The Little Baby Snake of the Vermilion Bird Family - Chapter 6

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Her tiny body was slowly freezing over. Her small hands, raw and chapped from the cold, had long since lost all sensation.
The carriage that had carried Baeksa here had departed Namto long ago.
Now, she was truly left all by herself in this freezing, desolate place.
Her breath grew faint, and her eyelids fluttered half-shut. Baeksa struggled with all her might to keep from losing consciousness at this latest approach of death.
Because she hadn’t seen the bead again yet.
Yet no matter how long she waited, the bead did not appear.
The cold, swirling snow and the bitter winds of Namto froze the girl’s body solid.
The child gently squeezed and released her numb, frozen hand.
‘Why…?’
Why wasn’t it showing up?
Could she have misseen it back then?
Coldly frozen, sparse tears pricked her fragile eyelids.
Her eyes stung, but she couldn’t even close them at will, perhaps because her face was completely frozen.
Even as her consciousness faded, however, the bead did not appear.
As if she had expected this all along, Baeksa smiled lonely, a look of sorrow pooling on her face.
‘I must have seen things back then…’
Thinking about it that way made everything click. There was no way a bead like a Cintamani would ever appear before someone like her, who wasn’t even a dragon.
Even so, because of that lingering sliver of hope. Because of the expectation that it might have truly appeared.
That was why she had foolishly refused to run away, only to end up abandoned in Namto once more.
It was a fitting end for a snake, a creature marked as an omen of misfortune.
‘It’s my fault.’
If only I had been born a dragon, I wouldn’t have been abandoned, and I wouldn’t have come all this way harboring such a foolish hope.
The child did not know much, making it difficult for her to even place the blame on someone else.
Instead, blaming and wounding herself was as effortless as breathing, so Baeksa chose to blame herself.
She thought it might make her feel a little less miserable that way.
The tiny baby snake curled her body into a tight ball and exhaled ragged breaths.
Baeksa stared blankly at the snowscape.
‘Once I die, will it finally stop being so sad and painful?’
I hope I don’t come back to life this time.
‘I’m scared…’
Just as Baeksa squeezed her eyes shut, trembling violently.
“…A child?”
From far away, an unfamiliar voice drifted over.
“A child? My Lord! There is a child collapsed here all alone!”
And it was a very, very unfamiliar voice.
***
The South of the Haeseo Kingdom.
An infested land where no one could live because a wrathful dragon refused to grant them rain.
Yet even in that place abandoned by the Emperor, there were still Beast-kin who made it their home.
The patriarch of the Vermilion Bird Family, Vermilion Bird Ju Jeokseo.
Had it not been for Ju Jeokseo using his Supernatural Ability to slow the contamination of Namto and look after the region, every single Beast-kin in Namto would have perished.
Consequently, they were sensitive to the approach of outsiders, and even more so to anyone from the Imperial Palace.
Thus, when a rumor began circulating that an Imperial Palace carriage had set off for Namto laden with cargo, the Beast-kin of Namto could not help but tremble with anxiety.
‘An Imperial Palace carriage is heading this way?’
‘Does the Emperor intend to completely wipe out Namto this time?’
No one knew what kind of cargo the Imperial Palace carriage was bringing.
However, there was no way it could be anything beneficial to Namto.
The Emperor had abandoned this land long ago. He did not care whether those living here survived or died.
Therefore, they had to discover what the Imperial Palace carriage was transporting.
Because of this, Ju Jeokseo decided to head to the border of Namto himself.
After all, Ju Jeokseo was virtually the only one who could remain free from Namto’s contamination, even if only for a short while.
The man immediately spurred his horse toward the border of the contaminated territory.
His dark red hair, tied back in a single tail, fluttered like the smoldering embers left behind by a raging fire.
As he sat astride his black steed upon the snowfield, he stood out starkly, looking as though a sudden flame had blossomed amidst the snow.
Yet he was the only conspicuous thing in sight.
There was no Imperial Palace carriage, nor anything else that seemed dangerous.
Just as he was about to turn his horse back around.
“Over here, over here! It’s right here! There really is a child!”
Jo Yeong called out to Ju Jeokseo, hopping up and down. The man knit his brows at the frivolous display.
“Make some sense. Why on earth would there be a child here?”
“I’m serious! Hurry up and come look!”
Relentingly, Ju Jeokseo walked over to the fuss.
But right there, in that exact spot, stood reality.
“…What in the world.”
There was a tiny girl.
An infant child lying collapsed on the pure white snowfield, looking utterly abandoned.
A young girl clothed in garments embroidered with the crest of the Imperial Palace, lying there without a single guard, nor even a leather blanket to cover her body.
Ju Jeokseo approached without hesitation and reached out to touch her frozen cheek.
Fortunately, she was still breathing, but.
‘Her breathing is shallow.’
It was so faint and wispy that it seemed poised to snap at any moment. If he didn’t act immediately, she would die right here.
Just how long had she been left abandoned in this freezing place?
If he hadn’t come, the child would have undoubtedly drawn her last breath before the sun rose tomorrow morning.
He reached out to the child without a moment’s pause.
‘Is it a trap?’
Or had they abandoned her to die?
Knowing full well that the Beast-kin of Namto harbored an immense resentment toward the central Beast-kin and the Imperial Palace, they had left her behind dressed in Imperial attire.
Judging by the circumstances, the latter was highly probable. Right as Ju Jeokseo carefully scooped up the frozen child into his arms.
Within the man’s embrace, the tiny girl painfully lifted her frozen eyelids and opened her eyes.
In that instant, Ju Jeokseo’s eyes met those of the small baby snake.
***
An unfamiliar voice, an unfamiliar embrace.
Amidst everything so foreign, Baeksa forced her eyes open.
Through her blurry, fading vision, she caught sight of a man with dark red hair.
Eyes as red as a blazing fire, and hair just as crimson.
The moment she took it all in, Baeksa realized exactly who the man holding her was.
‘Ah, the Vermilion Bird Family…’
The main culprit who had incurred the Emperor’s wrath, and the King of Namto who ruled over this abandoned land.
Even Baeksa had heard vague whispers about the people living here.
Stories that the Vermilion Bird Family, who had once served as a pillar supporting the Haeseo Kingdom, still remained in this place.
If so, was this man a member of the Vermilion Bird Family?
She was curious, but she couldn’t ask.
Opening her eyes seemed to have exhausted the last remnants of her energy; even blinking proved difficult.
Beyond her hazy vision, the girl stared blankly at the man’s hair, which blazed like a fire.
Much like the color of his hair, the man’s hands were as warm as a flame. The man cupped the child’s cheek with his large hand, slowly thawing her frozen body.
‘It’s warm…’
It was a person’s warmth, something she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
It was also a warm flame encountered at the final moment of her life.
Because of that, the girl found herself wanting to live all the more.
‘I want to live…’
She wanted to live.
Like the dream of her younger days, when her sole wish had been to live quietly as a mouse, and then one day leave the palace to live happily.
She didn’t care if she had to beg because she had no money for food, and she didn’t care if she had to sleep under a bridge because she had no place to rest…
The dream she thought she had abandoned long ago flared up once more in Baeksa’s heart like a tiny ember.
Therefore, the child decided to do something she would absolutely never do under normal circumstances.
“…Save.”
Staring intently into the man’s eyes, Baeksa spoke using every last ounce of her strength.
“Please save… me…”
The man’s hand was exceptionally warm.
It felt as though that hand could easily melt away her frozen cheeks.
And if it were someone with such a warm embrace.
‘Maybe he would let me live for just one more week…’
A foolish expectation that he might save her.
Such a sentiment reared its head in the child’s mind once more.
Tears she thought had dried up welled up again at the warmth she met at the edge of life.
A single tear rolled down the child’s round cheek.
Without even thinking to wipe away the tear or stop her crying, Baeksa desperately clutched the sleeve of this flame-like man.
“Please…”
Her voice was a small, crawling whisper.
Yet with absolute clarity, Baeksa looked up at the man and pleaded earnestly.
“I want to live…”
With those final words, the child’s tiny eyelids closed shut.
Her hand dropped limply, and her small body went slack in the man’s firm embrace.
And immediately in the next moment.
Whoosh!
Ju Jeokseo draped a leather blanket that someone had brought over Baeksa’s tiny body.
The blanket was large and warm enough to wrap around her small frame several times over.

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