Unlike the first day, she somehow felt a change in him, like a sense of familiarity towards this place just like his changed appearance. His face and other behaviors have not changed. It just seemed he changed a little somewhere.
“Ha.”
Ben took a deep breath, putting the medicine chest in a drawer. Then he felt his fever was going away as it calmed down a little. Standing in front of the drawer for a long time, Ben approached Chersenia when his body’s fever subsided. Chersenia stared at Ben, who was walking beside her.2
What’s the difference?
Looking doubtful at him, Chersenia stood up from her chair. Ben’s gaze blankly met hers in a straight line. Suddenly Chersenia was able to figure out what the unfamiliar feeling was.
“Did you grow taller?”
Apparently on the first day she brought him, his head was just a little over her shoulder. But now their heights are at a similar level.
“I think so. My ankles and knees were cold and stiff every night.”
No, but how can you grow up like this in three days? Ben’s head height was compared to her own. He’s almost taller than her even.
“Men grow so fast it’s envious. “
He grew taller but his fluffy face and immature voice remained the same. He still looked more like a boy than a man. He never ate an abundant meal, but it was worth eating three meals a day. He’s growing so big that it feels sweet to grow him. It was like playing Tamagotchi when she was young. Feed him, wash him, walk him.19
If the result is more than doubled in size, of course a feeling of pride and satisfaction would follow. That’s exactly how Chersenia felt when she saw Ben now. In contentment, Chersenia’s face unknowingly smiled on her own. Ben laughed after her in spite of not knowing the reason for her smiling. He just likes how she smiles.1
“Chersenia. I’m going to bake bread today.”
Chersenia grinned and snatched Ben’s back as he was about to go straight into the kitchen.
“Yes, just stay still.”
***
“What? Does that make sense?!”
Louis’s ridiculous report made Viscount Montenegro go mad. Lewis also had a look of resentment on his face.
“Really! Not a single person knows her.”
Three days have passed since he ordered him to find a woman, and Lewis has returned without any harvest and has only said a few words to cheer him up. Viscount Montenegro threw his nervously dressed ash kit off to the sofa. Lewis bowed his head and added to say.1
“The villagers said they’ve seen her a few times but no one knows where she lives.”
His last words opened the Viscount’s eyes widely to darken color. A woman who lives alone without revealing her identity. There must be something big she’s hiding.
The little man sat cross-legged on the sofa and thought. What on earth is it to hide? As Lewis said, did she have any strange power? He was having a headache, so he put pressure on his temples with his hands.
‘There are only four days left to offer slaves to Count Netty. As Lewis said, that woman must come to get money exchanged. But I don’t want to give money to that woman, nor do I want her to take away the slave. If I don’t give her the money, she won’t give me the slave she took as collateral. So before that, I need to know where she was. I need to take care of her before things don’t work out right.’
Viscount Montenegro bit his dry lips. His fists were puffed up with angry veins.
“Find out from more people.”
“Yes, sir.”
Louis bowed himself out of the room. Viscount Montenegro, who were left alone, recalled a pair of purple eyes, like an amethyst, as seen at a glance.
“a mysterious woman with a secret.”
‘I don’t know what kind of power that woman possesses, but I’ll never give her what she wants.’5
****
‘Uh. Help me. “
There was a rumble in my ear as if someone was struggling in great pain.
“Please…”
At that pleading voice, Chersenia opened her eyes. She was able to wake up quickly because she took a good nap during the day. It was a dark night in which the moonlight dimmed down Chersenia pulled herself up, roughly arranging her disheveled hair back.
She naturally sat on the edge of the bed. Then she saw Ben tossing and groaning over and over and over again, while lying himself on the floor. Beyond the window, a light yellow moonlight shone through the room. The moonlight made it easy to see his condition. Ben’s forehead was covered with cold sweat. He frowned with anguish.
The blanket, which had covered him to the end of his neck, was now at his foot end. It seemed to have flowed down because of his struggle against his nightmare. Chersenia sat on the floor out of bed to examine Ben’s complexion in more detail. She narrowed the distance between their faces to observe him closely.
She could see that his lips, which used to be bent beautifully when he smiled, turned blue. He had been shaking his lips ever since it was cold.
There was a crackling sound between teeth gritting against each other. She quickly put her hand on Ben’s chest. There was no hesitation. She has been doing this for the last few days, so she has just gotten used to it. A cool temperature dug into her hand, which was placed on his chest. It was not a normal man’s temperature. His body was cold enough to cool her hands, which were always hot.
If she leaves it as it is, hypothermia will occur. She has to pass him some heat quickly. Chersenia closed her eyes and condensed the force on the fingertips. The dark room was lighted and dyed red from the palm of her hand. Like the sunset, the red glow filled the room.
“Whoo.”
Chersenia instantly breathed the heat she had collected with a short interval into Ben’s body. The heat was taken out of her hand and absorbed into his body. The red flag disappeared in an instant. (*)
(t/n: red flag is a term used in game to indicate a death-risk event.)
Deep darkness once again engulfed in the sunset room. She looked again at Ben’s complexion. His lips, which were purple in the light, usually had a light red glow like the rum. The temperature in his hand was normal. That’s a relief. Chersenia was relieved as much as her heart fluttered.
Ben also loosened the grip between his eyes as if he had become more comfortable. But still, his nightmare continued and the pain did not stop.
“Save me…”
“It’s all right, nothing’s wrong.”
Naturally, she moved her hands on his chest. Patting him. She was quite a skillful caregiver. From the first day until now, every single day, she has done everything to help him. What the hell is he dreaming of? Ben struggled every night as if he had been swallowed up by the pain. And even begging in a mutter to himself with a dialect.
He couldn’t sleep well because he had dozens of nightmares. He looked so distressed that she was almost irritated briefly. Ben couldn’t open his eyes easily, even though she tried to wake him up. Rather, he sobbed and trembled as if he were falling deeper into the abyss. Every time she would give out her heated energy to his icy body.
But that wasn’t enough. She patted him to reassure him since he was still trembling with fear. Only then he would fall asleep like a little child. Like now. The sound of stable breathing penetrated her ears like a lullaby. He was asleep with a face of worldly tranquility.
It’s already past midnight. In the past, it was time to fall asleep for everyone. It was dark earlier around where Chersenia lives than anywhere else because the house was located in the forest.
In particular, the cabin was so dark due to a lack of light. If she was living in today’s world, she would have stayed up all night watching this and that on her phone. But here, there is no TV, no phone, not even a gas stove, in a novel set in the background where you have to light a fire in a brazier. So there was nothing else to do but sleep at night.2
The best way to spend the night here was sleep. She was originally nocturnal, so it was very difficult to fall asleep early for a few days after she possessed Chersenia . But only for a few days. She got used to it and fell asleep as soon as she lay down on the bed. Now she was keeping a pretty new country’s childlike lifestyle, but it’s broken since Ben came.
“What the hell are you……”
It’s not that she’s angry because she couldn’t sleep properly, she was just worried. What kind of past did he have that he is suffering every night? Maybe he accumulated an average person’s lifetime of pain. She brought him here as collateral, but how can she let him go back to his old life after seeing his struggle with pain every night? It was so cruel. But she also needed the money.
In order not to repeat the tragic ending of death, she had to be different from the original novel works. In order to do so, money was needed and money cannot be given up. Still patting Ben, she gently closed her eyes. Guilt has settled on one side of her mind.
‘Let him feel at home while he’s here.’
The result will remain unchanged. Chersenia shook her head a few times and opened her eyes to get her all together. It was such a struggle to shook off the guilt from her head.
“Um. ·.”
He mumbled in his sleep. Sitting with mixed feelings in her mind, Chersenia stared at Ben’s face. Looking closely at his face, Chersenia fixed her gaze around his eyes. There was a glimmer of transparent water around the gently closed eyes. Chersenia reached out her hand carefully afraid that he might wake up.
Her long, thin fingers swept through the soft corners of his eyes. The dew, which had been formed, vanished without trace by the heat around Chersenia’s fingers. Taking care of everything from one to ten makes her feel like a babysitter to him. She laughed at this funny situation. She didn’t bring him here for this. But the idea of living together wasn’t bad either. Well, good things are still good things. Chersenia pulled a blanket from his foot and covered Ben with it.
Ben gently lifted the corners of his mouth and clasped the blanket with his hands.
“Um.”
Ben’s face, which she thought was falling asleep, twitched a little. She was nervous because she thought he was having another nightmare. But the behavior was different from when he had nightmares. He acted as if he was itching somewhere and twitched around his eyes, and at the back of his nose.
“What’s wrong with him? “
She scanned Ben’s face carefully. She noticed that the cause was the bangs that covered his eyes. Ben was stealthily flinching after his stuffy hair covering his eyes. And Chersenia swept the bangs that covered his face, like a child. Ben’s hair was trimmed in shape from her fingertips. His untidy hair was unexpectedly smooth in her hand.
It quivers like a touch of silk cloth. A sensation of something soft penetrated into her hand. Tomorrow I’ll have to trim a messy bang. If your nose is as itchy until it twitches, you need to tidy it up. He happened to have messy hair, and she wanted to do it all this time.
“Chersenia…?”2
Ben was looking at her with a frozen gaze when he opened his eyes.
****