I Became the Keeper of a Suspicious Forest - Chapter 6

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 6

“Huff, huff…”

“…”

“Huff… Haaah…”

Breathing heavily, Ponia climbed the stairs. However, she couldn’t pick up much speed.

It was natural. Ponia wasn’t alone after all.

“Huff… Just a little, just a little… more strength… Huk…”

“Ugh…”

She wrapped his limp arm firmly around her shoulder and gripped Sionel’s waist with her other hand.

“Stay conscious, you have to… huu… stay conscious!”

Though it seemed like I was the one who needed to stay more conscious.

It wasn’t easy to handle a fully grown adult man by herself, especially one made even heavier by being soaked in rain. She didn’t know how many times they had fallen together while climbing the stairs.

Damn cabin! Making only the stairs so high!

Just when she was starting to think she might have to climb stairs forever, she reached the end of the staircase.

“Sionel! Huk, you absolutely can’t… haaah… sleep!”

She called his name intermittently to keep him from losing consciousness, but now only faint breathing sounds remained.

She had reached the door, but had no free hands to open it.

Ponia kicked the door with her foot, and as if responding, the door fell inward into the cabin.

“What kind of durability is this!”

It would be faster to build a new cabin rather than do repair work!

Now she too was moving on willpower alone.

“Ugh!”

She barely managed to drag him to the bed when her vision flipped upside down.

Sionel, who had lost his balance, fell forward, and she was pulled along with him.

They both ended up buried in the bed together.

‘Exhausting… This day is too exhausting.’

“Kek…!”

“Sionel!”

There was no time to relax. At the pained sound, Ponia bolted upright and examined him.

Bright red blood was seeping out where he lay.

Ponia turned Sionel’s shoulder and laid him properly on the bed.

“Ah… It hur…”

“I’m sorry! But I don’t think we can leave it like this! Just try to endure it once more!”

It was obvious he couldn’t hear her words properly through the pain, but seeing him groaning in such agony, Ponia tried to soothe and comfort him.

His condition was more serious than what she had seen in front of the cave.

His ankle was hot as if burned, and so swollen that his shoes wouldn’t come off. His clothes, with dried blood stuck to them, wouldn’t separate from his wounds. Blood continued to flow through the tears in his clothing.

Most importantly, his body temperature had dropped too much. His complexion was beyond pale, and his fingertips were starting to turn blue.

‘If we delay any longer, it’ll be dangerous.’

Ponia pulled out all the first aid supplies from the bag under the bed.

Even with her hands trembling as she held the scissors, Ponia cut away his clothes.

His shoulder pierced by something sharp, his abdomen where the bleeding wouldn’t stop. There wasn’t a single uninjured spot.

Ponia steadily continued with the next steps.

She pressed firmly on the bleeding areas with white cloth, and once the blood stopped, she dampened a towel with water to clean around the wounds. Finally, she ground up medicinal herbs with strong hemostatic effects and applied them.

Her experience helping at the clinic to earn money proved useful.

Only after lighting a fire in the fireplace did Ponia collapse beside the head of the bed.

“It’s all done…”

Though she had touched his body many times while wrapping the bandages, he didn’t move at all, as if he had already lost consciousness.

Frightened by this, she had to check his faint breathing and pulse several times.

“How did it come to this.”

Who would have thought that Sionel, who was said to be missing, would be in Mirban Forest at this time.

‘Is this also part of the original story’s development?’

But no matter how much she thought about it, if she hadn’t discovered Sionel and had passed by, his life would have been in danger.

Or maybe, according to the original setting, he was supposed to be rescued by the original forest keeper instead of her?

There was no other way to find out.

“Ugh…”

At the groaning sound, Ponia pressed close to him.

“What’s wrong! Where does it hurt?”

“It’s… embarrassing…”

Ah, it was because of me. Sorry.

“Don’t… do it.”

“I’m not doing anything now though?”

However, his fragile voice that seemed ready to break at any moment kept holding onto her.

“Why, why are you…”

And it didn’t take long to realize that those words weren’t directed at Ponia.

“Why… me…”

He was having a very painful nightmare.

From just the few words Sionel uttered, she could quickly deduce the content of his dream.

He found out. Who attempted the assassination.

Sionel had been continuously tracking the mastermind behind the assassination all this time. However, even with the Ducal House’s excellent intelligence network, they couldn’t easily discover the perpetrator’s identity.

No matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t have been able to find out.

Because the person who tried to kill Sionel was.

“Uncle…”

The uncle who raised him.

Feeling helpless, her hands reflexively tightened.

At times like this, she knew better than anyone that there was nothing she could do, and nothing she should do.

She knew that the more she tried to help, the more she would only put him in greater danger…

But she could at least hold his hand.

“Just wake up. Just wake up…”

Ponia grasped his pale hand and quietly closed her eyes.

* * *

Someone walks toward him as he lies collapsed.

“Why, why… are you…?”

When his parents died in a carriage accident in his childhood, leaving him alone with his young sister, when the head chef who had served the family for 20 years confessed to poisoning the food, when his most cherished attendant tried to kill him.

He never lost faith in people.

It was thanks to his uncle who raised him like a son.

“Uncle…”

“See, you shouldn’t have trusted anyone.”

But at this moment, his uncle’s eyes that always looked at him warmly were only cold.

“Want to know something interesting?”

“…”

“Your parents who supposedly died in a carriage accident. We actually killed them. On your uncle’s orders.”

Then when he escaped the manor and heard the talkative assassin’s rambling words.

He realized that everything he had was fake.

The loving eyes, the warm environment surrounding him, the people who smiled at him, and even himself.

Helplessness and emptiness crushed his entire body.

His body slowly began to sink. In the endless darkness, he kept sinking deeper.

-Just wake up… just wake up.

It was then that he heard a voice.

-Actually, I’d prefer if you woke up quickly…

A lively voice that didn’t match the place where he was.

-I’m not rushing you! You can rest enough before getting up!

While hastily explaining, there was a subtle expectation hidden within.

-Just please wake up…

A clear voice calling out to me.

-That’s all I need.

With those words, he was pulled up to the surface in one swift motion.

“….”

The stars embroidering the night sky came into view.

It had been only two days since Sionel Devonham lost consciousness.

* * *

And so, back to the present.

“Do you want to die?”

“Gueek….”

Being strangled by her first love out of nowhere, Ponia experienced time flowing as if in slow motion.

At some point, she had thought about what her end might be like.

For instance, the family going bankrupt due to her father being scammed again and all dying together on the streets, or meeting death crushed under the dresses her mother bought, or dying of heartbreak when grown-up Albio became a second version of her father.

Surprisingly, all of these were quite feasible scenarios.

‘But I never thought I’d die at the hands of the male lead?!’

“Keu….”

I’m really dying! I’m really dying!

Ponia lowered her hands that had been clawing at his wrists and groped around the floor. An object came into her grasp.

Ponia put all her strength into her arm and struck his head. With a tremendous sound, the strength left his hands that had been strangling her.

“You….”

Even as his body went limp, Sionel’s eyes followed her to the very end.

“Wait, no….”

His body, having lost control, collapsed right on top of her.

“Kek! Kek!”

‘I barely survived.’

As her breathing returned, Ponia checked the object she had used to knock out Sionel. It was a stone with a smooth surface.

She had brought it intending to warm it like a hand warmer for his still-cold body.

Though it ended up being used for a different purpose.

Despite overcoming the crisis, her expression was still tearful.

“I had expectations, you know.”

That maybe Sionel might fall for me since I saved his life.

But can someone fall for the person who knocked them out? I hit him in the back of the head with a stone…?

The shock of knocking out her first love with her own hands was brief, as Ponia quickly recovered her mental state.

Who is Sionel, after all.

He’s just confused because he just woke up, but once he comes to his senses and calms down, they’ll be able to have a proper conversation!

“Yes, that’s definitely what will happen.”

* * *

“Fuck, stop talking bullshit.”

My male lead has gone insane.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————