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8. Beggar Siblings – Water

“Lena!”

Leo hurriedly ran over and flipped Lena’s body. His younger sister opened her eyes slightly, letting out a faint groan.

“Lena! Are you okay?”

“Brother… I feel dizzy…”

Quickly, he placed a hand on her head, feeling a heat that burned like he had thrust his hand into a furnace.

He hadn’t noticed it before because she was all messy, but now he saw her skin bright red from the neck down to her chest, swollen in spots.

“Just hold on. I’ll help you. Don’t worry.”

He quickly pulled Lena up and leaned her against the wall to sit.

He couldn’t think of anything.

‘Hospital! Hospital! No, there’s no hospital here. Pharmacy? Clinic?’

Leo rushed out of the alley and grabbed the first passerby he saw.

“Excuse me! I’m sorry! Do you know where a hospital is—no, wait, pharmacy… No, that’s not it… Ah! Do you know where a doctor is?”

The man suddenly grabbed by the beggar looked taken aback.

“I’m new here too, so I don’t know.”

Without listening further, Leo grabbed several people passing by and fired questions at them until an elegantly dressed grandmother pointed him to the pharmacy’s location.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

He dashed back into the alley, cradling his unconscious sister, panting heavily.

He hadn’t run far before his breath turned sweet, and his arms felt like they’d break. Though Lena was thin and light, Leo was no muscle-bound hero himself.

He struggled to support Lena with his thighs as he trudged along, but his arms continued to droop lower. Lena’s unnaturally limp legs slid down his thighs like a horror movie.

“P-please, someone, help…”

Panting as he looked around, pedestrians avoided the beggar siblings.

Just then, sweating and filthy, Lena vaguely opened her eyes.

“My brother is holding me.”

As she gazed up at his face, the world spun around her.

“Brother… I had a dream…”

The feeble words that slipped from Lena’s parched lips didn’t reach Leo. He desperately dragged and lifted his sister repeatedly.

How long did it take? After great effort, they finally arrived at the pharmacy.

Leo was drenched in sweat like a rainstorm and his limbs trembled uncontrollably, but a young man guarding the pharmacy coldly blocked his path.

“Pant. Excuse me, but my sister…”

Lena, who was unconscious, hung limply in his arms.

The young man coldly shoved Leo away and said, “Get lost. If you’re not paying.”

“I don’t have money, but I need to…”

“No money? Then scram.”

The young man shoved him again, seemingly intent on pushing Leo, who stumbled backward, still holding Lena.

He laid his sister down and begged urgently.

“No, it’s not that. Lena is… this is the, um… I need to see her…”

“What are you babbling about? Get the hell out of here!”

Leo crawled on his knees and clung to the young man’s leg.

“Please, just a moment! Right now, Lena is…, earlier from the trash can… It’s fine for me, just Lena…”

In that instant, Leo’s vision was illuminated by a slap to his face.

“What did I say? No money, no service.”

“Wait! W-wait! This is something I got recently, just hold on!”

He pulled a necklace from around his neck and offered it to the young man. The man took it, puzzled, then flung it back in front of the nearly unconscious Leo.

“This isn’t a game. How much longer are you going to hang around?”

Leo, at a loss, looked around. The surrounding crowd simply stared at the collapsed siblings without anyone stepping forward. Whispers of “how disgusting” and “how pitiful” filled the air.

The young man crudely bent his fingers.

“I’ll count to three. If you’re still here holding her, you’ll regret it. One.”

Leo was too exhausted to utter anything.

He gaped, merely watching the young man’s finger.

“Two.”

“Excuse me.”

A woman in a deep purple skirt emerged from the crowd, pointing at the beggar siblings.

“I’ll give you money, so let them both in.”

“…Alright. Understood.”

The young man scanned her up and down, then scooped Lena up and went inside. The woman approached Leo.

“Are you okay?”

“Th-thank you. I…”

He realized he had forgotten to breathe.

At that moment, his stuffy throat cleared, and he gasped for air while the young man returned and effortlessly lifted Leo, taking him inside.

With the tension lifted, Leo lost consciousness.

*

When Leo opened his eyes, he was in a shoe store.

Confused, he looked around.

It was a cramped little shop. He lay on a small cot.

Shoes were stacked high on the floor, and various leathers and tools hung from the walls. Everything else was caked in a thick layer of dust except for the cot.

He sat blankly for a moment, struggling to comprehend the situation, before memories of Lena hit him, causing him to spring up and shout.

“Lena! Lena!”

“…You’re awake? Come here.”

A soft voice came from a door connected to the back of the shop.

“Lena!”

He burst in through the door, and a low ceiling room revealed itself.

Inside, a small bed that filled half the space had a freshly washed Lena lying motionless on it.

Beside the bed sat a woman.

Leo rushed over to hold Lena. When he touched her forehead… it was still burning hot.

“She’s been treated.”

Her tone was flat and emotionless. She sat with her legs crossed, wearing a purple skirt.

He remembered seeing that skirt in front of the pharmacy. She was the one who saved them. But instead of thanking her, Leo first asked about Lena’s condition.

“What happened? Is Lena going to be okay?”

“The doctors wouldn’t know. They’re nothing but quacks overshadowed by priests’ healing…”

“What do you mean?”

“I got the medicine and already gave it to her. The doctor said she ended up like this because she’s been eating trash with her weak body.”

The woman scoffed.

“I’d be able to examine her just as well.”

Somehow, there was a sense that this woman’s words were missing the point. Her tone implied that everything was pointless.

“So what now?”

“Gotta wait. Is there another way?”

“Maybe if I look for a priest…”

“If it’s just surface wounds, maybe, but treating this kind of illness is extremely expensive. Sorry, but I can’t afford that. Even selling this shop wouldn’t be enough. I don’t want to do that. This place is quite precious to me.”

“Ah, no, really. Thank you so much for helping us.”

She appeared young and attractive, yet there was something odd about her.

Even while speaking with him, her eyes didn’t seem to look at Leo or the still as a stone Lena.

Yet she was the only person who pushed past the cold crowd to help the siblings.

“What, I did it because I wanted to. Anyway, stay here until she gets better. There aren’t any customers anyway.”

She said nonchalantly, flipping her palm. Just as she turned to leave, Leo grabbed her arm.

“Wait a moment. Thank you so much. I will never forget this kindness. What should I call you?”

“What?”

“Umm, what’s your name?”

“Call me Kasia. That’s my name.”

Finally, a hint of the weariness in her eyes slumped towards Leo. Kasia briefly gazed at him before stepping outside.

He quickly bid her farewell and realized the sun had already set. He must have fainted just outside the pharmacy.

Taking a moment to look around the front of the shop, he returned to the room.

Lena lay still like a mouse, unable even to make a sound.

Holding his sister’s thin hand, Leo thought of everything. He prayed fervently, something he had never done before, calling upon every god he knew. He wiped Lena’s sweat and changed her cloth.

He wanted to give her water since it seemed like she had lost too much, but he didn’t know how to get her to drink, so he fidgeted for a long while.

As midnight passed and Lena’s breathing slowed, he felt a little relieved, but a question arose in his mind.

‘Why is she sick? It can’t be from the chicken. Lena ate the same thing I did.’

In fact, he had fed Lena cleaner food. Since they nearly ate the same, it shouldn’t have been possible for one to be fine while the other fell ill.

Leo wasn’t particularly healthier than Lena. Though he was a few years older, if it were so serious that he should be sick, he should have received a warning sign by now.

But he felt perfectly fine.

His only complaint was his legs and back ached from running with Lena in his arms.

‘Was it predetermined that as the scenario began, Lena would fall ill? Is her sickness an {event}?’

That made no sense.

At this stage, it wouldn’t be surprising if she dropped dead.

Lena falling ill and getting help from Kasia in front of the pharmacy might have been part of an {event}, but the situation was too urgent to just label it that way.

No matter how high the initial difficulty of the scenario, starting with such a severe illness would mean conditions were impossible to clear.

But as he pondered and replayed the events in his mind, a sharp realization struck him.

He had been beside Lena for two straight days.

Except for one time.

Right after the scenario started when he had gone to get chicken scraps, he had briefly left Lena in the alley.

She had been the one to say she was thirsty the moment the scenario began. Yet she hardly drank from the water flowing down the wall even after eating the chicken. She’d only taken a few sips today and had tried to save the rest for him.

And yesterday, it had rained.

‘No! I shouldn’t have left her!’

Lena… couldn’t resist the thirst and had drunk the water pooled on the ground while he was gone!

The water on the streets of the city was truly filthy. In this era, plumbing wasn’t that advanced, and waste was often dumped onto the streets.

Especially since it had rained yesterday, trash and filth from trash cans must have been washed into the water on the ground.

Considering she drank that, it would be stranger if she were healthy.

‘Please, let Lena live. It’s my fault!’

Leo prayed fervently through the night as if his hands were his feet. Prayer was all he could do.

Whether his prayer reached her or not, he heard Lena’s voice in the early dawn.

“Brother, I had a dream.”

“…Lena? Are you okay?”

He reached up to touch her forehead.

Still burning hot.

“L-Lena. Drink water. There’s water here.”

“Why are you crying? In my dream, you were spinning me around while smiling…”

“Lena! Stop saying useless things and drink the water! Quickly! Please!”

“……?”

Leo screamed uncontrollably at his younger sister, panic rising in him at her clearly confused expression.

Lena blinked for a moment as if wondering why he was acting like that, then dutifully raised her head to drink the water and fell asleep.

And Lena did not wake again. Before the sun had even risen, she lost all of that scorching heat.

[ Lena has died. ]

[ Thank you for playing Raising Lena. ]

[ Lena de Yeriel ]

[ Final Job: Unemployed ]

[ Marriage Partner: Single ]

[ Leo de Yeriel ]

[ Final Job: Shoemaker ]

[ Marriage Partner: Ksenia ]

[ Beggar Siblings Ending: A Beauty with Misfortune ]

– Born in Rutina Castle, Lena had an unhappy childhood. Led by people’s hands, she was hidden with Leo in a wide field, and when she opened her eyes, the field was filled with corpses. After that, Lena followed Leo… (omitted) …Lena fell ill at a young age and died. –

– Born in Rutina Castle, Leo had an unhappy childhood. Led by people’s hands, he and Lena… (omitted) …After his sister’s death, Leo, who lived with Kasia, became independent and opened his own shoe shop. He married a woman he met by chance and spent his life together. They couldn’t have any children. –

Lena couldn’t overcome her sickness. The illness was beyond what a long-starved, weakened girl could endure.

Leo gazed at the photo of his sister lying in bed, feeling pain tearing through his chest.

As everything around him crumbled, Leo’s mind shattered, revealing Minseo.

‘Fool! Useless trash! Just lie there and die!’

Minseo too struggled amidst the anguish.

The pain of losing his kin was palpable. He couldn’t read a single word of the story unfolding between Lena and Leo before him.

His negligence led to his sister falling ill and dying. Guilt viciously tore at him.

In that shivering pain, Minseo chose escape. He tried to forget the dwindling breaths of his sister.

‘This kind of thing isn’t something a person like me should have to endure…’

At last, Minseo buried the past two days deep in his heart.

As if they never existed.

He forgot everything.

[ You failed to clear Raising Lena. ]

[ Leo, you could not protect your beloved sister due to poverty. In consolation, {initial funds} have been provided. ]

[ Restarting now. ]