memories.

Family or friends might be worried about his life and death. They might be waiting for his return.

It was right to find his memories as soon as possible.

‘…It’s right.’

Bireta watched silently as Ren seemed unable to get his bearings, looking complicated in various ways.

The memory loss seemed real.

Ren, suffering from amnesia and trembling with anxiety without anyone to rely on, looked like a lost boy.

“Tell me, mutt. Do you want to stay here, or do you want to be with Sha?”

Ren reflexively frowned at Bireta’s question.

It was a stupid question. Wasn’t it the same thing?

But he felt most pathetic and stupid that he couldn’t give any answer to that question.

‘Wasn’t she just a benefactor?’

Doctor and patient. If it was just that relationship, there should be no problem staying with Bireta.

Even he didn’t know why he was so hung up on Sharti.

“If you want to stay here by Sha’s side, you’ll have to make a choice.”

Bireta’s gaze became serious.

“Whether to find your memories and leave. Or… build new memories by Sha’s side.”

“Couldn’t I find my memories and still stay by Sha’s side?”

“You’ve got a smart mouth. That won’t happen. I guarantee it.”

The confident words rubbed Ren the wrong way.

A chill passed over Ren’s face.

“On what grounds are you so sure?”

Ren also thought it was right to leave once he found his memories.

But Bireta’s words, blatantly stamping him as someone who would leave, irritated him.

Seeing his very displeased expression, Bireta raised one corner of her mouth.

Look at this guy?

“As long as you have memories of growing up seeing different things, you’ll clash.”

“Do all people in the world grow up seeing the same things and live together rubbing shoulders? People live together despite different social status, gender, and blood ties.”

“Then why does our Sha live separately?”

“……”

Bireta pondered for a moment.

This ill-mannered mutt seemed honest about his feelings, but he didn’t seem to acknowledge the signals his instincts were sending.

“Have you seen Sharti’s face?”

Ren was about to reflexively say he had, but he barely managed to keep his lips shut.

If he answered Bireta that he had seen it, she would probably ask whether Sharti showed it voluntarily or if he saw it by force.

Ren felt guilty because he had seen it due to an accident and chance, against Sharti’s wishes.

“Have you heard her voice?”

“…Yes.”

“How was it?”

Ren hesitated.

It wasn’t a question about how he happened to hear it or what she said.

‘How was it?’

Sharti’s voice, low and scratchy from not speaking for a long time, was thick yet thin, trembling with emotion, and rang out unsteadily with a rough metallic sound mixed in her breathing.

It wasn’t the voice Ren had imagined.

But what he could say for sure was that her voice, which she herself considered terrible, seemed to sound like crying.

“It sounded sad.”

A smile flashed across Bireta’s lips and disappeared.

“Your world is wide, with a normal face, body, and intact memories. Sha will always feel her world is shabby when she sees someone like you.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so negatively certain, but couldn’t I bring Sha into my world?”

“Tsk tsk, mutt. That’s why you’re a mutt. Do you think Sha will share the same memories as you if she goes out into your world? She’ll only get hurt. What’s natural for you won’t be for Sha.”

Bireta pointed out reality, while Ren only spewed assumptions about a reality he hadn’t yet faced.

So unlike Bireta, Ren couldn’t be certain and couldn’t retort.

Ren tasted his own helplessness once again.

“Why are you telling me this? If you don’t like me being here, can’t you just kick me out?”

“Because Sha picked you up and is keeping you.”

It was a simple and clear answer.

Bireta turned her back to him and looked up at the sky.

The storm clouds from last night were no longer visible in the gradually lightening dawn sky.

“And well, you seem useful, so I’m thinking of keeping an eye on you.”

“……”

“Because of you, we’re getting meat that we usually can’t afford, choosing to face things rather than run away, and the kid who used to tremble at the sight of soldiers now even knows how to make eye contact. Not bad.”

Sharti was pure but perceptive, fragile yet strong. She wished to be isolated in painful memories, yet longed for human warmth.

Bireta slightly turned her head to glance at Ren.

“But in the end, you’re just a burdensome mutt, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I have a name too.”

“Right. Sha probably gave you that name too. You’ll receive a lot more from now on. Until you leave this place.”

His fist clenched with strength.

Bireta snickered.

“Is the reason you want to stay here to repay Sha’s kindness? Because you feel sorry and grateful, and you’d feel indebted if you left like this? Or are you pitying Sha? Do you find it pitiful that a woman is hiding alone in these mountains?”

“Watch your words.”

As if he had never been cowed, Ren glared.

Thwack-! Bireta immediately gave him a flick on the forehead.

Before he could react, Ren narrowed his brows as he was hit, and Bireta hit him once more.

“I’m the elder here, you brat!”

“……”

Whether out of pride or not, Ren didn’t even touch his reddening forehead.

Bireta chuckled, putting her hands behind her back.

“Decide in three days. Whether you’ll stay here as a parasite mutt, or come with me.”

“Didn’t you just say you wouldn’t kick me out? I’m here…”

“I’m telling you to be clear. As a patient, as a slave, or as a mutt.”

…Or as a man.

Bireta deliberately didn’t voice the last part.

There was no benefit in making this dark-hearted mutt aware of his feelings.

No matter how sharp Sharti was, until now, she had only held hands with men when treating patients.

Although Sharti was an adult and at an age to open her eyes to the opposite sex, it didn’t feel right.

It seemed like someday in the distant future, Sharti might end up getting snatched away by the Ren in front of her.

“I understand.”

Ren also needed time to gather his loosened mind.

His plan to gain and use Sharti’s favor had somehow turned into relying on her and genuinely worrying about her, losing its direction.

Before being swept up in the changes spreading from Sharti, he needed to gather his heart and mind once again.

‘It’s right to give up any more greed and keep a distance.’

But even though his head was aware, the problem was that his body was honest.

‘No. My head has gone strange too.’

Ren inwardly self-deprecated.

Even though he was in a private conversation with Bireta, his mind was focused on Sharti in the bedroom.

As he became conscious of Sharti again, Ren suddenly remembered what he had to do.

“There’s something I want to ask.”

The things Sharti had been doing while he was lying in the cave.

This time, it was Ren’s turn to do something for her.

Around the time when she started to gradually feel the heaviness in her head and the stiffness throughout her body, Sharti opened her eyes.

It was dark all around.

‘Is this a dream?’

Sharti repeatedly closed and opened her eyes tightly, gradually awakening her hazy mind.

Sunlight was visible under the loosely drawn curtains.

‘Has the sun already risen?’

With her body feeling as heavy as if she had fallen into water, Sharti slightly turned her head.

Then something fell from her forehead with a thud.

It was a poorly wrung-out wet towel.

‘Ah, I have a fever.’

Belatedly, Sharti touched her forehead to check her temperature.

She felt a slight fever.

Just as Sharti quickly diagnosed her condition and tried to get up.

“Stay lying down.”

“…!”

Along with the familiar low bass voice, a damp wet towel was placed on her forehead again.

As soon as she saw the blue-green eyes, the strength left Sharti’s body.

‘Ren.’

It was a face with spider web-like capillaries still remaining from the poisonous herbs.

Ren avoided Sharti’s gaze as he carefully tucked her in with the blanket.

He started with the story she would be most curious about.

“The soldiers have left. They don’t seem like they’ll make an issue of this incident.”

Adding that Bireta’s family had also left a little while ago, Ren paused to choose his words.

Sharti’s lips trembled at the thought that he somehow looked like someone about to leave.

‘Why?’

Ren let out a deep sigh.

At his ominous reaction, Sharti also tensed up.

“It was useless.”

“…!”

Sharti’s eyes widened at the cold evaluation, but he bowed his head deeply.

With a self-reproaching face, he confessed seriously.

“All the herbs I gathered turned out to be weeds.”