16.
The sound of footsteps following me in.
Then the door closed, and only she and I remained inside the counseling office.
I glanced at her sidelong.
Veronica Sinclair.
My half sister, and the person who had subjected me to the most humiliation.
Normally, just seeing her face should have been enough to make irritation surge up in me.
But now that I was actually facing her, I didn’t even feel that way.
She looked as though even holding herself upright was difficult, to the point that she sank into the old sofa as if collapsing into it.
‘…I saw it earlier too, but she’s in terrible condition, isn’t she?’
I had heard the rumors recently.
That Lady Sinclair had skipped yet another tea party, that she seemed to be suffering from headaches, and so on.
Naturally, I had no choice but to know that her physical condition wasn’t good.
Even so.
‘To think it was this bad.’
Even after burying herself in the sofa, she was trembling.
…I let her in, but is this really going to be okay?
Well, I should at least do what I can.
“May I take it that you’ve come for counseling…?”
I hesitated for a moment.
The eldest daughter of the family that had exiled me.
Should I treat her as my older sister, or as a client?
As if to sweep away my dilemma, Veronica snapped sharply.
“…Speak like you usually do. It makes me sick.”
Even as haggard as she was, the force with which she looked down on me was the same as ever.
Speak like I usually do, huh.
When I was in the family, all I ever got was one-sided scolding from her. I had no memory of ever holding a conversation.
I’ll just speak comfortably, then.
The tone used for dealing with nobles is surprisingly tiring, after all.
“So, what do you want?”
My speech shortened in an instant.
Veronica let out a hollow laugh and opened her mouth.
“I heard the vulgar things chattering.”
Her voice was cracked.
“They said that if one comes here, they get better.”
Vulgar things, huh.
Was she lumping together all the noble young ladies who had visited my counseling office?
What an elegant choice of words.
“Better in what way?”
“Headaches.”
‘As expected.’
Since every young lady who came here went on about headaches, I had somewhat anticipated it.
It seemed their goal had definitely all been this.
And at the same time, I felt it.
An unpleasant sensation crawling up my spine.
This was clearly a dangerous sign.
Counselor Isaac.
That wasn’t bad.
It sounded somewhat plausible.
But “Headache Healer” Isaac was…
‘It feels way too lousy!’
“Are you thinking something pointless again?”
I flinched.
As though she had seen through my thoughts, Veronica frowned.
“No. I was just thinking a bit about counseling.”
I casually tried to gloss over it.
Veronica buried herself even deeper in the sofa and snorted.
“A counselor, is it? For someone who was exiled, you found yourself quite the respectable post.”
“It’s the only talent I have.”
Not understanding the meaning of my answer, she rolled her eyes.
Then, clutching her throbbing forehead, she let out a deep sigh and revealed what she wanted.
“I heard it from another young lady. She said she came here worried because her head hurt, and you told her that she seemed to be ‘taking too much to heart.’”
A brief silence.
“An impertinent piece of advice, yes.”
“……”
Ah, so I had apparently given advice like that.
Needless to say, I didn’t know what the clients remembered about their counseling.
The content was something their hypnotized minds had arbitrarily made up.
But it wasn’t as if I could go up to someone after the counseling was over and ask them.
—What did I just say?
If I did that, I’d look like a weirdo, or a goldfish.
In any case, I had obtained good information.
If a young lady who came and went said she heard something like that,
then I could just say the same thing.
“As long as it worked, that’s what matters.”
“As if it could possibly work.”
Veronica snorted.
“If that much were enough to make someone better, there would be no one in pain to begin with.”
If she truly thought that, she wouldn’t have come all the way here.
Even if she said that, it probably meant she wanted to see the effect.
Well, she looked like she hadn’t slept, so I’ll understand.
People who haven’t slept properly are never in their right mind to begin with.
Though in my case, you’re the reason I was woken up.
But what should I do?
Judging by her condition, I really should slam all three uses of Hypnosis into her, right?
If I force someone who hasn’t slept to sleep, they’ll definitely get better, at least.
While I was worrying, Veronica pressed her fingers to her temples.
“Hnng……”
A faint groan.
Unbearable pain leaked from between her tightly pressed lips.
It seemed the headache had surged again.
Unable to endure it, she suppressed her pride and spat out,
“…I can’t sleep. My head hurts like mad, and medicine does nothing. That pathetic doctor.”
Her lips trembled.
“He says it’s overwork.”
I’d been waiting for this.
In the end, my perk only activated when the other party showed an opening.
[Perk: Hypnosis has activated.]
In that instant, Veronica’s gaze fixed on me.
The sharpness in her eyes blurred ever so slightly.
Her eyelids slowly lowered.
“……”
Then she fell into a deep sleep, without even the sound of snoring.
I immediately moved behind her.
When I reached out and touched her head, there was a hot and ominous energy.
‘What is this?’
Even when I touched Lady Fleur, the heat seeping out from within had felt strange.
But Veronica was on a different level from that.
Hotter, and far more ominous.
Just what was happening inside her head?
‘For now, let’s release as much as I can.’
There was no time to think.
I pressed firmly into her head.
“Haa…”
A deep sigh flowed from the mouth of the sleeping woman.
As if she were exhaling something that had built up inside her.
Good. I don’t know what it is, but it’s working.
Now it was time for her to wake up.
At the proper moment, I added a line.
“You’d be better off not taking things too much to heart.”
As she heard those words, Veronica blinked several times.
Her hazy focus slowly returned, and at the end of it, there I was.
“……”
It was only a sweet fifteen-minute nap.
But she was definitely different from before.
She seemed even if only slightly more at ease.
Even so, she shot back coldly.
“You should know as well as I do that I would never take something like that to heart.”
‘Oh, really?’
I didn’t know.
What exactly had she decided I meant by not taking something to heart?
I was just recycling what I’d overheard earlier.
“No, you were definitely worrying about it.”
I didn’t know what it was, but I pushed a little further.
“…What nonsense.”
Veronica cut me off coldly, but it didn’t matter either way.
Once they were hypnotized, the conversation pieced itself together in a plausible way anyway.
And if I was going to make her even slightly better, this was the only method I had right now.
[Perk: Hypnosis has activated.]
The second time.
Once again, her eyes lost focus.
Her eyelids lowered, and her head tilted to the side.
Before her head hit the armrest of the sofa, I caught it with my hand.
It wasn’t heavy at all.
Was she even eating properly?
I rose from my seat and circled behind her once more.
I touched her forehead with my fingertips.
It was less hot than before.
It felt as though the fever had gone down, and also as though it hadn’t.
Still, that boiling sensation from when I first touched her had definitely weakened.
‘Then that means I should keep going.’
I pressed down firmly on her head, which still held that suspicious energy.
Now that I thought about it, was the massage so effective because of the perk too?
There had definitely been a line saying the effect was amplified upon physical contact.
“Phew……”
Veronica’s breathing deepened.
How long did I keep massaging like that?
At last, she awoke.
This time, she was different from before.
As soon as she opened her eyes, her pupils widened slightly, and she stared at me.
A moment of silence.
It wasn’t the sharp gaze she had given me when she woke earlier.
It was as if something had loosened.
As if one layer of the venom that had dwelled in her eyes had been peeled away.
A subtle expression, like she had belatedly realized something.
“I see.”
Words spilled out as if she were muttering.
“So this was the burden on my heart.”
Her voice made it impossible to tell whether she was speaking to me or to herself.
For now, if that was what she felt, it seemed best to say this.
“It might be better to let it go.”
I don’t know what it is, though.
“There’s no way I can let it—”
[Perk: Hypnosis has activated.]
The third and final time.
Before she could even finish speaking, her eyes lost focus again.
Veronica sank into the sofa and fell asleep.
In the end, I really had used all three Hypnoses on her in one day.
Was this the first time since Chloe?
Even while thinking that it would be frightening if she turned out like Chloe, I did what I had to do.
Carefully and cautiously.
For the last time, I touched her head.
Heat transmitted into my palm.
It had definitely fallen compared to before.
It hadn’t completely vanished, but at the very least, that boiling energy had subsided considerably.
‘…The other young ladies weren’t this bad.’
They were all headaches, but this was somehow different.
I still didn’t know what this heat was, but at least one thing was certain.
It was absolutely not overwork.
Thinking that her head should be enough for now, I lowered my hand.
Then I pressed along her back.
I kneaded her shoulders.
“Mmm……”
A thin sound leaked out in her sleep.
There wasn’t enough time to loosen everything.
But the immediate crisis had been put out.
She woke up.
This time, there wasn’t even a surprised expression.
She simply opened her eyes quietly.
Her eyes looked up at me.
Different from the bloodshot eyes she had when she first came in, they were calm and subdued.
Meeting that gaze, I delivered today’s final line.
“You should try to keep your heart at ease.”
At the very least, so the conclusion of this counseling wouldn’t flow in a bad direction.
“There’s no need for you to suffer needlessly.”
Even if I added up all the time we had spent talking, it felt like it would barely amount to an hour.
But it was like color returning to the face of a dead person.
Her expression had definitely changed somehow.
[※ When repeatedly applied to the same target, the effect accumulates.]
And then a line quietly appeared.
The feeling that I had saved a person lasted only a moment.
That warning-but-not-quite-warning appearing again made me uneasy after all.
I glanced sideways at Veronica.
Surely she hadn’t become like Chloe, right?
Veronica had been staring down at her own palm for a while.
Then, after clenching and unclenching her fingers a few times,
she spoke in a small voice.
“…I never thought I would forgive.”
‘Forgive?’
What had she been thinking all on her own?
Still, well, if she had gotten better, then that was good.
Veronica rose to her feet.
On the outside, her expression was still arrogant.
But her steps were definitely different from before.
Unwavering footsteps.
The door closed.
And only after she left did I realize it.
“Ah, right. The counseling fee.”
The flow had been so natural that I just let her go.
You dine-and-dashing bitch.