THTSN 21

Chapter 21

I already knew the world was unfair, but sometimes it just felt too much.

Grumbling, I asked,
“So, what do you want for dinner?”
“…Anything.”
“Let’s have meat. You should at least build up your strength before the wizard beats you up. And I want some too.”
“Do whatever you want.”

Finally, something good happened since I came to this house.

“I brought Rollie!”

Where’s the wizard?

I looked around Joshua, confused, until he went, “Ah!” and disappeared for a second. Then he came back, dragging something along.

“Ta-da!”
“You haven’t changed a bit, wizard.”
He was still riding around in that little cart of his.
“Ehehe…”

Joshua hopped over toward us with the frail man in tow.
“It’s been a while, Boss.”
“You’re the same as ever.”
“But you’re not the boss anymore.”

The wizard staggered closer to Boss, looked him up and down, and suddenly held out his hand.
“What now?”
“If I’m going to study the connection between Lady Titia and you, naturally I need to check whether your body has any abnormalities.”

I grinned, and Boss’s face scrunched up.
“No. Use the old data for your research.”
“You still hate anything painful, huh? Come on, give me your hand.”

Boss hid both his hands behind him and shook his head firmly. I caught one and coaxed,
“It’s for your own good, Boss. Come on, offer that pretty hand of yours to the wizard. I can’t share your pain, but when someone else goes through what I did, for some reason it’s hilarious.”
“Pfft. What kind of personality is that?”
“A trash one.”
“Now, Boss!”
“I didn’t agree to this!”
“It’ll be over in a flash.”
“It won’t! The curse makes it worse for me. Let go!”
“I haven’t even started hurting you yet!”

Wow. That’s exactly how I acted when I begged the wizard not to test me.

At that moment, the door burst open and Veilt and Sir Danny walked in.
Their eyes went straight to me—clutching Boss’s hand tight.

Boss. Then me. Then back again.
I could see their eyes darting between us.

“…”
“…”
“…”

After a long, awkward silence, I blurted out,
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“Stop it. I’m really in pain.”
“Boss, don’t say it like that! Put the subject first! You’re making it sound like I already hurt you! Now repeat after me: ‘I’m about to be in pain.’”

Just look at those suspicious stares!

“It hurts so much I might cry.”
“Stop lying!”

I saw that little smirk at the corner of your mouth, you liar.

“Get her out of here.”

Sir Danny strode in, hoisted me over his shoulder, and started walking off.
“Don’t take me away! I need to be here!”

At this point, I really wanted to see Boss suffer with my own eyes.

But neither Joshua, Boss, nor the wizard stopped him.
Before I knew it, I was outside the room, dangling over Danny’s shoulder.

“Wait.”

Boss stood up, stopping him.
“Leave her here. You two go take care of your business.”
“Why are you ditching me and Danny again?” Veilt grumbled, annoyed, but he obeyed and left quietly.

He probably knew Boss was about to deal with the curse. Maybe he was trying to give him some peace.

“The range got wider.”

Joshua’s eyes widened.
“It’s subtle, but yeah—it’s definitely broader than yesterday. All of a sudden?”

He looked between me and Boss, then shouted,
“We have to test this right now!”

Joshua and the wizard immediately grabbed Boss.
The wizard fed him some strange concoction he’d prepared beforehand—
and even gave him a vomit bucket, something he hadn’t bothered to give me.

I moved as far away from them as possible, clutching the curtain near the window and glaring at them.
“I’m not doing this again. I’ve suffered through this for over a week.”
“You have to. Something’s changed, so we need to confirm it.”
“Aaaaghhh!”

As I screamed, writhing from sympathy pain, a faint blue glow rippled across Boss’s body.
Joshua looked so nervous he couldn’t step away.

Finally, after the long examination, the wizard collapsed onto the floor and muttered,
“…No change. It’s definitely not mana. If the curse were breaking because of mana, I’d know it instantly.”

I quietly approached Boss, pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the sweat beading on his pale forehead.
He really was in agony—his face was white as a sheet.

“Stop fussing…”
“Just a little more.”

As I wiped away his cold sweat, I cautiously asked the woozy wizard,
“So, I don’t have to do it this time, right?”
“Come here first…”

I handed the handkerchief to Boss and reluctantly sat in front of the wizard.
When I drank the liquid he gave me, he placed his hand over mine and closed his eyes.

That awful sensation wrapped around me again.
“Ughhh…”
It hurt. It was weird and it hurt!

Where’s the bucket? I need the vomit bucket!

Boss quickly set it in front of me.
“Thanks, Boss. Urgh…”

When the nausea surged and I furrowed my brow, Boss reached out and pressed his finger against my frown.

“You…”
“Huh?”
“What the—!”

Before Boss could even finish, the wizard shot upright from where he’d been lying down.
Joshua’s eyes went wide as saucers.

When Boss removed his hand from my forehead, Joshua’s eyes somehow got even wider, like they might pop out of his head.
He stammered wordlessly, but the wizard spoke first.

“I can feel divine power from Lady Titia.”

He pointed directly at me.

And with that, the wizard collapsed again like a sack of potatoes.
I let out a long breath.
“I knew it.”

Everyone’s gaze turned toward me.
“I always believed I had some extraordinary ability.”

They all looked unimpressed, but I kept going.
“There’s no way an ordinary person could undo a curse cast by the demon of Serael. Obviously, someone chosen by—mmph!”

Boss clamped a big hand over my mouth, irritated.
“Enough babbling. Is now the time to be proud of yourself?”
I pried his hand down and asked innocently,
“Then what should I be doing?”
He hesitated a moment, then muttered,
“…Being proud.”
“I knew you’d understand, Boss.”

If this were before, Boss would’ve been bragging about his powers by now.
He wasn’t the stoic duke type—more like a confident, foul-mouthed friend.

Guess that’s why you ended up as the second male lead.

Seeing the pity in my eyes, Boss’s eyelid twitched.
“Are you trying to make me mad?”
“What? Why would I?”
“You just gave me this… indescribably irritating look.”
“You’re imagining things.”

After a few exchanges with the unnervingly perceptive Boss, Joshua finally spoke up again.
Between the two, he probably understood the situation better than the wizard did.

“Rollie, when we tested you separately, you didn’t feel anything, right?”
“That is correct.”

Can’t he just say “yes”?

The wizard waved his hand, and—after a week of serving as his near-slave—my body just moved automatically.
I helped lift him back into his cart, followed Joshua toward the sofa, and even pushed the cart myself.

When we arrived, Boss, seated at the head, remarked,
“That looked so natural. For a second, I thought you were his maid.”
Oops. Reflex.

“I guess after a week, my body’s gotten used to it. Ugh.”
I shoved the cart away.

“Ugh… well… I suppose… I don’t really need to… hear this part… huhh…”

The wizard had already passed out—complete with a big dangling snot bubble.

Sinus problems, maybe?

Anyway, Joshua would probably summarize everything for him later, so I focused on the discussion at hand.

“This is just a theory,” Joshua began, “but it looks like divine power only manifests when the two of you are together.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. First, before we brought Rollie in, the range of the curse around Jer definitely expanded. But when you two had no contact for about a week, the range shrank again.”
“And?”
“The reason you get especially sleepy when you’re near Jer is because the demonic energy is draining your stamina. Normally, if you rest away from him, you’d recover quickly—but the divine power inside you isn’t just reacting to any magic. It’s reacting specifically to the curse cast by the demon of Serael. That’s why it’s so sensitive.”

Now that he mentioned it…
Yeah, I had been dozing off every chance I got.