I’ve Become a S*ave Bride - Chapter 24

Surprisingly, the place Kazen brought Lenette to was indeed ‘outside the abandoned palace.’

But the surprise ended there.

‘This is why he urged me to come out without hesitation.’

Lenette smiled bitterly as she looked around.

Sparse, monotonous square-shaped desert houses were scattered around.

In between them, there were various baskets and boxes made at home, haphazardly placed.

It was quiet.

There was no other way to describe this village; it was bleak and dull.

As Lenette gazed at the unpaved dirt road, a sandstorm that matched the arid background blew through.

The palm trees, with green leaves only at the top, stood irregularly, their lower parts turning yellow as if half-dry.

‘I didn’t realize how shabby this village was because the abandoned palace was so nice.’

She could never have imagined that the village where the palace was located would be this rundown.

‘It’s definitely not a big village.’

Of course, it wasn’t so deserted as to be unappealing.

But if one were determined to find people, they could easily do so within a day or two.

‘Hiding in a place like this… isn’t good.’

Even if she was allowed to go out freely and came outside alone, it was a village that wasn’t bustling, making her movements easily noticeable.

‘What should I do? I need to come up with another plan.’

While Lenette was internally devising an escape route, they arrived at their destination.

Kazen led her to an area where houses were haphazardly clustered together.

Some houses had freshly painted exteriors with dye, while others had paint that was half-peeled, giving off a dilapidated feel.

The place Lenette and Kazen were heading to was one of those ‘half-peeled’ houses.

Kazen stopped in front of the door and looked at Lenette.

“Go inside.”

“Are you not coming in with me?”

“For now, no.”

As expected, it was an unsatisfactory answer. But after coming this far, she wasn’t keen on not going in.

After briefly scanning the area around the house with her eyes, Lenette reluctantly replied,

“Alright.”

Kazen seemed to sense the hesitation in her response, raising one corner of his mouth.

“Why? Are you scared?”

What’s there to be scared of?

Just as Lenette was about to respond that way, a scene from her past suddenly came to mind.

“Is everything my fault and Dawes’s fault?”

“You know it well.”

“Yeah… that attitude of yours. It’s what wears Dawes down.”

“What?”

“You’re always like this. Acting as if you know everything, with no hesitation in anything. You don’t even realize how much that suffocates the people around you.”

Ophelia had said that Lenette was arrogant. Acting like she knows even when she doesn’t, pretending it’s okay to be afraid, a person made up of ‘pretenses.’

She didn’t agree with Ophelia’s words. However, she did realize one thing because of them.

That a person with a proper balance of strength and weakness is better at catching others off guard than someone who is just strong.

‘At this point, showing a bit of fear wouldn’t be so bad.’

She had already shown enough of her bold and smart side, hadn’t she?

“To be honest, it is a bit… like that.”

Kazen raised one eyebrow in surprise at Lenette’s answer. She smiled awkwardly, fixing her gaze somewhere.

Following her lead, he moved his face and wiped away his confusion.

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to go in.”

He approached the spot where his gaze landed and tapped it lightly with his hand.

What he tapped was a large tiger skin, its limbs tied with ropes and sprawled out.

“But don’t get the wrong idea. The owner of this house didn’t catch this beast.”

“Then what?”

“Maybe it was a reward.”

There are no wild animals called ‘tigers’ in Ecaron. So, while she had only encountered them through books, she at least knew that it wasn’t a common beast to carelessly hang in a shabby house like this.

“Alright, I understand.”

Creeeak.

Unlike the proudly displayed tiger skin, the door right next to it was so old that it seemed ready to crumble.

“Excuse me.”

As Lenette carefully stepped into the room, she inadvertently frowned.

The coolness characteristic of the desert, which only became noticeable in the shade, mixed with a smell reminiscent of a warehouse that tickled her nose.

And from that ‘warehouse’ smell, a familiar scent wafted through.

‘Gunpowder smell?’

The faint scent of gunpowder was so subtle that an ordinary person would have difficulty noticing it.

But who was Lenette?

She was a woman who directly managed the firearms workshop under the Clermont family.

‘Gunpowder, huh…’

The Tazetra Empire had also belatedly adopted cannons.

However, as mentioned before, this empire was steeped in peace. Given the circumstances, cannons and mortars were naturally used only for show.

Yet, to smell gunpowder in such a small village… it would be hard to find even in the imperial capital.

‘It’s suspicious, no doubt.’

At that moment, an old man staggered out from the corridor leading to another room.

“Cough, cough. Welcome. Are you the physician sent by Kazen?”

The elderly man had skin around his eyes that sagged and wrinkled, giving the impression that he was having quite a bit of difficulty moving.

“Cough, cough, I keep coughing… cough, cough.”

The old man, who had stopped to guide her inside, was coughing harshly.

‘This cough doesn’t seem normal.’

The cough, which made his chest heave, could hardly be dismissed as a mere symptom of a cold.

‘It doesn’t seem like a symptom of a sore throat.’

Lenette subtly took a step back, distancing herself from the old man. Perhaps noticing her action, he gave an awkward smile.

“I’m sorry. Getting old really…”

“It’s alright. I’m just being cautious since it could be a contagious illness.”

Feeling there was no need to hold back after saying that, Lenette took out a white cloth she had brought.

“Just in case, I’ll prepare a bit more thoroughly.”

Saying this, Lenette folded the cloth in half to form a triangle. She then wrapped it around her face, covering half of it, and tied it behind her head.

“Is it alright to open the window?”

“Indeed.”

Once granted permission, she opened all the closed windows and returned to the room with water in a basin that at least looked clean.

While she was doing this, the old man had laid back down on the bed. It was quite different from the bed Lenette used; it was essentially just a thick mat laid on the floor.

Lenette sat down about three or four steps away from him and cautiously asked,

“What seems to be troubling you?”

“Cough, cough… I think I’ve caught a cold, but cough, cough, it just won’t go away. This cough is keeping me from sleeping properly and makes it hard to breathe… cough, cough.”

“I see.”

‘I think it might be pneumonia.’

To confirm the exact symptoms, I need to listen to the lung sounds. For that, a stethoscope is necessary. But I wonder if there’s one here.

‘It can’t be helped.’

Although it’s not very accurate, I have no choice but to use a primitive method to listen to the lung sounds.

Lenette rolled up the papers she had brought into a cylindrical shape.

“Would you like to turn around and sit?”

While checking both front and back is the standard procedure, if I put this makeshift tool made from a notebook against his chest, I would have to bear the full force of the cough he produces.

So for now, I decided to listen only from his back.

“I’ll check for a moment.”

Lenette placed the rolled-up notebook against the old man’s back.

‘Hmm. I can hear the heartbeat, but…’

As expected, it’s impossible to hear the lung sounds with such a crude tool.

‘I’ll have to go back and make one.’

While making a wooden stethoscope in a cylindrical shape might be difficult right now, I could easily create a primitive stethoscope by layering thick paper that has been soaked in glue.

“You can lie back down now.”

After that, Lenette continued with a few more questions and examinations.

A little while later.

“Cough, cough… It’s definitely different from the clinics here. There’s a reason Kazen sent you, cough, cough.”

Although I didn’t arrive at any particularly satisfying diagnosis, it seems that to the old man, even that is quite impressive.

Lenette didn’t bother to correct this misunderstanding.

‘In any case, the observed symptoms definitely indicate pneumonia…’

The examination tools are insufficient.

In that case, it’s better to approach it by tracing the cause of the disease.

“What do you do for a living?”

“Cough, cough… I carry stones.”

Lenette frowned at the unexpected answer.

‘Stones?’

Is it not related to handling gunpowder?

“If you’re talking about stones… are you a stonemason?”

“Not exactly. Cough, cough, there’s a large rock a bit away from here… cough, cough, and I’m breaking stones and moving them from there.”

“Oh. So you’re a ‘stoner.’”

Stoners are a common profession in Lenette’s home country, Ecaron.

They are easily seen near rock quarries, breaking stones to supply them for construction sites and such.

“I see.”

Lenette fell into thought.

‘Simply inhaling dust and stone powder wouldn’t lead to pneumonia.’

If that were the case, all those stoners would have died long ago.

“Are there others around you who are experiencing similar symptoms?”

“Cough, cough. Just me… cough, just me.”

It’s not an outbreak of pneumonia. Lenette continued to think.

At that moment, the old man seemed cold and pulled the blanket that was at his feet over himself, causing a slight breeze to stir around him.

And within the blanket…

‘The smell of gunpowder…’

That smell, all too familiar to Lenette, was thickly embedded.

‘A stoner, indeed.’

Her gaze slowly turned toward the old man’s back, which was turned away from her.

‘…No.’

He is lying right now.