“Uuugh…!”
When I barely managed to lift my heavy eyelids, the first thing that entered my vision was a familiar, shabby wooden ceiling.
The acrid smell of medicinal herbs stung my nose.
And pain, as if my entire body were being crushed and twisted, came crashing over me without even giving me room to breathe.
‘Uegh! Judging by how damn much it hurts, I guess I’m alive for now?’
I blinked vacantly and slowly raised my head.
The window where light settled quietly.
The warmth transmitted through the worn-out blanket.
The earthy smell seeping into the wallpaper and spreading still.
Old, but strangely reassuring…
There was no mistaking it. It was our house.
“Haa…….”
Just as I was about to let out a sigh of relief, the scenes from last night came surging back violently.
The back mountain sunk in darkness.
The giant wolf that had targeted Camellia.
The magic scroll that had been my blood-and-sweat emergency fund.
And……
『Don’t die. Again! Again, right in front of my eyes…… Not this time too…… leaving only me behind……!』
Just before my breath cut off, Camellia’s desperate sobbing had struck my ears, and a warm cluster of light had wrapped around my cheek.
‘That was definitely…… Healing.’
It had undoubtedly extended my life, which had been right on the verge of delisting.
But my relief lasted only a moment before I was suddenly seized by a strange sense of wrongness.
‘Wait a second. How did I get back home?’
I looked down at my two palms.
Even if I’d recently been suffering from malnutrition and coughing up blood, my basic foundation was that of a sturdy adult man.
On top of that, over the past two years, I’d wandered through all kinds of rough jobs—day labor, porter work, even transporting contraband—building a body hardened with practical, compressed muscle.
Camellia, on the other hand?
Though I’d saved scraps of bread from my own mouth for two years to feed her meat and supplement her nutrition, so she had put on a bit of flesh, she was still a frail figure that looked as if she might be blown away by the wind.
Even if her future talent was “Archmage”-class, her current physical specs were far below even those of ordinary village girls—a flower raised in a greenhouse.
‘With that slender body, she carried an unconscious adult man down that rugged mountain at night? That makes no sense physically.’
I was groaning and racking my brain to solve this bizarre mystery when—
Creak.
The old wooden door opened, and Camellia cautiously entered the room, holding a wooden bowl with steam rising from it in both hands.
“……Huh?”
Her steps, just as she entered the room, stopped dead as if she had caught on something.
When Camellia discovered me half-sitting up, her delicate hands began to tremble, and the brown liquid inside the bowl sloshed precariously with a clatter.
In her eyes, widened as if they might burst, thick tears were already wavering as though they would spill over at any moment.
“Na, Nasus! You’re awake! Good heavens, thank goodness…… I’m so glad……!”
Camellia hurriedly set the bowl down on the table, came to my side, and collapsed to her knees.
Her eyes were swollen from how much she must have cried all night, and her once-clean apron and sleeves were a mess of dirt, dust, and stains.
“You cried? Because of me? More importantly, you…… how did you drag someone as heavy as me all the way here? You didn’t hurt yourself straining, did you?”
At my barrage of questions, Camellia wiped her tears with her sleeve and shook her head.
“N-no. I wasn’t the one who carried you…… You know, the herbal shop uncle I went to see during the day.”
“……That old geezer from the herbal shop?”
“Yes. When I didn’t come back until late at night, and he even saw you running toward the mountain so late…… he said it bothered him, so he took a torch and followed after us. When he saw you collapsed, he hurriedly carried you down.”
Ah, that old man…
Even after I grabbed him by the collar and raised hell, shouting, “Were you the one who sent her to the back mountain?!” he still came because he was worried….
“Hm. I’ll have to go thank that old man later.”
Camellia carefully offered me the bowl she had placed on the table.
It was a thick, dark-brown decoction with a horribly bitter smell that pierced my nose.
“Among the herbs I dug up yesterday…… he picked out only the ones useful for stopping bleeding and treating lung disease, then brewed them himself.”
I accepted the bowl she held out to me and downed it in one gulp.
...!
Bitter.
It was damn bitter.
No, beyond bitter—it was a taste that was indescribable agony itself.
“Kkeeeeeek!! The, the location of the secret base is…!”
“A-are you all right? He did say it would be a little bitter.”
“Haa, haa… A little? Even the Demon King’s army torturer would taste this, scream that it’s a violation of human rights, and run away.”
“I-is it that bad?”
“Uuuugh… Well, I guess the effect should be as good as the taste is horrific.”
As I quietly watched Camellia pat her chest in relief, I placed the empty bowl on the table and casually tossed out some bait.
It was time to check the most important thing: my “investment performance.”
“By the way… thanks, Camellia.”
“Yes? N-no. I was the one who insisted on going herb-gathering alone. Because I overdid it, you…….”
“I drank the herbs you got me just fine. But there’s another decisive reason I came back alive, isn’t there?”
Pretending to be nonchalant, I threw a straight ball in a calm voice.
“Right before I collapsed yesterday… you used ‘Healing’ for me. If not for that, I would’ve bled to death before that old man even arrived. I didn’t know you could use magic again.”
In that instant, the air in the room froze.
“Eh……?!”
Camellia’s body went rigid as if she had been struck by lightning.
Her large eyes, which had been relaxed with relief until just a moment ago, instantly lost focus and wandered wildly without settling anywhere.
“He, Heal, Healing……? Wh-what are you talking about……? I have absolutely no idea.”
“What do you mean you have no idea? When you wrapped your hands around my cheek, there was definitely light—”
“Y-you were mistaken!”
Camellia waved both hands and urgently cut me off.
Her voice had risen a whole pitch higher than usual, and her gaze was flusteredly fixed on the floor, avoiding my eyes.
“Y-you were bleeding so much…… so I pressed a handkerchief I had firmly against your cheek, then crushed herbs with a nearby stone and gave you first aid, that’s all! Your fever was high, so you must have seen things!”
“Seen things?”
“Yes! I-it must have been moonlight reflecting and you mistook it…… O-or maybe because you were about to pass out, you dreamed it! That’s right, a dream! How could I possibly use magic when my mana circuits are all ruined?”
An explanation rattled out without even a breath.
To anyone watching, it was like she had plastered “I am extremely flustered right now and hiding something” right across her forehead.
‘……Well, look at this one.’
I rubbed my chin and narrowed my eyes.
It was possible that, with my body in a near-death state, I’d dreamed it while unconscious.
On top of that, the future my [Vision] had shown of her had changed from an Archmage to a “happy village wife cooking stew,” hadn’t it?
Considering that despairing future, it was more convincing that she still couldn’t use magic.
But……
‘No. That warm sensation was absolutely not some illusion.’
Then there was only one conclusion.
This girl was currently concealing her own “value.”
But why?
...
An awkward silence lingered in the room.
A top-tier bullish catalyst that should have sent her soaring had clearly occurred, yet the person herself was desperately denying it and driving down her own value?
The chart that tried to hit the upper limit yesterday.
Was immediately plunging today?
…
Aaah,
I understand perfectly!
I don’t know Camellia’s personal feelings,
but to this body, a “true value investor,” the current situation was crystal clear.
A method with a deep-rooted, long-standing tradition in the stock market.
Ahead of major good news, they instill fear in retail investors to make them spit out their shares, then try to profit among themselves—a classic pattern!
‘Fine! Go ahead and try shaking out the ants till they tremble.’
I never expected all the blood, sweat, and tears I’d invested over the past two years to be rewarded overnight in the first place.
Mhm~ No matter how much you struggle,
I’m absolutely not selling now~!
In fact, the more it was like this, the more an investor had to keep his mentality firm.
Now was not the time to waver, but the perfect bargain-sale period to boldly “buy more”!
I put on the gentlest smile I could and slowly reached out toward Camellia, who was frozen stiff.
“Right, Camellia. Everything you said is right. While I was bedridden, my fever must have been burning so high that I dreamed for a moment.”
“R-right……? I-I was right……?”
“But you know. Whether you actually used Healing yesterday or not, I don’t care about that crap at all.”
“Pardon?”
I stared straight into her wavering eyes.
“Do you think I’d be happy just because you used a measly low-tier Healing? No. You’re someone who will one day handle miracles far greater and more radiant than a mere low-tier spell like breathing, aren’t you?”
“Eh…?”
Camellia’s lips parted blankly.
“I believe in your infinite value, in your true potential, more than anyone else in the world.”
In other words, she shouldn’t try to test my unwavering faith with such clumsy rumors—fake news.
“If it’s impossible because your mana circuits haven’t recovered yet, then I’ll take even harsher care of you until they do. I’ll scrape together every potion I can afford too!”
“Nasus? Calm down! Your body isn’t even well right now…… Why… why are you going this far for me?”
Why, she asks… Well,
Because it’s going to the moon!!!