Retire 567

567 (Extra Story 34) The Wicked Lamb_2

“Haha! Should I leave this here?”

“My, you’re strong as an ox.”

“I told you, I’m an Awakened, after all.”

Clear weather. Blinding sun. A cool breeze.

And beneath it all, young people at work.

Mrs. Donner handed out bottles of ice-cold water to the houseguests. These kind-hearted young men, feeling guilty about imposing while their car was being repaired, had volunteered to help with odd jobs.

She hadn’t expected much from college kids who’d only ever studied, but to her surprise, they worked diligently in the orchard. Maybe their claim of being Awakened wasn’t a lie after all.

Well, that would explain how just the two of them had the nerve to set out on a road trip. Even if they weren’t Hunters, if they couldn’t fight monsters, they must have at least been confident they could run to safety.

Of course, things never go as planned. People are always overconfident about what hasn’t happened yet. Mrs. Donner had seen plenty of that in her time.

To her eyes, the two students still seemed a bit naïve, but she kept that to herself. They were just passing through, after all. Everyone has to look after their own life.

“Anything else you need done?”

Young set down the branches he’d been carrying. They’d be dried and used for firewood later.

Mrs. Donner handed out extra towels to the sweat-soaked youths.

“That’s enough for today. Oh, you’ve already made my life so much easier.”

Young stretched his shoulders and grinned.

He looked so pleased with himself that it was both silly and endearing. Well, that’s what youth is for. When else would you get to do something like this?

Mrs. Donner’s orchard wasn’t really large enough to deserve the name. It was just a few fruit trees, some vegetables and herbs behind a fence at the edge of town. The townsfolk called it Ellen’s garden. Her husband had even made a handsome sign for it.

As with any garden, it started small, but once she got the hang of it, it slowly expanded. Now she managed it with help from her neighbors, but there were hardly any young people in town. There were a few Awakened like Young and Sandy, but age was hard to overcome.

So when Young and Sandy offered to earn their keep by helping out, Mrs. Donner hadn’t refused. In a town full of old folks, young hands were precious.

To be honest, she hadn’t expected them to be any good at gardening.

‘Should I pull this?’

‘Oh, that’s rosemary!’

‘Oops. What about this one?’

‘That’s mint, you silly!’

‘Hahaha. Cheeky brat. Ellen, got anything heavy I can carry?’

Sure enough, Young had no experience with gardening. Before he could kill an apple tree, Mrs. Donner quickly put him on another task. Young laughed sheepishly and hauled fertilizer.

“Wow, it’s hot!”

“Drink some more water.”

And as for Sandy—who, if anything, looked even less likely to have done any gardening—he was surprisingly skilled.

He could identify plants Young couldn’t, and knew exactly how to prepare the soil and measure out fertilizer.

When she asked about it, he’d said:

‘Uh… Someone I know runs a farm, and I helped out there a bit.’

‘A farm?’

‘Ahem! Not bad for someone who complained so much at first, right?’

Young had laughed beside him, and Sandy had thrown a clump of dirt at him with a sulky face—there must have been some funny story there.

Anyway, though they’d volunteered to help as a way to pay for their room and board, the two of them worked with cheerful faces at every task Mrs. Donner set.

Probably, they were bored in this town with no internet. Young people are all the same. When her husband told them the repairs would take longer, they tried to hide their disappointment, but didn’t quite manage it.

They probably really did need to contact their families, but… well, young people are easy to read.

Years ago, Herve Schneider had also grumbled about the lack of internet.

She’d explained it to that young man, too: it wasn’t that there was no internet at all. The dungeons in the area made the signal unreliable, and there was nothing humans could do about it. Even Luise complained every time she came back to town—said it was impossible to get any work done.

In any case, she hadn’t meant to put them to work, but if she could get some troublesome chores done and the boys could stave off boredom, it was a win-win.

Mrs. Donner smiled gratefully. It was a shame their car was taking so long to fix, but seeing lively young people around was a pleasure for her, too.

“After lunch, I’ll bake you a pie. What kind do you like? The apple pie from your first day? I have berries, or lemon pie is good too. I make the best pies in town.”

“Lemon!”

“Lemon?”

“I love lemon!”

Sandy answered at once, and Young agreed with enthusiasm.

Mrs. Donner smiled fondly, then glanced at Young.

Even if they were Awakened, they weren’t Hunters. College students with no real training wouldn’t know how to use their bodies. Maybe they really were just sturdy normal people, as they claimed—after a few hours of work, both were drenched in sweat.

Young, who’d worn sunglasses all day, now found them slippery with sweat and wiped them off with a towel. As the sunglasses lifted, his scar was revealed.

Mrs. Donner met Young’s eyes. The black eye narrowed in a smile, while the left, covered in a white film, barely moved, the muscles around the scar twitching but not quite working.

She stared for a moment, then snapped out of it, startled.

“…Oh! I’m sorry.”

“Hm?”

“No, it’s just…”

Young slung the towel around his neck and took off his sunglasses. The way he wiped them on his T-shirt was so casual it was almost disconcerting.

He put the sunglasses back on as if nothing had happened.

“It’s fine. It’s not exactly pretty to look at.”

“…….”

“I don’t mind, but people keep asking about it.”

“Hey, you’re sensitive to sunlight, too.”

“That’s just this eye.”

Young shrugged.

His tone was so unconcerned that Mrs. Donner asked carefully,

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking… your eyesight…?”

“It’s not completely gone. I’m just sensitive to light. I guess it’s a bit unusual—it was from a monster attack.”

“A monster?”

“I got caught up in a dungeon event when I was a kid.”

Young added that it was before he’d awakened.

“Yeah, that’s when I realized—being a Hunter is not for me.”

“Why? Hunters are cool.”

“It’s different when you’re the one doing it.”

Young pressed down on Sandy’s head, teasing. Sandy squirmed and scowled, trying to get away.

“A dungeon event…”

“In Korea, with the population density, it happens a lot.”

If a gate is fully stabilized, only Awakened can withstand the mana waves and pass through, but when a dungeon first appears, it’s different. At that stage, the gate swallows up all living things nearby. Regardless of the dungeon’s actual danger, that’s when the most casualties occur.

Mrs. Donner looked at him with sympathy, but she was old enough to know that clumsy pity could be an insult. She didn’t press further.

After all, these young men would leave once their car was fixed. There was no need to pry into their deepest secrets. She just hoped, as she had with Schneider, that years from now, these boys would look back on this day and be well.

For an afternoon snack, Mrs. Donner made the promised lemon pie for Young and Sandy. She piled on the meringue and torched it until it browned, and the two young men cheered like children.

“This is delicious!”

“Would you like coffee? Or tea?”

“Tea!”

“I’ll have coffee.”

“Pick one, you two. Tea it is.”

“You drink your coffee yourself.”

As they jabbed each other’s shoulders with their elbows, Mrs. Donner couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

If she’d had children, they’d be just about this age. It was a pity they were only passing through. If only…

“How are those boys doing?”

Her husband, returning home late, asked about the guests.

Mrs. Donner cut him a slice of leftover pie and answered cheerfully.

“They’re good kids.”

“Yeah?”

“Much better than that… Herve, from before.”

“It’d be hard to find someone with a worse attitude than him.”

“Herve wasn’t that bad.”

“He spent every day sulking at Christopher’s house. Whatever his reasons, if he came here, he should’ve behaved. Kids these days… and Luise bringing someone like that along.”

“Speaking of Luise, what’s she up to? Heard anything? She hasn’t been in touch.”

Donner’s hand paused, pie halfway to his mouth.

Seeing her husband’s expression darken, Mrs. Donner realized this wasn’t the kind of news she wanted to hear.

She sighed deeply and sat beside him.

“I told her to be careful…”

“She was never one to listen.”

“And Yuri?”

Mrs. Donner asked about another girl who’d been close to Luise—a student who’d lost her husband and had been deeply depressed. But raising her child, she’d gradually recovered, and later her eyes had sparkled with new purpose.

Donner clicked his tongue, clearly unhappy about the news he had to share.

“Don’t tell me…”

“I don’t know what she did, but I heard she was arrested.”

“Oh my. Yuri wasn’t the type…”

“You never know with people.”

Donner spoke coolly. Mrs. Donner, shocked by her gentle student’s fate, couldn’t find anything to say.

“Time passes… Why did things turn out like this for everyone?”

“No one ever knows.”

“Well…”

“Look at us. Would your younger self have imagined you’d be living a quiet country life like this?”

His words were blunt, but she knew he was trying to comfort her. Mrs. Donner smiled faintly.

“That’s true. Did you ever think you’d be a sheriff here?”

“Life’s like that. I bet those boys were excited when they set out on their trip.”

“Until their car broke down?”

“Exactly.”

Donner burst out laughing, and his wife’s shoulders shook with quiet giggles.

Donner pressed a small kiss to her cheek.

“Nathan says he can finish the repairs early.”

“Really?”

“He says it’ll need a proper checkup in a big city, but at least it’ll run.”

Mrs. Donner felt a pang of regret that the boys she’d grown fond of over the past few days would be leaving so soon.

She’d known they wouldn’t stay long, but it was still a little sad.

“Well, that’s something. It’s hard to get parts out here.”

“They’re asleep, right? Said they did some gardening…”

“Doubt they ever did that in the city.”

“I’ll let them know in the morning.”

And upstairs, on the darkened second floor—

In the guest room, Sandy, supposedly asleep, rolled over and banged his knee against the wall. Young turned the other way, curling up.

Of course, neither of them was asleep. They were both listening intently to the voices drifting up from downstairs.