IAYA 14

Chapter 14

Teansis’s question was a little strange.
It sounded almost as if he were telling me I shouldn’t be worried about him.

“Of course. Am I not allowed to worry about you, Your Grace?”

At my innocent curiosity, a faint smile tugged at Teansis’s lips.

“It’s just… surprising.”

“What is…?”

“In situations like this, most people would be more worried about themselves than about me.”

I hadn’t realized it before meeting him, but Teansis sometimes pointed out the heart of things with unnerving accuracy.

And he wasn’t wrong. The fact that he had come all the way to the dispensary to find me wasn’t exactly a good sign.

“……”

I lost my words and stayed quiet.

For me, worrying about the Teansis I so admired was the most natural thing in the world. But this situation—constantly running into him like this—wasn’t good.

Just as I was organizing burn ointment and gauze with slightly trembling hands—

Grrrgle—

Suddenly, my stomach growled. Loudly.

‘Maybe only I heard it?’

I clung to that tiny shred of hope and glanced at Teansis, but his slightly startled expression told me otherwise. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been just my ears.

Why was it that he only ever saw me like this?

‘Ruined…’

For wealthy nobles, food was never scarce. A stomach growling meant being poor enough to struggle to eat.

It wasn’t as though looking pretty in front of him would change anything. But still, showing such a shabby side was frustrating.

As if fainting after getting hit by fruit wasn’t humiliating enough, now my stomach was betraying me too.

My face burned with embarrassment, but I pretended nothing happened as I put the burn ointment and gauze back in their place.

“You haven’t eaten?”

At his question, I wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it. Outwardly though, I forced myself to answer as calmly as possible.

“The staff dining hall menu didn’t suit my taste today. I was planning to eat later when I had time.”

“The staff dining hall… right, I suppose that’s where you take your meals.”

“Not just me—most of the staff at Camar Academy eat there. So it’s not like I’m ever starving.”

I especially emphasized the last part. Of all people, I didn’t want Teansis to think of me as too poor to even eat properly.

He just nodded as if he understood, eyes quietly fixed on the gauze I’d taped to the back of his hand.

That was when it hit me—I had just applied the ointment to him with my bare hands.

‘Ah… wait, didn’t he say he gets rashes…? Is he okay?’

Suddenly, I remembered something he’d said to me not long ago.

—In this situation, it would make no sense if my body didn’t break out in rashes. Every doctor, healing spell, even witchcraft in the continent has failed to cure it. Do you think it’s reasonable that you’re the only one unaffected?

I still didn’t know why exactly he had such rashes, but I had guessed he probably needed to avoid physical contact.

‘Back then… he had taken off his shirt…’

The memory of that day resurfaced—Teansis’s bare upper body. It was the first time I had ever seen him undressed, and I had never imagined I’d see him so close.

Before I realized it, I was sneaking a glance at his face—

And then he unfastened the top button of his shirt.

“W-wait a second!”

I shouted hastily, glancing toward the door to check if anyone was outside.

That day, it had been his residence. But now we were in the academy’s dispensary. Anyone could walk in at any time.

“You can’t undress here! What if someone comes in? Y-you don’t need to take off your clothes, I can check if you’ve broken out in rashes without that…”

He looked puzzled at first, then seemed to realize what I meant.

“So that’s what you thought?”

“Huh?”

“I wasn’t undressing. I just loosened it. I haven’t slept all day—I’m exhausted.”

“Oh…”

My face burned hotter than before. He must have figured out exactly what I’d been imagining.

Ahem. Pretending nothing was wrong, I sat at my desk, eyes deliberately avoiding his.

“Your burns are treated now, so you should get going.”

But instead of a reply, I heard the squeak of a bed creaking under weight.

Puzzled, I looked up—and there he was, lying on one of the dispensary beds.

“Your Grace?”

“As I said, I haven’t slept all day. I’m dizzy and tired. I’ll rest here until I feel better.”

“If you’re tired, shouldn’t you rest in your own quarters—”

“If I leave now, I might collapse.”

An obvious lie. Teansis, a sword prodigy capable of wielding aura at will, fainting from dizziness? Impossible.

Just as I was about to argue, he turned his head toward me from the bed and fixed me with those narrowed eyes.

“Are you planning to throw out a sick student, Professor?”

“Ugh…”

Somehow, he always called me “Professor” whenever it was to his advantage.

And the word hit me squarely every time. I didn’t know why it sounded so sweet when he said it.

Of course, even aside from that, my job was to care for sick students. I couldn’t very well throw out Teansis when he said he wasn’t well.

Chasing him away just because I felt uncomfortable would be unreasonable.

‘If not for this setting, he would never have called me “Professor” at all…’

Most of the students at Camar Academy were high-ranking nobles. But not all of their professors were of noble birth.

Professors were chosen strictly for skill, not status, which meant even nobles had to speak politely to them within the academy.

That was why, even though I looked not much older than the students, they still spoke to me formally.

Outside the academy, Teansis would never have come close to me, let alone called me Professor.

While I wrestled with my thoughts, Teansis was already lying flat with his eyes closed.

“Is one supposed to sleep here under constant surveillance?”

He had his eyes shut, but he clearly knew I was staring.

With no choice, I walked over and carefully drew the curtain around his bed—just as I would for any other student—to give him privacy.

“…Sleep well.”

From behind the curtain, I thought I heard a low chuckle, as though amused.

‘No way… did His Grace just laugh?’

I stared at the opaque curtain with a puzzled expression, then shook my head.

Impossible. Teansis was infamous for never smiling.

Proof? In all the pictures I had collected of him, there wasn’t a single one with a smile.

I pushed aside the silly thought and sat back at my desk.

Soon after, students began trickling in. But I couldn’t focus, my eyes kept wandering to the bed hidden by that curtain.

Click—

The door to the dispensary opened, and Petrin suddenly appeared.

A glance at the clock told me it wasn’t yet time for her shift change.

“What brings you here now?”

At my question, Petrin answered with an annoyed look.

“Hah. In the dining hall, you made a show of standing to greet others. But here, when it’s just the two of us, you can’t be bothered. You really are something else.”

“You told me not to stand at the dining hall…”

“Forget it. You should just admit you’re wrong. Why do you always have so many excuses?”

Her words stung with unfairness. I wanted to get along with her, but everything seemed to go wrong.

She found fault with everything I did, leaving me with nothing to say.

“Reading books and even brewing coffee, huh? You’ve got quite the easy life.”

Petrin sneered at the book on medicine I’d been reading and the cup of coffee beside me.

I didn’t like it, but I held my tongue.

“Would you like me to make you a cup too?”

“No thanks. At this rate, the coffee and snacks in this room will vanish in no time. What, you think others don’t have mouths to taste with?”

The refreshments in the dispensary were for both of us. I wasn’t stealing hers, so there was no reason for this.

And earlier today, the delivery man had told me something.

—Munochos? The dispensary keeps them, sure, but we’re the ones who handle moving them. We never get them from you guys directly.

I’d overheard when he collected the munochos. Apparently, while the dispensary stored them, they never distributed them.

I couldn’t confront Petrin with the fact that I had almost died running her errand—since I’d lied to Jer about not entering the warehouse.

But still, I had wanted to let things slide. Yet she kept picking fights, and I finally wanted to say something.

“Today I heard from the delivery man that munochos are managed here but not distributed directly.”

“Well, that’s because—”

“You do realize I almost died yesterday because of that, don’t you?”

If not for the monsters who had helped me, I wouldn’t be alive now.

“Hah! You’re ridiculous. Are you trying to say it’s my fault? I was only teaching you how the dispensary works! That’s my job!”

“Making up tasks that don’t exist just to teach me—isn’t that wrong?”

“So what, are you threatening to tattle to the professors?”

“Apologize. To me.”

“What?”

“I nearly died because of you. I think I deserve an apology.”

I spoke calmly, saying what needed to be said.

If giving way would improve things, I would have. But at 38 years of age, I knew some relationships only got worse the more you yielded.

That was exactly what Petrin was like with me.

“How dare you talk back to your senior! If you’d just done my errand properly, you wouldn’t even be alive right now. Do you realize what that means? That you disregarded your senior’s words and slacked off! Isn’t that right?”

I was furious. She was twisting it, making it sound like the only reason I hadn’t died was because I had been lazy.

“Hah! The more I think about it, the more unbelievable you are. Do you think you’ll keep working in the dispensary after offending me? I’ll have you fired—”

Just then, a husky male voice spoke from the curtained bed.

“Is the dispensary always this noisy?”

At that low voice, Petrin finally realized someone else was in the room.

On her first day, she had checked carefully if others were present. But this time she hadn’t.

Even I had forgotten, caught up in the heated exchange, that someone was sleeping there.

Trembling, I turned to the bed.

Trying to recover, Petrin cleared her throat and said,

“Ahem, a student was resting here, I see. We were just discussing dispensary matters. Since you’re awake now, you should—”

But she didn’t get to finish.

Swish—

The opaque curtain was pulled aside, and there stood Teansis, golden hair gleaming.

“Ah—Y-your Grace!”

I heard Petrin’s sharp intake of breath.

“Do the other students also manage to sleep through such noise? Or am I just unlucky to be here when staff yell like this?”

Petrin’s cheeks flushed red instantly, and she flustered.

“H-how could Duke Akruse be here…? I must have disturbed your rest. Oh dear, what should I do?”

If I had unexpectedly encountered Teansis here, I would have been just as flustered. But right now, something else worried me more.

‘Did he hear our conversation earlier?’

The topic of munochos—that had been the reason I went to the east warehouse.

I had never revealed that to Teansis. If he’d overheard, he might piece it together.

Though even if he did, he wouldn’t guess I’d gotten younger or taken Jer’s experimental drug…

As I stared at him nervously, Teansis swung his long legs off the bed and stood.

Even such a simple movement looked ridiculously elegant on him.

Petrin gazed at him, entranced.

“You could rest longer if you’d like…”

But Teansis walked toward us with steady steps.

“I’ve rested enough. But what I just overheard—those are not words fellow staff should say to each other.”

“H-huh?”

“Talking about firing someone—that’s not something for one staff member to say to another, especially when you’re not even their supervising professor.”

At his words, Petrin’s face hardened. She realized he had indeed heard.

‘How much did he hear…?’

As I looked up at him silently, Teansis glanced at me as he passed.

For some reason, that look made my chest flutter.

And then, he said:

“Let me be clear—Lady Velia cannot be dismissed at will.”

His violet eyes lingered, and his words hit like a thunderclap.

Both Petrin and I stared at him in bewilderment.

“Because I won’t allow it.”

I could only gape, shocked. What was he thinking, saying something like that?

But Petrin’s face twisted in an instant, clearly displeased that I was being given special treatment.

Teansis, however, seemed utterly unconcerned with either of our reactions. Looking directly at me, he spoke again.

“Thanks to you, I slept well. I’ll come again.”

With that, he left the dispensary.

But that wasn’t the end. The storm he left behind was enormous.

Just one day.

It took only one day for this rumor to spread across the entirety of Camar Academy.