MTO C16

Chapter 16

“Everyone, stay in your rooms quietly!”

Barbara gave strict instructions to the children before hurrying out of the building. Her heart pounded rapidly—whether from fear or from a strange sense of expectation, she could not tell.

Amid the black silhouettes of barren winter trees, the lone yellow light shone brightly like a star falling from the night sky. It drew rapidly closer to the orphanage. Soon Barbara realized it was Michel, carrying a lantern.

“Oh? Sister!”

Once they were close enough to recognize one another’s faces, Michel spotted her and waved enthusiastically. Relief crashed over Barbara so heavily she nearly collapsed on the spot.

Only then did she realize how desperately she had been waiting for him—something unthinkable, even a single day ago.

“You must have waited a long time. Forgive me for being late. I lost track of time trying to gather everything people gave us…”

Michel came running right up to her, speaking before he even caught his breath. Barbara quickly collected her scattering thoughts.

“No—it’s all right. I’m simply glad you’ve returned safely.”

“And the children?”

“They are all gathered upstairs.”

“No matter how much I insisted I would pull it myself, this is excessive, don’t you think?”

Following behind, David arrived at the entrance to the orphanage, lowering an enormous cart onto the yard. Barbara had never seen such a thing before.

He rolled his shoulders, as if stiff from the burden.

“Wandering through the forest at night without a light is the same as courting death.”

“Ah—you’re right! I’m sorry, I rushed too much.”

When Michel apologized, David sighed softly.

“It is understandable. Sister, I trust you had peace this day?”

“Yes, yes. Please, come in.”

While Barbara exchanged greetings with David, Michel hurried to pull away the cloth covering the cart. Within, the sheer volume and variety of supplies astonished her—bread, meat, jugs of milk, sacks of flour, bundles of firewood… an entire abundance of necessities.

“Not knowing exactly what the orphanage lacked, I bought a balance of things for the winter. As for food, the inn provided us generously.”

He lifted out a round cabbage as he explained.

Could this be… stolen?

So suspicious was the scene that such a thought chilled Barbara momentarily. They had left utterly empty‑handed—how could they return, within half a day, with such a trove of goods?

“How did you possibly…?”

“I, too, am wondering.”

“Eh?”

When Barbara looked, David gave a sly smile, gazing sidelong at Michel. The latter seemed oblivious, busily unloading the cart. Barbara hastily joined to help.

“Oh, Sister! Take this.”

In the middle of unloading, Michel pulled a small pouch from his robes and handed it over. Heavy even in her palm, Barbara stared blankly at him.

“There was still some money left even after buying food.”

She glanced down at the pouch. Inside the loosely tied opening glimmered several silver coins.

At once, her heart plummeted. Even without fully opening it, she knew the sum exceeded the entirety of the secret emergency fund she had buried behind the orphanage. A shiver ran through her like a delayed chill.

“Sister.”

She raised her head in dread. Michel looked down at her with gentle amethyst eyes.

Legend told that when God first created the continent, there had been only endless light. God Himself was light incarnate. But imperfect humans could not endure the eternal day. They worked without rest, tormented by thirst, their flesh blistering ceaselessly in the sun.

In pity for them, God shed His own blood to cover the sky in darkness. At last, night came, and with night came humanity’s rest. For this reason, the sky at dusk was dyed purple—the mark of divine compassion, a joyous sign of liberation from endless day.

“Would you be willing to take charge of the orphanage’s ledger henceforth, Sister? Embarrassing as it is, I barely know anything of the finances. I’d like you to oversee all future donations as well.”

Purple, the symbol of God’s mercy.

Barbara closed her eyes, trying to swallow the surge building within her. But ultimately a single tear rolled down her cheek—hot enough to melt away the long, coiled mass of old doubts that had nested in her heart. Just one tear, but it carried the fire of release.

Michel’s face filled her vision, startled by her sudden crying.

“If… if it’s too much for you, then I can handle it. Forgive me for burdening you.”

“No. I will do it. I can handle it.”

Barbara wiped her face quickly. Her body, worn from a day of labor, ached with exhaustion; but her heart was filled with incomparable fullness.

“Thank you.”

For the first time in her life, she offered thanks to her own God.

And God smiled.

“You say you once learned martial arts as a child?”

“Yes. It slipped my mind, but yesterday I suddenly recalled it.”

As Michel hammered wooden planks onto the orphanage’s battered exterior wall, David’s burning stare scorched the side of his cheek—but Michel only worked the harder, pretending not to notice.

The two were repairing broken shutters left patched with scraps of cloth that had blocked no wind at all. Lacking proper carpentry skills, they simply nailed planks over the windows. Unsightly, perhaps, but effective against the cold.

“David, could you hand me another nail?”

“Here you are. But tell me—who taught you this martial art?”

Michel’s attempt to smoothly change the subject was a complete failure. Ever since witnessing the Taekwondo performance the night before, David had been in a daze before suddenly turning severe, demanding answers.

Michel had put off answering repeatedly—let’s wait until we’re back at the orphanage, let’s eat first, let’s speak tomorrow—but in doing so had bought enough time to concoct a plausible lie.

“I don’t really know the man well.”

“…What?”

Michel glanced sideways, cleared his throat, then brought the hammer to his mouth like a microphone. David clearly had no idea what he was doing.

“He appeared one day, out of nowhere, and then vanished the next. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor where he lived. All I have are the lessons he left me, which I recall to this day. Ah, my master—where have you gone?”

Michel shamelessly borrowed from the stock plots of the wuxia novels that Usung Woo^1, his old Taekwondo master, loved to read. The concept of a wandering hidden master was cliché enough to be believable. In 21st‑century Korea he would have been called insane, but in this world of webtoon logic—where monsters and mages existed—mysterious martial sages could hardly be impossible.

He expected David to swallow it whole.

“Yet just now, you said you had forgotten until yesterday… which is it?”

Ah—slip!

“I-I meant my body never forgot. My head did, but upon hearing that traveling band yesterday—bam! The memory returned. Hah, perhaps my master was a minstrel all along…?”

The more he explained, the sharper David’s gaze pierced him. Despite the winter chill, sweat beaded down Michel’s face.

I should have just said God taught me…

At that moment, something caught his eye. Two fluffy tufts of auburn peeked out from the corner of the building.

He watched quietly. Soon, two children timidly poked their faces around a pillar. Startled to meet Michel’s eyes, they scurried away behind the structure. Michel set down his hammer and went after them.

“What are you doing here?”

“Eek!”

The spies were Dan and Max, the twin brothers. Apparently they had not expected him to appear in person; they fidgeted anxiously, stomping their feet.

They were identical twins, mirrored even in their astonishment. Michel still had trouble telling them apart.

“Dan?”

“Eek!”

“…Max?”

“Heeek!”

Now perhaps he could. The taller one with more freckles was Dan; the smaller with darker eyes was Max. Still, the distinctions were faint—requiring close attention.

Our Taekwondo gym had twins too.

At Usung Taekwondo Gym^2, the twin boys often challenged Jeong‑oh with quizzes to see if he could tell them apart. At first he failed, but before long he learned. Their personalities and tastes were in fact so different that their differences outweighed their similarities.

So I wonder what you two like—what you dislike.

Michel bent down to study their faces more closely. At that instant—

“Sister says it’s mealtime!”

“Mealtime!”

Shouting joyfully, the boys sprinted away together, laughter trailing brightly behind them.

“Saint.”

Still smiling as he watched them go, Michel suddenly stiffened at the chill presence that flooded from behind. Slowly turning, he found David had approached without sound.

The knight smiled with infinite serenity.

“So—when exactly did you say you met this master?”

“…Sister says it’s time for supper.”

Panicked, Michel bolted after the twins into the building.