CH 75

Naturally, he knew that Eugendiph’s Blood would not pass to another by simple physical contact, as his father had performed repeated experiments on the subject, but it was impossible for nothing to happen. Usually, the ordinary person would lie down sick for several days at the least. Yet, in Cecile’s case, aside from looking teary when her feet stung occasionally, she did not show the slightest sign of being unwell.

Regardless, the foreign visitors this time would come to try to meet Cecile. The simple solution might be to prevent them from meeting her, but it was implausible that they would simply turn away at being refused. Without a doubt, they would try to break their way in somehow.

‘And they’ll definitely bring in useless women while they’re at it.’ They were not the sort to stop sending women to his side just because he had accepted an empress. A sigh slipped from Estian’s mouth.

“By the way, Emperor. Do you mind sending me back now?”

His forehead creased at the voice that came from the corner. Richard was smiling with his head, arms and legs contained separately. It was a rather chilling sight, but no one in the room was shocked by it. They had seen a dragon already, so what was the big deal about a living head rolling about by itself?

“Don’t make me laugh. You think you can just prance on out of here? You’re the cause of all this mess, to begin with. Don’t even dream of having your body stuck together until the Mage’s Tower pays compensation for your deeds.”

“Compensation, you say? It’s thanks to me you got a dragon, so I should be the one being compen-… don’t kick my arm! It hurts, I tell you!” Richard whined.

“Be grateful that I’m sparing you for what little use you have,” Estian said after kicking Richard’s arm, then sat down again. Something was suspicious. Be it the book, the forgotten maid, or the things happening to Cecile. While Richard might be soft in the head, his knowledge of magic would be required to dig deeper into the matter.

As Estian was contemplating how to use Richard, somebody knocked on the door. He allowed them in and the person who entered was the head chamberlain. His steps faltered when seeing Girgantia tied in the middle of the room, likely recalling the destruction the dragon had wrought upon the imperial palace. He stood as far away from the dragon as he could before reporting to Estian, “They say the maidservant has awoken.”

“Is that right? What does she say?”

The maidservant in question was the one who was discovered collapsed alongside Kane on the other side of Girgantia. Upon looking into who on earth this woman was, she was revealed to be a maid of Irene who had entered the palace that day. According to a doctor’s diagnosis, she had merely fainted from exhaustion and there was no threat to her life, so it was decided she would be given treatment in the palace.

“That is… She says she does not remember.” The head chamberlain reported hesitantly.

“What do you mean?” Estian frowned. Although she had been out of sight at the time, that maid had to be the one who attacked Girgantia from the other side. Putting aside the mystery of how a maid had such power in the first place, saying that she did not remember? ‘Do I have to thrash the truth out of that maid?’

Estian was contemplating on what to do when Kane spoke up. “Your Majesty, entrust that matter to me. I think I will have time to spare, what with Girgantia being cooperative.”

His words prompted Estian to look at Girgantia. After answering Kane’s several questions, the dragon was filling in the 150 questionnaires created under the imperial provisions for interrogation of prisoners of war. Whenever Girgantia tried to grumble about something as he filled in the paper using a pen held with his tail, Tania would threateningly raise her heel and the dragon would swiftly resume writing even as he muttered under his breath. The interrogation would proceed smoothly from this point on even without Kane.

“Right then, I’ll leave that to you.”

* * *

Upon waking up and examining the state of her body, the sainted was shocked. ‘Where did all my holy power go?’

Ever since she had possessed the saintess’ body, she could feel herself overflowing with divine power as if all the waters of the oceans were at her disposal. Now though, forget oceans, she felt as if she were in the middle of a desert that had been utterly bereft of water for a hundred years. ‘Could it be that my power’s gone because I used it all on the dragon?’

In any case, what was certain was that she had no holy power. She could not feel a thing no matter how hard she tried, let alone holy power. Just as she was feeling lost, somebody opened the door to the room she was in and entered.

“Heavens! So this is where you were!” someone exclaimed.

It was Irene. Only after she entered the room did the saintess look around. From the looks of it, she seemed to still be inside the imperial palace. 

After entering the room, Irene came to the saintess and pulled her into a hug, rattling away. “Goodness, the knights were suddenly going around asking if they knew about this woman. It sounded just like they were talking about you so I came dashing over, and what a good thing I did! They say you were caught up in something huge? And I hear you fainted. Are you feeling fine? You don’t know how much I’ve looked for you since you disappeared! Oh, how I worried! Did they change your clothes because they were too dirty?”

The saintess felt perplexed in Irene’s embrace. What the, why’s this girl suddenly acting like someone who found their lost sister? But then abruptly, Irene’s tone grew low as she said, “By the way though. I hear you said some strange things to the other maids at home?”

“I’m sorry? What do you mean st-strange things?”

“For example, ‘so long, I’m through with this place’, or ‘work hard looking after the miss in my stead’.” Irene’s tone grew even lower. “And then there’s that time when you told me to wait back there but you didn’t return for so long, then you were found somewhere else… You wouldn’t be trying to run away from me like my previous maids now, would you?”

“…!”

Her voice caused lines of sweat to appear on the saintess’s forehead. 

Wh-what the? Why do I feel like I’m heading down obsession road?

〈Continued in Volume 2〉