One Day, I Picked Up a Mom - Chapter 14

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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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One Day I Picked Up a Mother – Episode 14

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Iban, who had been sleeping motionlessly like the dead, suddenly stirred and opened his eyes.

“…Mother?”

Suddenly awakened, Iban looked around searching for his mother.

Soon after, he discovered the woman sleeping slumped over beside his bed.

Iban quietly gazed at the woman’s face before looking around again.

Through the window, he could see a blazing red sun.

‘Did we escape from that estate?’

How much time had passed, and where exactly was this place?

Iban’s brow furrowed sharply when he realized the scenery outside the window was exactly the same as before he had fainted.

‘What, why are we still…’

When he first grabbed the woman and tearfully begged her to please leave this village, Iban thought the aftermath wouldn’t matter at all.

So he thought that if they left this village, and if they threw away the brooch, everything would be perfect.

If the brooch disappeared, his father wouldn’t be able to find out who he was, and they wouldn’t be able to go meet that so-called father.

Then after that, he planned to throw a tantrum about just moving to another village.

If he cried and begged, the tender-hearted woman would eventually give in again.

So Iban waited for the right moment, and when they had traveled far from the village, when the carriage heading to the capital stopped to rest for a while.

He pretended to accidentally drop the brooch into the river of that city.

‘Since there’s no brooch, we won’t be able to find dad now, sorry.’

Iban tearfully told the flustered woman.

‘…Don’t worry too much, Iban. Mother will somehow find your father. Okay? We’ll be able to find your father even without the brooch.’

‘*Sob sob* No. Since the brooch is gone, dad won’t recognize us either.’

‘But…’

The woman, who at first seemed merely flustered, soon looked like she was about to cry as she stared at the river where the brooch had fallen.

‘But… we came all this way to meet your father.’

As if deeply regretting the lost brooch, she couldn’t take her hands off the bridge railing for a long time.

As if she believed she could find that bright red brooch.

Watching that sight, seeing the lingering attachment in her eyes, he suddenly remembered his mother giggling while drunk.

‘If I take you there, I’ll be rich now. You’re a very expensive child.’

His drunk mother who held the red brooch to her chest and said she would sell him and become rich…

‘Look. As long as this brooch exists, you’re a very expensive child, my lovely baby.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to go find dad, so why are you showing attachment again?’

Taking that thing wouldn’t lead to anything good anyway. She wasn’t really his mother.

So even if they really found his real father, even if they went to him, they wouldn’t see anything good.

Iban found it absurd that the woman was sad about the brooch disappearing.

He definitely thought she would be happy if the brooch disappeared. Or if not that, he thought she would quickly forget about it.

He was annoyed by the woman’s incomprehensible emotions and actions, but soon that feeling turned to bewilderment.

This crazy woman actually went into the river.

And not just for a day or two, but for a full four weeks. Every night she would enter that river, bend her waist, and search the bottom.

Feeling sorry for him and the woman who had lost something important, there were a few people who held lamps from the shore.

But that small light couldn’t possibly illuminate the bottom of the river where the woman had entered.

Even so, the woman felt around the dark underwater bottom one by one. As if she had gone completely mad.

Even though the flowing current couldn’t have left the brooch alone.

‘The brooch is already gone. It was all swept away by the water.’

Iban held the pitifully foolish woman’s hand and shook it, speaking slowly and clearly.

‘Originally, if something falls in a river, you can’t find it.’

Then the woman nodded as if she understood. And as if she had really forgotten everything, she held his hand and toured the city.

They ate meals and looked at shops, and during that time she didn’t say a single word about the brooch.

Seeing this, Iban thought the woman had understood what he said.

But when night came, she went into that river again.

‘I told you we can’t find it!’

‘But it’s a precious item.’

‘…What?’

‘You never know. I have to try as much as I can.’

Until her skirt hem was completely soaked and her sleeves were completely wet.

So the next day too, Iban held the woman’s hand and slowly explained to her. The woman who nodded as if she understood headed to the river again when night came.

‘Iban, don’t come in.’

‘But Mother is doing it.’

‘Iban is still too short, so it’s dangerous. Really, just go to sleep.’

Even so, the woman wouldn’t let him come into the water.

Only after Iban promised to wait on shore instead of sleeping at the inn as the woman suggested, could he follow the woman every night.

Since she was so impossible to communicate with, Iban decided to just leave the woman alone. She would never find it anyway.

Rather, if she forgot about the village they had left while searching for the brooch like that, it would be a very good thing.

So Iban spent his days touring the city with the woman, and when night came, he waited for the woman who was feeling around the river bottom.

Then he gradually became anxious.

Winter was coming soon. The wind and water had become cold.

‘Stop now. Even if you keep looking, it’s not there.’

Still, the woman didn’t say she would stop now.

She was a woman who always followed whatever he said. As if she had really become greedy for that red brooch.

‘If I take you there, I’ll be rich now. You’re a very expensive child.’

What was so special about that damn brooch anyway?

It was when he closed his mouth again with the attitude of letting her try until she was satisfied.

‘Iban, look at this!’

The woman came rushing out of the river with a bright smile.

‘It’s the brooch.’

What she held in her hand was definitely the brooch he had thrown away.

‘Now we can go meet your father again.’

To think she would really find it.

…It was the first time he had seen the woman smile so brightly as if she was truly happy. Did everyone like this brooch so much?

‘…It’s a brooch from House of Rharhart.’

Iban, who had become thoroughly troubled, let the words of the man standing nearby go in one ear and out the other.

It was partly because that man had a bad reputation for wandering around doing nothing, but also because he knew well how much his mother had run around trying to find the owner of the brooch.

As far as Iban knew, from the moment his memory existed, his mother had tried hard to find the owner of the brooch.

To exaggerate a little, there wasn’t a jewelry shop they hadn’t visited.

But everyone shook their heads saying they could see very small engravings, but didn’t know the owner.

That it belonged to House of Rharhart.

If that young-looking man had worked at a jewelry shop, how long could he have possibly worked there?

Iban had already seen enough of much older grandfathers shaking their heads saying they didn’t know.

But for that young man to identify the owner just by glancing at the brooch didn’t make sense.

Just seeing him leisurely wandering around the river every night, he was definitely spouting nonsense.

‘Ah, thank you! When we go to the capital, we’ll definitely visit the place you mentioned first.’

The woman bowed many times expressing her gratitude.

Iban glared at the man in great anger and cursed him for a long time. It was as bitter a curse as the woman was happy.

Anyway, that was how Iban came to be here.

After finding out who the owner of the brooch was, the woman went around various places learning about Count Roderich.

The woman was frightened after hearing rumors that he was rotten, but still persistently knocked on the door of House of Rharhart.

Until then, Iban had left the woman alone.

He thought that if someone told her they had mistaken the owner of the jewel by accident, she might get scolded a little but it wouldn’t be a big problem.

He thought that if she got scolded a little like that, the woman would be scared and wouldn’t wander around anymore saying she wanted to find his father.

She was a woman unaccustomed to even loud voices, let alone violence.

In fact, when Iban knocked on that door, he thought he would be immediately chased away by the family’s servants.

Who would have thought he’d actually meet that insane duke.

Who would have thought that brooch was really the duke’s.

If he had known that the woman went to the jeweler alone to verify its authenticity, if he had known that brooch belonged to the duke, he never would have come here.

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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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