Chapter 111
At my question, he nods again as slowly as a sloth.
“I do.”
“Don’t call me nuna.”
“…Why?”
“Why did you lie about being twelve? That’s fraud. Do you want to get arrested for fraud? No, do you want to, elder? No, grandpa? Are you an ancestor?”
Zenas’s expression as he looks at me twists strangely. It’s the first expression-like expression I’ve seen since meeting him.
“Outwardly, nuna is nuna.”
“Shut up. No, shut up, grandpa.”
At my words, Zenas puffs out his cheeks with a dissatisfied look. Even though he’s a thousand years old and acting cute, he’s extremely cute because he’s a pretty boy. Damn it.
“I don’t like that.”
“Then what should I call you? No, should I call you anything?”
“…Zenas? Zeni?”
“I don’t think it’s right to call an ancestor who’s lived for a thousand years by their name. Besides, did you just call yourself Zeni?”
“……”
“Then Grandpa Zeni? You told me to call you Zeni.”
“Nuna. I don’t like it.”
Zenas says eerily with a blank face. But how can he kill me on an island where he can’t even use Mana?
“I’m kidding. I’ll call you Zeni.”
I wondered why he was so calm like an old man. It was because he’d lived for a thousand years.
‘A thousand years…….’
To be honest, what Zenas is saying doesn’t feel real. I don’t know if I can believe his words.
Maybe he arrived on this island before us and, after a long time, the child is mistaken?
As I make these and other guesses, despair washes over me again.
“Will we never be able to leave this island?”
As I’m muttering that, Zenas sighs and scolds me.
“…You’re an idiot.”
“Don’t call me an idiot, it makes me feel bad.”
“You can’t leave.”
“What?”
I asked back, thinking I misheard.
“You can’t leave this island.”
But Zenas says it one more time as if driving a wedge.
He has the face of a child and sighs wearily like a grandpa who’s lived his whole life. He might be a grandpa who’s lived his whole life.
“Since you heard me say I’ve been on this island for a thousand years with your nose, nuna is an idiot.”
“I’m a thousand years younger than you. Don’t call me nuna.”
“Then…….”
Zenas looks at me with a displeased face, then makes a troubled face.
“I’ll call you Meg.”
Even Enoch doesn’t call me Meg yet…….
“Just call me Margaret.”
“Meg.”
“Ha, forget it. What am I doing being childish with a thousand-year-old grandpa. The sun has set, should we move quickly? Let’s talk about the details at the cabin first.”
The sky was really dyed a deep red color.
I need to ask Zenas at the cabin what he’s found out about this island for a thousand years, what he’s been doing, and what happened to the others.
Of course, I still wasn’t letting my guard down on him. Hearing that he’s lived for a thousand years makes him even more suspicious. Continuing to joke and showing a light attitude and a lack of tension was also partly to be wary of him.
Fortunately, we arrived at the cabin quickly without going far.
The cabin where I lived with Yuanna and the others was deep in the mountains, but this place was in a location where you could see a wide river at a glance.
On top of that, it was incredibly large. It was three stories high and big enough for at least ten people to live in.
“Wow. Who could have made this?”
I muttered, looking around the cabin carefully. Zenas puts down the coconuts and follows me quickly, then tilts his head.
Then he claps his hands with a look as if he’s remembered something. It’s a little scary to see him make that gesture with a blank face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wound.”
At his words, I put my hand carefully on my stomach with my hand trembling from the continued pain. Blood is still seeping out.
“It’s better to stop the bleeding and change clothes first.”
At my words, Zenas disappears somewhere and then comes back with a first aid kit in his arms. It looked exactly like the first aid kit I had found.
He supports me and slowly sits me down, then takes out disinfectant and a bandage from the first aid kit.
“I’ll stop the bleeding myself. I have to take off all the dress to see the wound.”
At my words, Zenas hands me the first aid kit with a slightly embarrassed face and steps back.
“Then I’ll go find clothes…….”
Then he quickly disappears to the second floor. At times like that, he really seems like a twelve-year-old child.
I first took off the dress and lifted the hem of the Chemise to wipe around the wound, then disinfected it. Then I put on gauze and wrapped a thick bandage around my stomach, simply stopping the bleeding.
Just in time, Zenas came down to the first floor. He had a pile of clothes in his arms.
“They were in the cabin.”
Zenas made excuses in a small voice when he saw my questioning expression.
I roughly nodded. There were modern things in the cabin where I was staying, so it wasn’t particularly strange for there to be things like this here.
I looked at the clothes he had put down on the floor. There were skirts and several pairs of pants. There weren’t many t-shirts. On top of that, the sizes weren’t all right for me.
“Ah, this will fit me.”
I picked up a pair of black cargo pants.
‘The size will be perfect. Are there any t-shirts?’
With picky eyes like a consumer looking at used clothes laid out on a Dongmyo Market stall, I rummaged through the pile of clothes.
And after the cargo pants, I found a plain white t-shirt that looked like it would fit me perfectly.
There were many other decent clothes besides this, but there weren’t many clothes that seemed to fit, and there weren’t many clothes suitable for wearing in this wilderness.
“There are shoes too.”
I looked at the few pairs of shoes that were under the clothes. There were black work boots. The size seemed to be about right.
“If you wear work boots wrong, your feet will hurt.”
They weren’t new and seemed okay because someone had worn them for a long time and they were a little worn, but I still didn’t want to get blisters.
‘I should wear them later if I can get some socks.’
I put the work boots aside for now and got up from my seat with the clothes I had just picked out.
Zenas, who had been standing quietly and watching what I was doing, stared blankly at me.
“Are you done?”
“Yeah. I’ll go change on the second floor.”
At my words, Zenas nods slowly. Then, he added a word.
“Just go to the second floor.”
It was a very meaningful statement.
“Just the second floor?”
“Don’t go to the third floor.”
“Why?”
“My room is there.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Respect for privacy.”
He explained the reason in a neat sentence. But doesn’t he know that if you say it like that, people will want to go up even more?
I nodded for now.
“Okay.”
And slowly stepped up the stairs to the second floor. Still, I felt like the wound hurt less somehow because I had disinfected it and stopped the bleeding.
‘If that’s the case, I should have just had me stay on the first floor like before and told Zenas to go up to the second floor.’
I didn’t think of that. Regretting that, I stopped walking right in front of the second floor.
‘Could there be Monsters coming out on the second floor?’
It doesn’t hurt to be suspicious. I’ve seen a spider evolve into a Monster before.
I checked to make sure the wet crossbody bag I was carrying on my shoulder was secure and slowly entered the second floor.
But unlike what I was worried about, nothing happened on the second floor. However,
‘It’s dirty.’
The floor was full of scattered trash. I quietly covered my nose. It seemed like there was a bad smell.
‘It smells like mold mixed with food waste.’
There were many things that were so corroded that I couldn’t tell what they were, and among them were modern things that I knew well.
I walked down the hallway, looking at the trash-like floor. There were a total of four rooms on the second floor, and I went into the one that looked the most decent.
It was a room with only a wooden bed. As soon as I closed the door, I threw off the wet dress.
“Ha. I feel like I can live now.”
I took off everything except the drawers I was wearing inside the Chemise, then suddenly realized I didn’t have a top and immediately tore the Chemise in half and put it back on.
‘The Chemise is made of thin fabric, so it’ll dry quickly, so it’ll be okay.’
I first put on the cargo pants over the drawers and put on the white t-shirt over the Chemise.
“Wow, I really feel like crying.”
Tears actually welled up in my eyes. To be able to wear such comfortable clothes, it was so touching.
I was going to take the torn dress, but I decided to just throw it away. It was luggage, and there were enough things to choose from among the pile of clothes Zenas brought earlier that could be used as cloth.
I came back out into the second floor hallway. I was going to pick out something useful from the trash, but there were only things that I knew why they were rolling around on the floor.
‘Well, if it was a decent item, Zenas wouldn’t have let it roll around on the floor.’
Zenas might have something like a thousand years of wisdom. On top of that, he seems to be a more amazing Wizard than Kaiden. Of course, Kaiden would probably become such a Wizard if he lived for a thousand years.
I looked at the way to the third floor and hesitated for a moment. But I thought Zenas would be suspicious if I was any later, so I decided to go down quietly for now.
When I went down to the first floor, Zenas was lying in a hammock made in front of the fireplace and staring at me intently.
Then he quietly gives me a thumbs up.
“It suits you.”
“It’s so comfortable.”
I carefully sat next to him and looked at the fireplace. It seems he had lit a fire while I was changing clothes.
I watched the embers burning quietly. Whatever Zenas’s identity is, he was being overly kind to me right now.
I had a mountain of questions I wanted to ask him, but after finding stability, worries about my companions washed over me like a wave.
‘I miss everyone.’