Lucia - Chapter 65

Chapter 65

Side-story 1

The day was quickly getting darker . Philip looked to the sky to guess the time and estimated the distance to the mountain that was some distance away .

It would be hard to climb the mountain today . Unless it was a state of urgency, it was better to not climb a mountain in the dark .

Philip was a seasoned traveler with lengthy experience but he refused to risk it . He would be sleeping in the streets tonight as well . Once one got accustomed to this lifestyle, making a bed for the night was very swift .

He made a bonfire and had his dinner of dry rations and water . Philip’s mind went back to the village he left today . Just like other places, the naive villagers were on guard at first but quickly opened their hearts to him .

It was always sad to shake off the hands holding him back when it was time to leave . Very rarely, there were places that made him consider settling down . However, he was unable to bear it for long and would set out wandering again .

It was a wandering with no destination and no known end . It wasn’t for freedom . He was just wandering around aimlessly . Philip reckoned that his family’s karma had piled up and become his retribution .

“Hu-hu…my attachment is tenacious . ”

The face of the patient from the earlier village suddenly sprang up in his mind . The woman looked old but she had a clear and pleasant expression . Philip didn’t think he would see a patient that took mugwort, much less a patient that took it from her first menstruation at a place like that .

He had seen patients whose menstruation stopped for a while after eating mugwort but it was his first time meeting a patient like the one earlier . It was a case where it wasn’t done intentionally but it was done of one’s own accord . The world was indeed vast, unexpected things happened all the time .

Philip gave the woman the cure . He had torn it out entirely from the notebook passed down as his family’s vision . The cure was stored in his head anyways, but there was a reason why he went out of his way to tear it out .

It was a meaningful action to tear off his small attachment that was still persisting and clinging on . In any case, once the Philip that had no family died, these secrets would be buried with him forever . But even then, he was still unable to throw it away but finally, now, he was able to .

“I even asked her if she was a virgin . How stupid . ”

Philip ridiculed himself . He wondered why that question had come out of his mouth then . It was no use whether that woman was a virgin or not now .

Tears began to form in his eyes as he vacantly gazed at the bonfire . Due to old age, a pool of tears began to flow from his eyes . Whenever he suddenly recalled the young master, he couldn’t bear the sadness and the urge to cry .

Even if he had grown into an excellent young man, to Philip, he was always the little young master . The memories of him holding the toddler’s little hand and taking him to the Duke were still vivid in his head . Philip was already content to watch that mature figure from afar .

It had already been several years since the man that was Philip’s last hope was buried in the cold ground(1) . And since then, the Duke had abandoned the north and only roamed the battlefield(2) .

Everything was over . The course was running for the last time .

“Young master Damian…”

Philip’s shoulder’s shook as he sobbed . Just like the day he held onto the returned corpse of the young master and cried endlessly; Philip stooped to the floor and cried .