I Raised Snow White!

126. Poisoned Apple (1)

[Episode 126] – Poisoned Apple (1)

When I looked out the window, orange and yellow leaves had fallen, covering half of the window. The sky was so blue that it hurt my eyes to look at it. It was full fall.

I took a bite of a sweet pumpkin cookie while looking at the fallen leaves that had begun to pile up on the window sill. As the sweet taste of pumpkin spread in my mouth, I felt like autumn was coming one step closer to me.

I split the cookie in half, put one piece in my mouth, and stared blankly at the window while chewing on the cookie. As the chilly wind blew through the cracks in the window, I realized that it was time to start preparing for winter.

Last year, perhaps because it was our first winter here, we were very unprepared. Even if I received help from the villagers, it wasn’t enough. This time, I thought I should prepare a little more thoroughly.

I need to buy a lot of firewood and stock up on food.

Moreover, slowly…

‘Is it a festival after the coronation ceremony? The prices of items seem to rise a lot during the festival period. Should I buy them in advance? No, is it already too late? I didn’t even think about it after it happened last year…’

Soon, news that Titania’s coronation ceremony would be held reached the countryside. Everyone in the village was very excited about the news that a festival would be held for a week after the coronation ceremony.

A close lady was excited about going to the city next to her and making a lot of money, and the children were so excited by the word of a festival that they were busy waiting for the peddlers. When a festival is held, vendors will stop by here too.

You’re probably looking forward to the amazing food and things to see brought by the peddlers. Maybe that’s why the number of children coming to the store to save up pocket money has decreased these days. It’s unfortunate, but I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, I felt strange thinking that Titania’s coronation ceremony was already taking place. When I thought about Titania turning 20 and becoming queen, I realized how quickly time flies.

‘Titania is twenty years old… Am I already in my thirties? What? How old am I? 32? 33? For some reason, the older I get, the more I feel calm about my age…’

Thinking of my age, something like this happened a few months ago.

A young couple who had just moved into the village had a young child. He can’t speak properly and is a shy kid. Everyone said it was cute and looked at it, so I went to look at it with a gift.

A cute baby with a short tongue calling her mom and dad ‘Mommy, ah pua.’ The way he was toddling around was so cute that I wanted to pinch his rice cake-like cheeks.

When I gave the small baby the ‘snack that even babies can easily eat’ that Katarina made as a gift, the baby looked at me, bowed her head, and said this.

‘Ajuma, thank you.’

‘What? Madame?’

The child’s mother has to call him ‘unni’ somehow. She corrected me, but she continued to call me ‘Ajumma’. Until the time I leave. She even thought about taking the gift away.

Not only that, these days, there have been a lot of cases where children I meet for the first time call me ‘Ajumma.’ Children don’t know anything and just judge by what they see! Because I’m a child who doesn’t know anything!

Obviously, they call me ‘Ajumma’ because I look to be around the same age as my mother. Otherwise, there’s no way you’d be called ‘ajumma’ with this face, right? Right? It shouldn’t happen, right?

Furthermore, one of the biggest reasons for being called an ajumma is…

“Why, why are you glaring at me like that…?”

“…It’s nothing.”

Katarina’s presence is probably the biggest. Because Katarina looked like she was about 15 years old or younger, I treated her like a ‘baby mom’ here too. Do all witches, including the great witch, look that young?

I sighed while looking in the mirror, raised my arms in my seat, and stretched. Thinking that I needed to move on from her, I looked at Katarina and checked to see if there was anything missing from her warehouse.

“Katarina. I’m going to the market for a while. Shall we go together?”

“Well, I’m going to look at the house…”

“Yes, I knew you would say that. The only thing I seem to be lacking right now is flour and eggs… Is there anything else I need? “Can’t you say something else later?”

“Uh… So… Uh, I don’t think there is one.”

After finishing her pondering, Katarina shook her head. It wasn’t that there was a shortage of flour or eggs in the warehouse, but she was bored and thought of going for a walk to the market.

“You can go alone without me, right? “Like last time, if you hide in the corner of the stand when a customer comes, I will scold you.”

“It’s not like that anymore…!”

Is that really true…

After putting on my coat, I asked Katarina to take care of her house and went out of her shop. As I stepped outside her door, the wind that passed by her face was quite chilly, so I unconsciously shrugged her shoulders.

*

“You went…?”

After seeing that Vivian’s footsteps had become distant, Katarina stuck her head out of her door and looked around her. After confirming that no one was around her store, Katarina changed the sign in front of the door from [Open] To [Closed].

When Vivian went out to the village, she would not return for two hours because she was busy talking with the villagers, so all she had to do was close the door during that time. By the time Vivian comes, putting her door plate back would be a perfect crime, and the moment Katharina was about to go back into the store –

“Is this a snack shop run by a ‘witch’?”

“Ahh…!”

“But… Is the business over already?”

Katarina jumped up from her spot at the sudden sound of a woman’s voice coming from behind. Katharina turned her head with a squeak and saw a ‘woman’ approaching right behind her.

Her face was hard to see because her hood was all over her head, but her voice and body shape were clearly ‘female’. Katarina’s shoulders shook at the sight of a guest she was seeing for the first time, who was not her usual village guest.

For Katarina, who found it difficult to communicate with other people, dealing with her ‘new guest’ was almost atrocious. She wanted to foam at the mouth and collapse in her place right now, but that wasn’t possible in her reality.

In front of Katarina, whose hair had turned completely white, her guest came up and waved her hand in front of her. She wanted to check whether Katarina, who suddenly froze, was alive and breathing.

“Over there?”

“Ah, uh, welcome…! Oh, it’s still open…”

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“Ah, I see. “They changed the sign, so I thought it was closed.”

Actually, I wanted to lie and say it was over, but…

What if this guest meets Vivian? Since this was a small town, the chance of bumping into Vivian was very high. There, this customer said, ‘Huh? If you ask Vivian, ‘Wasn’t business over?’…

Gulp.

Katarina trembled, thinking that it wouldn’t end with her being spanked like last time. Rather than lying and saying that business was closed, the correct answer was to accept the customers and send them out quickly.

“Come in…!”

Katarina welcomed her guest with the most awkward smile in the world. Katarina, repeating the simulation of calculations in her head, approached the counter with creaky steps and stood tall like a wooden pillar.

The customer who entered the store turned his head and began to look inside the store. She looked at the snacks on the counter and made her selection, then quickly walked up to the counter and placed them in front of Katarina.

“Uh, uh… I mean… The price…”

“Hey, by any chance, where has the ‘witch’ gone? “I don’t think I can see it…”

“Uh, huh? “Are you a witch?”

When you say witch, do you mean Vivian? Katarina hesitated for a moment, wondering what to say. She didn’t think it was anything to hide, so she answered the guest directly.

“Well, you went to the market for a while. “I think he’ll be back in about two hours…”

“…I see. “It got mixed up.”

Katarina tilted her head at the bitter voice. By any chance, do you know Vivian? Since she came here, Vivian’s ‘acquaintances’ have not visited her once. Although she often came to visit if she was a franc.

“Ho, are you by any chance Vivian’s acquaintance…? If you have anything to say, would you like me to say it for you?”

“…No. Are you okay. Also, I have a few things I want to ask you, is that okay?”

“Yes, yes? “To me?”

Katarina was startled, but her guest lifted the corner of her mouth and smiled. Due to Katarina’s personality, she couldn’t refuse even if she wanted to, so she couldn’t help but nod her head in the end.

“Because this is the countryside… Aren’t there a lot of thieves?”

“Oh, no…? “The kids may have stolen a snack or two, but I’ve never been a thief.”

“Really?”

Katarina was taken aback by the sudden question.

She had no idea what kind of question the customer was asking. Could it be that she is someone who is trying to open a new store in town? As Katarina tilted her head, her guest grinned and moved on to the next question.

“So, if… your precious item is stolen by a thief, how will you react? “Is there any way to cope in a rural area like this where there are no guards to protect the village?”

“Eh, eh…? Well, I mean…”

Katarina felt as if steam was coming from her head. Because I can’t understand the customer’s intention in asking the question. Thief? What if something precious is taken away? How do you deal with it?

Of course, it would have been difficult if I had been robbed in this place where there were no security guards. Unlike cities where guards are stationed, this is a place where there is no place to report, and it is a place built solely on trust between the villagers.

It would be okay if you hid it with magic in the first place, but…

“Well, if it’s really precious… I should take good care of it… Right? Well, there’s no security here… Oh, and if it’s really stolen by thieves, you have to do whatever it takes to get it back somehow…? “I think I will… if it’s something really precious…”

“…Okay. Thank you for your opinion.”

“Well, then why are you asking me this question…?”

“Recently, I lost something really precious to a thief. In the end, I found out that there was a thief nearby… So, I was wondering what to do about the thief.”

“I see, I see…! I, the bad guy around here…! “I wish I could catch it…!”

“…I guess so.”

Katarina clenched her fists and answered.

Of course, she never imagined that there would be thieves around her. The people in this village are all nice and kind, but I wondered who on earth would be a thief among them.

The hooded customer chuckled as he saw Katarina clenching her hand, then placed a basket containing two silver coins and three bright red fruits on the counter. The ripe, bright red apples looked delicious.

Katarina stared blankly at her silver coin placed in her palm. The money she received was too much, and Katarina didn’t understand why she put the fruit basket on the counter, so she just counted the change.

However, the customer shook her hand.

“This is my gift in return. I bought it because it was sold at the market and it looked delicious. “There are three apples, so please give them to the witch as well.”

“Oh, it’s okay… And I have too much money…”

“Don’t worry. “It’s just ‘thank you’.”

Katarina didn’t know what to do because the customer consistently refused. It would be difficult for her to receive a lot of money like this. She seems to know Vivian, so shouldn’t she at least hear the customer’s name?

The moment Katarina made up her mind and raised her head to look at her customer, her customer had already left her store and she could be seen leaving through the half-open door.

*

Squeak – The door opened, and Vivian came into the store, holding a basket of eggs in one hand. Katarina walked up to Vivian with her quick steps, and she took the heavy-looking egg basket from her.

“Rain, Vivian. Oh, are you here?”

“Yes. A little late, right? “I got to play with the kid who moved in last time.”

“Bi, Vivian really likes children…?”

“Yes. “It’s cute.”

When Vivian took off her coat and headed to the checkout counter, her eyes caught the sight of a fruit basket placed on the counter. The three apples in the basket were bright red and ripe and looked delicious and appetizing.

“Huh? “Who came and went?”

“Yes, yes. “Some customer said in return…”

“Really? “That apple looks delicious.”

Vivian stretched out her hand and grabbed an apple from the basket. The apples in the basket were ripe and looked delicious, and it was probably because I was hungry after playing with my child.

Vivien, who had not particularly suspected that she had received many things from the villagers so far and that this apple might have been left behind by the villagers, took a small bite of the apple.

When I bit into the apple without any hesitation, my mouth was filled with sweet apple flavor and sweet juice. As she chewed and swallowed it slowly, a smile appeared on Vivian’s lips as if it was really delicious.

“Hmm-is it delicious? Katarina, you too-“

That moment.

Before she could finish speaking, Vivian’s knees suddenly gave way. ‘Uh? Huh?’ Vivian’s eyes widened as she suddenly felt her vision sinking. But, that too for a moment.

“Rain, Vivian?!”

The world in front of her eyes spun, and Vivian instantly collapsed to the floor. Katarina stretched out her arms and called out to Vivian, who was about to fall, but Vivian fell to the floor faster.

Vivian fell to the floor and closed her eyes. His vision was so dizzy that he could not open his eyes, and his words could not come out properly. I felt his consciousness slipping away without any time to think about what was happening.

In my consciousness that was fading away, I heard a longing voice in my ear.

“You said, right? “If something precious to you is stolen by a thief, I will do whatever it takes to get it back.”

Vivian somehow opened his eyes and looked towards where the longing voice had come from. In his spinning vision, a hooded woman was looking down at Katarina and herself on the floor.

“Me too. I feel like I have to return what was stolen to me by any means necessary. “I just came to get back what you stole.”

As the woman removed her hood, her ebony black hair flowed down to her shoulders. Vivian held his breath for a moment and squeezed his eyes shut. It was because I didn’t have the confidence to meet those eyes.

The woman knelt down on one knee and brushed Vivian’s face as she fell to the floor, then smiled once, then raised her head and glared at Katarina as if she were going to kill her. Really, with such ferocity that it feels like it could tear and kill you at any moment.

“Now I have to give back the precious thing you stole from me.”