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Chapter 8
Irene stopped her one-sided attacks on Calid.
The confusion from the last incident still had not faded away.
And another problem made things worse—the necklace Irene had picked up no longer worked.
The energy inside the necklace seemed completely gone. Now it only absorbed Irene’s power.
‘Sigh… now this necklace is useless too. Does that mean I’m going back to my boring ghost life again…?’
Irene became depressed by her situation.
Calid, who used to fear her, now treated her like a weak and annoying monster.
For a brief moment she had regained a body, only to become a ghost again.
Even the necklace, which she had hoped might become a clue to turning human again, was ruined.
‘Haah… this is depressing. Really depressing… and now I can’t even sleep again…’
For a while, Irene shut herself inside the room.
The days when she accidentally fell asleep beside Calid felt like a lie. She was once again a completely isolated ghost.
After spending who knew how much time locked inside the room, Irene realized that Calid had not returned to this room for quite a while.
‘Huh… now that I think about it, where is Calid sleeping? What? He acted like he’d never let me have this room again… and yet he left so easily. Then why did he change the room into this mess? What a weak-willed Grand Duke…’
Irene grumbled to herself, but suddenly she noticed the silence she had not felt before.
Maybe she had already gotten used to living with Calid, even if it was an unwanted cohabitation.
People say you notice an empty space more after someone leaves. With no sign of a person left in the black-colored room, it instantly felt cold and empty.
Today, the quiet room made Irene feel especially lonely.
‘…I should go find Calid.’
For the first time in several days, Irene left the room and began searching nearby rooms through the dark hallway at night.
‘This is the drawing room… and was there another room beside this one?’
Just as she was leaving the drawing room and about to enter the next room, she heard a faint groan.
‘Hm? I think I hear someone groaning…’
Irene looked around before carefully approaching the door and placing her ear against it.
‘!!’
The sound coming from inside startled her so badly that she quickly stepped away from the door.
Her face turned red from embarrassment. Her eyes darted around awkwardly as she slowly backed away.
Irene was certain Calid was inside the room.
‘Right. Calid is a man too… a healthy grown man full of energy. I was wondering why he disappeared for so long… so that’s what it was.’
She quietly turned around and headed back to her room.
‘Well… healthy men need private time to relieve stress. Yes, yes. As a mature adult, I understand completely. Ahem. I heard nothing.’
And just like that, Irene’s completely wrong misunderstanding began.
The next day, Irene headed to Calid’s office for the first time in a while.
As usual, Calid sat behind his desk listening to reports from his retainers. Watching him, Irene strangely felt sorry for him.
‘…Calid. I was angry because of how you treated me, but after everything we’ve been through, I’ll give you some advice.’
Resting her chin on her hand, Irene began giving serious advice that sounded more like nagging.
‘You’re a young man in your prime. Is it really okay to spend every day sitting in your office like this? You should go outside, meet people, get a girlfriend.’
‘It’s not that having private time is bad. But if I had your face, I’d be out meeting lots of pretty women. Why aren’t you using that handsome face properly?’
‘A-Anyway! That’s what I came to say today! Well then, work hard.’
Feeling embarrassed after actually facing Calid, Irene awkwardly muttered everything she wanted to say before quickly disappearing.
From Calid’s perspective, the strange white lump had suddenly appeared, puffed up and shrunk repeatedly while acting restless, then disappeared again.
‘…? Why does it feel like I just got scolded terribly?’
After that, whenever the white lump met Calid, it would suddenly freeze up, twist itself around shyly, and disappear.
‘Is that white lump… feeling embarrassed in front of me?’
Recently, no matter what the white lump did, Calid only found it pitiful and harmless.
And somehow, the way it timidly followed him around from afar even looked cute.
‘Hmm… the way it bounces after me is kind of cute. It hasn’t caused trouble lately either. Maybe I should keep watching it a little longer.’
Thinking about the now quiet white lump, Calid continued the rest of his schedule.
That night, Irene once again went searching for Calid after noticing he still had not returned to the room.
‘Surely… he isn’t doing the same thing as yesterday again?’
With nervous anticipation, Irene stood outside the room Calid had been in the previous night and listened carefully.
But once again, hearing groans from inside startled her and she hurried back to her room.
No one had entered or left. The sounds clearly belonged to one person.
‘Goodness, that scared me. Honestly, what is he even doing in there? Ahem.’
Irene became embarrassed once more.
‘No matter how I think about it, Calid really needs to get out of the office and meet people. Come to think of it, does he not even have friends? The only people who visit him are his retainers…’
Irene carefully thought back on all the people who had visited the castle.
The only ones she remembered were Calid’s retainers carrying piles of documents.
‘If I wasn’t like this, I’d at least help him make some friends…’
Irene looked toward Calid’s room with pity in her eyes.
But regardless of Irene’s concern, time continued to pass.
After this repeated for a whole week, Irene finally began to worry.
‘No matter how healthy someone is… isn’t doing that every night for a week a bit too much?!’
Irene searched through the knowledge she remembered.
But she did not know much about that subject, so nothing useful came to mind.
‘That’s why he always looks tired in the mornings. Staying awake every night doing that… I hope he rests quietly tonight at least.’
Thinking about how exhausted Calid looked every morning, Irene quietly walked toward his room.
But then she heard groaning again, along with the sound of something breaking inside.
‘Huh? Wait, today the Grand Duke sounds pretty… intense?’
As she slowly tried to leave, another thought suddenly crossed her mind.
What if those groans meant something completely different from what she had imagined?
Irene quickly turned back and flew through the door.
And the sight before her left her speechless.
‘……Calid!’
The curtains had been torn down. Furniture like chairs and side tables were shattered across the floor.
The bedding was ripped apart in several places, and in the middle of it all, Calid writhed in agony.
Golden energy flickered violently from his body.
‘Calid! What happened? Why are you like this?!’
Calid’s face was pale as paper, and cold sweat poured down him like rain.
Irene anxiously paced around him but could not bring herself to get too close.
‘What is Sebastian doing?! The master is suffering like this! The doctor! I’ll bring the doctor! Just wait a little!’
Irene immediately rushed to the castle doctor.
But for some reason, the doctor was absent today.
She even tried searching for herbs that might help Calid, but her transparent body was useless.
‘Sebastian! I need to find Sebastian at least!’
Irene searched the castle for Sebastian and the servants, but strangely enough, not a single person could be found tonight.
After failing to find anyone, Irene returned to Calid and looked at him sadly as he continued suffering.
‘Calid…’
She tried to materialize her body somehow, but the energy inside the necklace was completely gone and useless now.
She even attempted to use her weak healing ability on him, but perhaps because she was a ghost, it did not work at all.
Watching someone suffer while being unable to help filled her with frustration.
With a sorrowful heart, Irene quietly stayed beside Calid.
Even if she could not ease his pain, she wanted to stay with him and share in his suffering.
Until dawn arrived, Irene remained by Calid’s side.
‘Morning already…’
Sunlight shone into the bedroom through the torn curtains.
Opening his eyes beneath the morning light, Calid found his body strangely light and refreshed.
Whenever the full moon approached, Calid normally suffered for several days from violently unstable mana.
But today, it felt as though last night’s pain had completely disappeared.
As he looked around the ruined room, something caught his eye.
‘Why is that white lump here?’
