The Story of Becoming a Married Man in Another World

032 Dorothy’s Shattered Dream

It’s a reassuring smell. Like sinking into warm water, the smell that makes the heart strong was all around Dorothy.

‘Dad.’

In this smell, it’s safe. A very, very strong dad protects us. No one can touch Lizzy’s mom and Dorothy. It’s good, very good.

The smell moved up and down. The body swayed up and down. The head also shook. Somehow, it’s fun.

But suddenly, it felt strange. When we left the village, the wind was blowing cold, but now there’s none. The wind is all gone. Strange. Where did all the wind go?

‘Oh, right. Dorothy was inside dad’s clothes.’

Dorothy thought in her sleep and suddenly opened her eyes. She remembered. Dorothy has an important mission.

“Rabbit!”

When she shouted that, she heard laughter from beside her. She wriggled and poked her head out, and Lizzy’s mom was laughing.

A house could be seen a little far away. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them, and it was already the house.

“So fast.”

When Dorothy shouted, dad also laughed and bent his body slightly forward. Dad moved the arm that was holding his butt. Dorothy slipped out from under dad’s clothes.

It was fun to slide, so she wanted to do it again, but she was busy now. She had to go feed the rabbit.

“I’ll go feed the rabbit.”

Saying that, she ran towards the house and suddenly remembered. It wasn’t ‘I’ll go’. Since everyone was going home together, mom and dad had to come to Dorothy.

Dorothy turned her face back while running and shouted.

“Mom, dad, hurry up!”

“Dorothy, look ahead! You’ll fall.”

Mom shouted in panic. Lizzy’s mom is a worrywart. She worries all day long. Dorothy won’t fall.

Thud!

She fell. It hurt. She hit her nose. Her knees hurt too. What if there’s a hole in her new clothes? She was worried and looked around, but it seemed fine.

Dorothy stood up quickly. It hurt, but it’s okay. Dorothy is brave.

When she went to the peddler’s cart, she met a boy much bigger than her. Thinking of that boy, Dorothy strengthened her eyes. That boy had a mean mouth. He was a bad kid. He said Dorothy wasn’t brave because she was a girl.

Moreover, when she told him that her baby rabbit had horns, he called her a liar. He said a rabbit with horns is a monster and would eat a kid like her if she got close.

She tried to say it wasn’t a lie, but the boy’s mouth moved well. It kept moving without stopping. Dorothy had no chance to speak.

When the boy finally stopped talking and Dorothy opened her mouth, he immediately started talking again. He said very smart things, and although it was frustrating, Dorothy couldn’t say anything.

Really, that boy was incredibly smart. He knew so much more than Dorothy, he seemed more like a teacher. Dorothy also taught dad how to speak, but that boy knew more. He was something amazing.

Getting angry again belatedly, Dorothy stopped running and stomped her feet.

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Even if that kid knows more than Dorothy, Dorothy is not a liar! I have to go back with the baby rabbit. I’ll show that bad kid that it really has horns.

Just like the father who went to the mountain and died, who used to shout at Dorothy and her second mother a long time ago, I’ll crush them completely.

“But first, rabbit food!”

Dorothy gathered bamboo leaves scattered around with both hands. When she tried to pick up more leaves, the ones she was holding kept falling back to the ground.

With no other choice, she ran to the rabbit house with what she had. She untied the rope tightly wrapped around the protruding tree and opened the door. The leaves she was holding fell again. Oh well, I’ll pick them up later.

Dorothy shouted loudly as she went inside.

“Rabbit! Eat your food!”

Dorothy’s eyes widened as she stood inside. The bamboo leaves she was holding all fell to the floor.

Gone. The rabbit is gone. Not a single one left. They all disappeared.

“Oh, where did they go?”

Maybe they are hiding somewhere. Are they playing hide and seek? Dorothy ran around the empty rabbit house looking for the rabbits, but it was still empty.

Ugh… Her lips pouted. Even though she didn’t mean to, her lips moved on their own. Rabbit, my rabbit, it’s gone. No matter how much I look, it’s not there.

“Ugh, ugh…”

A sob escaped between her lips. The rabbit’s face spun around in her head. The rabbit gave birth to another rabbit, and that rabbit gave birth to another rabbit, and again…

“Waahhh!”

The rabbit kingdom disappeared. It was going to be an enormous rabbit kingdom, but it vanished, my rabbit.

‘I didn’t even get to eat a single piece of meat.’

Thinking that made her even sadder.

So sad and sorrowful, Dorothy plopped down on the floor and started crying loudly.

*

Suddenly, the sound of a child crying was heard. Dorothy’s voice was heard crying loudly inside the rabbit house.

From noble mtl dot come

Juhwan was startled and hurried his steps with the carrier on his back. It wasn’t an urgent cry. She wasn’t hurt or in a desperate situation. He could gauge that much even in his confusion.

But it was different from just crying after falling. Not knowing why she was crying, his heart pounded anxiously.

Carefully, so the load wouldn’t collapse, he put down the carrier in front of the warehouse and propped it with a stick. There were so many things that it felt a bit precarious.

The bundle of straw he received from the villagers was very large. He didn’t know how they did it without machines, but it was tightly packed and still very large. More than half of the load on the high carrier was straw.

Adjusting the position of the stick to keep it balanced, Juhwan turned around.

Liz was already inside the rabbit house.

For some reason, after a while, her crying was also heard faintly.

What’s going on? Why are both of them crying? His heart grew impatient.

Juhwan hurried to the rabbit house, then suddenly glanced at the ground where the bamboo was planted.

‘Ah!’

Looking at the outer part of the rabbit hutch made of bamboo, Juhwan quickly realized what had happened.

The once hard ground had become loose, and the part close to the bamboo had slightly sunk.

He thought he had driven it in deeply enough, but it seemed the rabbits had dug underneath and escaped.

‘But even so, why is Lizzy crying too?’

When he entered the rabbit hutch, Dorothy was lying on the bare ground, wailing, and Lizzy was standing next to her, tears streaming down her face.

Dorothy seemed heartbroken that the rabbit kingdom had collapsed. Between her sobs, she was crying out her plans.

He didn’t know why Lizzy was crying. Maybe she had also dreamed of becoming incredibly rich with the rabbits.

Anyway, he picked up the child who was crying like a frog, and pulled Lizzy, whose eyes had turned red in an instant, into his arms and patted their backs. The two clung to his chest and began to cry even more sorrowfully.

They say joy multiplies when shared, but it seems sorrow does too. Watching his wife and child cry as if nothing in the world could be sadder, Juhwan couldn’t help but laugh.

Dorothy, angry at Juhwan’s laughter, shouted while crying.

“Daddy ##!”

It was probably meant to be ‘I hate you.’

Dorothy jumped off the ground and ran into the house.

Lizzy seemed a bit upset by Juhwan’s reaction too. She quietly wiped her tears and followed Dorothy inside.

No, Juhwan was also upset that the rabbits had escaped. But the two of them were just too funny. Crying and wailing like that.

“….”

While waiting for the smoke to clear after rekindling the fire in the house, Dorothy was crying and scolding the baby rabbit, telling it not to run away.

The basket with the baby rabbit was filled with straw taken from the bed. Dorothy had put it there so it wouldn’t be cold while the family was in the village.

The baby rabbit, wrapped snugly in the straw, seemed to have woken up from Dorothy’s constant talking. It was now quietly staring at Dorothy with its black eyes.

While Juhwan was putting away the things he had bought in the storage room, Lizzy finished preparing dinner and came outside.

Lizzy decided where to place the food.

While the two of them were working side by side in the storage room, Lizzy still hadn’t calmed down and didn’t make eye contact with Juhwan.

Feeling gloomy. When men get angry, they communicate with their fists. If it’s nothing, they forget about it and it naturally disappears. Anyway, it ends clearly. If you’re angry, you’re angry, if you’re not, you’re not, and if you can’t forget it forever, you become lifelong enemies. Simple.

But for women, it’s difficult. They seem angry but don’t clearly say it, and you can’t just leave it thinking it’ll resolve itself. For some reason, they want to express their anger. If you leave it thinking it’ll resolve itself, they get even angrier. There’s a saying that men and women come from different planets, and it might be true.

Recalling the reactions of his previous girlfriends, Juhwan quietly stood behind Lizzy. He didn’t want to argue with her like that.

“Lizzy.”

He softly called her name and lightly kissed her slender neck, making Lizzy flinch. Her ears turned bright red.

Huh? That’s strange. Her reaction is a bit different from his previous girlfriends. His ex-girlfriends would get a little angrier if he did this. He would slowly calm them down and eventually take them to bed, and only then would they barely recover. Juhwan wasn’t good with words to soothe a woman’s anger, so that was the best he could do.

“…Lizzy.”

—

For some reason, I want to see her face. I wonder what kind of expression she has right now.

In the warehouse filled with things to organize, Juhwan wrapped his arms around Lizzy from the front and bent his body.

As his face turned towards Lizzy’s profile, she slightly rolled her eyes to look at him. With a flushed face, she murmured.

“I’m sorry.”

“…?”

For what? Wasn’t Lizzy the one who was angry just now?

Juhwan seemed to have a puzzled expression. Lizzy took a small breath as if relieved and smiled.

Cute. I don’t know what she’s sorry for, but as long as she’s not angry, it’s fine.

Juhwan turned Lizzy’s body and hugged her tightly to his chest.

“Lizzy, I’m sorry.”

“…No, I’m sorry.”

For some reason, it’s funny. They both keep apologizing without knowing what for. Without anyone saying who started it, the two of them laughed softly.

*

Even after preparing meals, doing laundry, and fetching water, no one ever thanked her. Despite her best efforts, she was always the most useless daughter and woman.

But when she was with Juhwan, he would often say thank you, cute, and well done. When they ate, he would say the food was delicious, and if she exerted herself even a little, he would ask if it was hard. When she sewed, he would massage her shoulders. Even though fetching water was a woman’s job, Juhwan insisted on doing it from early morning, saying it was hard.

Living with him, there wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t happy. She was always joyful, delighted, and happy. So she became complacent. Without realizing it, her actions came before her thoughts. She was so sad, but Juhwan laughed, so she got angry.

“….”

A rabbit is worth as much as the load brought today. Thinking about how many they would have when the rabbits had babies made her heart soar.

Thinking about buying several clothes for Juhwan and new shoes for the child made her very happy. She wanted to feed them lots of meat. But thinking that all of that was gone felt like the sky was falling.

So, she got angry at Juhwan for not understanding her feelings. Thinking that he was laughing without knowing how big of a deal this was made her tear up.

But as soon as she got angry, she regretted it. If she had acted like this in front of her father or brothers, she would have been hit on the spot.

She wanted to apologize right away, but somehow she couldn’t say it and just let it pass. She needed to say it quickly, but she didn’t know how to start. So when they were alone in the warehouse, she was thinking about how to start apologizing.

It was then that Juhwan called her name. Showing his intention to reconcile, he hugged her from behind. She thought anew how kind he was.

However, at that moment, she felt the hard part of the man against her back…. The sun was still up, and the child wasn’t asleep yet, so why. Even when Juhwan turned her body and hugged her from the front, part of his body was still hard.

So she laughed without realizing it, but Juhwan probably didn’t think that was the reason. As she hugged Juhwan’s waist tightly with both arms, Lizzy giggled and laughed.

Today was a very tiring day, but it seems like it will be a long night.

Do you know? I am happy. I might be the happiest in the world. I really love you, Juhwan.

*

Finally, they found the goblin’s village.

Gus glared at the distant goblin figures with a grim expression.

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