I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 81
Somewhere, a rooster crowed. Lizzy immediately opened her eyes.
Everything was pitch black. Dawn was still far off.
As she carefully sat up so as not to wake Juhwan, something brushed against her leg. Groping around with her hands, she realized it was a child. Dorothy, who had clearly fallen asleep in a different bed, was lying right at her feet.
My goodness, how did a child who sleeps so soundly manage to…
Surely she couldn’t have rolled all the way over to this bed. It was strange. After lighting the lamp, she brought a blanket from the child’s bed and covered her.
When she woke up in the early morning, she would immediately prepare breakfast. She would receive the stew she had requested from the inn the night before, and prepare the vegetables and wine bought from the market.
Around that time, Juhwan would always wake up.
“Lizzy.”
“Are you awake?”
She approached the bed and gave him a light kiss. Juhwan slowly sat up and stretched his arms into the air. His bare upper body flexed, tracing smooth curves.
Juhwan’s body was different from ordinary men. The way his muscles were built seemed different. She had never once thought a man’s rugged muscles were attractive, but Juhwan’s were different. Looking at him, it felt as if her eyes were being drawn in. She couldn’t help but keep staring.
She had been stealing glances, but she seemed to have been caught. Juhwan was looking at her, his eyes narrowed in a smile.
Flustered, she pretended to check the laundry hanging on the wall for no reason. The laundry wasn’t dry yet. That was only natural, since she had hung it up last night.
As if Juhwan knew this, a chuckle came from behind her.
She wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. She had never felt so embarrassed.
“….”
Although she had never eaten at such hours before, Juhwan ate his meals diligently—in the morning, around noon, and in the evening.
Watching his actions quietly, she could tell that he had always lived this way. It was as if he had come from a strange country.
Sometimes she wondered where he had come from, but she didn’t ask. It felt as though the more distant the place he spoke of was from this country, the further the distance between her and her husband would become. He was already someone high up in the distant sky as Santa’s contractor, and she hated the thought of that gap widening even further.
Aside from meals, Juhwan always bought light snacks. Dried fruits like raisins were the most common, but such things were usually expensive.
She sometimes felt anxious, wondering if it was alright to spend so much money on things that weren’t even proper meals. In the village where Lizzy used to live, no one spent money on such things. Even the village chief, who was the wealthiest, never bought dried fruits just to snack on from time to time.
Moreover, Juhwan didn’t even buy those expensive things for himself to eat.
He mostly gave them to her or Dorothy. When a sweet bite entered her mouth and her expression softened without her realizing it, he would look at her and rejoice. What a truly strange man.
Even now, Juhwan was picking up a few black raisins and sliding them into her mouth. The raisins entered along with his thick fingers. She tasted a blend of saltiness and sweetness.
In front of Juhwan, who was watching her with narrowed eyes, her expression melted once again at the sweetness. She disliked feeling like she was being treated exactly like Dorothy, but tasting something sweet always made the corners of her lips curl up. It’s delicious. Just as she thought that, she looked up at Juhwan and saw him smiling again.
She wasn’t a child, yet this man had a tendency to treat her like a little girl. Feeling somewhat slighted, she gave him a slight glare, only for him to pat her head and call her cute. He was truly treating her like a child. Her lips pouted involuntarily.
After such exchanges and finishing breakfast, they would head to the Guild or go to work. Today, they had to go to the Guild. Since the requests Juhwan and she had taken had all been completed, they needed to find new ones.
Juhwan half-raised Dorothy, who was sleeping with her limbs splayed in an odd position. Lizzy leaned in close to dress the child.
The child’s arms dangled loosely. Every time Juhwan moved the child around for Lizzy’s convenience, another layer of clothing was added to her body.
Finally, when she put a thick coat and a furry hat on her, Dorothy half-opened her eyes before closing them again.
As Juhwan smiled and lifted the child, Oz hopped right on top of her. This had been their daily routine ever since they returned to this town.
Just last year, she could never have imagined that such a daily life awaited her in the near future. Who could have imagined that a miserable woman sold to a strange, violent hunter would become this happy? Her heart was so full of happiness that it was almost frightening.
Stepping out of the inn side-by-side with her husband, Lizzy clung to Juhwan’s arm, linking hers with his. But something was a little strange. There were more people on the street outside the inn than usual.
“What’s going on?”
Juhwan muttered. Just then, a woman she had grown close to while sewing secondhand clothes spotted Lizzy as she was heading toward the square.
“Lizzy! Oh, and your husband too. You two are as close as ever.”
The woman approached with a smile.
Lizzy felt a bit embarrassed. When she slipped her arm out of Juhwan’s, Juhwan reached out and draped his arm over her shoulder instead.
The woman burst into laughter again.
“Honestly, I wish my Mr. So-and-so would learn a thing or two from your husband. He’s like a rotten log—I haven’t heard a single sweet word from him my entire life.”
The woman sighed and asked Lizzy.
“Are you two heading to the Square Market as well?”
“Is there a market in the square?”
“Ah, since you’re from out of town, you must not have known. Once every few months, a market is held where all the nearby villages participate. Since people come from very distant villages as well, it’s quite large. Merchants gather because of the crowds, so it gets very lively. Things are cheapest then, so it’s a good idea to check it out.”
With that, the woman left for the market. She said she had been waiting for this day to buy some things she needed.
Lizzy’s gaze naturally drifted toward the square. While the shops in town were fine, she had always harbored a slight longing for a large market. She wanted to go.
Her Older Sister, who had married an Old Man and was just above her in age, was relatively wealthy.
Though she now realized it was a desperately poor lifestyle, back then, the stories she heard whenever she occasionally met her Older Sister made her sister’s life sound incredibly wealthy.
One of the things her Older Sister often spoke of was indeed the large market. She said they sold a portion of their crops there, excluding what was paid in taxes.
On those occasions, her Older Sister boasted endlessly about receiving fabric or pretty ornaments as gifts from her husband. She would constantly reiterate how loved and cherished she was. In fact, the items her Older Sister proudly showed off looked incredibly beautiful to Lizzy’s eyes.
Seeing her looking restless with excitement, Juhwan smiled and asked if she wanted to go look around. Although she thought about how they needed to go to the Guild to find new requests, she couldn’t resist the temptation and nodded.
“Shall we go to the market then?”
“What about the Guild?”
“We can do that later, or even tomorrow. We can work at our own convenience now.”
Come to think of it, he was right. Although they still heard various helpful tips from the Red Sword, their period of guidance was over, and they no longer needed to travel together.
“Spend today enjoying yourself as much as you like, Lizzy.”
“…Yes, thank you.”
As she walked side-by-side with Juhwan, she saw the women she had befriended through her sewing work flocking together. After greeting them, they suggested wandering around together.
She stole a glance at Juhwan, and her husband nodded.
“But be careful. Make sure you don’t get separated.”
At Juhwan’s words, the women laughed boisterously, saying he was worrying too much. Why fret over a grown woman who wasn’t a child?
Lizzy thought so too. Juhwan always tended to worry too much.
Yet, strangely, it made her happy. She had never been the kind of person anyone worried about. Instead, she had been treated as someone whose presence or absence made no difference—a useless mouth to feed. Perhaps that was why, every time Juhwan worried about her, she felt like a precious human being.
Since Dorothy had opened her eyes, Lizzy asked if she should take her, but Juhwan replied that she should play with the others lightheartedly. Dorothy didn’t seem to mind either. She was clinging tightly to her dad’s neck.
“And take Oz with you. Dorothy, can we ask Oz to protect Mom for a bit?”
Juhwan asked Dorothy. Lizzy wondered if he needed to go that far, but Dorothy readily agreed, so she ended up carrying Oz around. Truly, he was an incredibly worrisome man.
After that, she walked around with the women, looking at the goods. There were people selling crops,
people selling homemade bamboo baskets, and those who brought pickled vegetables or leftover fabric they had woven themselves.
Several peddlers who traveled between villages were also there. The goods were diverse, ranging from shiny pots to necklaces and bracelets carved from pretty stones. There were even things she had never seen before, with purposes she couldn’t begin to guess. Just looking around made her heart flutter.
While they were chatting and looking around, someone suddenly spoke up.
“Is he really that fond of his wife?”
They were talking about Juhwan. As Lizzy’s face turned red, another woman chimed in.
“I’m seriously dying of envy.”
“I know, right?”
“He’s a magician, so he must make good money. I heard he’s already Rank 2?”
“The rumors are everywhere.”
“According to the innkeeper, he treats her better than a princess.”
“Meanwhile, my husband treats me like some kind of slave, let alone a princess.”
“Well, they’re all pretty much the same. Sometimes I just want to beat him to death.”
Their envious remarks quickly turned into grumbling. Still, the husbands of the women living in this town were on the decent side. In remote villages with few outsiders, things were often severe. Looking back now, Lizzy could see that the situation for women in her old village had been truly harsh.
They browsed the goods while talking about this and that. The women were each looking at items they were interested in nearby. Lizzy also wandered around, looking at various things.
Then, her gaze suddenly caught on something.
An Old Man, a young woman, and a man of similar age to the woman were unloading goods from a cart.
Sacks of grain were being stacked on the ground one by one. They must have been quite heavy, but the woman was unloading them too. She handled the items skillfully, as if she was used to it.
The woman’s face looked incredibly exhausted. She looked ten or twenty years older than Lizzy.
On the cart, there was also some coarse fabric woven on a home loom. It was undoubtedly woven by the woman. She had been skilled with a loom since childhood. Just as Lizzy had been clumsy, her Older Sister’s skill at weaving fabric had stood out all the more.
Older Sister.
It was her Older Sister, the one just above her in age, who had married the Old Man as his second wife.
Among the daughters, the Youngest Sister had married the best. She had married a man of similar age when she was sixteen.
The man had no wealth of his own, but he had a trade. The Youngest Sister’s husband had been learning from a carpenter since he was young.
He would eventually become independent, and by then, he would make a considerable amount of money.
On the other hand, she had become the second wife of an Old Man. Her husband’s children, her Stepsons, were around her own age. Though he was quite wealthy by village standards, the age gap was simply too vast. Her pride was wounded. She had been praised since childhood for excelling at everything she did, yet she had ended up with a man worse than the one her snotty-nosed Youngest Sister had married. She thought it was unfair.
Still, she hadn’t felt entirely miserable, thanks to the sister right below her. Her younger sister, Lizzy, who had been frail and poor at chores since childhood, remained the same even as she grew up. When Lizzy came of age and reached marriageability, no one reached out a hand to her.
If things had gone wrong, she might have ended up like that too. Women were in surplus. No one wanted to take an older woman as a wife.
After all, she felt she had married well. Every time she met Lizzy, her shattered pride would find its place again and become whole.
Her husband was an overbearing man. If she didn’t obey his orders exactly, he would raise his hand. He beat her. Yet, in front of others, he acted like a man who doted on his young wife.
Her husband’s sons, her Stepsons, looked down on their young stepmother. Yet, they too maintained a polite demeanor in front of others. Like father, like son.
Whenever her heart felt like it was breaking into pieces, she would secretly go to see her younger sister.
After boasting to Lizzy about the cheap bracelets and fabrics her husband had bought her for show, and lying to her heart’s content about how sweet her husband was, it started to feel as though it were true.
Every time Lizzy wore an envious expression, a secret joy grew within her. Her heart whispered that even though her situation had turned out like this, she was still better off than her unmarried younger sister.
After hearing the news that her younger sister had been sold for a single tattered rabbit pelt, she felt a bit sorry for her.
Rumors had been circulating about that hunter. It seemed someone with a daughter had asked around here and there after hearing stories from a peddler. Knowing that he had beaten his wife to death, no one wanted to send their daughter to him. Only their father had eagerly jumped at the offer.
But why…
She stopped in the middle of putting down a sack of grain and stared blankly at the woman.
It was definitely her younger sister, Lizzy.
But she didn’t seem like Lizzy. There was no way. Why was her sister—who should surely be living a miserable life, beaten by her husband by now—wearing such expensive and beautiful clothes, standing there with such a bright face?
Her appearance was completely different from before. Her once-rough skin now glowed, and her eyes, which had always been large, sparkled brightly. Her pale skin looked as moist as if it had been bathed in milk.
The clothes she wore and the shoes on her feet were unmistakably expensive. One could easily believe she was a young lady from some noble house. On the other hand, her own appearance…
Just then, a blunt voice sounded from behind her.
“What are you staring at!”
Her husband spoke in an irritated voice and shoved her back. Her body stumbled forward.
There was no one they knew here. Because of that, her husband didn’t bother to act fake either. He spoke and behaved roughly, just as he usually did.
Lizzy seemed slightly surprised and flustered, and tried to approach her.
She whipped her head away. She hated this. That wasn’t her sister. A girl like Lizzy, smiling with a glowing face, was a stranger to her. Yes, that woman was someone she didn’t know.
Belatedly, another possibility occurred to her. Sometimes, women who ran away from home ended up in brothels. There was only so much a woman could do on her own. Perhaps Lizzy had ended up like that. Since that husband of hers must have been the absolute worst.
Yes, that must be it.
I’m still better off.
At least she had a proper husband and was living a normal life.
Yes, she was still better than that girl.
Stealing a glance at Lizzy, it seemed Lizzy had realized she wasn’t welcome. Stopping in her tracks, Lizzy lowered her head slightly.
Seeing that, her heart finally regained its strength. It felt as though she was being restored in proportion to the hurt Lizzy felt.
It was then. A very large man approached Lizzy at a rapid pace. He was an incredibly big and frightening-looking man. She thought that man might be the brothel keeper.
Without her realizing, the corners of her mouth smirked. Even if she was dressed up so prettily, she herself was living a much better life. She felt a sense of pity.
The large man leaned down slightly toward Lizzy and peered into her face. He seemed to be asking what was wrong. When Lizzy shook her head, he gently stroked her hair. The man’s expression was so tender.
“….”
Lizzy turned away without looking at her. The man wrapped his arm around Lizzy’s shoulders with a deeply cherishing gesture and said something as if to comfort her.
It seemed the women nearby were Lizzy’s companions. The women laughed loudly at Lizzy and the man, saying things like, “You’re really loved,” or “You see each other every day, what’s there to be so happy about?”
Lizzy and the man’s figures gradually grew distant. What was it? What had happened? Why did it turn out like this? Who was that man? Could he be the hunter the peddler had spoken of?
As she stared blankly at Lizzy and the man, her husband’s hand flew from behind. He struck her hard on the head.
“What are you doing instead of working!”
Hearing her husband’s harsh voice, she lifted a sack of grain. She saw her own rough hands. Her face must surely look the same. Right now, she probably looked ten or twenty years older than Lizzy.
There’s only a one-year difference between us.
A tear dripped onto the back of her hand. Seeing this, her husband barked at her even more harshly.
“Why the fuck are you crying and bringing bad luck?”
“….”
People realize where they stand by looking at others. Would Lizzy now look at her and feel happy, just as she herself used to do?
The stories her Older Sister occasionally came to tell her were like magic that allowed Lizzy to dream of the future.
They weren’t stories of nobles in a distant land or of strangers, but the actual life of the sister she had grown up with. If it was possible for her Older Sister, perhaps the same would happen to her one day. Because she thought that way, even though she had faintly guessed her Older Sister’s true intentions, she had still been happy.
But it wasn’t true.
The moment their eyes met, she realized.
Long ago, the stories her Older Sister had told her were all lies. She wasn’t happy.
They were merely words spoken because she wanted to forget her own situation and see envy in Lizzy’s eyes.
Lizzy had thought her sister possessed at least a shred of affection for her, but that wasn’t the case.
The memory that had been her only treasure from that house was a fake. Now, nothing remained of the home where she had been born and raised.
“It’s alright, Lizzy. I’m here.”
Her husband’s voice, pouring out sweet words without even knowing what was wrong, resonated deeply in her heart.
Now, only her husband and Dorothy remained for her.
