I Tamed the Slave Male Lead Chapter 26

The arm severed by Sota’s sword aura still throbbed with a burning pain.

The process of reattaching two pieces of bone was more painful than one might think. Regeneration was simply regeneration; it did not care in the slightest about the pain a human being had to endure throughout the process.

Therefore, he ought to be lying in bed right now, focusing solely on fighting through that pain. Not wandering into someone else’s bedroom out of nowhere and sharing his regenerative power when no one had even asked him to.

‘Why? Just because she’s terminally ill, have I suddenly started feeling sorry for her?’

He scoffed at himself.

“Mmng.”

Just then, Arabella shifted in her sleep, snapping him out of his thoughts. She was still sucking on his finger, her face scrunched up as though she were having a nightmare. Her cheeks, damp with cold sweat, were still pale.

“Has the fever not gone down yet?”

Muttering to himself, he placed his left hand against Arabella’s forehead.

The sensation was considerably cooler than when her body had been burning with fever earlier, and he felt relieved enough to immediately pull his hand away.

No, he tried to.

His hand, as though it possessed a life of its own, brushed down Arabella’s face of its own accord before gently cupping her cheeks, which had taken on a rosy hue.

He stared intently at the small face enclosed within his large hand.

Wondering why the face of the woman sucking on his finger and moaning was so incredibly stimulating.

Schlurp.

She moaned and sucked on his finger even harder.

The finger that had been drawn deep into her mouth was now completely enveloped by her tongue and cheeks, trapped so thoroughly that it could not move.

Every time she rolled his finger around as though sucking on a piece of candy, a tingling stimulation ran through him so intensely that the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Am I insane?”

At some point, he groaned those words and bent forward at the waist.

“What is this…? I’m not some pervert, so what the hell am I feeling?”

He hurriedly tried to pull his finger from her mouth, but she lunged at it even more fiercely, like a little child about to have her candy taken away.

Even though the bleeding from his finger had already stopped, she refused to let go, making incomprehensible moaning sounds as well.

In the end, Yusiliph had no choice but to crouch beside her bed and continue his own solitary struggle, utterly at a loss for what to do.

Until Arabella finally freed his finger and fell into a deep, sound sleep.

 

***

 

“Little lady, your face looks especially rosy today! You must have slept well?”

Becky tilted her head as she looked at me in the mirror while brushing my hair.

“Hm? Oh… does it?”

Only then did I look at my reflection, having been lost in thought.

“Yes! You look so beautiful today! It makes me want to put even more effort into making you look gorgeous!”

With that, Becky’s eyes lit up, and she began brushing my hair with even greater care.

Considering that she had been dragged away by Greham last night and subjected to a thorough interrogation, she looked remarkably energetic.

She had just finished telling me every little detail about her conversation with Greham the moment she arrived at work, saying that he hadn’t noticed a thing even though she had given him all the false information I had instructed her to.

‘It’s good that she seems excited rather than stressed about being a double agent… but the problem is that Greham looks like he’s going to start scheming against me before long.’

Although the debt owed to the Imperial Family had been paid off with the money I earned, there was no way Greham would be grateful for it. Instead, he would probably come rushing at me as though it were only natural and demand that I hand over the money I had left.

Living under the same roof as Greham, Sota’s lackey, was no different from living with a time bomb that could go off at any moment.

‘I need to find a way to get rid of Greham as soon as possible. I can’t keep making Becky play such a dangerous role forever, either.’

Whether she knew what was going on inside my head or not, Becky continued enthusiastically dressing me up, her eyes practically blazing.

In any case, Becky wasn’t just flattering me. My reflection really did look better than it had at any point since I possessed this body.

My smooth skin was free of even the slightest blemish, a peach-colored flush lingered across my cheeks, my eyes sparkled like stars, and even my lips had regained a healthy rosy color.

‘As I thought… Yusiliph must have shared his blood with me again last night, right?’

The suspicion that had occurred to me the moment I woke up this morning gradually grew into certainty.

The body that had felt heavy enough to sink into the ground every morning now felt light enough to fly, and the steady thump-thump of my heart in the left side of my chest also felt fresher and more stable than usual.

‘But why? It’s not as though I suffered another life-threatening attack yesterday, so why would he go out of his way to share his blood with me?’

It was true that I had been exhausted enough to die yesterday, and that I had fallen asleep as soon as I returned to my bedroom, burning with fever and completely drained.

However, I had tried my best not to let Yusiliph notice any of that.

I was already bothered by the fact that he knew I was living on borrowed time. I didn’t want him to know just how frail my body was, either.

Fortunately, he hadn’t mentioned anything about what happened last night. He had simply escorted me to my bedroom and disappeared without a word afterward.

‘Wait. Then that means he came back to my bedroom after that, doesn’t it? I was so exhausted that I fell completely asleep without even removing my makeup… It’s bothering me for no reason.’

Even as I entertained such pointless thoughts, my mind remained tangled.

‘Something feels strange. I feel like I had some kind of dream, too.’

I couldn’t remember anything about the dream itself, but when I woke up, the aftereffects of the intense emotions I had felt in it still clung stickily to my entire body.

If I compared it to my life before I possessed this body, it was like the hazy, muddled feeling left behind after watching or reading an extremely erotic and stimulating movie or book.

‘Did I have an erotic dream? To feel like that in a situation like this… Did some lewd demon possess me or something?’

Even more surprising was the fact that my period had started when I woke up this morning.

‘Arabella hardly ever menstruated. Of course she didn’t, considering her body wasn’t in a normal state.’

I felt flustered by all the sudden changes appearing both inside and outside my body.

But perhaps this was a good sign. It was proof that Arabella’s body was beginning to function normally.

‘My body does seem to have changed a little, too, at least from what I can see.’

I carefully examined my body reflected in the mirror. It definitely seemed subtly different somehow. My breasts seemed a little fuller, too.

‘Yusiliph’s regenerative power really is incredible. I can almost understand why the people who plotted all sorts of schemes to obtain his bodily fluids in the original story went to such lengths. The Master of the Magic Tower even tried to drug him with an aphrodisiac to get his semen.’

That was right. The truth was that Yusiliph’s regenerative power wasn’t transmitted solely through his blood.

There was a medium that possessed an even stronger effect than blood: bodily fluids such as saliva or semen that could be transmitted directly through physical contact.

That was why, in the original story, there were several scenes in which Yusiliph slept with Dorothea in order to save her when she was on the brink of death. I remembered those scenes vividly, since I had even bookmarked the pages when I read the book.

‘If this is how powerful his regenerative ability is when transmitted through blood, just how strong would the bodily fluids transmitted through direct physical contact be?’

Honestly, I was curious.

But that didn’t mean I expected anything like that to happen between Yusiliph and me.

‘When Dorothea appears… Yusiliph will go straight to her, won’t he?’

I stared blankly at Becky’s hands as she swiftly braided my hair and fell into thought.

Of course, the two of them would fall in love the moment they met. That was what happened in the original story, too.

‘And I’ll have to help the two of them end up together safely. That’s the best way to prevent the apocalypse. Of course, before that, I’ll have to find a way to extend my own life without Yusiliph.’

After all, I couldn’t cling to Yusiliph for the rest of my life, begging him to share his blood with me.

While I was thinking that, Becky had already braided my hair strand by strand and skillfully finished it in an elegant updo.

“Look, my lady. Isn’t it pretty?”

“It really is. You’re incredibly talented with your hands.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Hehe.”

I smiled at the proud Becky, then suddenly remembered something and opened my mouth.

“Becky. Could you run an errand for me this afternoon?”

“Of course, my lady. What is it?”

“I want to send a letter to my mother.”

“To Madam? You could just tell the butler. He’d deliver it right away…”

“I want to send the letter directly to Mother without having it go through the butler or anyone else in the household.”

“Ah…”

Becky nodded as though she understood.

“You’re worried that Master Greham might intercept the letter, aren’t you?”

“Yes. So I want to make sure this letter reaches Mother directly through someone I can trust.”

As I spoke, I opened the drawer of my vanity and took out the letter I had prepared in advance.

“Don’t worry, my lady! One of my childhood friends works as a courier for a merchant guild that travels to the territory where Madam lives. I’ll make sure they deliver it directly to Madam.”

“Thank you, Becky. Here’s your fee.”

I held out another envelope I had prepared beforehand, but Becky waved her hands in refusal.

“But the gold ring you gave me last time was already worth so much! I can handle something like this myself.”

“Then will you also pay the courier’s fee?”

“Ah, that…”

Becky scratched the back of her head as though she hadn’t thought of that.

I spoke to her gently.

“I want you to take every bit of profit you can get from working for me, and I want you to squeeze as much money out of me as you possibly can for your trouble.”

“My lady…”