"... Your Majesty, why won't you allow me to stay by her side?"
"She's still young. Moreover, your weak presence only burdens her. Return when you are strong enough."
"... In that case, I will come back as soon as possible!"
"Yes, there's no need to rush."
The young boy immediately left without looking back, firm in his resolve to grow stronger, while the beautiful young woman prepared to depart, continuing her unfinished sentence in her mind.
'Besides, neither you nor 'she' will remember this for the time being.'
***
In the early morning before the sunrise, Elara woke up even before the roosters had started crowing.
"Yawn...."
She stretched her body comfortably, feeling refreshed. Despite sleeping for more than 12 hours, she felt lively.
Although she was quite concerned about her illness, Elara decided to heed her mother's advice and stop worrying about it.
"..."
However, even with that decision, whenever she thought about having to sleep for 12 hours a day until she grew into an adult, she began to resemble a true Sleeping Beauty.
"Sleeping beauty, huh? ... If I keep this up, I might become like 'Sleeping Beauty', never waking up from deep slumber and needing a Prince to kiss me awake.....!"
"Kissing...."
"Kyaaaaaa, how embarrassing!" Elara blushed and cried out, feeling embarrassed about thinking of her favorite fairy tales, especially those loved by young girls.
In her previous life, Elara was busy with work and didn't have the chance to date, so she was completely inexperienced in matters of love. However, deep down, she had a strong fondness for romance stories.
She smiled shyly, realizing that thinking about this just after waking up made her mood surprisingly pleasant and refreshing.
'Alright! I want to enjoy my second life peacefully! When else will I have the luck to live in another world? I can't waste this opportunity!' Elara thought triumphantly.
Her first life had been quite ordinary. Elara worked a regular office job with a decent salary that covered her needs. She could afford an apartment and her daily necessities without any shortages.
Additionally, Elara only had a small family consisting of her mother and an older sister. They were the ones who took care of her since childhood.
"Mother...." Elara closed her eyes for a moment, envisioning her mother's face, which would furrow her brow when she wasn't pleased.
In her previous life, her mother never hired a babysitter despite being busy with work after giving birth. Although swamped with her job, she insisted on taking care of baby Elara herself.
As Elara learned to walk and eat on her own, her mother entrusted her care to her older sister, who was ten years older and returned to a distant workplace, rarely coming home due to her piled-up tasks.
Understanding the reason behind her mother's busyness after starting elementary school, Elara became an obedient child and never whined. She realized she mustn't 'disturb' her mother for trivial wishes.
Elara obediently let her indifferent sister take care of all her school matters. She matured faster than kids her age typically would.
"Mom is busy. That's why I shouldn't bother her. I have my sister to take care of me. So, don't ever bother Mother," was the mindset young Elara developed.
As time passed, Elara understood the burden of being a single parent, struggling to support her and her sister without a father figure to rely on.
Therefore, Elara became stricter with herself as a child, firmly believing that she didn't want her mother's presence in her life anymore.
As a result, her relationship with her mother became distant, turning them into awkward strangers. Her older sister moved abroad after Elara decided to live independently and never returned to their home country.
Eventually, they would only meet once a year on certain national holidays.
"What a chaotic family life," Elara mumbled while shaking her head. Her improved mood quickly soured.
Looking around her room, her wooden house, she smiled bitterly.
"This time, I also only have one parent, and that's Mom."
Fortunately, now she has a very understanding and attentive mother.
Even though this life may seem like a poor family always short on money, living in a remote location with a fragile wooden house, on the other hand, they aren't truly poor because they possess various types of valuable books that can be sold to nobles and bookstores at any time. They even have a small successful bakery thanks to Elara's delicious bread recipes.
Thanks to her supportive mother and memories of her previous life, Elara found this second life very suspicious.
"... I can't let this happen, I have to stay positive!" Elara encouraged herself with determination.
Elara got up and splashed her face with cold water. The refreshing water woke her up completely, dispelling the remnants of sleepiness.
"... Maybe I should take a bath too?" Elara hesitated for a moment before deciding to bathe after she finished picking cherries.
Changing out of her pajamas into a simple light brown dress made of thick and warm fabric, commonly worn by middle-class families, Elara added a subtle twist. She secretly wore long pants and a white shirt under the dress.
Mornings in this world were chilly, especially in the small forests surrounding Galatea territory. Her mother always insisted she wore warm clothes whenever she went outside.
So why was she layering her dress with a shirt and pants?
Honestly, Elara felt uncomfortable wearing these cumbersome dresses, no matter how small or open the forest she was going into.
That's why she planned to change into pants and a shirt secretly in the forest later.
"Hm, perfect!" Elara exclaimed with joy when she saw her reflection in the large square mirror in her room. Her petite and short figure looked adorable in any colored dress.
Truthfully, as a modern person, Elara preferred wearing shirts and pants. However, her mother, weirdly obsessed with noble etiquette, wouldn't allow her to wear clothes typically reserved for boys.
That's why Elara decided to secretly layer her dress with pants and a shirt. She was sure that if her mother found out, she would fuss and pout at her all day. No, Elara was certain her mother would secretly burn the pants and shirt she hid in her room.
To avoid all that, Elara decided to endure and wear the dress her mother asked for until the day came when she could freely wear whatever she liked without worrying about others' opinions.
"Okay, ready!"
Without waiting any longer, Elara immediately left her room after getting ready to prepare other things.
"Huh?" Elara stopped right at the threshold of her wide-open room door.
Next to her room's door, a round wooden table that usually held a vase of flowers with blooms her mother changed every week had changed into a wooden basket atop it.
"A woven wooden basket...? It looks nice." Elara praised with admiration in her voice as she carefully observed the intricate details of the wooden basket.
Elara was certain that this was one of her mother's woodworking creations.
When Elara was just an 8-month-old baby, she recalled seeing her mother staying up every night weaving various small items like baskets and buckets, using thin wood fibers as materials for extra income, and the infant Elara was truly fascinated by the results.
Elara glanced down the hallway of her house, adorned with small wooden objects and wood, essentially everything was wood.
There were things like wooden hangers with unique designs, tiny animal figurines, or wooden picture frames crafted by her mother. There were also a few decorations her mother had bought, or more accurately, acquired from somewhere.
There were only one or two of her chaotic creations. Those items were currently stored somewhere by her mother, who stated that they were precious treasures not to be displayed casually.
"Haha...."
At some point, Elara had become accustomed to all the wooden furnishings in this simple wooden house.
Perhaps this was because, for the past five years, she had been living on the outskirts of the Flora village, where there were many small forests around, making everything here heavily reliant on wood. Although not all houses in the village settlement were made of wood, given that wood was a highly flammable material.
But as she reminisced, for the 25 years of her life, she grew up and lived in an urban area with advanced technology. Suddenly, she met an absurd demise and came back to life in a location where she had to reside on a hill, with her house being a simple wooden one nearly surrounded by forests.
"That was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that not only shocked me half to death but also made adapting a struggle. Hahaha...." Elara laughed bitterly.
Her mother, who had the odd habit of going into the forests behind their house once at the end of every month in the early morning, said that the end of the month was the right time to gather wood fibers for weaving.
Two-year-old Elara would usually choose to stay home since she was still averse to going into the forests.
"How could a modern person like me live in a house surrounded by forests like this?" Elara pondered when she first realized that startling fact.
But because Elara couldn't keep hiding, she decided to follow her mother, always holding onto the edge of her mother's dress due to anxiety and the fear of getting lost if even for a moment away from her mother.
In the end, after more than a year of accompanying her mother to various types of small forests scattered around, Elara managed to adapt to her new environment. She even memorized the paths to all the small forests in the area and could even find and create her shortcuts.
With those results, Elara was undoubtedly proud of her heightened adaptive abilities.
"Ready!"
Holding the woven basket in her right hand, Elara headed for the back door of her house. The back door of her house led directly into the nearest small forest, and there was a small backyard behind her house.
As Elara realized that from her backyard, she could directly access one of the nearby small forests, she was terrified half to death and didn't want to go near the back of her house at all.
"Haha." Remembering that made Elara shake her head, feeling embarrassed by her behavior.
Elara suddenly stopped when she saw a dark green wooden door tightly shut. It was her mother's room.
Throughout her five years of life, she had never entered her mother's room. Not because her mother didn't allow it, but because the room was right near the back door of the house, so the young Elara, who was scared of the forests behind the house, rarely approached it and eventually never saw the door open even once.
"Is Mom still asleep?" Elara whispered to herself.
After contemplating for a while, Elara decided to slowly open the dark green wooden door.
Through the slightly ajar door, Elara's small head peeked in to catch a glimpse of the room she had never seen before.
!!!
"... woah...!" Elara's petite mouth perfectly formed an 'O' as she managed to peek into her mother's room, which had always felt mysterious.
It was a room the same size as hers but with wood-patterned wallpaper that resembled trunk trees, set against a light blue background. The only window was tightly covered with brown curtains.
There was also a large carpet that looked like fine green grass, covering the entire wooden floor of the room.
"Wow, Mom's room is amazing!" Elara exclaimed, awed, her mouth now hanging open unconsciously. "It's like a forest...!"
"Hmmmm...." Elara's nose caught a sweet and fresh scent emanating from her mother's room, but she didn't know what it was.
'What perfume is this? It smells so good...! I'll have to ask Mom later!' she thought to herself.
Elara glanced at her mother, who was sound asleep on the bed, covered by a long light green blanket that enveloped her whole body.
"I'm heading out, Mom! I'll be back when the sun is high up!" Elara whispered her farewell from a distance before gently closing the dark green door.
Imagining her mother's face as she was about to taste her new bread recipe made her very excited and even more impatient to explore the forest!
Elara quickly put on her woven shoes, also her mother's creation, and a wide, large hat that almost covered her tiny frame, another of her mother's creations.
Holding the wooden basket in her left hand, Elara opened the back door of her house.
"Red Cherries! White Cherries! Wait for me, I'll pick all of you!" Elara exclaimed, shouting with enthusiasm.
She passed by the small vegetable garden in her backyard and walked into the little forest located behind her house.
After entering the footpaths made by the local villagers and walking for a while, Elara exchanged greetings with the lumberjacks in a friendly manner.
"Good morning, uncles!"
"Good morning, Lara. Are you planning to pick cherries?"
"Yes!" Elara replied with a wide smile.
The middle-aged lumberjacks smiled back at her as if her smile was contagious.
"Be careful. Lately, we've heard some strange rumors around the forest. It might be the effect of the Queen's slumbering for the past 5 years."
"Yes, uncles, you too, be careful!" Elara nodded obediently, listening to a group of middle-aged uncles talking to each other seriously.
Even though Elara was intrigued by what had happened to the glorified Queen who had never woken up from her long sleep, she was more preoccupied with thoughts about the fate of the bread recipe she wanted to make after finishing picking the fruit she was after.
'Hihihi! I can't wait!' Elara thought, unaware of the fate that awaited her in the near future.
"Hmmmm... Hmmmm~~" Elara hummed a happy tune as she entered the only path leading into the new area of forest.