Chapter 40
“From now on, if you sneak into the kitchen, you should know that I'll cut off your allowance for a while.”
“I'm sorry.”
After the momentous 1,000th time I was caught.
Mother scolded me as usual.
Then, all of a sudden.
She gave an awkward little cough, as if she had just remembered something.
“Ahem. I misspoke. I mean, if you go into the kitchen from now on….”
“….”
She seemed to have remembered that, unlike Freya, I wasn't someone who received an allowance.
“If you go in….”
Mother's voice trailed off.
Her pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck.
Unfortunately, she had remembered that she had no suitable means of controlling me.
To be precise, corporal punishment was still an option.
But it was one Mother, who loved me, could never bring herself to consider.
Mother's eyes rolled awkwardly, unable to settle anywhere.
After trying to squeeze out some terrifying punishment, Mother finally seemed to give up and pulled out her trump card.
“…I'll cry.”
“?”
“Every time you go in and out of the kitchen, I'll skip my meals and cry alone in my room.”
Oh.
That was a little harsh.
“…I'm sorry. I'll be careful from now on.”
I bowed my head toward Mother as she prepared a handkerchief.
I could guess why Mother reacted this way.
From Mother's perspective, I was already her weak spot.
An eldest son who had given her no good memories during his childhood and who didn't even possess a mage's talent.
To her, it probably seemed that becoming a son-in-law was the only way I could maintain my status and make a living.
‘Just because you own a major trading company doesn't mean you can retain your position as a noble.’
A huge merchant company could receive treatment ‘equivalent’ to that of nobility.
But it could only receive similar treatment, not the same treatment as a noble family.
Unless it was an exceptional case, capital could never overpower status.
That was why Mother seemed determined to bring me into a proper noble family as a son-in-law.
To do that, I needed a good image.
Learned, well-mannered, and well-regarded in high society.
Only then would a good family want me as a son-in-law.
But cooking?
In noble society, cooking was a servant's job.
No matter how much of a hobby it was, what noble heir would personally pick up a knife and cut meat?
And on top of that, offal dishes.
The eldest son of a baron's family personally trimming parts that only the poor ate.
If rumors spread, it was obvious every marriage proposal would fall through.
‘Even if I ask her to trust me, I can't blame a parent for thinking that way.’
I knew I was the protagonist, after all.
And by now, I had also become the Great Sage's disciple.
So I could confidently pursue the alchemy route.
But Mother didn't know any of that.
So I could completely understand why Mother wanted to make me a son-in-law.
If anyone was at fault, it was me for hiding those things from her.
“Phew….”
Mother let out a deep sigh.
Then she muttered as if speaking to herself.
“In a few years, you'll be old enough to start looking for a fiancée, too.”
“Yes… I suppose I will.”
“Then you should start exercising some restraint.”
“Understood. I'll be careful.”
I meekly bowed my head.
However, as terribly, terribly sorry as I was to Mother, I had not the slightest intention of stopping cooking.
Rather, when Mother brought up the subject of engagements, I became even more convinced that I needed to hone my cooking skills.
‘The things other people don't do are precisely the areas worth pioneering as the protagonist.’
That's how genre conventions worked.
A protagonist's uniqueness came from doing the things no one else did.
Just as the ruthless Northern Grand Duke helplessly fell for a country noblewoman farming with dirt-covered hands,
and the arrogant crown prince became obsessed with the desserts baked by a noblewoman.
The examples were a little too much like romance-fantasy stories.
Anyway, the fact that nobles disliked cooking meant it was worth making it part of my character.
‘I'll have to plan a new route so I don't get caught….’
That said, as her son, I couldn't let Mother sit alone in her room soaking her handkerchief with tears.
So starting tomorrow, I decided to show a little more consideration and sneak in and out of the kitchen instead.
‘I was coming and going far too openly until now.’
For starters, instead of heading there openly through the hallway, I would begin by using the back door.
I poured all my sincerity into pointing at the wide front door leading from the house to the kitchen.
“From now on, I won't be going in and out through that door.”
It was the honest truth, with not a single lie mixed in, so help me heaven.
I wouldn't be going in and out through that door. In any case, it was sincere.
But perhaps because my sincerity was too intense.
Mother's eyes wavered instead.
“….”
Mother pressed her lips together for a moment.
Then she cautiously opened her mouth.
“…Once in a while should be fine.”
“?”
“I'm doing this all for your sake, but I'm still worried you might be suffering too much. Once a month… I'll close my eyes to it.”
Mother's voice softened.
“I'm truly sorry for stopping you from doing what you love.”
“….”
Faced with my mother's blind affection, her eyes even brimming with tears, I could only bite my lip tightly.
Somehow, I felt less like the protagonist and more like a son burning with filial piety.
*
Anyway, a promise to Mother was a promise.
But that wasn't a reason not to eat the food I had made.
Tonight's dinner was Tartare de cœur à la moelle.
Translated into Korean, it was yukhoe. Only this version was served with butter-scented marrow, and I had paid special attention to the plating.
I sat in my assigned seat and spoke to the guest who had arrived early and was already seated on my right.
“You washed your hands, right, Eri?”
“O-of course, sir.”
Eri answered while sitting ramrod straight with nervous tension.
Ordinarily, Eri's status would not have allowed her to sit here.
There was no way someone in her ambiguous position, merely an assistant and not even an official escort, could sit at a family meal like this.
But Father would occasionally invite Eri to meals like this.
‘It means he recognizes Eri's talent that much.’
When the nobles of this world discovered a promising mage, they went beyond personally sponsoring them and invited them to their dining tables.
They built connections by eating the same food and drinking the same wine.
Mages were very likely either to establish new families or to join existing ones.
Depending on the circumstances, some families even bound them through adoption or marriage.
Considering that, an invitation to dinner was hardly unusual treatment after all.
‘That's why I prepared six dishes today.’
The person in question, however, was still struggling to adjust to such treatment.
Perhaps Mother felt sorry for her, because she spoke from across the table.
“Miss Erica, please make yourself comfortable.”
“Y-yes, ma'am! My lady!”
Mother's attempt to put her at ease was not very effective.
Like when she had first come up from Limbus Pit, Eri answered with her back held perfectly straight.
There was one difference from back then, though.
She now fully understood her own worth as well.
‘She said she was learning a mage's mindset from Chief Shen.’
What Eri was learning from him was not merely practical experience.
She was also learning how magicians, and mages in particular, were treated socially, as well as how to respond while receiving that treatment.
“Th-thank you for inviting me, my lord!”
Learning something and putting it into practice were separate matters, though.
That was something time would resolve, so I was about to leave her alone and focus on the meal.
At that moment, Father, who had entered the dining room last, spoke.
“Julian.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Did you make tonight's dinner as well?”
“…Did Mother tell you?”
“If you intend to hide it, why not start by changing the type of dish and the way you plate it? Is there any chef in the world besides you who would serve raw meat on a bone? And at this point, it would be faster to count the days you haven't done it.”
Hmm.
So Father caught me too.
But plating was a serious matter, so I couldn't compromise.
“Phew… A boy who will have a fiancée soon is still doing this…. You are a clever boy, so I'm sure you'll look after yourself.”
Father clicked his tongue, lightly pressing the space between his brows.
Still, since he wasn't directly shouting at me to stop, he seemed to have resigned himself to it, unlike Mother.
Father sat at the head of the long table and spread his napkin over his lap.
Mother put a bib on Fried, who was sitting beside her, and spread her own napkin over her lap.
I followed suit.
“Eri, you shouldn't fold your napkin.”
I told Eri, who was trying to copy us out of the corner of her eye.
Before we began eating, I looked over the table where the whole family had gathered one last time.
An empty seat caught my eye.
“Come to think of it, Freya isn't here today.”
The head butler, who had been helping prepare the meal beside me, gave a slight bow and answered.
“Ah, the young lady said she would eat separately in her room today. She developed a slight fever and started coughing this afternoon.”
“A cough? Is she coming down with a cold?”
“Yes. Perhaps because of the change in seasons, she seems to have caught a cold. She decided to eat in her room today in case she passed it on to anyone else.”
Ah, so it was a cold.
Freya's colds were practically an annual event.
Whenever the seasons changed, she came down with one without fail.
‘Could she have had measles at some point?’
I didn't know much about Freya's childhood, since I hadn't been in the main building back then.
But judging by how often she caught colds, it was a fairly plausible possibility.
The reason measles was frightening was that the measles virus erased all the memories of the immune system.
That was why people who had once suffered from measles remained vulnerable to colds for several years afterward.
‘Or she might simply be the type to catch colds easily.’
However, this cold seemed a little different from the others.
“This year's cold does seem rather severe. She didn't just cough and get over it; she couldn't even get out of bed.”
From what they were saying, I began to wonder whether it might not be a cold but the flu.
“Did you call for a healer?”
“I did. The healer should arrive after dinner. Are you going to see her?”
“Of course I am.”
It wasn't that I didn't trust healers.
In a world without doctors, their skills were outstanding enough to perfectly replace them.
The only reason I wanted to observe was to watch healing magic.
“I'll bring Freya something to eat when I go upstairs after dinner.”
“Indeed, it would be best to avoid raw meat dishes like this when she has a fever. I'll tell the cook to send up some warm soup.”
Father nodded calmly and picked up his fork.
“Our small talk has gone on long enough. Let us eat.”
I, too, smiled lightly and picked up my fork.
“Yes, let's eat before it gets cold. Ah, before that, may I say a few words as the chef who made this dish?”
Then an amusing line suddenly occurred to me, and I stopped my fork.
Father looked puzzled but nodded.
While everyone paused with their forks in hand.
I delivered a pre-meal address under the full attention of my family.
“I never serve a dish without soul. So please, savor it with yours. (I never serve a dish without soul. So please, savor it with yours.)”
*
“Hamburger! It tastes like a hamburger!”
With Fried's bright cry, the meal came to a highly satisfying end.
Father and Mother had initially flinched at the fact that it was made from a heart, but after tasting one bite, they were too busy moving their forks to say a word.
“How strange. It's an offal dish, but it doesn't smell fishy at all.”
“This aroma… Is it butter? Hmm? Marrow? You know some fascinating cooking methods.”
It seemed they both liked the dish.
For the record, Eri ate it happily from the very beginning.
She was a girl who had even shoved her head into a bucket full of blood.
A dish made from nothing more than a heart could never upset her stomach.
“Slurp.”
“Eri, stop licking the bone.”
“Huh? But this is the best part.”
And so the satisfying dinner came to an end.
I smiled lightly and wiped the corner of my mouth with a napkin.
The servants cleaned up the dining room after the meal.
I accepted a tray containing the warm chicken soup and herbal tea I had instructed the kitchen to prepare in advance.
“We could do that for you….”
“No. I should go check on Freya as well.”
Just in case, I also brought my medical bag.
“Then I'll go see how Freya is doing.”
“All right. Please do. If her fever is severe, let me know immediately.”
“Yes, Father.”
Leaving Mother and Father behind, I quietly walked along the second-floor hallway with the tray in my hands.
Freya's room was at the end of the second-floor hallway,
at the opposite end from my room.
Knock, knock.
“Freya. May I come in?”
There was no answer.
Instead, an unfamiliar voice came from inside.
— “Please come in, Young Master.”
I knew at once that it was the voice of the healer Father had called.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
As I entered Freya's room, I saw someone who had arrived before me.
Beside the canopy bed where Freya lay.
The healer's face was rigid as she looked down at Freya.
“How is she, Sister?”
“Th-that is….”
A strand of sweat-soaked brown hair poked out from between the female priest's headscarf.
Her veil was soaked with sweat as well, making it immediately clear how much effort this priestess had poured into caring for Freya.
The priestess opened her mouth with an embarrassed expression.
“It's… strange. I definitely cast healing magic, but her fever won't go down.”
“It won't go down?”
“Yes. If anything….”
I glared at the priestess.
The priestess was startled and threw herself facedown before me.
“I-I'm sorry! Please spare my life…!”
“….”
A priest who failed to treat a noble could risk losing their life.
Even more so if they had no special connection to the family.
That was why I had been misunderstood when I was wearing the crow mask.
“I swear before God, I did my very best!”
“…Do you have any divine power left?”
“Th-that is… only a very little….”
Not only was this a place without any sacred symbols, it was currently night rather than day.
She had probably cast Heal once or twice before running out of divine power.
I met the eyes of the priestess, who kept anxiously watching my reaction.
And then.
“For now, pray and gather your divine power. I'll examine my sister in the meantime.”
“Pardon?”
“Let's just say I'm something like an aspiring healer. I know how to examine patients, too.”
I took the healer's place from her while she was flustered,
and leaned over the canopy bed, where shallow breathing could be heard.
Freya lay there with the blanket pulled up to her chin.
Her half-closed, dazed eyes were turned toward me.
“…Big… brother?”
“Freya. Can you talk?”
“….”
No answer came.
I examined Freya's face closely.
Her gaze was hazy behind her half-closed eyes.
“Freya. Open your eyes.”
Her eyes slowly opened.
Eye response: 3 points.
“Where are you right now?”
“…I don't know.”
Though slowly, she answered.
But she was somewhat confused.
Verbal response: 4 points.
“Squeeze my hand tightly.”
Her slender fingers weakly closed around my hand.
She followed the command.
Motor response: 6 points.
‘Total: 13 points. Mild impairment of consciousness.’
Out of a maximum of 15 points, 13 was not yet a dangerous level.
But a simple cold or flu could not cause impaired consciousness.
In other words, this was clearly an abnormal situation.
‘Let's check her temperature first.’
I placed the back of my hand against her forehead.
I took a mercury thermometer from my medical bag and tucked it beneath her armpit.
‘What the—’
The thermometer fluctuated between 39 and 41.
“When did you cast the healing magic?”
“A-about an hour ago.”
“You said her fever hadn't gone down since then. Did it get worse?”
“…Yes. I think so.”
I examined Freya's face again.
Her cheeks were flushed red.
Though it looked like a flush caused by fever.
Poke.
“Mmm….”
Even when I lightly pressed her cheek with my index finger, it did not turn pale.
Normally, the pressed spot should turn white and then become red again.
‘Non-blanching erythema…?’
This was not an ordinary cold reaction.
As that fact flashed through my mind, my gaze shifted to Freya's half-closed eyes.
“Freya. Let me look at your eyes for a moment.”
I carefully lifted Freya's eyelids.
The whites of her eyes were bloodshot.
The entire conjunctiva was covered in red blood vessels.
But there was no discharge.
‘Conjunctival injection without discharge.’
It was a physical sign indicating a systemic infection.
I wondered if it might be vasculitis, or perhaps sepsis.
After that, I examined her entire body piece by piece.
Dry lips. Bluish fingernails. A rapid pulse, and wet sounds in her breathing.
And I could feel a hard mass in the left side of her abdomen.
‘Her spleen is enlarged….’
Countless infectious diseases passed through my mind.
Measles? Whooping cough? Smallpox?
Then the priestess, who had been quietly praying in the corner, stood up and spoke.
“I-I've recovered a little. Now, one more time…!”
The moment I saw her, something I had recently learned from Master flashed through my mind.
— “Julian. Healing magic isn't just Heal. Healing magic has principles and varieties, you see….”
Before I could even recall the rest of Master's words, I turned toward the priestess.
Then I grabbed the wrist of the hand she was reaching toward Freya with and said,
“Let's stop here.”
“Pardon?”
“I said stop. Unless you intend to kill Freya.”
“What does that mean….”
Looking down at Freya, who was gasping for breath, I said,
“It's demon disease.”
“What?!”
“Freya has demon disease.”