In This Life I Will Be The Lord Novel - Side Story, Chapter 45

Shan doubted her ears.
“I… die?”
Why would I?
She couldn’t understand.
To die if she left the forest.
Her prophetic dream was clear.
Her fate was to leave this forest, fall in love with a man named Gallahan, and give birth to a daughter named Florentia.
“You must have seen it wrong. That can’t be.”
Shan shook her head, denying it.
“Tell me exactly. What did you see, Mother?”
Soura looked at her daughter’s face, which was more rigid than ever, and groaned.
“I received news of your death one winter. The news brought by someone who came to me from outside the forest.”
“B-but that could be a long time from now!”
“They said you had a very young daughter. Not even a year old.”
“I… die before Tia is even a year old?”
“You even knew that child’s name?”
Soura’s voice was sharp.
Shan’s daughter was also Soura’s granddaughter.
But the name of a child who wouldn’t even be born was nothing more than an unpleasant noise.
“Forget that name. You will never give birth to that child.”
“Mother, you can’t say such things…”
Shan tried to protest.
She wanted to get angry and tell her mother that even she shouldn’t say such terrible things.
But suddenly, her vision blurred.
At the same time, the scenery of the house they were talking in changed.
She was back in the bedroom she had seen in her dream just moments ago.
The place where she happily smiled with Gallahan, holding Tia in her arms under the warm sunlight.
Gallahan was still by Shan’s side.
He was holding her hand tightly right next to her, tears streaming down his face.
“Shan…”
His face, ruined by cold tears, touched the back of her hand.
“Please, don’t leave me.”
He sobbed.
She wanted to tell him, who was suffering so much.
To stop crying. That she was okay.
But no voice came out.
So she tried to squeeze his hand with all her might, but only a few fingers moved.
But even that seemed too much, and it became increasingly difficult to breathe.
“Please, ah, please… Shan, no.”
Gallahan clung to her like a child.
He fumbled at her face with both hands, showering her with countless kisses, trying to keep her by his side somehow.
Tears, whose origin she didn’t know, streamed down Shan’s face.
She wanted to say that she didn’t want to leave his side either.
If no sound came out, then just with her mouth shape.
She wanted to convey that to him, who was grieving.
Shan instinctively reached out and clutched Gallahan’s clothes.
At that moment.
“Haa!”
What she grabbed was the hard back of a chair.
Shan was back in her forest home, in the present.
“Do you understand now?”
Soura, who had been watching Shan stare blankly into space and cry during their conversation, asked in a cold voice.
“Haa, haa.”
Shan, who had been disoriented for a moment, roughly wiped away her tears.
“Why… why am I…”
In the glimpse of the future she had seen, she was clearly dying.
She was afraid.
She was scared and wanted to run away.
Soura, reading Shan’s mind, said,
“Now that you know, you can avoid it.”
Shan weakly raised her head.
“Just as we avoided the flood that swept through the village and took many lives, you can do the same this time. You can make a different choice.”
Shan said nothing.
She just stared back at Soura with empty eyes.
“…Go back to your room. You’re tired, so let’s talk again after you’ve rested.”
Shan obeyed Soura’s words.
Thud, thud.
With weak footsteps, she returned to her room and closed the door.
Soura, who stood in front of Shan’s silently closed door for a little longer, also returned to her room.
And lay down her tired body.
There was definitely a sense of relief.
If Shan had been stubborn, she had planned to give an order not as a mother, but as the chieftain of the Chara tribe.
She intended to keep her daughter here, even if it meant losing the right to leave the forest forever.
That was Soura’s way of protecting Shan.
Soura, who had fallen asleep as if losing consciousness, opened her eyes in the morning.
She straightened her disheveled clothes and stood up.
The house was still quiet.
It was perhaps natural that Shan hadn’t come out of bed yet after what had happened yesterday.
She opened Shan’s door, which was still tightly closed as she had last seen it yesterday.
“Shan.”
She intended to wake her up and make her eat, even if by force.
But Soura stopped dead in her tracks, as if nailed to the spot.
“…Shan?”
Shan was clearly lying in bed.
But at the same time, she wasn’t there.
Even after calling her name many times and shaking her shoulder, there was no response.
Shan did not awaken from her deep sleep.

It had been three days since Shan had woken up.
In the quiet room, where only her daughter’s breathing could be heard, Soura sat idly, staring at the bed.
She, unlike others, had no ordinary sight, but she saw what others could not.
That was Soura’s ability.
And now, Soura was observing Shan’s emotions as she dreamed.
In the dream, which consisted of glimpses of the future, Shan was happy.
Occasionally, there were hints of sadness and exhaustion, but that was all.
It was like looking at a field of flowers in full bloom with freedom, joy, fulfillment, and love.
“What is it that makes you so happy?”
Soura chided her sleeping daughter.
“I told you not to leave the forest, but you ended up escaping into a dream.”
Soura murmured sadly and turned her head towards the quiet door.
“Come in, Anai.”
Anai, who usually guarded Soura and followed her like a shadow wherever she went, was also by her side today.
“Don’t worry about Shan, Anai. She’s just in a deep sleep.”
“Can she… wake up?”
Anai, who was now in her late teens, asked in a surprisingly deep voice for her age.
“She will.”
Soura answered quietly.
Inevitably, sadness also clouded Anai’s face.
She possessed great strength, enough to uproot trees and wield them, but she was powerless before the fate of the two people she cherished most.
She was tormented by her inability to help Soura, who had accepted her after she had killed her parents due to her uncontrollable strength, and Shan, who had first extended her hand and told her to call her ‘unnie’.
In the silence, Soura suddenly asked,
“You once said something like that, Anai.”
A bitter smile touched Soura’s lips.
“That your immense strength feels like a curse, not a blessing. Perhaps you were right.”
“Chieftain-nim.”
“My ability, your strength that knows no pain, and Shan’s ability to see her own future.”
Because each individual of the Chara tribe possessed mysterious magical power, they had been able to survive in this jungle until now.
That had been Soura’s deep pride as the leader of the tribe.
But now, she only resented that power.
“Perhaps we are all sinners. To be punished like this.”
Soura sighed deeply as she saw Shan’s emotions shimmer with joy once again.
She had always believed that the price of seeing so much with her magic was her prematurely dimmed eyes.
However, it seemed that the price was ridiculously insufficient.
Soura finally realized that.

The time when the morning sun rose and the blue sky brightened.
Soura opened Shan’s door with hurried steps.
Shan, who was sitting on the bed looking out the window, turned her head.
“Mother.”
Shan smiled, her face thin from not eating or drinking properly for several days.
“Good morning.”
Soura gripped the doorknob tightly.
It was just a greeting, but she could feel it.
It was the same smiling face, but in just a few days, Shan seemed like a different person.
Bright but detached.
Like someone who had seen the end and returned.
“It seems you’ve seen a lot.”
“Haha, did I sleep too long?”
Her tone was as if she had just had a long, leisurely nap.
“It seems my ability has bloomed again. I feel like I can see much further and more, even without falling asleep.”
“That’s…!”
“I know. It’s not a good thing.”
Shan gave a bitter smile.
“Perhaps it’s because I’ve decided to sacrifice more?”
“You finally…”
Soura’s face twisted in agony.
“I tried to listen to you, Mother. You said I could just avoid it, make a different choice. And dying is scary.”
Shan scratched her cheek.
“I cried for a long time. It’s funny, isn’t it? Things I haven’t even had yet. I was so sad and lonely, like I’d lost everything, like I was left alone. I cried a lot. Then I fell asleep.”
“…How much did you see?”
“Everything. All of it.”
Shan’s answer was peculiar.
“And I realized. I think I’m incredibly lucky, Mother.”
Her voice even had a hint of excitement.
“Lucky? Even though you’re going to die?”
“But Mother, I’ve been given a chance to choose. A chance to see, feel, and then choose between two paths.”
Shan smiled truly happily.
“I know now. How much he loves me, and how he smiles by my side.”
Even the stiff steps she took, unable to hide her trembling, and the warmth that intertwined with her fingers.
All remained vivid.
“I don’t know how many years I’ll be given, but I still want to make him happy. I want to make him smile like that.”
Waking from her long sleep, Shan made her decision.
It was a choice that was almost absurdly easy, and natural.
“I’m going, Mother.”
Because she had fallen in love with her destiny.
“I’m going, to be by his side.”