I Became the Keeper of a Suspicious Forest - Chapter 66

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 66

“Ponia?”

When he came to the fire with water, Ponia was nowhere to be seen.

She wouldn’t be trapped in the flames. The area where the fire started had a lot of moisture in the soil, so the fire hadn’t spread much.

Since the smoke obscured his vision, he put out the fire first. But there wasn’t even a trace of her.

“Ponia!”

That’s when Chad’s words came to mind.

‘There was one more, but he escaped while we were subduing them.’

A dizzying sensation rose from his toes.

Perhaps this fire itself was a scheme by Gordon’s accomplice to lure them away. And the target would have been Ponia, left alone.

No other thoughts came to mind.

If he had regained his composure just a little more, he would have gone to Chad at the cabin to inform him of the situation, or thought about what Gordon’s accomplice was targeting before moving, but Sionel began running blindly.

He should have stayed with her. Whether the monster was dangerous or not, he should have kept it in sight, but he had misjudged.

At the same time, the final moments of those precious to him flashed before his eyes.

Those he could have saved, but failed to save due to his inadequacy.

If only he had noticed a little sooner, if only he had been a little more cold-hearted, if only he had been a little more suspicious.

“…Harbel!”

How long had he been wandering around without caring about the monster’s activity range when he heard voices.

“Gordon Rambo. You’ll have to spit back all the money. And never appear before our family again.”

“Family, my ass. That idiot will pity me more than you. Isn’t that right?”

Approaching the direction of the sound, he found Ponia. And Gordon Rambo standing in front of her as well.

Seeing him clearly approaching to harm her, the thread of reason that Sionel had barely maintained snapped.

* * *

Momentarily surprised by Sionel’s sudden appearance, Ponia was more concerned about something else.

‘Did he hear?’

Until just now, Gordon had mentioned not only her family but even her status.

“Sionel.”

“Yeah.”

“By any chance, what you talked about with the Baron earlier…”

Did you hear it?

The rest of her words didn’t come out. Sionel carefully embraced her. Even with eyes that seemed ready to shatter at any moment, he managed to control his strength.

“I was scared.”

“…”

“That you would disappear like this and never appear again.”

She could feel trembling in his hand that wrapped around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

Why was he apologizing?

He was the one who had taken on all the danger from the monster’s threat. He was acting as if everything that happened to her was because of him.

“Nothing dangerous happened at all.”

“It could have happened. If I hadn’t happened to find you.”

“I don’t think so. I was holding a rock. You remember how I knocked you unconscious, right?”

If nothing else, knocking someone unconscious was easy.

“…”

She had said it to lighten the mood, but there was no reaction from him.

“Ugh…”

Behind Sionel, Gordon got up holding his head. She thought he would be unconscious for a while, but he seemed surprisingly tough.

Seeing the blood, he even glared at Ponia. Sionel was the one who drew blood, but picking on the relatively weaker-looking Ponia was pathetic.

“Wait a moment.”

Stopping Sionel from stepping forward again, Ponia approached Gordon.

“Do you think having one promissory note will change anything! If something happens to you, the note will be worthless anyway!”

“Wow, so if you couldn’t get the promissory note back, you were actually planning to do something to me?”

“…”

“I’ve thought this for a while, but you’re really trash.”

“…What?”

“You’ve been running around with your tail between your legs all this time, afraid of running into the Baron, haven’t you?”

“Tail between my legs! I had busy work…”

“So there’s something I’ve really wanted to do whenever I saw you, Baron.”

Even in the deeply fallen darkness of night, his green eyes sparkled like glass marbles. His gaze was focused on his face.

To be precise, on his beard that grew more abundant with each passing year.

“Wait, wait a minute… Ack!”

Ponia, who had grabbed his long beard in an instant, pulled it right off.

“You have so much unnecessary facial hair that even your nonsense sounds credible. Don’t go around with something like that.”

Every time he deceived her father with sweet talk, it annoyed her how he would always stroke his beard and act like an expert.

With his now patchy beard, Gordon’s face looked ridiculous. He wouldn’t be able to carry himself with dignity using that beard for a while.

Gordon touched his beard as if he had lost the world over a single whisker, unable to recover from the shock.

“You, you…!”

“Everyone’s gathered here?”

Chad appeared, throwing cold water on the heated atmosphere. And the burly men, covered in wounds from when they had been subdued, followed behind him.

His hope that the mercenaries had initially lost due to the bespectacled man’s cowardly tactics, and that they could easily subdue him in a direct confrontation, was crushed once again.

For Gordon, who had never once directly witnessed Chad’s skills, this was utterly frustrating.

“They said you were skilled mercenaries, but these fraudsters…”

And Ponia learned that fraudsters cannot recognize their own kind.

* * *

One strange man hugging a deer’s head and muttering to himself. Burly men with many wounds despite their size, watching Chad’s reactions, and finally, one fraudster with a ridiculous beard.

Unlike when they had entered the forest with such dignity, they all seemed to have a screw loose somewhere.

Even so, wasn’t this person the one with the most screws loose?

“Thank you for sparing our lives, big brother!”

“Right. Just do moderately bad things from now on.”

Chad Moreau, who had already become friends with the mercenaries, was the strangest of all.

He had even promised to oversee their training once they left the forest.

The faces of the burly men bowing toward Chad even showed gratitude.

She had wondered if she should make them keep quiet about the forest, but seeing the mercenaries’ loyalty to Chad and the man who had gone mad holding a deer’s head, there seemed to be no need to worry about anything else.

Watching the group moving away, Ponia waved her hand vigorously.

“Baron! Three months!”

“…”

“If you don’t return the money within three months, I’ll take this promissory note to court! You’ll never be able to hold your head up as a baron again!”

Seeing Gordon flinch and hurry his steps, it seemed he had heard her well, fortunately.

And the next night.

Ponia remembered an important issue she had briefly forgotten.

Had Sionel figured out her identity?

Thinking of his usual behavior, nothing had really changed. However, since it was Sionel, she couldn’t easily feel at ease.

Ponia looked at Sionel, who was laying out the blanket.

“Sionel.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you hear what Gordon Rambo said in the forest the other day?”

Sionel stopped his actions and looked at her.

“I was worried you might be misunderstanding something from Gordon’s nonsense.”

“What are you talking about?”

‘I guess it was just my needless worry.’

Sionel tilted his head and waited for an answer, as if trying to understand what she meant.

“Never mind. If you didn’t hear it, that’s fine.”

“You mean that you’re not Ponia the commoner forest keeper, but Lady Ponia Harbel, the Count’s daughter?”

…What did I just hear?

“Or that we met at a party three years ago, and you confessed to me?”

“…”

“That I was your first love? Or if not that.”

Sionel, who had paused to choose his words, smoothly lifted the corners of his mouth.

“That you knew who I was from the beginning but hid that fact from me?”

Sionel asked with utmost tenderness.

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