I Thought It Was a Common Transmigration - Chapter 118

“Carriage to Apentus, leaving in 5 minutes! Hurry, it’s filling up!”

I’d missed the one to Driburn, so I had to catch the one to Apentus. I knew it in my head.

But somehow my feet wouldn’t move.

‘What should I do? What should I do?’

As I stood up and sat back down again, tapping my foot nervously, someone managed to take the last seat on the carriage to Apentus, and once it was full, the carriage pulled away without further delay.

I sighed, staring at the empty parking lot where the carriage to Apentus had left.

‘Tomorrow…… I’ll make sure to catch the carriage to Apentus tomorrow.’

With that meager resolve, I booked a room at an inn close to the carriage station.

But the next day, I still couldn’t get on the carriage.

Sitting on the same bench as yesterday, I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor, missed both the carriage to Driburn and the one to Apentus, and stood up and walked back out of the station.

I even had a fever that evening, so I had to spend another three days languishing.

‘I’m going to get caught.’

Impatient, I headed back to the carriage station as soon as my fever broke, but this time it was freezing cold.

As I waited for my carriage under the ramshackle roof of the station, sheltering from the snow, I could hear the conversations of the people around me.

“Did you see the wanted flyer issued by House Ludwig?”

“Oh, I saw the flyer on my way here. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she?”

“The bounty is quite large.”

“I wonder if the knights of the Ludwig family will be here sooner or later. They might be looking for her among the people going down to the countryside.”

“No way, a noblewoman who’s about to die wouldn’t take a carriage in such a place. She’d probably borrow a relative’s carriage and ride away.”

The noblewoman who’s about to die is right here.

‘This is really the last time.’

I could no longer put off the choices and decisions I’d been procrastinating on.

The carriage to Driburn departed in ten minutes, and the carriage to Apentus in twenty.

‘Don’t be stubborn, don’t have any regrets…… Let’s go to Driburn.’

With that in mind, I bought three freshly baked potatoes from a stall at the carriage station.

These would keep me warm, and since I hadn’t eaten breakfast, they would make a good meal.

I filled my canteen with water, so that should be enough for me to make it to my first stop, Ramolo.

With these calculations in mind, I turned around to head for the carriage to Dribbun, and my steps halted without me realizing it.

The sight of the other passengers sitting huddled together, not speaking to each other, the coachmen smoking impassively, and the horses whinnying, their white breath drifting away with each whinny…… suddenly made my heart ache.

‘I’m alone……’

As if receiving a revelation from God, I suddenly realized this.

Throughout my life as Choi Soo-na, where every moment of my life was lonely, I had never thought about this. But it was only after I met Killian, who taught me joy, that I truly understood loneliness.

‘Is there a reason to keep living like this……?’

The sigh that leaked out like a sob turned into a white breath that blurred my vision. No, maybe those were tears.

This life of just trying not to die was so hard now.

Even after I ran away, I would always be conscious of the fact that I hadn’t met all the three conditions of exception, and I would never forget Killian.

‘Maybe I’ll find someone else and start a new life, maybe we’ll be a decent enough couple, but is that…… the life I want?’

I thought of the child who said she envied me when I cried about wanting to die when I had the chance to live.

The child who lay next to me in the leukemia ward, who eventually closed her eyes while I received a bone marrow transplant.

But now, when I think of her, I don’t feel so much a sense of obligation to live.

Like an old lamp burning down to its last drop of oil, I am so exhausted.

‘Maybe my reason for being in this world is to be beheaded by Killian so that the story is complete.’

If my presence had any positive effect, it was that Killian seemed to have freed himself from his blind love for Lizé.

‘Maybe when I’m gone, he’ll be more free to love someone else.’

I sat back down on the bench, holding the warm potatoes wrapped in the paper bag in my arms.

I watched the carriages, one for Driburn and one for Apentus, pull away.

I no longer felt anxious or sad when I saw the empty parking lot they left behind.

The potatoes in my arms were almost done when a group of knights wearing the insignia of House Ludwig burst into the station.

“There will be a brief stop and frisk, but we only need to check your faces, so don’t panic or be afraid and follow the knights’ instructions!”

As people scrambled around at the sudden inspection, I stuffed the paper bag with the cold potatoes into my bag and straightened my clothes.

My face was still bruised from how hard Sophia had hit me, and I was a little worried that Killian would look at me in disgust.

‘No use worrying about it when you’re going to die……’

It is said that the late winds are scary, and the first love you fall for only after you’re dead is about to take out your liver and gallbladder. No, have mine already been taken?

I smiled weakly and slowly removed the shawl and scarf that had been wrapped tightly around my head and face.

Then I waited for the knight to approach me.

“Uh…… huh……?”

The knight glanced at my face politely, turned to go, then jerked his head again.

“Uh…… excuse me……”

“You’re late.”

“Pardon me?”

The knight who had been sent to catch me looked even more puzzled somehow.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

A man who looked like a knight commander in shining armor asked the knight in front of me.

“Oh, no, it’s…… I think we found her……”

“What?”

I slowly turned my head to look at the knight commander, who also let out a “Huh!” in surprise.

“I’ve been waiting, let’s go.”

I stood up from my seat, trying to smile.

But my legs were stiff and wobbly from sitting in the cold for so long.

Fortunately, the knight in front of me caught me, but he grabbed my whipped forearm so hard that I couldn’t help but scream in pain.

“Ouch, that hurt!”

The knight released his grip in surprise, and I held on to the post next to me as I caught my breath.

I managed to stand on my own, but my legs kept shaking and I couldn’t walk properly.

“I am sorry if I’m troublesome as a wanted person, but can you help me up? My legs aren’t moving very well……”

According to the rules, I was supposed to walk to the Ludwig mansion on foot, tied with a rope.

The knight commander seemed to think about it for a moment, then called for another knight.

“You two support her on both sides.”

“Is she…… returning like this?”

“We’ll let her walk alone from near the mansion.”

I thanked the knight commander for his decision.

‘Now, I’m going to see Killian!’

I smiled, even though I was on my way to die.

***

It was a stroke of good fortune that Killian encountered a man prowling near Wellesley’s villa.

“He was prowling around this deserted place, like he knew it well, like he was looking for something!”

“If he knows this place, he’s most likely one of the mercenaries who ran away!”

The knights who had captured the man shouted, and the man lay flat on the ground, trembling.

Killian knelt in front of the man, grabbing his hand and getting him to his feet.

He asked, “Do you, by any chance, know the brown-haired woman who was held here? She’s about this tall and has brown eyes…… and if you can tell me anything about her whereabouts, I will not hold you guilty.”

At that, the man fidgeted, unable to meet his gaze, as if he were frightened, and barely broke the silence.

“A- are you going to catch her, sir?”

“I’m desperately looking for her. I must find her!”

“T- that woman…… she said she is the sister of the captain…… but she had nothing to do with them, she was a good person!”

Killian felt like a ray of light was shining on him at the words of a man who not only knew Edith, but also cared about her.

“Yes, you’re right, she’s not guilty of anything! Have you seen her? Please tell me something, I’m her husband!”

The man seemed greatly relieved and continued, “A- actually…… I’m a mercenary who was ordered to lock her up in a basement. But when I heard of her plight, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her, but I couldn’t do much to help her…… I just loosened the rope that bound her.”

Only then did Killian understand how Edith was able to untie herself and get out of there.

“Then she thanked me, and gave me and my companion the ruby necklace she had, and told us to run, that the Duke’s knights would be here soon. If we didn’t run away then, we would have been dead.”

“So you were one of the mercenaries to run away without being paid.”

“Yes. After that, I found out who the captain who hired us was and who the people we kidnapped were, but no matter how much I listened, I couldn’t hear anything about her, so I came here in a hurry.”

Killian gripped the man’s hand tighter and said thank you several times. He hadn’t been able to help Edith in the slightest, but Shane’s mercenary had. What an invaluable help he had been to Edith.

He had even given her a very important lead.