* * *
“Huh? Riwes isn’t sick anymore!”
“But earlier you said you felt dizzy and like you were going to throw up.”
“T-That was just…”
It was inside Riwes’s bedroom at the Kalinos mansion. After making everyone leave with the excuse that I wanted to be alone with Riwes, I pretended to tuck the boy in and handed over an antidote potion. At first, Riwes looked reluctant, but when I muttered, “Princes always drink stuff like this,” the boy bravely gulped down the detox potion, <Goblin’s Phlegm>.
Watching Riwes drink the potion with his face scrunched up, I tilted my head. But now that I think about it, something’s off. Everyone else nearby just felt a little dizzy, but they were fine… Even people like Lady Shabel seemed completely unaffected.
Are there people who are just more sensitive to this stuff? And is bluish discoloration around the mouth even a symptom of poisoning?
No sooner had I wondered that than I noticed a faint green and blue stain mottling Riwes’s front teeth. I pressed Riwes’ lips together and checked my hand. Just as I suspected, a bit of dye had rubbed off from those bluish lips. My eyes widened.
Some poor artists in this era used to dip stiff brushes in their own saliva as they worked. Riwes wasn’t a poor artist, but since there were no proper tools for drawing, he must have tried wetting the stiff brush with his mouth. He was still so young, and he’d ingested the dye directly, so it made sense he’d get poisoned much faster than the others, who only touched or saw it.
The moment I realized that, Riwes blinked sleepily and rubbed his face against the pillow.
“Mmm… Riwes is full!” Riwes patted his chubby belly with a soft thump.
He definitely looked a bit better than before, when he’d been sweating coldly… But why doesn’t it seem like he’s getting better?
As I kept watching, the boy started whining tiredly and soon drifted off to sleep. I sat by sleeping Riwes, anxiously turning over thoughts in my head. The all-purpose antidote, <Goblin’s Phlegm>. The pride of Kalinos family, the culmination of their wisdom. Why wasn’t it working? Wait, come to think of it, even in the original story, they never figured out the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
I shot upright. Celestine Green, which came from the Eastern Continent, the doctors who couldn’t find the cause. In other words… There had never been a case of arsenic being used as a poison on this continent! Then how the hell did that damned mosquito b*stard cure it? Don’t tell me it was divine power? If so, then without divine power, there’s no way I can cure Riwes, right?
Feeling even more anxious, I racked my brain until I suddenly stopped. I remembered how Duke Reshaniel saved the Empress in the ‘Critically Ill Empress’ episode…
“This damned regret novel always finds a way to drag my life through the mud…”
Wasn’t it just too predictable that Duke Reshaniel became the empress’s savior by using his divine power? It might actually be more accurate to say he used the power he stole from me.
Half in doubt, I raised my trembling hand and placed it near Riwes’s heart, just as I’d done when I healed Neslan. Then, a faint light began to glow at my fingertips. A very dim, white radiance shimmered around Riwes like starlight, then faded away. Slowly, a pink flush returned to those bluish lips, and Riwes’s expression grew peaceful. Unlike before, anyone could see he looked perfectly fine now.
So, in the end… That damned mana thief stole my power, used it to heal the empress, and rose to that success all the way to the top. Wow, I am seriously, unbelievably pissed off right now.
* * *
I stomped my feet in fury as I replayed that famous scene of Duke Reshaniel healing the empress in my mind. The amount of mana that b*stard stole from me was enormous. Even though I’d been diligently drinking potions all this time, it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for what he’d taken! No wonder he was able to heal the empress so perfectly!
“God, I really want to kill that lunatic.”
So now I had two missions ahead of me.
1. Replenish all the mana that damn mosquito, Duke Reshaniel, drained from me, and heal the empress myself.
2. Completely drain that mosquito’s mana reserves.
I grinned wickedly as I looked down at the nightstand. Yeah, I’ve been preparing for a day like this all along. I glanced at the artifact money box stuffed with royalties, then at the mage family’s mansion visible beyond the window, and smiled ominously.
“I’ve been loading up cash for today too, you know?”
And then…
Lord Neslan, I’m sorry, but I’ll be counting on your help for this.
…Time to put the ‘torment the holy mentor’ strategy into action. Well, not that I expect him to help me that enthusiastically. After all, great mage families are closed off, and there’s no way they’d freely share their own secret methods of increasing mana.
* * *
It was the next morning. I’d planned to sleep in, but the noisy commotion outside my window forced me awake.
“Lady Wot has asked for our help!”
“My goodness, we’re actually in contact with Lady Wot!”
“Finally, it’s our turn to repay our debt!”
…What on earth is all this commotion about?
All I did last night was leave a letter at Giyet’s Potion Market. And Giyet just happened to deliver that letter to the Kalinos family today. So why had a small festival suddenly broken out in the Kalinos mansion? Aren’t they supposed to be the infamous villain family? Why are they acting like this?
Blinking sleepily, I stared out the window and asked Ivanka, who was nearby, “Is it just me, or is this whole situation weird?”
“Ivanka even put a pretty flower in Ivanka’s hair for Lady Wot!”
“S-Sure. Ivanka, you look adorable.”
…But that aside, things really got out of hand by lunchtime.
After a quick meal, I went out for a walk and squinted at the sight of over a hundred mages gathered in the library. Curious about what on earth was going on, I stepped inside. There, my father-in-law, Neslan Kalinos, was delivering a rather solemn speech to everyone in the library.
“Lady Wot, the benefactor of our family, has called upon us. Let’s do our best to convey as much knowledge as possible, as clearly as possible.”
Right beside him, Garno chimed in, his voice ringing out. “This is our chance to invite Lady Wot to become our family’s healer.”
“Yes! We must repay our debt tenfold, so we’ll give it our all.”
“Listen up, everyone. What Lady Wot has requested is ‘how to fill a mana heart to its absolute limit.’ Organize and brief what you’ve researched, and I’ll prepare my own findings as well.”
Having been sneakily watching the whole scene unfold, I left the library with a dazed look on my face. “Wait, how did it come to this…?”
The maids clustered around me, whispering in hushed voices.
“Lady Wot is practically a goddess in this family.”
“Ever since the <Demon Seed> was discovered, everyone’s wanted a healer like her in the family.”
“It’s just so hard to find a skilled healer for our family.”
I still had no idea what this <Demon Seed> was supposed to be… But it suddenly hit me that if I made a wrong move here, I could be totally screwed.
* * *
[100 Ways to Fill Your Mana to the Max]
Maybe it was thanks to the collective brainpower of the entire Kalinos Family. Every day, I stuffed myself with a hundred potions to fill my mana heart, sweating and toiling harder than anyone as I secretly trained in earnest. I tried all sorts of potion combinations, listened to bizarre music supposedly used by foreign composers, ate something like a fasting pill straight out of a wuxia novel, and even stood under a massive waterfall just like a martial arts master in training…
And so, a week passed. After enduring this brutal Spartan regimen and coming out stronger, I received some unfortunate news.
“The empress has collapsed.”
It was Cordelia who told me when she stopped by to check on Coocoo’s condition.
“Duke Reshaniel’s family has stepped forward, saying they’ll hear the empress… Not that I’m a fan of that family, honestly.” Sensing the rumors swirling in high society about Duke Reshaniel and me, Cordelia rolled her eyes.
“I see. Thanks for the info.”
So, at last, the Reshaniel family had stepped up to heal the ailing empress. If things went according to the original story, they’d fail, and then Duke Reshaniel would swoop in and spectacularly heal her.
“Duke Reshaniel really is amazing!”
Just thinking about people fawning over him like that…
“Ugh, I’m getting chills.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing.”
Except it wasn’t nothing. The thought of that b*stard using my power to bask in the world’s praise made my blood boil. I was so furious, it gave me chills.
It’s about time I took my mana back, in my own way.
What I had was a fortune amassed from endless royalties, magical abilities fueled by potions, a dragon named Coocoo, and a willow warbler named Krrr, who were both invisible due to mana depletion. And most importantly… My aggro skills. I grinned wickedly, recalling the clickbait tactics of those infamous YouTube cyber-wrecker channels.
After seeing Cordelia off, I called over baby hamster Ivanka. “Hey, Ivanka.”
“Yes?”
“Could you bring me a potion?”
“Sure! Which one do you need?”
Comments (0)