Answer Me, Please

Rosetta stopped immediately on the spot.
It was the result of the body reacting before the head.

Something moved slowly in the dark behind the bushes.

Rosetta clenched her teeth tightly.
Still, her chin trembled on its own.
It was an obvious thing to encounter in a place like this.
It must be a monster or a ferocious beast.

Was it a foolish decision to leave the camp? Should I have just kept quiet and looked for another opportunity?

-rustling.

Even as it got closer and closer, Rosetta just stared at the bushes, unable to even think of running away.
She was already completely frozen from head to toe.

And the moment something black suddenly jumped out from among the bushes, Rosetta sat down screaming.

“Ahh…”

Rosetta thought her whole body would be chewed up and swallowed right away, just like what happened to the horse in the lake.
But even after a while, that didn’t happen.
Instead, an unexpected voice rang out.

“Who is this?”

She had heard that slow tone before.
Rosetta finally opened her eyes and raised her head.
In front of her is neither a monster nor a beast, it’s Krell.

“Why is Rigaina alone in a place like this? Could it be that you are running away?”

Seeing the man frowning, Rosetta jumped up and stepped back.
It was fortunate that it wasn’t a monster or beast, but that didn’t mean she was happy to meet him.

“You, why are you here instead of going to fight monsters like everyone else?”

“Me? Even if it’s not me, there are other people who do it.
In the meantime, I’ll just do something fun.”

Rosetta felt chills run down her spine at the word ‘fun’.
She just didn’t feel good.

“By the way, I asked you.
Are you running away?”

The man’s voice lowered momentarily, filled with threats.
Rosetta grabbed the hem of her skirt.
She didn’t know anything else, but it was clear that she shouldn’t be caught trying to run away by the tribesmen.

The attitude of the tribesmen changed completely after she spent the night with that man.
It was unknown how they would change again when they found out that she was trying to run away.

“No way.”

Rosetta forced her lips up.
She smiled at him, but her heart raced and her hands trembled.
Rosetta prayed that the expression she was making now would not look awkward.

“I was at the camp and a monster suddenly appeared.
I got scared, ran away, and got lost.”

At that, the man’s expression softened.

Does he believe it? I hope so.

“I’m really glad I met you like this.
Now tell me the way back.
Everyone must be very surprised that I am gone by now.”

Rosetta hoped that he would at least pretend to be duped, even if he did not believe all of her poor lies.
However, the man brutally broke Rosetta’s wishes.

“Is that the only thing you’ve come up with? You got lost you say? Then why are you running in the opposite direction to the camp?”

Krell came towards her and smirked.
He moved slowly as if he were going to pick up an animal caught in a snare.
Rosetta, on the other hand, backed away, her perplexed look evident on her face.
However, the distance from him gradually narrowed.

“I-I must have forgotten, I am your chieftain’s wife.
You better remember that.”

“You just threw it away yourself, didn’t you? Do you think no one knows you ran away while the others were out fighting monsters?”

The man seemed convinced that she was trying to run away.
Seeing no way to escape the crisis, Rosetta looked like she was about to cry at any second.

“You’d better take me to Rashid.”

Oddly enough, she felt much safer with him than with the man in front of her.
It’s funny how she feels about her captor, but at least he didn’t threaten to harm her in this way.

“Even if what you say is true, you have no right to decide my disposition.
It’s up to Riga to decide about me, so—”

“I’ve never once recognized him as Riga!”

But he suddenly showed his teeth and growled.

“He didn’t deserve to be Riga in the first place.
He has the fox daughter of the old Basque chieftain to be his wife? In what part could this be called revenge? I can’t get rid of my anger even if I tear you apart for four years!”

His grudge against the Basques seems to be filled with a much deeper hatred than she thought.
Rosetta bit her trembling lips.

“What the hell happened in the past to do this to me?”

Rosetta tried to keep talking to him. First of all, I have to take his time.
That way, I’ll find an opening and run away.

“Tell me.
What happened?”

“Did you just say Rashid? Did he tell you his name?”

But instead of answering, he asked another question.
Rosetta’s eyebrows furrowed at the sudden question. Why did he ask that all of sudden?

“Do you know how that name came about?”

“Is there a story behind it?”

“Yes.
A very deep story.”

His lips twisted.
“Because that proves that he doesn’t deserve to be Riga.”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw the color of his eyes, too, right? Do you really not know what that means?”

Rosetta recalled his blue eyes, which stood out among the people here.
In the Kingdom of Lisa and some tribes living in the cold north, blue eyes are not a special color.
Most of them have light pigmentation, so they have pale skin and mostly blonde or silver hair.

However, the Ardennes here have a slightly different appearance.
They have bright, healthy-looking skin, and their hair and eyes are generally dark.
As for the Quats she was with, most of them have brown or black hair and eye colors.

In particular, shining blue eyes like Rashid’s were not a color that could be commonly seen in the Kingdom of Lisa.

“That means he’s a dirty bastard of Basque.”

At that moment, a stone beak caught on her back leg, and Rosetta’s body staggered.
Without missing the opportunity, he rushed at Rosetta.

“Go away!”

Rosetta pushed him madly on top and resisted, but the man was not pushed at all.
Rosetta raised her hands and scratched his face, as she had done to Rashid before.

“You!”

Instead of being gentle like Rashid did, the man slapped Rosetta on the cheek.
Her slapped cheek stung.
She could taste blood in her mouth.

However, Rosetta couldn’t say anything.
Because it was more of a shock that she was hit by someone than the pain she felt.

“Listen carefully if you don’t know anything.”

Rosetta blankly looked up at the man.

The man grabbed Rosetta and said quickly, “A long time ago, your father kidnapped and took Rigaina from the previous generation.
After that, that woman who came back alive after getting her husband killed, gave birth to a blue-eyed beast, shamelessly.”

He smiled mockingly as he looked at Rosetta’s face filled with shock.

“Do you have any clue now? What happened in the past?”

“No way, Rashid’s father…”

He burst into laughter.
“Are you asking if his father is a Basque chieftain? If that was the case, he wouldn’t have taken you as his wife.
No matter how crazy he is, he wouldn’t do that with his little sister.”

“Then…”

“The Basque chieftain, humiliated by being stabbed in the face while trying to hug that woman, threw her in a rage where the slaves were.
His father must be one of the slaves there.”

The man continued talking while looking into her trembling green eyes.

“Long ago when Rigaina was kidnapped, everyone stopped Riga.
Since she had already been plundered, she had become someone else’s woman, so he had to forget about his stolen bride.
We just had to win the war and get revenge.
But he didn’t.
He went there alone, abandoning all his duties as chieftain to save just one woman.
Do you know what the result was? Rigaina was rescued, but he was killed there.
And our tribe, which lost its chieftain overnight, was brutally trampled by the Basque tribe.
We were almost extinct.”

His eyes burned with fierce anger.
“But the guy who shouldn’t have been born eventually became a Riga.
That shameless bitch gave her son the name Rashid to make him Riga before she died.”

Rosetta doesn’t know what the name Rashid means.
But from his words, she realized that the name has a certain meaning.

“How dare she give the name of the only son and only heir of Ark, the god of light, to an illegitimate child.
She deceived us all and insisted on the fake being recognized as the real one!”

Unlike the Kingdom of Lisa, which only believes in one god, Elheim, many gods have existed here since ancient times.
Their longstanding beliefs didn’t change much even during the reign of the Kingdom of Lisa.

Instead of abandoning their gods or rejecting the god of the Kingdom of Lisa, the Ardennes chose to accept another new god.
While acknowledging Elheim’s position as the supreme god, they still believe in the existing gods.

Ark, the god of light, is a god who occupied an important position among the gods of Ardennes.
In the world, light is absolute and contrasts sharply with the darkness on its opposite side.
That is why, in numerous myths, the god of light always possesses extraordinary divinity.
The god of light is the noblest, the best, and the one who sacrifices himself through an endless struggle with his adversary, darkness.

“It’s obvious that he’s trying to protect you rather than seek revenge.
He’s no different from his father.
He’s so weak.
Such a man is incapable of taking revenge on the Basque tribe!”

A mischievous smile crept across the man’s lips.
“So if you hate this state of affairs, blame your father.
All you are going through now is paying back all the sins your father committed in the past.”