Chapter 60 [I'm not Erika, I'm Yu...]
Erica was younger than Silas had expected.
She looked even younger than Mela, perhaps around twenty years old.
"Wait, this can't be Erica, can it?" Silas finally realized.
No matter how young she looks, Erika could never look younger than Mela.
“You’re right, she’s not Erica.” Mela nodded, confirming Silas’s guess.
"Did we come to the wrong person?" Silas was extremely surprised.
It was still feeling lingering fear, wondering what would have happened if Mela hadn't managed to escape from the church.
Silas even thought that if Mela were caught, it would have no choice but to go to the stake with her—it would never abandon Mela no matter what.
Mela then told it that they had the wrong person from the start.
Isn't this a huge blunder?
“Although she’s not Erica, the Seed of Life reacted to her, so her relationship with Erica must be very close. In that respect, we didn’t save the wrong person,” Mela patted Silas on the head, comforting him.
Moreover, given that things have come to this point, even if the other party really has nothing to do with Erica, Mela can't just stand by and watch her continue to suffer in the dungeon.
"What's wrong with her now? Why hasn't she woken up yet?" Silas looked at the unconscious woman with curiosity.
Instead of returning to the inn in Naf, Mela had Silas lead the way, deliberately venturing into a secluded alley.
No one was passing by at the moment, so Mela helped the woman sit down against the wall, while Silas stood on the top of the wall to keep watch.
However, seeing that the woman remained unconscious, Silas couldn't help but feel anxious, worried that the longer it dragged on, the more likely an accident would occur.
Now, under the cover of night, is the best time to leave Golden Oak. If they wait until dawn, and the church members realize the woman is missing, it will inevitably cause a lot of trouble.
"Don't worry, she might wake up soon." Mela wasn't sure when the woman would wake up either.
Judging from the woman's condition in the dungeon, she was undoubtedly mistreated by the church and had barely managed to escape with the help of Mela.
However, as soon as Mela found Silas, she felt a weight on her shoulder; the woman had fainted.
With no other option, Mela had to find a safe place for her to rest.
"I... I escaped successfully?"
As Mela and Silas were talking, the woman who had been unconscious opened her eyes again.
She turned her head weakly to look at Mela beside her. "You are... the Mela that Aunt Erica mentioned?"
"So Erica is your aunt." Mela suddenly understood why the Seed of Life would react to women.
The Seed of Life is connected to Erika through blood ties, and therefore is also related to Erika's real family.
“Yes, Erica… is my aunt, and my name is… Yuriel.”
Perhaps because she hadn't had a normal conversation with anyone for too long, Yuriel's speech was inevitably disjointed. She needed to pause for a long time to think before she could find the right words to express her meaning.
However, the current situation is not suitable for them to slowly exchange information.
Taking advantage of Yuriel's current lucid state, Mela immediately handed her a transformation potion. "Drink it, transform into a different form, and let's leave Golden Oak City first."
“…Okay.” Yuriel took the transformation potion and poured it into her mouth without hesitation.
Then, right under Mela's nose, she quickly conjured up another unfamiliar face.
"Do you need me to help you up?" Mela asked.
"No need." Yuriel declined Mela's offer and stood up, leaning against the wall for support.
She just fainted from exhaustion.
Now that I've rested for a while, I've regained a lot of strength, so at least leaving Golden Oak City with Mela shouldn't be a problem.
Mela watched Yuriel walk. Although her movements were still somewhat slow, she continued to walk forward step by step with determination, as if an unnamed force was supporting her as she moved forward.
Knowing that Yuriel really didn't need her help, Mela stopped seeing her as a burden and whispered a few words to her, discussing how to get out of the city later.
Because of Count Salle's birthday, carriages were frequently arriving from outside the city. The soldiers guarding the city gate lazily yawned and let one carriage through at a time.
At the same time, he caught a glimpse of a white shadow in the corner of his eye. When he looked closely, he realized that it was just a white dove flying by.
"Strange, why are there still pigeons flying in the sky so late? Don't they need to sleep at night?" The soldier scratched his face suspiciously, wondering whether pigeons sleep during the day or at night.
Taking advantage of the brief moment when the soldiers' attention was drawn to Silas, and finally waiting for the opportunity when several carriages were about to enter the city, Mela and Yuriel tiptoed around to the back of the carriages, using them as cover, and quickly slipped out.
Soon, they were getting further and further away from the gates of Golden Oak City.
To avoid bumping into other people, Mela and Yuriel did not choose to take the flat road, but instead went without hesitation into the deserted path behind the bushes.
Since it was a deserted path, there were bound to be thorns that suddenly appeared and tore at our sleeves, and small stones that blocked our way and tripped us up.
These are nothing.
Mela spotted a vine about the thickness of a thumb on the ground and took a big step forward, but unexpectedly, she heard a thud behind her. It was Yuriel who had tripped over the vine and fallen to the ground.
Yuriel had been imprisoned in the dungeon for a short time and had suffered a lot of torture during that time. Even though she had bitten her lip until it bled and kept up with Mela's pace with all her might, she still didn't react in time and tripped hard on the vines on the ground.
Yuriel braced herself with her hands on the ground, trying to stand up again, but her legs trembled uncontrollably; she simply couldn't walk anymore.
The little bit of strength I had managed to recover was now completely depleted.
"Never mind, let's take a rest first."
Seeing this, Mela quickly went back to help Yuriel up and led her to a big tree, where she sat down against the tree.
After all that fussing around all night, plus the long journey, Mela was quite tired.
Yuriel, on the other hand, struggled and refused to rest. "No, we're still too close to Golden Oak City. If the church sends people to catch up, neither of us will escape..."
“But can you even walk now?” Mela calmly pointed out a fact.
“I—” Yuriel wanted to stubbornly answer that she could, but before she could finish speaking, Mela interrupted her.
"Even if you could, I couldn't walk anymore, I need to rest."
As she spoke, Melanie waved to Silas in the sky.
Silas immediately understood and fell into her arms, and the two of them rested there.
Now, Yuriel was truly speechless and could only stubbornly agree to rest as well.
“By the way, since we have some time now, why don’t you tell us how you ended up in the hands of the church?” Mela asked curiously.
“…” Yuriel remained silent for a long time before telling a story in the shortest possible words.
Yuriel was raised by Erika from a young age.
However, as she grew older, she inevitably wanted a house of her own.
Upon learning of Yuriel's decision to leave, Erica did not try to stop her. Instead, she seemed relieved and said, "That's great. I'm not used to taking care of children all the time. You can go if you want."
That's how witches are; rather than living with their families and enjoying family life, they prefer to live alone, dedicating more time to themselves and indulging in contemplation.
Therefore, Yuriel was not saddened by Erika's attitude and would occasionally leave her house to visit Erika and check on her.
However, last May, when Yuriel looked at the open wooden door and the empty house, she immediately realized that Erika was gone.
If she left normally, there's no reason she wouldn't leave a note for Yuriel to let her know her whereabouts and reassure her.
Yuriel searched the entire house but couldn't find a single word Erica had left for her.
That leaves only one possibility: Erica did not leave voluntarily.
So Yuriel left her original home and followed the stars to Redcliff territory.
At the same time, I encountered a pitiful grandmother and grandson.
“You should know that there was almost a drought last year. Even though the drought didn’t materialize, many people still died before autumn,” Yuriel said, biting her lip.
The grandmother and grandson had collapsed on the roadside due to lack of water, and Yuriel happened to be passing by and rescued them.
To thank Yuriel, they warmly invited her to their home and brought out the few bean cakes they had hidden away to treat her.
Yuriel couldn't bring herself to refuse their kindness, so she accepted the bean cake.
At this moment, the old man with gray hair named Anton asked Yuriel where she was from, and his accent did not sound like the one Radcliffe would understand.
Yuriel, of course, could not reveal her identity to him, so she took inspiration from the fact that the two of them had collapsed by the roadside and lied that she had fled to Redcliff Territory, asking the old man not to tell anyone.
Anton immediately grabbed his grandson and repeatedly assured him that they would never betray Yuriel.
After all, Yuriel was the great benefactor who had just saved their lives.
In return for his kindness, Anton earnestly invited Yuriel to stay with them, saying that even if she wanted to leave, she should wait until things improved.
Even though the grandfather and grandson had recently collapsed by the roadside due to lack of water, Anton said that the situation in other territories was not necessarily better than that in Radcliffe today.
Yuriel could certainly refuse Anton and leave, but seeing that Anton and his grandson were both skin and bones, and that they would most likely not survive the summer after she left, Yuriel softened her heart.
She thought that since she had saved two lives, she should help them out and leave when autumn came.
In particular, Xingxing said that Erica's situation was not as bad as she had imagined. In fact, after the initial turmoil, Erica gradually settled into a stable state, so Yuriel was no longer in a hurry to get to Erica's side.
“I managed to concoct a growth potion and secretly poured it into their fields. Sure enough, in the fall, they harvested twice as much grain as in previous years.” Yuriel could still recall Anton’s face crinkling with laughter as he looked at the golden wheat.
He said it must be the luck brought by Yuriel.
Therefore, half of the wheat had to be sent to the mill to be ground into flour, which was then made into dry rations for her to take on the road.
By this time, through observation and imitation, Yuriel had successfully mastered the Radcliffe accent, so she no longer had to worry about giving herself away when talking to people.
So she took the dry rations given to her by Anton and bid farewell to the dilapidated little house by the wheat field.
"However, not long after I left, I was arrested by the church."
"I tried my best to escape, even hiding in the mountains for an entire winter, but I was still discovered by a group of knights when I tried to come down the mountain."
"There were too many of them, and they kept shooting arrows at me. I had no way to escape."
Yuriel hugged her knees, buried her face in them, and her voice choked with emotion as she recalled that helpless moment.
Even witches are nothing more than flesh and blood. If they could single-handedly take on a well-trained group of knights, how could they have been forced to disappear by the combined forces of the king and the church, no longer daring to show themselves in the crowd?
In short, Yuriel was captured, and while she was seriously injured and unconscious, she was taken to Golden Oak City and imprisoned in the church's dungeon, where she spent a dark and hopeless period of time.
If it weren't for Mela, she would probably have continued living like that, barely clinging to life.
Bishop Ebna was afraid that Yuriel would escape, so he dared not give her a chance to recover. He not only deliberately starved her, but also added new wounds to her body as soon as her wounds showed signs of healing.
After hearing Yuriel's story, Mela fell silent. If she had been captured in Whitepine Town, she might have ended up like Yuriel.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
