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Chapter 24
“Something Like Jealousy”
‘That person really needs to look in a mirror. His expression is terrifying.’
His thick, black eyebrows looked as if someone had swept a very fat brush across them in a single stroke; his sharply defined eyes made him seem fierce, like a tiger.
Maybe because he’d been working in the sun, sweat dripped down his smooth cheek. The veins on his rolled-up forearms stood out, and with two buttons undone the chest revealed beneath was broad and firm.
’What am I even looking at right now?’
I kept inspecting his looks in every detail and felt my face heat up; I bowed my head. It had clearly started with his savage eyes, but the more I examined him the more his big muscles and objectively handsome features caught my attention.
‘Ahh, really.’
I let out a heavy sigh.
‘…He is handsome, though.’
Thinking that, I glanced up—just slightly—and Sider’s gaze snapped straight to mine. I tried to stifle another hiccup by covering my mouth with my palm. Sider sighed and gestured with his chin.
“Don’t be so scared. I’m not going to eat you.”
“I know. Eating people is illegal.”
“That’s not the point.”
Then what is the point? If eating people isn’t illegal…
‘I still don’t think he’d eat anyone. If he were going to, he’d probably go for the fleshiest person first.’
I stole another look at his forearm. Sider clicked his tongue.
“You’re thinking weird things again.”
‘How did he know?’
Startled that he’d read my thought, I hunched my shoulders. Sider frowned and answered curtly.
“I can’t read thoughts. It’s just all written plainly on your face.”
“R-really? I never know what my husband is thinking.”
“I was thinking that I’d like you to drop that annoying title.”
“Ha ha.”
I let out an awkward laugh. Since I’d woken up he’d been watching me constantly; he was still an enigma to me.
‘Am I just too oblivious, or is Sider overly sensitive?’
A short rest seemed to be over and he swung the pickaxe again. I scratched my cheek awkwardly while he worked. Without even turning toward me, as if what he’d say didn’t matter, he bluntly asked,
“You said Haile visited earlier, right? Did you meet him at the dining hall?”
“Oh—yes.”
“You speak with him? What did you talk about?”
What did I talk about with Haile? Not much. I tilted my head, shrugged, and said,
“I didn’t discuss anything special with Sir Haile, but I talked a lot with Sir Jacques who came with him. It was very informative.”
I couldn’t recount every detail of the conversation, so I stuck to the facts. It was useful—after all, I’d learned a crucial clue about why my mana was depleting.
‘And I saw the elves I’d only read about in books for the first time!’
Honestly, that should have been the priority. Even a few checked facts could mark a major contribution to the study of other races.
“I’ll tell you more when we meet next time—”
Clang!
A huge impact sound cut me off. I blinked in surprise. ‘What the—?’ Sider had slammed his pickaxe into the ground, but the sound was different than before. ‘It’s not just the sound—what I’m seeing is different too!’
Cold sweat trickled down my back. I gripped my hands together and asked Sider cautiously, “Um, isn’t the pickaxe just stuck in the ground?”
What should have been a pickaxe barely nudging the soil—one you’d scrape lightly in an arc—was stuck in so deep only the wooden handle remained visible.
‘How strong is he? He hit it straight down—how could it end up like that?’
No matter how I thought about the angle or the force, it made no sense. Hearing my mutter, Sider straightened his back and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Huh.”
He let out a breath like he was relieving himself, and his face looked refreshed. Smiling as if he hadn’t even heard me, he asked,
“What did you say?”
“That you should take it easier…”
“What?”
“…No—”
“…”
“…”
I’m not quick-witted, but I could tell Sider was in a bad mood. Besides, maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I could see pale smoke wisping up from his body. From Sider himself.
’That’s not smoke—it’s mana!’
Usually Sider’s mana shimmered around him like a heat haze, but now it whipped around as if it had gone berserk. It meant he was in an extremely foul mood.
But why? What had I said to make him this angry? The only thing I could think of was that I’d ignored his request not to tell anyone I’d recovered from a fever.
‘Is it because I talked with Sir Jacques? But I didn’t invite him.’
If he didn’t want anyone knowing about me, he shouldn’t have invited people to our house. Besides, Sider is the one who asked Jacques to examine me when I had a fever. So it couldn’t be that I’d spoken with Jacques that made him upset.
‘Then why?’
I groaned; after thinking for a long time the only conclusion I could muster was:
‘Maybe he’s mad about making a Swordmaster dig a field!’
That actually seemed plausible. He’d picked up the pickaxe with good intentions to help, but swinging it might have made him feel self-loathing. If your body’s tired, your mood changes—wasn’t that normal?
I reluctantly rose from my spot. If he hated it that much, I should do the pickaxing myself.
“Excuse me, husband.”
I didn’t finish the rest of the sentence that had popped into my head. The instant I stood, a cold, silvery gray gaze, like an ice block, bore into me.
“I think I told you to just sit there and open your mouth if I told you to.”
“…hic!”
I hurriedly sat back down, hiccuping from being so startled. I rounded my back, clapped a palm over my mouth, and squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing the scream inside. I really had no idea what was going on with him.
It was natural that Nelly couldn’t figure out Sider’s feelings—Sider himself couldn’t either.
‘Why do I feel so terrible right now?’
Still, because it was his own heart, Sider sensed his mood swings a little more clearly than Nelly did. The moment his mood turned sharply sour was when her lips casually mentioned Jacques in a friendly way.
‘So he visited—Haile came, and Jacques visited the mansion as well?’
He understood why. Nelly’s fever had been so severe, and Sider—who’d never experienced it—didn’t know what to do, so he’d summoned Jacques, a healer of the Azure Dragon Knights, to treat her.
‘He was so livid when I said it was just overwork.’
He’d wondered whether he’d ordered cleaning, or cooking. Given she never left the second floor except at mealtimes, the idea that she was overworked was absurd. Jacques had smiled calmly and added:
[Her body is extremely weak. You must take special care.]
Sider had believed he was taking good care—watching her meals, looking after her—so being told she was frail rubbed him the wrong way. Apparently ordinary people required a lot of attention; merely moving around left them exhausted and feverish. It was apparently a normal reaction.
[When that happens, wipe her forehead with a cool cloth. Underarms and soles of the feet are good too. If the fever gets worse and she shivers, cover her with a blanket.]
To someone like Sider, who’d never seen such an illness, it was all unfamiliar. Jacques, intrigued by Sider’s awkwardness, patiently showed him how to nurse a patient.
‘He’s responsible—he probably came to check on Nelly today. That’s not weird.’
Still, why did Sider feel so unpleasant? A hot anger rose in him for no good reason. He knew this anger was inappropriate, so he didn’t let it surface as rage. He stopped swinging the pickaxe and sighed deeply.
‘It’s because I’m so sensitive from being around a stranger again after so long.’
That was the only thing that made sense for such an abnormal emotional reaction. He’d left home a long time ago and had been alone for so long that suddenly needing to care for a wife made him excessively responsible and thus overly tense. He soothed himself slowly.
‘But everyone who comes to this mansion is of clear standing. Even if I feel responsible for her, I don’t need to be so on guard.’
Right then, Nelly smiled brightly and said, “I’ll tell you more when we meet next time—”
Clang!
At that instant, too much force went into his motion and the pickaxe struck the ground with a sound no ordinary pickaxe could make. Of course not—Sider, a Swordmaster, had poured aura into the tool like he would a blade.
‘Oh, really.’
Nelly might have thought his face was expressionless, but inside Sider felt like a storm had landed. Aura in a pickaxe. For the youngest Swordmaster, who handled his heart-born mana as naturally as breathing, to be putting aura into a mere tool when there was no threat—this should never have been happening.
