Ashu, called out at such a late hour, appeared neat and tidy.
With cheeks flushed from the chilly night air, Ashu’s face was tense, constantly aware of his surroundings.
Then, after receiving the note Sharti handed him, he made a dumbfounded expression.
“Uh, so, uh, uh…”
After checking the note several times and alternately looking at Sharti, Ashu eventually blinked with a confused expression.
“What…?”
Is she planning to commit a large-scale theft right now? And in our village?
Ashu’s expression became even more bewildered.
He doubted whether he had read the note correctly, let alone understood it.
“…What?”
Receiving another note in succession, Ashu could only ask back with a dumbfounded expression.
When Sharti pointed directly at him, Ashu’s heart pounded for a different reason.
“So, what you’re saying is, um…”
Are you asking me to be your accomplice in theft?
Ashu whispered with a very secretive and serious expression.
As Ashu swallowed dryly and struggled, Sharti tilted her head at his face.
‘…Ah!’
Belatedly realizing that the order of the notes was wrong, Sharti let out a small sigh.
Cutting out the context and getting straight to the point, there was no way it could have been properly conveyed.
Sharti awkwardly took back the notes and rearranged them in the correct order.
“…!”
Ashu, holding the note with trembling eyes, couldn’t continue speaking.
“…S-so, really, t-teacher…!”
It was a vague hope. Even knowing it was unreasonable, Ashu had sought out Sharti despite fierce opposition.
It was his last hope. Ashu had been holding on stubbornly until now, doing his best to hide his despairing expression.
But before this kind savior, all the anxiety and fear that had bound him until now crumbled away.
Ashu took off his glasses and wiped away the tears he couldn’t hold back.
“Teacher, then now…”
Ashu with reddened eyes and nose hesitated.
Hadn’t he already been warned about how the villagers would react?
Ashu quickly composed his messy face and nodded.
Sharti recalled the expression Ren had when she shared her plan with him.
[…Insane, hmm…]An indescribable astonishment that, after deep contemplation and long patience, barely managed to transform into a strange disappointment. It was an unexpected method enough to momentarily disrupt Ren’s perfectly practiced acting.
Rather than unnecessary persuasion, though moderate, it was better to secretly start the work and deliver a shock.
‘There’s no better plan than this.’
In fact, there was a more radical method, but it was simply too much for Sharti.
More precisely, exchange with the outside needed to happen.
That was the only way to prevent it in the future.
At that moment, the wind blew. It was just the right strength.
Sharti declared again with a solemn mindset.
“Yes.”
Ashu carefully folded her notes.
Unwavering, straight eyes looked at Sharti.
“Please tell me.”
He omitted questions about what kind of disease it was, what she was trying to steal, and what she would do afterwards.
Rather, just as Sharti was about to be slightly flustered, Ashu put his hand on his chest and smiled brightly.
“I’ll gladly listen.”
He simply wanted to hear what help was needed and follow instructions.
A feeling close to reverence beyond trust was conveyed intact.
Sharti, grateful for Ashu’s willingness to actively cooperate, handed him the last note.
[This is the timeline separator]Around dawn, the village was turned upside down. The commotion started with the smell of burning and thick black smoke rising from various places.
The villagers who woke up hurriedly put out the fires in confusion. The fires were nothing more than piles of garbage set ablaze around the village, so there were no casualties.
Questions arose about what the piles of garbage were and why they had caught fire, but there was another problem.
The gardens or vegetable patches of the village had all been ravaged and ruined overnight. Moreover, the warehouses storing food for the winter were all empty.
“Th-thieves?”
As expected in such a sudden incident, the village elders summoned Sharti first.
Of course, checking the movements of outsiders was the priority.
However, they couldn’t help but be bewildered.
“…Are you alright?”
Sharti, who entered cradled in Ren’s arms, was pale and ashen.
Looking closely, she seemed to be curled up and panting intermittently.
“She’ll calm down soon.”
Ren answered calmly as her assistant, but his tense expression betrayed his anxiety.
The village elders exchanged glances and decided to wait until Sharti’s condition improved.
Fortunately, Sharti’s condition began to improve soon.
‘I didn’t expect them to start fires.’
Sharti pressed her hand firmly against her heaving chest, trying to steady her breathing.
She couldn’t have imagined that Ashu would choose to set fires as a way to draw attention while Ren took her place as a thief overnight.
Thankfully, she didn’t directly see the fire and only became aware of the fact that there had been a fire, so her panic attack wasn’t severe.
“T-teacher…!”
As they entered the hall, Ashu was standing diagonally across, his face pale blue.
‘He must have heard about my panic attack.’
Ashu also knew about the burn scars on her arms and legs, but he must have naively thought it would be fine as long as she didn’t see the flames directly.
‘Well, it worked out according to plan anyway.’
It was a radical method that Sharti would have chosen too, if not for her trauma.
Above all, with Ren by her side, even the short aftermath of the panic attack was bearable.
Sharti waved her hand slightly to reassure Ashu.
“You can lean on me.”
Ren, turning to block Ashu’s line of sight, was still fidgeting even as he set Sharti down.
Sharti turned her gaze to survey her surroundings.
The village elders were seated in a semicircle, like a small court accusing a criminal.
‘It seems they’ve already decided I’m the culprit, even though I deliberately stayed with the patients all night.’
Facing the elders seated with the village chief, Sharti calmly caught her breath.
Ren, standing beside her, frowned and grumbled.
“This is getting serious.”
Sharti poked his side, giving him a meaningful look.
As she did so, she subtly took Ren’s hand and positioned him behind her as if to hide him.
‘We should do the same.’
Sharti clenched and unclenched her slightly trembling hands.
And the interrogation began.
First, the village chief stood up abruptly, his eyes wide as he raised his voice.
“An incident occurred the very next day an outsider entered the village. Ashu! There are suspicions that you were involved!”
Ashu flinched at his father’s loud voice and took a deep breath.
“Unexplained fires broke out in the village, and the livestock has disappeared!”
The missing food included the livestock.
After discovering broken locks and empty pens, they rushed to the village gate only to find it wide open.
The testimonies of the sleeping village gatekeepers were consistent. Ashu had offered them drinks, saying they were working hard, and after that, their memories were blank.
“Ashu, did you really side with the outsider and even drug the gatekeepers?!”
“M-my explanation isn’t the priority.”
“Y-you…!”
The once gentle and obedient son was now talking back and staring defiantly with all his might.
In the end, the chief grabbed the back of his neck as his blood pressure rose.
Ashu glanced at Sharti once before taking a step forward to face the anger of the village elders.
“The teacher has found both the disease plaguing the village and its cure!”
At that moment, all eyes turned to Sharti.
Sharti took a sharp breath as the oppressive gazes focused on her.
‘I’m glad I’m wearing a hood.’
It would have been unbearable to face them directly.
Among the elders, the white-haired old man sitting in the center slowly stroked his long white beard.
“You’ve discovered the disease?”
Ren stepped forward, shielding Sharti from the piercing gaze directed solely at her.
“It’s mana poisoning.”
Ren protected Sharti from the invisible blades like a loyal dog guarding its master.
“The blue fluorescent spots that appeared on the patients’ bodies were one of the symptoms of mana poisoning, and the cause of the poisoning has been removed as of today.”
“Then could it be that the disappearance of the food…?”
“There was a mana reaction in everything in the village – flowers, grass, fruits, vegetables, everything.”
Ren had memorized the explanation from the note Sharti had given him.
As Sharti’s assistant, he recited the diagnosis without emotion, not missing a single detail.
“The patients have been consuming mana-contaminated items for a long time, causing strong mana to accumulate in their bodies. Eventually, they reached the limit of mana their bodies could handle, resulting in illness.”
The mana detector Sharti brought reacted to the excessive mana levels accumulated in the patients’ bodies, to the point where even the ore reacted.
‘The mana detector doesn’t react to ordinary people who aren’t mages.’
In other words, ordinary people who weren’t mages had excessive mana stored in their bodies, and the patients fell ill because they couldn’t withstand the excessive mana.
If so much mana was filling human bodies, it was highly likely that the patients had been consuming mana like nutrients all this time.
[It reacted. Even to pebbles.]Sure enough, according to Ren’s investigation, Ashu’s entire village was covered in strong mana.
The fact that symptoms weren’t showing in everyone yet was likely due to differences in individual mana capacity, early stages of poisoning, or incubation periods.
[I couldn’t get close, but I think the village’s water supply might be similar.]The treatment for mana poisoning wasn’t complicated.
Once the mana was expelled from the body, rapid recovery was possible through care and consistent rehabilitation.
However, if the entire village was poisoned by mana like this, large-scale management and support from the Magic Tower would be necessary.
‘They won’t even accept help from the village at the foot of the mountain, let alone the Magic Tower?’
Ashu, who was skeptical about the village’s response like Sharti, participated in the plan to act first.
There was also hope that they would change if it became a matter of survival for the entire village, not just the patients.
“I know this should have been said first and proper procedures followed. I understand it’s confusing! But we can solve everything at once – both the solution and the cure! The teacher advised me! We just need to ask for help from outside. Not just receiving help one-sidedly, but exchanging on equal terms…!”
“Ashu! Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that doctor’s ridiculous words and sided with the outsider?”
However, not a single person was listening to Ashu’s words.
“What are we going to do! How dare you touch our food!”
“You dared to do such a thing, seduced by an outsider’s whispers!”
All the village elders shouted angrily, competing to be heard.
Their finger-pointing at Sharti was like knife blades, glaring at her as if they wanted to kill her.
As the harsh curses continued, Sharti unknowingly pulled on Ren’s clothing.
“…Hah.”
Ren’s eyebrows, which had been furrowed throughout as if he had a headache, twitched.
Ren tightly grasped Sharti’s hand.
He was ready to carry her out, kicking down the door if necessary.
“Quiet-.”
At that moment, when Ashu’s grandfather, who had been sitting quietly among the elders, opened his mouth, the commotion in the hall instantly subsided.
At a single gesture from the white-haired old man, everyone sat down again.
“Now that I see it, ‘witch’ suits the teacher better than ‘doctor’.”
“Grandfather!”
“She came to our village, and instead of curing the disease, she deceived my grandson completely and harmed the village.”
The monotone voice shot at Sharti, who was hiding behind Ren.
Ren clenched his fist.
“Witch?”
Unable to contain himself any longer, Ren tilted his head sarcastically.
A biting coldness flowed out naturally.
His turquoise eyes, flickering as if about to ignite, swept across the assembly.
“Is that what fools who don’t even know what the problem is should be saying?”
“It is you who are ignoring this village’s policies and the doctor’s opinion, forcing your own choice upon us.”
“Policies? Isn’t it coercion to cling to one insane policy and drag everyone to death with it?”
“This is our village’s matter. It’s not for outsiders to meddle in.”
Even as Ren sneered and mocked, the white-haired old man’s expression didn’t change as he leaned back in his chair.
“If there’s a problem in this village, it’s a problem that must be accepted from the moment one chooses this village.”
“Grandfather!”
“That’s the natural order of things.”
Ren’s face twisted horribly.
What nonsense was this out of nowhere?
Facing a group of lunatics for the first time in his life, he felt heat rising to his head.
“Rather, isn’t it the witch behind you who’s using people’s lives as hostages and threatening us?”
“…Don’t call my master that.”
Ren growled through gritted teeth.
He exuded an aura as if he might pounce at any moment, clenching his fists.
“This is absurd!!”
Ashu pushed aside those blocking his way and ran forward, shouting.
“More and more people might collapse, and you call that the natural order? Neglecting a treatable disease and leaving everyone in this village to die painfully from poisoning is the natural order?! Why? Why should we follow such an unfair natural order regardless of our own will!”
Ashu, who had been indignant and shouting, finally burst into tears.
The grandfather before him was not the grandfather he had respected. The elders who had wisely led the village were no longer there.
As Ashu gritted his teeth in shock and betrayal beyond disappointment, it was then that-
“Well, that…”
A terribly cracked voice echoed in the hall, making everyone flinch.
“What a cowardly natural order.”
__________
He Said He’s Pregnant, and It’s My Child (Female-dominant)
Intro 1
Something seems a bit off about this world.
Wang Zhao thought as she watched a pregnant man walking towards her…
Intro 2
Female lead finds herself in a world where the men who possess the ability to bear children.
As she navigates this unfamiliar reality, she is caught off guard by the sudden appearance of her boyfriend, who reveals that he is pregnant.
Is this truly her boyfriend?
Why can’t she recall any details about their time together?
She begins to doubt whether the child her boyfriend is carrying is even hers.
Is there a hidden reason behind her amnesia, or could it be a side effect of her sudden arrival in this strange new world?
Just when it seems the protagonist’s life couldn’t become any more entangled, her ex-boyfriend makes an unexpected appearance, raising questions about the protagonist’s past.
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