#113
“Hmm, should I get His Majesty’s approval while we’re at it?”
“That would trouble me. I’m having a room decorated to bring you to our estate.”
At Skyle’s affectionate response, Marcus hyung fell silent.
And I fell silent too.
Because I slowly understood that they were opposing my plan.
‘Why?’
Though I hadn’t said this much, at this rate I’d be able to get the gray treasure before Eris could.
Even without knowing that, wouldn’t this be more perfect than anything from their perspective?
‘Anyway, everyone would become someone who resolved things quickly.’
Plus, it was a plan to scatter ashes in advance on the situation where the half-demons and Eris cooperate.
Though this might seem like nothing much, the Archduke and Marcus hyung, who had been monitoring the half-demons for a long time, would understand. That it wasn’t something trivial.
‘Eris is that significant an existence to the half-demons.’
How fearlessly the hardliner half-demons rampaged when Eris was alive. I had only heard about it, then experienced it briefly later when I ruined everything.
‘Before regression, Eris didn’t return, but just from the four of you being neutralized, the hardliners grew more violent by the day.’
Thinking of that time, Eris beginning to lose power within the half-demons would become a very important move.
The hardliners wavering too.
In the midst of that, if the flow was for the four of you to completely recover your strength.
“It seems like a perfect plan.”
“Where exactly is the problem?”
Sercil asked with a mumble, resting his chin on my shoulder. His face looked genuinely curious, leaving me momentarily speechless.
“……Where exactly is the problem? That’s what I want to ask~?”
Hiding my confusion, I looked around at the three and asked, and the Archduke spoke with that face that was smiling without much disturbance.
“May I ask what phenomenon occurs when you absorb, Your Highness?”
I was flustered by the sudden words unrelated to the plan, but tilted my head and answered.
“There’s no particular phenomenon? It’s like digesting food, so it gets digested……”
“You answer when asked, don’t you?”
Marcus hyung interjected with a displeased expression, but the Archduke didn’t mind that side and added.
“Food becomes nutrients. I’m asking what curses become for Your Highness.”
Honestly speaking, curses are offset at the cost of my lifespan. However, the nullification ability had extremely good efficiency, so the principle was that I could offset large and numerous curses with just a bit of lifespan.
‘Though my efficiency got a bit worse because of the depletion syndrome.’
Of course, the problem with depletion syndrome wasn’t just that one thing. But would that matter?
What should I do?
Anyway, if I answered honestly, I’d have to say that curses disappear along with my lifespan.
……I had no intention of telling them this before lifting all the curses.
If I told them before lifting them, everyone would become anxious.
‘They’d be even more so since I’ve been constantly sickly lately.’
Though I kept trying to become dejected, I forced myself to arrange my expression and answered.
“Minimal mana……?”
“Haha.”
The Archduke, who had maintained a quiet and peaceful expression throughout, suddenly burst into audible laughter.
“……Archduke? Why are you laughing so prettily?”
After he let out a chuckle as if he couldn’t be stopped, he directly embraced me and held me so I’d lie sideways in his arms.
“……Ah?”
“What are you doing!”
“Shh.”
He made a playful shushing sound with an amused smile, then used his right hand to wrap around my head and lean it against his shoulder……
‘Oh, this is.’
He gently placed his left hand near my solar plexus.
Sensing the mana activity, Sercil hesitated.
Marcus hyung, as if he knew what the Archduke was trying to do, just watched this side sharply in a lounging position without saying much.
The Archduke’s mana began flowing slowly through my interior starting from the solar plexus, as if asking for permission.
‘Mana, examination……’
“Um.”
He didn’t speak but gently wrapped my forehead with his right hand and lightly stroked it a few times.
From some point, the cold sweat that had formed on my forehead got on his white hand.
You’re getting dirty, Archduke.
As I repeated those words inwardly and tensed up slightly, he sighed softly.
Meanwhile, his mana had circled around my body once and returned to its place.
At that moment.
“Hmm, mm.”
Something seemed to be rising, so I swallowed a cough and pressed my lips tightly shut.
But as it kept rising, I eventually inhaled and my mouth opened.
“Cough.”
“……”
The Archduke’s gaze, appearing slightly violet, sweeps over me.
“……Here!”
Along with Sercil’s angry voice, the Archduke received the offered handkerchief with his left hand and pressed it to my lips.
“You must spit it all out, Your Highness.”
“Ugh, mm.”
“Yes, like that.”
After a few more coughs followed, I collapsed in his arms just like that.
‘It’s strange. I didn’t even vomit much.’
Though the handkerchief was soaked red, compared to the blood I usually coughed up for their sake, this was just an everyday level.
So why am I this drained of strength?
With puzzled thoughts, I looked at his face and unconsciously flinched.
“……Why……”
Suddenly I recalled him kissing me in that dream.
It had felt real, but I still couldn’t remember it, so I had concluded it was a dream – in that dream, his expression was.
I had believed it was a dream because I couldn’t believe it.
That he wouldn’t show me such a thing.
Even though it couldn’t be, I couldn’t look away, so despite being exhausted, I stared at him blankly without blinking once.
As if I was captured.
“If it had been ordinary mana sickness, this should have improved it. If not, Your Highness.”
Ah. Perhaps.
‘The acceleration symptoms might have already appeared.’
Before regression, his acceleration symptoms were beast transformation and maximized sleep desire.
Other desires hadn’t manifested.
“From there, I’ll try interpreting it my own way.”
He brought his face slightly closer to me and hid his expression from the other two under the pretense of examining me.
“What kind of situation this is, how far we can go. Things like that.”
His words still continued peacefully.
Not like Sercil stamping his feet, nor looking displeased like Marcus hyung.
He was just.
“Your Highness is a liar.”
The somewhat cool yet strangely heated violet eyes distance themselves again.
He said to the two people as usual.
“Let’s go with Your Highness’s plan. If we can slow the manifestation speed of acceleration symptoms, that alone would be beneficial, and we agreed to help Your Highness’s plan.”
“……Fine. It seems we won’t necessarily have to fake death.”
“Damn it, I need to slow down anyway if I’m going to move first. Your Highness, acceleration symptoms have appeared.”
I knew it.
I wanted to turn my head toward hyung while simultaneously not wanting to.
In that brief moment, the situation was settled.
To proceed according to my plan.
Marcus hyung spoke in a voice that had loosened just a grain.
“So, what’s Your Highness’s current condition? What’s the problem……! Hah.”
Sercil takes away the handkerchief that was still pressed to my lips. And briefly, that hand carefully brushed my cheek.
“Let’s just say there was an illness. Hear the rest from Your Highness.”
“……You just called His Highness a liar with your own mouth.”
“……”
“Smiling like that only works on His Highness who loses his mind just looking at your face?”
“Right, right. Tsk.”
As the Archduke gently laid me back down on the bed, I was momentarily swept by an impulse to stop him from moving away.
And immediately after, I was overcome by abyss-like self-loathing.
I wanted to ask him. Why show me that?
“……Did you perform purification on me?”
Rather, if it had been a look of being unable to contain anger.
If it had been unable to resist sleep, or unable to contain killing intent.
I would have welcomed it.
“Yes.”
He responded gently.
Purification work that only a light mage, and at that, one who had reached the level of a great mage, could perform.
Since it removes impurities from the body and facilitates mana flow, certainly someone with only mana sickness could expect short-term improvement.
However, in my case, it could have had rather bad results.
‘Since traces of absorbed curses remain. Touching that also causes coughing up blood.’
But probably even he wouldn’t know that much.
‘Since light mana usually only brings positive effects.’
I sighed while lying down.
And after quietly taking the three people in with my eyes, I raised the corners of my mouth.
Ah, there are many variables after all.
Still, it’s fine. If I hadn’t prepared for variables of this degree, that wouldn’t make sense.
I gradually moved the small amount of mana in my body to my brain.
Before regression, it was a bad technique I had unknowingly mastered while being tortured by the Archduke. When I absolutely had to wake up and say something. When I had to move. For that moment alone, I could move.
“Where are you all going?”
The brain temporarily overloads and commands the body. That now is the time to be awake.
It’s stimulating a kind of survival instinct.
“Mm? You should rest.”
“Come on, rest? The Archduke even performed purification. Right?”
I slowly sat up.
And approached them. With movements that clearly seemed to have regained strength.
“You have to match my plan.”
Whispering, I proved my usefulness to them once again.
That was a declaration of war toward them, no, toward myself, that I would achieve what I said.
“We haven’t decided where to be after pretending to die yet. That’s fortunate.”
The Archduke’s eyes narrowed.
Meeting those eyes, I curved my own.
“So, a room was made for me in the Archduke’s estate?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
