The night had deepened.
The entire Rothschild ducal residence had sunk into a heavy darkness, but the air inside my sickroom was stretched taut like a time bomb that might explode at any moment.
“Haa……”
I let out a long, heavy sigh, buried up to my neck beneath a top-quality goose-down blanket.
Beyond the wall on the right, in the guest room, Sylvia, heir to the Northern Magic Tower, was surely holding her breath and watching for any sign from my sickroom.
Beyond the wall on the left, in the waiting room, Ellara, the youngest Sword Master in the empire, was doing the same.
‘This isn’t recuperation. I’d be better off in solitary confinement.’
The wound in my shoulder throbbed, and because I had overexerted myself and coughed up blood during the day, my whole body ached as if I’d been beaten all over.
I wanted to swallow a handful of sleeping pills and pass out,
but the blue killing intent and cold waves of mana pouring out in real time from both sides chilled my spine so badly that I couldn’t possibly fall asleep.
It was then.
Srrrk—
Without even the sound of the doorknob turning, the secret door connecting the sickroom to the guest room on the right slid open like a ghost.
“……!”
I reflexively held my breath.
Into the dark sickroom, where moonlight seeped in, Sylvia walked soundlessly, dressed in a thin, jet-black silk negligee.
Her dazzling golden hair under the faint moonlight, and the dizzying curves visible beyond the thin sleepwear, were as beautiful as a masterpiece.
But to my eyes, that beautiful mage looked like nothing but a reaper who had come to cut off my head.
‘Shit. Why are you crawling in here instead of sleeping?! If Ellara notices, there’ll be another sword fight!’
I hurriedly closed my eyes to pretend I was asleep.
Tap, tap.
The presence of Sylvia approaching barefoot across the carpet stopped right beside my bed. Along with a faint scent of roses, the distinctive chill of the north brushed the tip of my nose.
“Don’t pretend you’re asleep, Kailan. I can hear your irregular breathing.”
At Sylvia’s low voice, I swallowed a curse inwardly and slowly opened my eyes.
“……I know mages have good night vision. But is barging into someone else’s room without the slightest courtesy part of the Kraus family’s upbringing?”
I snapped at her as unpleasantly as I could, but Sylvia, looking entirely unaffected, plopped herself down on the edge of my bed.
“I’m sure I told you during the day. You’re my possession. I only came to check whether my property had stopped breathing in its sleep.”
Sylvia arrogantly lifted her chin, but unlike during the day, there was an inexplicably deep shadow cast over her blue eyes.
She slowly reached out, her hand moving toward my bandaged chest, near my heart.
“Hey. What the hell are you—!”
“Stay still.”
Sylvia’s cold palm touched my bare skin through the thin patient gown. My whole body flinched at her icy body temperature.
“It’s been strange since daytime. No matter how potent the poison was, the Rothschild ducal family’s antidotes and mages were mobilized. There’s no way your vitality should have fallen this far.
The mana core inside you is completely sealed.”
Pure blue mana flowed from her palm and began seeping toward my heart.
It was a spell that precisely scanned the condition of my body, and at the same time, an extremely dangerous act of forcibly opening another person’s sealed meridians.
“Move your hand, Sylvia. A bitch like you has no right to touch my body however you—Kgh!”
[Warning! Another person’s powerful mana is infiltrating your body!]
[It is clashing with the system’s penalty (Curse of Karma)!]
I bit down hard on my lip and twisted my body, but Sylvia put even more strength into the hand pressed against my chest and pinned me down to the bed.
The distance closed between us. Sylvia was so close that her breath touched my cheek.
“Don’t resist. No matter how much you act like trash…… I know you’re hiding the fact that you’re in pain.”
Sylvia’s voice was trembling faintly.
(Sylvia’s automatic mental translation)
‘This man is deliberately pushing me away because he doesn’t want me to see his weakness.
This man, who willingly coughed up blood to protect me—just what burden is he carrying inside for his mana core to be so shattered?’
Her blue eyes shone with sorrow.
And at last, the moment her mana reached my heart—the deepest place where the system’s “curse” had coiled itself—
“Ah……”
A sigh like a scream burst from Sylvia’s lips.
Her face instantly turned as white as a corpse.
“Kailan…… In your heart……”
Sylvia’s hand trembled like an aspen leaf.
“What in the world is this horrific curse……? It isn’t poison. It’s the most dreadful form of black magic, one that gnaws away at your life force…… Your heart is being completely crushed by something like black thorn vines!”
‘Ah, fuck. She found out!’
I screamed inwardly. What Sylvia had seen was not black magic. It was the system’s [Curse of Karma], which forced me to “act the villain.”
But as someone of this world, she had no way of knowing the system existed, so she had perfectly misunderstood it as “a horrific curse someone planted in Kailan’s heart”!
“Who was it? What bastard did this insane thing to your heart?! How have you even survived this long with this inside you, Kailan!!”
Just as Sylvia was about to lose her reason and shout—
Shk—! Paaat!!
The air in the sickroom was torn apart in an instant, and a silver flash stabbed down from the deep shadows of the ceiling.
It was Ellara!
Who knew how long she had been hanging from the ceiling beam, but she swung her longsword without hesitation at Sylvia, who was dressed in sleepwear.
Sylvia also instinctively removed her hand from my chest and retreated, summoning a massive ice shield where she had stood to block the sword aura.
Kaaang—!!
With an explosion, thin ice and sword energy whirled through the sickroom.
“El, Ellara……!”
I tried to sit up in shock, but Ellara had already blocked the front of my bed with beastlike speed and was pouring killing intent toward Sylvia.
“I warned you. Any vermin who crawls into my lord’s chamber at night will have their throat cut.”
Ellara’s empty eyes were bloodshot with rage.
“Shut up, mad dog! Do you even know what state your master is in before you start barking?!”
Sylvia shouted as she condensed Seventh Circle cold energy in both hands.
“That man’s heart is under a terrible curse! Someone planted black magic in him with malice, one that devours his life force!”
“……What?”
At Sylvia’s revelation, Ellara’s shoulders stiffened as she gripped her sword.
This was the worst possible development.
The two heroines had found out about the system’s curse. The reason I coughed up blood when I failed to properly act like a villain—those two would misunderstand it as being “because of the curse.”
(Ellara’s automatic mental translation)
‘Ah…… So that is why my lord has suffered, coughing up blood day after day.
While bearing alone the terrible curse someone planted in him, he forced himself to spit harsh words in front of us and pretend to be strong. And to protect me, he even took that poisoned dagger in his cursed body……!’
A clear tear fell from Ellara’s silver-gray eyes.
But what came after that tear was not sorrow. It was overwhelming, horrific “rage,” as if it could destroy the world.
“……Which bastard was it?”
Ellara’s voice cracked grotesquely, as if it had crawled up from the depths of hell.
The aura pouring from her longsword began to run wild in a dark crimson color incomparable to before.
“I am asking which piece of trash placed such a horrific burden upon my noble lord.”
“If I knew that, I would have found them and frozen them to death already!”
As if sympathizing with Ellara’s rage, Sylvia also lowered the temperature in the room to the extreme and ground her teeth.
“There’s a high chance it was someone within the ducal family. No matter how great a mage they were, to plant a curse directly in the heart, they would have had to be at the closest possible distance……”
“Both of you. Shut your mouths.”
It was an order I spat out with every last ounce of strength.
If these two madwomen’s deductions ran wild without knowing of the existence of the system—the author—
they might slaughter every innocent person in the ducal family or start a witch hunt across the entire continent in the name of lifting my curse.
With trembling hands, I clutched my chest and forced myself to put on the vile, arrogant smile of a villain.
“Whether what’s lodged in my heart is a curse or black magic, it is none of your concern. I am controlling it on my own.”
“Kailan! Controlling it? Your life force is bottoming out right now!”
Sylvia shouted urgently.
“This is merely the price for gaining power.”
I threw up a defensive wall by spouting whatever nonsense came to mind.
“If I am to swallow this rotten family whole and behead those who despised me…… then paying a price of this level is only natural.
Your paltry sympathy disgusts me, so get rid of it at once.”
I glared fiercely at Ellara.
“Ellara. If you dare pry into my plans and show me that garbage sympathy, I will cast you aside with my own hands first. Understood?”
Silence.
At my cold rebuke, Ellara bit her lip and lowered her head.
“……I will bear it in mind. This foolish knight dared not understand my lord’s grand will.”
Sylvia also clenched her fists as if she was about to explode with indignation, but she could no longer approach me.
“Fine. Keep acting so superior until the very end. If you die, I’ll watch with my own two eyes to see what use that precious revenge of yours is.”
Sylvia withdrew her ice magic and disappeared through the guest room door she had come from, slamming it behind her without looking back. Ellara, too, melted into the darkness and erased her presence.
The storm-like midnight tryst had ended.
The sickroom was once again swallowed by silence, but my back was drenched in cold sweat.
[Warning! The main heroines’ “misunderstanding value” has exceeded the critical point!]
[The possibility has arisen that Ellara and Sylvia may form an alliance to save you.]
[Survival difficulty: Raised sharply.]
I let out an empty, helpless laugh.
The two monstrous heroines, who had been sworn enemies, were beginning to show signs of joining forces for the common goal(?) of “saving the terminally ill Kailan and finding the culprit behind the curse.”
The heroines who once tried to kill me were going mad trying to save me.
No, those crazy bitches might destroy half this world while claiming they’re going to save me.
“Someone, please…… actually kill me……”
My wretched cry, unheard by anyone, scattered into the moonlit air of the sickroom.