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Chapter 7
While the aides and retainers busily moved in and out of Calid’s office, Irene quietly slipped inside as well.
Then she approached Calid, who was listening to a report from his aide, and flicked him on the forehead.
“……”
Calid, who had been nodding while listening to Henry’s report, suddenly stopped moving.
“…Your Highness?”
“Ah…. Continue. So what happened next?”
Calid calmly continued listening to Henry’s report as if nothing had happened.
‘Hm? What’s with that reaction? Didn’t it hurt?’
Irene became irritated when Calid showed absolutely no response to her attack.
‘Ugh—this is so annoying. At least pretend to dodge!’
Even after that, Irene did not stop bothering Calid.
But Calid only waved one hand lazily as if brushing away an annoying insect.
“Your Highness?”
“Ah…. Strange. It’s not even summer, yet there seems to be a bug flying around.”
“?”
Seeing Calid act like that only made Irene more stubborn.
All she needed was the necklace she had found while treasure hunting around the castle.
Using the necklace’s power, Irene scattered Calid’s documents while he worked, lightly tapped his shoulder to break his concentration, and kept bothering him in small and petty ways.
“Grit—. That monster really….”
“Y-Your Highness?”
“Haah…. Never mind. Continue.”
‘You can glare all you want, but you can’t even touch me. Like I’d get scared.’
Although she occasionally received fierce looks from Calid, Irene never backed down.
In fact… she had already forgotten her original goal and was slowly starting to enjoy this.
Her methods gradually became more creative.
Especially since they now shared the same room, it became easier to scare him.
‘This is the classic Korean ghost school horror strategy.’
Hiding in one corner of the bedroom while watching Calid’s movements, Irene waited until he came out after washing up and drying his hair.
Then she suddenly rushed toward him at high speed.
Flinch—
Through the mirror, Irene saw Calid’s eyes widen in surprise.
Seeing that, she smiled proudly.
‘Hahaha. Surprised, right? This is the legendary Korean school ghost style that once terrified the entire nation.’
Feeling extremely victorious, Irene proudly walked back toward the bed.
She completely missed Calid trying to hold back his laughter.
‘What exactly was that thing trying to do just now?’
The way it came bouncing toward him—fast but somehow not fast at all—looked unbelievably silly and pathetic.
It had been wandering around bothering him all this time, and now it even followed him to the bathroom.
It seemed like it had tried using some secret technique to scare him, but all he saw in the mirror was a white blob wobbling and bouncing around.
When he stared at it in confusion, perhaps it mistook that for surprise.
The white creature puffed itself up proudly before returning to the bed, where it soon curled up quietly as if asleep.
Looking at the white creature sleeping soundly as though it were softly purring, Calid unconsciously smiled.
***
The dark bedroom was slowly filling with dawn light shining through the window.
The morning sunlight woke Irene instantly.
‘Mmm— I slept well.’
Stretching her stiff body lazily, Irene suddenly froze when she saw Calid’s face right in front of her.
‘Waaah! What?! Why are you— wait, did I just sleep?’
Like a spring bouncing upward, Irene jumped off the bed in shock and looked around frantically.
‘N-No way. A ghost sleeping? What is this? I’ve never heard of or seen a ghost sleeping before!’
Irene was completely confused by this sudden change.
She grabbed her head and groaned, but there was nothing she could figure out on her own.
‘Calid, listen to this. A ghost sleeping makes absolutely no sense.’
She continued bothering Calid while complaining to him, but since he could neither touch nor hear her, she gained nothing from it.
Several days passed with Irene anxiously worrying about her strange condition.
Meanwhile, Calid continued treating her as something insignificant and annoying, even ignoring her completely.
Little by little, Irene began getting angry.
‘This is seriously too much. He ignores me every single day. Fine then—let’s see how long you can keep ignoring me.’
Irene decided to prepare one final attack.
‘First, absorb as much energy from the necklace as possible. Then put all my strength into crashing into him.’
With determination, Irene prepared herself.
Just then, Calid entered the room.
Irene flew toward him with all her strength and slammed into him.
But as usual, when she regained her senses, she found herself thrown backward in the opposite direction.
‘Ow…. That hurts. My back hurts so much. Did I get bruised? I’m dying!’
Irene groaned in pain from the sensation she had not felt in a very long time.
It seemed she had briefly lost consciousness, but why did it hurt this much?
‘Wait… it hurts? A ghost like me can feel pain?’
The moment she realized that, her mind instantly cleared.
Looking around, Calid was nowhere to be seen.
Nearby, a fallen table, books, and scattered documents lay messily across the floor.
“What the…. Huh?”
The words she muttered reached her own ears.
Startled, Irene hurried toward the mirror.
For the first time in ages, she felt her feet firmly touching the ground instead of floating.
Seeing that her hands, feet, and body had become much clearer, she quickly ran to the mirror.
There, reflected before her, was a much more solid version of herself than she had seen since becoming a ghost.
But only for a moment.
Soon, Irene turned transparent once again.
‘Hmm… why did this happen?’
Confused, Irene sat alone in the room and carefully thought back on what had just happened.
‘I absorbed the necklace’s power, threw myself at Calid… and then there was a flash? Ah, I can’t remember. Did Calid do something?’
Irene groaned while trying to remember, but nothing came back.
Everything had happened far too quickly, and she had briefly fainted from the shock.
There was almost nothing she could recall.
And while Irene struggled with confusion, Calid was experiencing the same thing elsewhere.
The moment he entered the room to rest, he had instinctively defended himself against someone’s sudden attack.
Calid’s mana collided with the opponent’s power, and both sides received the impact.
However, thanks to his battlefield experience, Calid immediately protected himself and assessed the situation.
‘An assassination attempt? I should capture them and find out who sent them.’
Calid approached the fallen attacker.
Unexpectedly, there lay a white and transparent woman he had never seen before.
‘There was no presence at all, yet that was a strong mana collision…. But such a fragile-looking woman?’
Thinking that, Calid reached out to grab her.
But his hand caught nothing.
The woman was clearly right in front of him, yet no matter how hard he tried, he could neither grab nor touch her.
“Why?”
Shocked, Calid used mana.
But strangely, his mana was absorbed directly into the woman instead.
‘What is this woman? She doesn’t seem like someone who uses weapons. Then… is she a mage?’
At present, mages had nearly disappeared due to mysterious mass hunts against them.
The few remaining mages all lived under strict imperial protection and supervision.
If that woman truly was a mage, then according to imperial law, she had to be protected first.
That was how rare and important mages had become.
‘First, I should bring Isaac and Luke and have them capture that woman.’
Instead of ringing the servant bell, Calid sealed the doors and windows with mana so they could not be opened carelessly, then left the room.
Soon after, Calid secretly brought Luke, the commander of the Black Knights, and Vice Commander Isaac into his room.
But the situation inside shocked him greatly.
“…My lord! Did something happen here?”
“Why is the table overturned…? What happened?”
“……”
The woman who should have been there had completely vanished.
Instead, only the pale white lump sat quietly on the bed as if nothing had happened.
Calid quickly checked all the windows, but the mana barrier he had placed remained untouched.
“Was there perhaps an intruder?”
“…No. I made you come all this way late at night for nothing.”
Nothing about the situation made sense.
But having just returned from war, Calid did not want to create more disturbance in the castle.
Luke and Isaac looked around with confused expressions.
Still, to them, the Grand Duke’s words were absolute.
“It is alright, my lord. As long as nothing happened to you.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Please rest now. We will take our leave.”
“Good. You both worked hard today. Go back and rest.”
After Luke and Isaac left, Calid quietly looked around the room in thought.
‘Was she really a mage? Then who sent her? Surely….’
A certain person came to mind, and Calid gave a bitter smile.
No matter how much he tried to deny it, only one person in the world would currently want him dead that badly.
And if it truly was that person’s doing, then he definitely could not allow this matter to grow larger.
‘Did she disappear using magic?…. She didn’t seem injured.’
Calid found it ridiculous that he was worrying about someone who might have come to assassinate him.
Yet somehow, the image of that transparent white woman would not leave his mind.
‘Haah…. It hasn’t even been long since I left the battlefield.’
With a self-mocking smile, Calid left the messy room behind.
As he walked toward another room, he looked at the moonlight pouring through the window.
‘The full moon will arrive soon…. I need to prepare.’
Whenever the full moon approached, his unstable mana and curse-like pain always became worse.
And tonight, they felt especially unbearable.
