Delicious Sacrifice - Chapter 12

Delicious Sacrifice - Chapter 12

The monster was about to reflexively run, but Miela quickly grabbed his sleeve and stopped him. 

“Wait a minute, if we talk, maybe something will work out…….” 

The monster glanced back with an expression of displeasure, but stopped quietly at Miela’s stop. 

Miela greeted Jack, who was running towards her happily, with tears in the corners of her eyes. 

Not knowing that he had just almost died, he only turned to Miela. Her conscience pricked her even more at that sight. 

“Oh, Jack…….” 

“Thank goodness! Miela, you’re alive! I couldn’t sleep after sending you off like that, so I started looking for you every night, ah, I’m glad I did, I’m so glad!” 

“Oh, uh……, you didn’t have to……, no.” 

“I didn’t have to! Do you know how much I regretted sending you off? I should have just carried you on my back and run away that night, but I just…….” 

“No, I’m really fine. I’m really fine.”

Jack belatedly confirmed that Miela was dressed really well and lying comfortably on the bed. He groped her shoulders and arms, checking with his hands to see if she was really okay, but his arm was suddenly pulled. His vision spun around.

When he came to, he was rolling around on the floor. 

“Huh, huh?” 

Jack, who was lying face down on the floor, raised his head, and the monster’s body blocked his vision. It was covering Miela. 

“Mi, Miela. Who is this person?” 

“Serian, it’s okay. He won’t hurt me.” 

Instead of answering Jack’s question, Miela grabbed the monster’s arm and explained first. 

The monster glared at Jack with fierce eyes as if he was going to kill him at any moment, but immediately turned around and withdrew his expression at Miela’s words. It was fortunate that he was out of his sight. If he had been in front of those eyes for just one more second, his heart would have frozen with fear. 

Intuition was directly connected to the survival instinct. Jack’s intuition became active because of the fear that his body instinctively felt.

Miela, who was offered as a sacrifice, an unknown man in the forest of monsters, a castle that suddenly appeared, and abnormal fear. 

“This…… person, no. This person? A … monster?” 

“Mr. Serian……. He lives in this forest……, this castle.” 

No matter how much she tried to say it back, the identity didn’t change. She tried desperately to pretend it wasn’t true, but Miela wasn’t good at lying. 

“He’s the one who took you as a sacrifice, right?” 

“That’s right. Miela is mine.” 

Before Miela could deny it, the monster stepped forward. As if he were trying to hide Miela in his arms, his gaze sharpened again as he looked back at Jack. 

Feeling the atmosphere freezing, Miela pulled her face out of his arms and looked back at Jack. 

“Jack, I’m doing very well here. So don’t worry about me and go to town and don’t say anything. Okay?” 

“How could I……. In this is the den of monsters. Leave you here alone.” 

“I told you I’m really fine.” 

“No, you’re not okay. You can’t even cook by yourself. Isn’t that why he brought me here?” 

Miela couldn’t respond to Jack’s precise words. 

“But I like staying here better…….” 

After hesitating for a while, Miela mustered up her courage to speak. 

Jack looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh. In his thoughts, Miela must have been scared of the monster right now and her head was in a mess. But she liked it here. There was also a fierce monster right next to her. There was no way to escape with her right now. 

But he wasn’t planning on giving up and quietly returning to the village. 

“…… Then, I’ll stay at the castle.” 

“Huh?!” 

“I think I’ll feel better if the castle provides you with food.” 

“But… Then the village will go crazy looking for you…….” 

“I can just go back and forth between here and the village.” 

It was the best offer for Miela. All that was left was the monster’s permission.

The monster, who had met Miela’s sparkling eyes, had no choice but to allow it.. 

* * * (read on pink-grapes.blogspot.com)  

Jack decided to go back to the village and then come back with the necessary ingredients. 

Even though the monster had already warned him several times not to do anything foolish, Miela still seemed uneasy and added a strong warning. 

“You must not go down to the village and talk, absolutely not.” 

“I told you I won’t.” 

“Mr. Serian has really sharp ears. So if he wants to, he can hear everything that’s going on in the village.” 

“What? Does that make sense? A monster…….” 

He indeed was a monster. 

Jack quietly closed his mouth and nodded. 

If it was Miela saying that, then it had to be true. The option of gathering people and attacking the monster’s castle as soon as he returned to the village was completely eliminated. For the time being, Jack decided to quietly go back and forth to the village and get a feel for the castle’s atmosphere. 

Since he wasn’t doing anything foolish, he wouldn’t cross the monster. The monster didn’t hurt people indiscriminately, unlike what he thought. He was surprisingly rational and had judgment. 

That’s why he had to be more careful. 

“I’m back. Miela, and this.” 

When Jack first went down to the village, the monster listened so intently that all the air around him seemed to sink into the ground. If there was even a little bit of talk about the castle or Miela, he would jump out and twist his neck. 

Fortunately, Jack didn’t say a word when he returned to the village. He was lucky. 

Since the villagers were all doing their own things, no one saw him even when he searched the kitchens or storage rooms. So he gradually began to feel more at ease and take care of the things the castle and Miela needed.

Meat and herbs were abundant even in the monster’s castle. There were plenty of spices, but fresh foods like oil and butter that had to be handled by people had to be procured from the village.

Jack also brought along the hand oil that Miela used to apply to her chapped hands. She had forgotten about it, but she remembered it as she felt the cold wind blowing. 

“Ah! This. Thank you.” 

Now that she didn’t have to hold the needle all the time, her fingertips wouldn’t crack, but since her hands were always dry, the hand oil was a welcome gift. 

Miela was visibly happy. 

“You suffered from chapped fingertips every winter. I didn’t even know sewing was so hard until I saw the scabs on your fingertips.” 

“Well, it wasn’t that easy. But when Mom was here, she always got some oil and applied for me.” 

One item brought back memories of the past. 

Back then, when she didn’t know anything about the villagers’ feelings, she was happy even in difficult times. She thought that if she could live in this village with Mom until she died, she would have no other wishes. 

A village where there was no hunger or beatings was a happy place. When they met face to face, they greeted each other kindly, and when someone was sick, everyone took care of them like family. 

Now, it has become a bitter memory. Even so, the reason she missed it sometimes was because of the memories of the emotions she felt in those moments. 

“…… How is everyone?” 

“It’s just the same. But it feels much more empty without you……, and the atmosphere has become dull.” 

“No way. If they were people like that, they wouldn’t have voted for me in the first place.” 

Miela let out a weak laugh. 

“But that’s not how people feel. They’ll all be happy if they know you’re alive.” 

At that moment, the monster growled and grabbed the back of Jack’s neck. 

“If you keep talking nonsense…….” 

“Ah! Ahh! I didn’t mean to say that! It’s just that people would be like that!” 

“It doesn’t matter what people do or not!” 

“Of course! Yes! Because Miela is now the monster, no, the sacrifice of Lord Serian!”

Jack was pale and begged, but the monster still couldn’t calm down its nerves. Miela, who couldn’t stand it any longer, finally grabbed the monster’s arm. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to see the people who threw me out to die.” 

“…….” 

“I like it here.” 

Still, the monster didn’t relax its expression easily. The anxiety beneath its fierce anger was stirring. 

“I’m not going back.” 

When Miela smiled, the monster finally calmed down. 

“Get to the kitchen.” 

“Yes!” 

Jack disappeared into the kitchen like a pheasant on fire. The long hallway made his footsteps thump for a long time. 

Miela wouldn’t go. There was a reason for that. However, Miela was shaken by the news from the village that Jack brought. There were things in the village that the castle didn’t have. In order to keep Miela from leaving, he had to find a way to fill them instead. 

The monster looked at the hand oil that was tightly clenched in Miela’s hand. He didn’t even know that such a thing existed in the world. As he watched, he felt a little annoyed. 

She reacted indifferently to the food he gave her, and she even threw it up. But she was so happy to see the small, insignificant thing that Jack brought her. His insides were getting more and more upset. 

When he thought about it, Miela wasn’t just fond of food like other animals. She liked fancy dresses, shoes, and hair accessories, and she was happy to read books, even though she couldn’t read them. She liked ‘something’, whether it was useful or not. 

Now that he thought about it, had he ever ‘given’ Miela something other than food? 

Miela had searched the castle and asked permission to take what she wanted. There was a big difference between giving her permission and giving her what he found. 

The monster looked around the room. The room was already filled with things Miela had picked up. She had already brought them in. There was no point in giving them again.

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