Chapter 42
After that harrowing night, morning came.
I looked down at Freya, whose breathing had returned to normal.
The temperature on the back of my hand, pressed against her forehead, was normal.
The 41-degree fever that had tormented me and this child all night, the breathing that had sounded like scraping metal, the red rash that had covered her whole body.
All of it had subsided as if it had all been a lie.
‘...It worked.’
It had succeeded.
Whether it was thanks to my talent for black magic, which my master had praised so highly,
or thanks to the luck of a misunderstanding-story protagonist,
the spell had succeeded on the very first try.
Creak—
Then I heard the sound of the door being carefully opened.
Through the slightly opened gap in the door,
I could see the face of the priestess who had gone out to make holy water.
Perhaps because she had spent the night in prayer, she looked worn out.
She was holding a small silver cup in her arms.
“Young master, the holy water….”
The priestess’s eyes flew wide as she spoke.
“The fever… has gone down?”
“Yes.”
“How…?”
“Shh.”
I put a finger to my lips, keeping a faint smile in check.
“Every mage has a secret or two. Just as healers often do.”
“My God….”
The priestess covered her mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding the silver cup.
The demon plague had been cured.
I didn’t know the process, but the result was right before my eyes.
It was nothing short of a miracle, something one would expect only in myth.
“Then… did you do this, young master?”
I said nothing.
Instead, I took the cup of holy water from her dazed hand.
“Thank you for your hard work, Sister.”
I could see the clear water, shimmering with a soft light.
I approached Freya with the holy water in hand.
‘Freya’s immune system is weakened right now.’
Holy water is originally a substance specialized in driving away curses, ghosts, and other unholy things.
In other words, it had almost no restorative effect like healing magic.
However, it did contain divine power, so I could at least expect a very slight boost to vitality.
‘She had just had a high fever. For protecting her organs, this should be safer.’
I still didn’t properly understand the principles behind the magic I had cast.
Under those circumstances, I couldn’t cast a low-tier heal on Freya again.
So I replaced it with holy water.
Unlike low-tier heal, I had never seen any record of holy water worsening demon plague.
“Freya. I know you’re sleepy, but drink this and go back to sleep.”
“Mmm….”
I carefully had her drink the holy water so she wouldn’t choke.
Only after confirming her parched lips had become moist again did I let out the breath I had been holding.
“Haa….”
After catching my breath, I called the priestess who had been standing there like an awkward bystander.
“Sister.”
“Y-yes! Young master!”
The priestess answered, startled out of her wits.
Perhaps because she had just witnessed a miracle.
Or perhaps because she thought she would have to pay for last night’s mistake.
I could sense fear in the way she treated me.
If I’d had only physical strength left, I might have corrected that misunderstanding.
But I hadn’t slept a wink, so I didn’t have the energy to worry about that too.
“Freya had a fever all night, so she must have sweated a lot. I told the maids to prepare hot water, so it’ll be brought up soon.”
I continued, handing over the holy water that remained halfway in the silver cup.
“Please wipe her down with diluted holy water. If possible, help her change clothes as well.”
Usually, in an infirmary, wiping down a patient’s body was the maids’ job.
Just as a doctor doesn’t bathe a patient in a hospital.
So this could have been an insult to the priestess.
Because, as with doctors in modern society, priests were a fairly respected profession—above commoners, but below nobles.
But despite my request, the priestess answered without hesitation.
“Understood!”
Last night.
She was still carrying last night’s mistake in her heart.
“I’ll take good care of the young lady.”
“And if her condition changes again, call for me immediately.”
“I’ll remember, young master.”
The priestess nodded repeatedly.
Just then, I heard the maids hurrying over in the hallway.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
I gave a slight bow and left the room.
In the hallway, I ran into the maids carrying steaming hot water and pure white towels.
“Young master…?”
The maids all stopped at once and bowed their heads.
But unlike usual, there was something strange in the way they looked at me as they greeted me.
They kept glancing at my face, and when our eyes met, they would flinch in surprise.
Some of them were even blushing.
I pointed at the ones with red cheeks and said,
“Do either of you happen to have symptoms of a cough? Your cheeks are red.”
“N-no! It’s just that we came from a cold place….”
“I understand. Still, Freya is in a weakened condition right now, so please be sure to wear masks.”
“Y-yes, young master!”
Even so, their gazes still didn’t leave me.
Wondering if something was wrong, I followed their gaze.
They seemed to be looking at my sweat-soaked hair.
‘Damn.’
I had been so earnest about nursing her that I hadn’t cared about ruining my hair.
I was always acting like a dignified, perfect young master at home.
Yet I had ended up showing this disheveled side of myself.
‘I’m still inexperienced, too.’
I straightened my messy hair.
I heard something like a sigh from the maids, but decided I must have misheard.
They were probably just out of breath from filling that basin and carrying it up to the second floor.
“Please take good care of Freya.”
“Yes! Please get some rest yourself, young master!”
After sending them off,
I headed to my room at the opposite end of the corridor from Freya’s room.
As soon as I reached my room, I locked the door and flopped down in front of the desk.
Once the tension left me, the aftereffects that had been buried under adrenaline all hit at once.
“Ugh….”
A terrible wave of nausea surged up the moment I sat in the chair.
A headache came on, stabbing wildly through my head like a sharp awl and making the world in front of my eyes flicker.
Classic mana sickness.
It was a symptom that appeared when too much mana was consumed all at once.
‘Were the catalyst and incantation insufficient?’
It was also one of the common hurdles mages faced when developing new magic.
Unlike existing spells, which had been optimized through countless years and generations, new magic had no such framework, so this kind of sickness happened often.
‘I’ll need to optimize the ritual later too….’
But the important thing right now wasn’t this aftereffect.
I slumped in the chair and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Enduring the headache, I retraced what had happened last night.
Freya’s high fever.
Cytokine storm.
Steroid pulse therapy.
And then.
‘My black magic….’
I still couldn’t believe it.
That I had successfully cast black magic.
And an improvised ritual, one I was trying for the first time, at that.
I rubbed my palms together, then covered my eyes.
In the warm darkness, I went back over the conditions I had used.
‘Wither.’
A debuff spell black mages cast as preliminary work to lower an opponent’s resistance before placing a curse.
I had adapted that spell and used it.
The catalyst was steroids.
The ritual’s target was the most active immune cells
And the symbol I used was the priestess’s Y-shaped cross, along with the “devotion” and “atonement” tied to that cross.
It was, in theory, a perfect combination.
So I carried it out,
‘To think it worked on the first try….’
It worked.
Suddenly, I remembered something my master often used to say.
— “If you had been born just a little earlier, the Master of the Magic Tower of the Thirteenth Month would have been you, not that bastard.”
The Master of the Magic Tower of the Thirteenth Month.
The worst black mage in history.
My master always said my talent was greater than his.
I had thought it was just lip service and taken it with a grain of salt.
Even taking that into account, it was still far too lucky for the first attempt to succeed.
‘I was too reckless.’
Magic wasn’t that easy.
Even when the theory is perfect, magic often fails in practice.
Like how every normal piece of coding is guaranteed to produce a bug.
And yet I succeeded.
Even though I didn’t even properly understand the symbolism or conditions of that space.
‘I managed the scientific conditions somehow with medical knowledge, but I still don’t get the symbolism.’
So the fact that that black magic succeeded on the first attempt was clearly strange.
I had only vaguely understood the conditions and had charged in without knowing the symbolism at all.
And yet it had succeeded on the first try.
There was no other explanation than that I was the protagonist of a misunderstanding story and had gotten lucky.
‘It was the same with Freed too….’
My life was too lucky.
As if I were loved by the goddess of fortune.
‘Luck really is the best.’
A splitting headache began to wash over me.
Even if I wanted to keep thinking, my brain was trying to cut the power on its own.
Dark, pitch-black drowsiness began to cover my vision.
‘Let’s just sleep.’
Was there any need to think deeply about it?
Freya had already made it through the crisis, and I could study improvements to the magic with my master later.
So there was only one thing I needed to do now.
‘As for tonight’s dinner menu….’
I gave in to my heavy eyelids and sank into deep sleep.
***
After the early morning had passed and just before noon,
while Julian was busy trying to catch up on sleep in his bed.
The priestess, having finished caring for Freya, walked down the third-floor corridor of the main building under the butler’s guidance.
The place she arrived at under the butler’s guidance was the lord’s study.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
The study, lit not by morning sunlight but by light diffused through the smog, was filled with the cozy glow of mana lamps.
But despite the lighting, the air in the room was even colder than the approaching winter.
“…Have a seat, priest.”
Head of House Nihirit, Hendel Nihirit.
At the cold way he addressed her, the priestess gave a startled shudder.
Julian had always called her “Sister.”
It was the most common and polite way for commoners outside the order to address clergy.
But that was a title used only by commoners.
Nobles had no reason to respect clergy unconditionally.
No matter how much they declared themselves religious people free from worldly concerns, they could never be completely detached from the power relations of the world.
Moreover, considering that even the weakest noble was a mage of at least the second rank, they had no reason at all to respect a priest.
So no matter how much she became a priest,
even if she became an even rarer healing priest,
the priestess never forgot her true place.
“I assume you know why you’ve been summoned here, priest.”
“Yes, I’m well aware, my lord.”
Especially in a situation like this, where she had been summoned before a noble enraged at nearly losing his daughter.
The priestess perched only on the edge of the sofa and kept her eyes fixed on the floor.
From somewhere above the crown of her head, Hendel’s cold voice rang out.
“I heard that you cast low-tier heal several times in a row on a demon plague patient without properly checking her condition.”
It was a low, calm voice.
But within it, suppressed killing intent coiled like a snake.
“Was there perhaps some reason I’m not aware of? I do work in the royal court, after all, so I’ve seen all sorts of cases. There may be a perspective from the field that I’m unaware of, so I’ll at least give you a chance to defend yourself.”
“…I’m sorry, my lord. It was all due to my inexperience.”
“Straightforward, aren’t you.”
Hendel’s cool remark stabbed into her heart like a dagger.
The priestess slipped down from the chair as if about to kneel at once.
Her two hands, trembling like aspen leaves, pressed into the carpet.
“I’m sorry. I truly thought it was just a cold. As a priestess, and as a mother with a daughter around the young lady’s age, I tried my very best to heal her, but….”
“Your best, you say.”
Hendel cut her off coldly.
There was a faint sneer in his voice.
“You should know this world isn’t kind enough for that to be an excuse, priest.”
“…I’m sorry, my lord.”
“Nothing kills people as easily as goodwill born of ignorance. Especially in professions that deal directly with life.”
The priestess squeezed her eyes shut.
A commoner priest who had threatened a noble’s bloodline.
It would be strange if he didn’t have her head cut off on the spot and scattered as fertilizer in the garden.
Moreover, considering Hendel’s position in the imperial capital, he could more than easily do it.
“….”
Silence settled between the two of them.
Breaking that silence, a light metallic sound came from the lord’s desk.
Clink.
“I’ll pay the price, priest.”
“Y-yes?”
“This trip’s expenses and treatment costs. I will make sure they’re properly paid.”
The priestess’s pupils shook wildly in disbelief.
Just a moment ago, she thought her head was about to roll.
But what came back instead was a pouch of gold coins.
Under her bewildered gaze, Hendel propped his chin on interlaced fingers.
“Honestly, given my position, I’m not one to believe in flimsy goodwill.”
“….”
“But if family is involved, that’s different.”
“?”
Family?
At the appearance of the incomprehensible word, the priestess lifted her head.
The lord’s gaze on the priestess had softened considerably.
“I don’t believe in ineffectual goodwill. Nor can I understand it. But I do trust my son’s judgment.”
“….”
“I heard you nursed Freya together with Julian. So I suppose that means Julian trusted you.”
The lord turned his chair and looked out the window.
“I won’t harm you. I need to prove that my son’s choice was right, and that my son is a good person.”
He tapped the windowsill with his fingertips.
There was a great deal of calculation behind that decision.
As the head of the house, it was a shrewd calculation to carefully manage his eldest son’s reputation so he could be sent to a proper noble family, even if only as a son-in-law.
But as a father, there was another calculation behind it as well.
“I can’t allow a stain on my son’s history. So, priest, I will not hold last night’s mistake against you.”
Hendel turned back toward the priestess.
“The countless historians and gossip-mongers of the future will be the ones to judge your mistake. Since this is the story of the first cure for demon plague, your tale likely won’t be forgotten.”
Perhaps many accusing fingers would be pointed at the priestess.
But she had no luxury of fearing that.
What mattered right now was that she had survived.
“Th-thank you! Thank you, my lord…! I’ll never forget this kindness for the rest of my life…!”
“Put the thanks away and remember only this.”
Toward the priestess, who was pressing her forehead to the carpet, Hendel spoke with more force in his voice.
“When you work in the court, you end up gaining connections and influence that don’t match your rank, whether you realize it or not.”
Gulp.
The priestess swallowed hard.
“Even if I am only a baron, I can at least keep rumors that my son cured demon plague hidden until the boy becomes independent. Do you understand what I mean?”
The priestess nodded so hard it looked as if her head might fall off.
Curing demon plague was a great feat.
But great feats sometimes inspire jealousy that’s difficult to bear.
And this was demon plague, of all things.
The Sun Church’s oldest enemy.
If it were revealed that it had been cured not by a healer, but by a mage….
“Today I simply provided holy water to a patient with a cold, my lord.”
“Yes. That is how it should be. I’ve put a fitting payment in the pouch. So go on now.”
The lord gestured toward the door with his chin.
The priestess took the pouch of gold coins from the desk and hurried out of the study.
“Butler. See her out.”
“Understood.”
Wilhelm followed after the priestess.
After sending the others out,
Hendel, left alone in the study, sank deep into his chair.
‘Phew….’
Being a father isn’t easy.
Hendel repeated that self-mockingly and laid an arm across his forehead.
And on the roof of the manor’s main building,
Creak.
a Fitch (a long-haired weasel) was curled up, grooming its fur.