Chapter 86
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: Lugeron Village - 4
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“The only one who came back from the battlefield was the youngest of my three sons.”
Tom didn’t offer Kan any empty condolences for losing two sons to the nobles’ power games. He just spoke as one family man to another.
“We all lost so much in that war.”
“That’s right. Still, I count myself lucky. Others lost all their sons, or they came back crippled.”
The conversation grew too heavy for me to butt in. After all, I was a complete outsider when it came to the war.
“It was pure hell. Even so, I tried my best to keep going with my youngest, Cain. But last winter was just too much.”
The endless winter in Lugeron Village must have been salt in the wound. The northern chill had descended right after the war ended. If they’d been farther south, they wouldn’t have suffered like this.
Of course, building a village in a place like this was asking for trouble to begin with.
“If you hadn’t chopped that firewood for us, my whole family would’ve frozen to death.”
“I’m glad it helped.”
I hadn’t done it out of the goodness of my heart, but I let it slide to match the mood.
“Things haven’t gotten any better, though. The taxes they jacked up under the pretext of war left us penniless. And now my second daughter-in-law—who’s pregnant—has to work the fields just to build up some savings for the late spring planting. I know it! I know it’s awful to push a woman who suffered through winter like that.”
“Your second daughter-in-law... Hmm?”
Wasn’t the war almost a year ago? And the one who came back was the youngest son, so how was there a second daughter-in-law?
Cognitive dissonance hit me out of nowhere.
“Kan, don’t you think Sian might misunderstand?”
“Is that so? Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s fine. I grew up in the forest, so I’m clueless about village customs.”
“Hmm? Levirate marriage isn’t unique to Lugeron Village.”
“Levirate marriage?”
Tom explained it to me when I drew a blank.
“It’s a kind of family succession. If a young widow has no one to rely on after losing her husband early, his brother steps in to continue the bloodline.”
“I see. There’s a custom like that.”
So the youngest had married his brother’s wife at a young age?
Talk about tough.
“I knew my daughter-in-law was struggling, but there was nothing we could do.”
“Shouldn’t she at least get some rest?”
“You’re right. I was too shortsighted.”
Kan hung his head at Tom’s point.
Forcing a pregnant woman to work until she collapsed was way out of line.
Something feels off here.
After sorting my thoughts, I turned to Kan with a sigh.
“Where’s your youngest son right now?”
“Probably out in the fields by now.”
No matter how busy he was, how could he ignore his pregnant wife suffering?
I’d have to go give him a talking-to.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Sian, don’t lose your temper.”
“I’ll keep it in check.”
Tom started glancing at me nervously at Kan’s plea. You’d think I was off to beat someone else’s kid. As I headed to Kan’s field, Helia came out of the house and followed. Tom must’ve sent her after me out of worry.
“I’ll come too.”
“There’s no problem with me going alone...”
“That’s not why. Something feels off to me too.”
“Yeah?”
A little ways down the path,
we spotted a young man working the fields alone.
The fresh-faced youth took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat beading on his forehead.
“Are you Cain, Kan’s youngest son?”
“Yes? That’s me. What’s this about?”
“First, I’m gonna sock you one, then we talk.”
“Wh-what the hell?!”
“Hero?”
Helia tried to stop me as I grabbed for Cain’s collar.
Of course, that wasn’t enough to make me back off.
“Your woman’s suffering, and what are you doing out here?”
“My... woman? You mean Anna?”
“Yeah. Is it right to leave your pregnant wife like that?”
“Ha... Wow.”
Cain didn’t buckle under my glare. He just let out a hollow laugh.
“You’ve got the wrong idea. I didn’t marry Anna because I wanted to.”
“You little...”
It was infuriating to see the father-to-be acting so irresponsibly. Looked like I’d have to punch him first and talk later.
“Hero, calm down. This man has nothing to do with the mother or child.”
“What?”
Helia’s words threw me for a loop.
The soon-to-be dad had nothing to do with it?
I was baffled, but her next words hit like a bombshell.
“As expected, the father of the child in her belly is the old man back at the house, right?”
...
True to her title as God’s agent, a nymph could wield a fraction of the powers belonging to the gods she served. Forest nymphs who revered the goddess of nature and harmony, Flora, could converse with nature itself. Sun nymphs devoted to the goddess of sun and justice, Sunna, could discern a person’s sins.
“Compared to the gods’ true powers, it’s just a simple ability.”
“Doesn’t seem simple to me.”
What counted as a “grand” divine power if talking to nature or seeing sins was “simple”?
As I stood there stunned, Helia touched the golden halo above her head.
“Thank you for the kind words. Nymphs who serve our Lady Hestia can simply verify blood ties.”
Paternity tests weren’t even easy in the modern world, yet here she could do it without tools or time—just by looking. She was basically a walking infidelity detector.
At Helia’s words, Cain came clean.
“Whew... You already know, huh. Yeah, Anna’s carrying my father’s child.”
“That crazy son of a...”
Cain’s sigh carried a bombshell that hit me like a hammer to the skull. Levirate marriage was hard enough to swallow, but impregnating your son’s wife? I wondered which twisted mind had dreamed that up.
“I get it’s shocking, but I never wanted to marry Anna in the first place.”
“So it was never a marriage you wanted.”
“Right. There’s someone else I’ve had my eye on. But family circumstances forced me into it.”
Like he’d been bottling it up for ages, Cain spilled his pent-up feelings.
“I never liked the idea of taking responsibility for my brother’s woman. What did he ever do for me that I should spend my life with her?”
“B-but you still got married. Didn’t you plan to make the best of it?”
“She was already molded into my brother’s wife. She sees me as her brother-in-law, not her husband. We play the part on the outside, but deep down, neither of us thinks of it as a real marriage.”
“...I see.”
“I never felt any attraction to her as a woman either. That’s why we’ve never been intimate.”
It couldn’t be easy to suddenly accept your brother-in-law—who you’d lived with as family for years, maybe a decade—as your wife.
And now she was pregnant. Not with his child, or Cain’s, but their father’s.
“I don’t get my father’s thinking either. Was it for a male heir to carry on the family? Or could he just not stand the loneliness...”
Cain trailed off, then slumped to the ground, muttering to himself.
“It’s not just my family. Others are the same. These are the kinds of family secrets you don’t talk about.”
“I see.”
I had nothing to say to that. Hell, I wasn’t exactly innocent—running around with other women myself.
But there was one difference...
“Then why didn’t he marry her himself instead of dumping his daughter-in-law on you?”
Why hadn’t Kan taken responsibility for the woman he got pregnant? If it was for a son to keep the family going, he could’ve done it himself. No need to shove her off on his reluctant youngest son.
“Who knows. Maybe he’s worried about his age.”
So basically, he was too old, so he dumped the responsibility on his son.
All that “for the family” talk was just bullshit.
“What a total bastard.”
“B-bastard? Haha, yeah, that fits. My father’s a bastard.”
I couldn’t hold back the curse, and Cain jumped right on board.
He clearly despised his father too.
“Haha, but what can you do? He’s my father, and I’m his son. I have to take care of him.”
Cain went back to his field work after saying that.
It felt uncomfortable seeing a kid who was barely 18 carrying that kind of burden.
“Sigh... Why does this village make me like it less the more I learn?”
I felt like I’d cracked open Pandora’s box for no good reason.