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chapter 10
You’ve already gotten the bread crumbs off. You don’t need to rub it that hard.”
“No. That’s not it. You, you mustn’t touch me. You might catch the disease…. You need to go to the well and wash yourself quickly….”
Rurutie raised the corners of her eyes and planted both hands on her waist.
“What? You believe that stupid nonsense too?”
“E-Everyone says so. I’m a germ.”
His words overlapped with the image of herself saying, I’m trash.
Rurutie finally reached out with the hand she had been restraining herself from using and stopped Rat’s movements immediately. When he tried to jerk away like a startled cat after she caught his hand, she held on firmly.
“Rat, I studied magic.”
“N-No. Please let go.”
Rat twisted his body, but his slender arm could not shake Rurutie off. All he could do was tremble with fear. She held his hand tightly and spoke.
“I know how to properly distinguish between diseases and curses. The reason your body is different from mine is because of an old curse. Curses cannot be passed on to other people.”
“Ugh…. Uhh…. The young lady will die. Sob. Because of a monster like me, the young lady will….”
He trembled violently as he whimpered.
Rurutie bumped her forehead firmly against his.
When their faces came into contact, Rat was startled and shrank his shoulders.
“I won’t catch the same disease as you. I’m not going to die.”
She would die when she turned twenty, but that was something that would happen far in the future. For now, calming Rat down came first.
“Young lady….”
“You believe me, right?”
She had continued to keep her promise to bring him food every other day.
As his trembling gradually subsided, Rat cautiously nodded up and down. Once he had calmed down, she pulled her forehead away and grinned. She then fiddled with the hand she was still holding.
“This is the first time I’ve touched your hand. It’s warm.”
“…….”
“My hand is warm too, right? It’s the same as yours.”
“…….”
“You’re not a monster. You’re a person just like me.”
Rat stared intently at her face while their hands remained clasped together. Eventually, tears burst from his eyes.
“Waaaah.”
Perhaps Rat remembered well that he was not supposed to cry loudly, because he tried to suppress his voice as he sobbed miserably.
His eyes had been like black buttons, but as tears dripped down his face, the fog seemed to clear, revealing purple irises beneath.
Does his tears contain divine power too?
She stared at him, fascinated by the way the curse was temporarily lifted.
Regardless of whether she watched him or not, Rat cried his heart out for a long while before sniffing and speaking.
“From now on, I-I’ll believe anything you say, Young Lady Rurutie.”
“What? Are you saying you doubted me all this time?”
Rat sniffed and subtly avoided her gaze.
Well, look at this.
She had kept the difficult promise of bringing him food for two whole months while avoiding her father’s eyes, and he had still been suspicious of something.
Rurutie glared at him indignantly.
“What did you doubt?”
“…….”
“I won’t get angry, so tell me.”
“…I thought you would abandon me soon, Young Lady. That you would get tired of me and never come back…. I thought about it… every day.”
“But I came back just like I promised!”
“But I’m so hideous…. Everyone abandoned me soon after.”
Rurutie raised her little finger.
“Promise me. I won’t abandon you.”
He was still reluctant to touch Rurutie’s hand. So she moved herself and hooked her little finger around his.
“Instead, promise me this. Don’t abandon me without saying anything, either.”
“What will you do if I disappear without saying anything?”
“I’ll hate you. A lot.”
Of course, it was a lie.
If Rat ever got the chance to escape, she wanted him to use that opportunity to get as far away from her father’s grasp as possible instead of wasting time trying to find her and report back to her.
If she did not do this, he would never accept her promise, and he would remain anxious that she might leave him.
“Eek!”
Rat was terribly startled.
Rurutie tightened her little finger, entwining it firmly with his.
“If you don’t promise me, I’ll never come to see you again.”
Rat once again looked as though he was about to cry and vigorously shook his head.
“I’ll keep it. No, I… I want to live… for you, Young Lady.”
After that, Rat completely let down his guard and began waiting for Rurutie by squatting at the entrance of the small hole through which she secretly slipped in.
Not only his behavior but also his expression became much brighter. Rat, who had previously done nothing but act timidly, began to smile.
Rat’s change was definitely a good thing.
So I really can save someone.
She felt proud and warm inside at the thought that she had had some influence on another person.
And then, on the day it had been exactly one year since she had secretly begun meeting Rat—
Eventually, even the longest tail gets stepped on.
Rurutie flinched as she emerged from the small hole.
Instead of Rat, who had been sitting quietly, what she saw was blood, torn pieces of cloth, a charred lump, and a familiar pair of shoes.
“Were you the one bringing food to the little rat?”
“F-Father.”
“I knew you were raised as trash, but have you started behaving like a dog as well?”
Geilde looked down at his daughter as though she were a disgusting insect.
Rurutie did not care in the slightest about her father’s cold attitude.
Her only concern was figuring out what the black, charred lump was—the one that still bore traces of her father’s magic.
“Where is Rat?”
“That little rat started rebelling because of you.”
Rurutie stared at the lump of charcoal radiating intense heat.
It was a lump that had been burned by the Brücke family’s unique ability: black flames.
She clenched her fists tightly.
“Father, what did you do to Rat?!”
“You’re noisy, so speak quietly. No man will want a frivolous woman who screams in such a loud voice. Are you planning to throw away the last bit of your worth as well?”
Geilde gestured to the servant standing beside him.
The servant immediately grabbed Rurutie roughly by the arm and pulled her up from the floor.
Rurutie’s mind was blank.
One year.
It had been a short time, but Rat had come to occupy a large place in Rurutie’s heart.
He had always smiled whenever she did even the smallest thing, telling her how happy it made him.
I can’t use magic, but I can make Rat happy.
She had gained the strength to overcome the words her father had driven into her heart.
Trash.
Rat was her one and only friend and her savior.
She had never even dared to imagine standing up to her father on her own. But if it was to protect Rat, she could oppose her father.
“How dare a servant touch someone’s body without permission? Let go!”
Rurutie shook off the servant who was holding her.
“Father. Please answer me. What did you do to Rat? I have to know!”
The startled servant approached her again, but he could not carelessly lay hands on the duke’s daughter.
Geilde looked back and forth between the flustered servant and Rurutie before sneering.
“I’ve given you far too much freedom.”
He chanted a spell and cast a binding spell on her.
Rurutie’s breath caught in her throat, making it impossible for her to ask where Rat was.
“You want to know what happened to the little rat? You’ll find out soon enough.”
After being dragged into the reflection room for the first time in a long while, Rurutie learned firsthand what kind of experiment Rat had been subjected to.
“Despite having no mana channels, you possess an enormous amount of mana. What a pathetic body you have, Rurutie.”
Geilde injected a red liquid into Rurutie’s arm.
Rurutie writhed in agony as she felt the blood throughout her body begin to boil.
Geilde was conducting an experiment to combine two types of power: divine power and mana.
Rat, who possessed divine power, was injected with a mage’s blood.
Conversely, Rurutie was injected with Rat’s blood, which Geilde had previously collected from him.
The two powers met inside their bodies and ran wild, causing unbearable pain as though their bodies were about to burst apart.
After suffering through the horrifying pain, Rurutie lost consciousness.
She dreamed.
A white room with countless glass bottles hanging from the ceiling.
In the dream, a girl lying on a bed was reading a book.
As she read, the girl wiped away the tears flowing down her cheeks with the back of her hand.
It was because someone precious to her had died.
When Rurutie woke up, she was crying as well.
Was I subjected to this experiment multiple times?
When divine power entered her body, she had vaguely sensed it.
If something went even slightly wrong, her body would explode like a balloon.
There was a high possibility that Rat’s mana and divine power had gone berserk.
He might already have been gone from this world.
But she did not want to give up.
She tried to find Rat through a newly hired maid, but she could not find even a trace of him.
She had no choice but to accept that the charred lump lying beside her father had been Rat.
Her conversation with Keinchel had brought the dead Rat back to mind.
Rurutie felt a painful pang in her heart at the past that had resurfaced for no reason, so she gripped her teacup with both hands.
Keinchel, who had remained silent, finally opened his mouth.
“To be honest, I couldn’t understand how a precious young lady who had grown up lacking for nothing could become Count Hind’s wife. I thought either you had genuinely fallen in love with Count Hind, or you owed him a great debt. I assumed there must have been some such circumstance.”
“Do you seriously call that an explanation?”
She might have owed him a great debt, but there was no way she could have fallen in love with a man thirty years older than her, especially one who barely had any hair left on his head.
There was surely no one in the world whose type was a bald mountain.
“I’m ashamed of what I was thinking. I should have said this when you kissed me.”
Suddenly, golden light began to shimmer around his body.
Divine power?
There was no way some lunatic would suddenly use divine power while drinking tea.
Unable to understand the situation, Rurutie could not focus on what he was saying and failed to respond.
“I thought there could be no father who would fail to cherish his only remaining family, his daughter, after his wife died. Even though I knew that man’s true nature, foolishly….”
Keinchel’s muttering was not important.
Far more important than what he was saying was the fact that Keinchel had unleashed an enormous amount of divine power and activated an oath spell
