Hero’s Downfall Report

70 – Wolf Cub Tree (2)

“But, I want you to know that this is a really boring story… “

“Yes, you don’t have to worry about that. If the ending of the story is really annoying, I will end it with ‘So the kid grew up and was killed by a beautiful assassin lying on a carriage.'”

As if she wasn’t going to stop with her words, Maria turned her wrist slightly. She was ready to pull out her wrist sword if she made a mistake.

“And if you continue to hesitate, I will tell you the story of ‘a young man who was stabbed to death after making a nun angry with a trivial story.’ How is it. “Don’t you want to be the main character in the story?”

Cain cleared her throat.

“So, this is a story from when I was young… “

“Wow. Oh my god. I’m already getting bored. Can we just end with ‘But unfortunately, the assassin killed them all?’

“… “I have an orchard at my house.”

“Persimmon tree?”

“No. It’s an apple tree. I don’t know why everyone starts looking for persimmon trees. Anyway…

Our house is… So I can’t say where specifically, but it’s the countryside. It’s not an imperial territory. It’s in a small county. The Count is neither good nor bad, that kind of person. To be exact, I don’t even know the face. I see it like a tax collector sometimes.

To be honest, the apples at my house don’t taste good. The bitter taste is a bit strong. Still, thanks to this, there are less bugs than in other places, so the harvest is good.

In addition, every year, wineries, monasteries, and breweries buy all the apples from our farm. When you soak cider, it has a bitter taste, but it adds depth to the taste.

The Count also likes that drink, so he used to refer to it as ‘the mole next to the lips’ or ‘the mole on the chest,’ but I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate expression for food.

Thanks to this, my income was relatively stable, and I was able to live as a free farmer for generations. If you pay your taxes well, there will be no major interference. “Before, I had to hire a lot of people, but now my five younger brothers do the work for me, so my income will be better.”

“You have five younger brothers?”

Lily let out a small exclamation.

“I can’t quite imagine what the atmosphere is like. I think it would have been fun. “Noisy and busy, I think that’s how a home should be.”

“Well. Fun? “I’m not sure.” Cain smiled and shook her head.

“As you know, I am the eldest son in the family. And there is a bit of an age difference between me and my younger siblings. So before I entered the academy, it was always a battlefield. Someone spilled something, someone always cried… But sometimes, when we go home for vacation, we take care of each other.”

Lily wanted to hear more about her family, but Maria seemed indifferent.

“So when will it be revealed whether it is a wolf cub or a wolf cub?”

“Big. Now let’s talk about it. Anyway… Ever since I was young, I followed my parents and helped them with various things.

At best I was just removing twigs and cleaning here and there, but I think I did a pretty good job. Kids tend to clean up one mess and end up making two messes. I didn’t do that.

I think I was just quiet when I was young. “I preferred to imagine and think alone, so I didn’t have much to talk about or play around with because I was bored.”

“I think it would have been cute.”

Lily had the sweetest expression on her face. In fact, she was thinking about something else. Cain and himself, no. If I were to have a child who looked more like Cain, wouldn’t I be able to sneak a peek into her childhood? Such thoughts.

“Well… I think it was a bit odd. Her mother mainly worked as a laborer, and her father took me from place to place and taught me how to trim wood himself.

But there was no way he would just tell me. You could just say, ‘Branches extending upwards must be cut off in advance.’

‘If you don’t, the tree will grow straight up. The tree absorbs only a small amount of nutrients, but if it grows taller, of course, the apples will receive less nutrients.’ He even explained the reason and reason behind this.

‘Can’t trees grow big?’

‘Because it becomes difficult to pick fruit.’

‘I feel sorry for the tree.’

Then my father would grin and shake my head.

‘Well. ‘It’s not always good to just go up.’

If I think about it, my father is me. I think he was very respectful. Rather than a parent-child relationship, they treated us like equal conversation partners.

But the child was still a child, and a week later the village monk came to visit his father. He was very angry. He was someone I knew, and he was mainly involved in making alcohol.

‘Your son has been gossiping about me to the neighborhood kids. How on earth are you going to educate him?’

‘Is this our child? ‘What did you say?’

‘I heard that the kids in the neighborhood told me that I had all my hair pulled out when I was young and now I’m short and fat on the sides!’

Well. I really thought so. The monk was not a mendicant, he was just bald. Even though I was short, I was fat because I secretly drank alcohol to taste it.

So the village people used to say, ‘There’s a barrel monk rolling by.'”

“… “Are you talking about when you were young?”

“Are you six or seven?”

“If you’re an ugly seven-year-old, you can do that.” Maria nodded her head hesitantly. “Still, you did something wrong. However?”

“Anyway… My father called me. I had to explain why I thought that way. He honestly answered that he thought that people’s hair, like trees, would grow sideways when cut.

The monk was still angry, but after listening to my explanation and what my father had taught me about trimming trees, he talked for a while with my parents.

So, a week later, I ended up learning from the barrel monk. He was so scared… Still, Brother Francis was a very good person. He always smelled like alcohol, but he had a childlike side to him.

So, I learned to read in the morning, and after lunch, I helped with the farm work. I don’t think either of them were that difficult. Sometimes, when there was a complicated matter, I would climb a tree and just watch the flowing sky. Even now, when I see buildings burning well, I feel like I benefited from that time.

And then… Probably around the age of eleven. The detective’s expression didn’t look very good. I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ And he answered, ‘There are too many wolves.’

I wasn’t too worried. Wolves don’t come to the orchard. I did steal some chickens from the farm and eat them, but that only happened in the very cold winter and I usually didn’t come out of the forest.

But that year was a bit… I think it was different. I figured it out later after studying properly. “It was a time when the former emperor, Alexios I, carried out a bloody purge on the rebellious nobles and their soldiers.”

It was a time when the conflict between the nobles and the emperor reached its peak. The Elector, who was the most powerful at the time, lived with the words in public that ‘the emperor will not die by expulsion, and I will wear the bloody emperor’s crown.’

Emperor Alexios was victorious, and the nobles who rebelled had their limbs cut off and were scattered throughout the empire. If I had known that 10 years from now I would have to contend with the Demon Lord in the western and northern pagans, and the eastern Allied Powers, I would not have made such a hasty purge. Even if you are an emperor, you cannot know the future.

“Anyway… Corpses formed mountains all over the empire. As the number of small animals that eat rotten and dead things increased, the number of wolves that hunt them also increased.

Of course, the monk didn’t say that to me. He just said, ‘The number of wolves has increased.’ Fortunately, our Count was on the Emperor’s side, so it seems like the territory didn’t suffer much.

But I heard a story that a pack of wolves appeared on the outskirts of the village. A proclamation was put up telling not only children but also adults to not wander around carelessly at night and, if they must, to gather together with at least five people.

Then one day, around early fall, a big storm broke out.”

The door kept rattling, and the younger brothers started crying because they were scared. Even my mother and father did not sleep that day. A pitchfork was set up by the door, and the entire house was brightly lit with candles.

“My parents were so worried because it was a storm that came right before harvest. Even though I have earned money, it hurts my heart to see the fruit from the tree I worked so hard to grow for a year fall in pieces.

If the tree gets hurt or damaged, it really gives me a headache. You have to wait at least 5 years to bear proper fruit… At that time, my second brother whispered to me. ‘I can hear the wolf howling.’ That kid had particularly bright ears.

We told you right away. Our parents reassured us. ‘The original sound of a storm is similar to the howl of a wolf. Also, wolves don’t come down this season, and there’s nothing for them to eat in our orchard.’

But my brother and I didn’t believe that. I had just told them a fairy tale about a wolf that turned into a human and ate poor children. I told it to you, but I couldn’t believe I heard the sound of a wolf howling that day.

My younger brother looked up with scared eyes. ‘Brother. What if the wolf eats us all? I don’t think our parents trust us. It was like that in children’s books, and all the children died.’

My other younger siblings were about to cry when they heard it, so I promised. I’ll take a look as soon as the sun rises. What. When you’re about eleven years old… You live your life thinking you know everything. There was nothing to be afraid of.

I know the orchard as well as my father, but I also know the neighborhood very well. I didn’t know how scary the wolf was, but I thought if I brought a hatchet with me, it wouldn’t be a problem.

So at dawn. While my parents were asleep, I walked through the orchard holding an ax for trimming twigs. It was just dawn, but there was so much fog that it was hard to see ahead.

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The floor was full of broken twigs, but by then I already knew how to walk without breaking branches, so I didn’t do things like break a branch and startle myself at the sound. I walked quietly and calmly and looked around…

Luckily the trees were unharmed, but I think about 1/4 of the apples fell on the ground. Maybe even more. In fact, the stems between the tree and the fruit on the branches were weakened.

‘What did you do in times like this?’ As I was walking, I heard a strange sound from somewhere. It sounded like a puppy whining, but it was more fierce and sharp than that. A sound that a hunting dog would make when injured.

I walked while holding the axe, but I couldn’t see anything, it was really strange… I thought so. Then we reached the end of the orchard.

There is a zelkova tree at the end. It was a very old tree and looked like a stooped grandfather, so we all called it the grandfather tree.

A long time ago, the Tree of Life was considered sacred by the Druids, but after a monastery honoring the prophet of life and death was built and the monks consecrated it, it was treated as nothing more than a tree providing shade.

Under that tree, there is a small hole dug that can fit about three children to hide. When the kids were playing tag with each other, they would always hide there. Sometimes cats or wild dogs would come out of there, so the thick-haired kids would throw rocks one by one before entering.

That strange sound was coming from right there. It may be unlikely, but perhaps there is a child left behind in a children’s book. I think she thought something like that.

I stood in front of the cave, holding the ax tightly. Two blue, wisps of wisps were floating about at the height of my ankles.

I wasn’t too surprised, perhaps because I expected there to be a monster. It was a little scary, but I didn’t back down because I just wanted to protect my orchard.

Then the wind blew. The fog has cleared. I saw it then. A small wolf cub with a mouth stained red was growling at me.

I walked closer, thinking it was you. Even though it was a cub, I thought it would turn into a human when it grew up and come to eat me and my younger siblings. And this is a place that neighborhood kids often come to, so what if they make a mistake and get hurt? So I approached… “

“You went?”

“He can’t stand up and keeps falling down. I growled with my mouth, but I could barely raise my head, but I couldn’t move forward or move back. Well… There was no such content in children’s books.

What would your father do? I thought he would say, ‘If it were me, I would go closer and find out what’s going on.’ Anyway, he taught me that I should know everything that happens in the orchard.

So I got closer. Of course, the ax is ready to swing at any time. As we got closer, the sun rose higher and the fog cleared. Only then did I see its broken front leg.

That little wild thing, he spent the whole stormy night here alone. He was away from the other wolves.

But a wolf is a wolf. Although it was growling, it looked like it was in a lot of pain. So I took the axe… “