TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 43
Three weeks had passed.
The short yet long three weeks had quickly changed the awkward atmosphere between us.
We spent one week in silence.
Another week was spent exchanging stiff greetings.
The last week was spent having serious conversations face-to-face.
Apologies for the terrible things that happened, gratitude, and a conversation about my arm.
As we talked, the Young Lady’s tears increased, but our awkward atmosphere began to improve.
She cried while looking at my arm.
She cried while seeing my awkward smile.
She even cried while looking at the stars at night.
The Young Lady, whose sensitivity had increased like a man going through menopause, gradually regained her smile as we spent more time talking.
One day, the Young Lady said.
She would reduce her cursing and complaints about side dishes.
And she was really sorry.
We learned more about each other and offered sincere apologies.
The Young Lady faced my arm again, and with a trembling hand, she unwrapped the bandage to look at my hand.
I couldn’t forget the Young Lady’s expression, which was still shocked.
– Is this what I did?
– I…
After keeping her mouth shut for a while, the Young Lady nodded, wiped away her tears, and said firmly.
The Young Lady gradually returned to her normal self.
She became the villainous Olivia who was bold and loved to eat.
Not that she became bad like before.
– Ricardo, what do you want to eat?
The Young Lady gave me a choice of menu, showing her generosity.
Even though she still had an emotional expression when looking at my face, and her eyes widened in surprise when I scratched my arm, saying “Ah, does it hurt?”, she was different from the Young Lady I saw three weeks ago.
She was no longer a timid Young Lady, but a bold one.
I preferred this side of her.
It was better than being filled with guilt and staying in her room, not being able to say what she wanted to say.
I also thought that this was good, considering I had been hiding my scarred hand for so long.
*
The Young Lady’s room was quiet.
The Young Lady, sitting on the bed, was focusing on something with a furrowed brow.
Like a surgeon, she was concentrating with a cotton swab in one hand and ointment in the other.
I remembered what the adults said.
If she had studied that hard, she would have gone to Seoul National University.
She was top of her class in the Magic Department in terms of skills.
But in terms of written exams, she was at the bottom.
The Young Lady put ointment on the cotton swab and sucked on it.
“Hic.”
The Young Lady, who was concentrating with her lips pursed, spoke to me with a trembling hand.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
“Ah…”
“…Hic!”
Even though she hadn’t touched me yet, the Young Lady flinched when I said it hurt.
“You haven’t touched me yet.”
“R-really?”
“Huh.”
The Young Lady let out a deep sigh and focused on my right arm, which had its sleeve rolled up.
She was concentrating on my wound with a delicate expression, as if it would hurt if she touched it.
I wanted to tease her, so I covered my mouth and looked at her hand.
Instead of a black scar, all I could see was white ointment on my right hand.
“Young Lady.”
“…Be quiet, I’m concentrating.”
“If you put this much ointment, it might be enough for the steak we’re having for dinner.”
The Young Lady stopped what she was doing, looked up at me with an awkward expression, and started daydreaming.
“If I put ointment on the meat, it might make it bigger.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“…Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
The Young Lady looked disappointed and muttered, “Then it might not be as tasty.”
The Young Lady was putting a lot of ointment on my arm.
She was applying it to the parts that were already treated.
She was even applying it to the parts that were not hurt.
From my perspective, there were no more parts that needed ointment, but the Young Lady seemed to think otherwise.
The ointment was being applied thickly, like a foam bath, and two tubes were already used up.
The Young Lady muttered, “If it hurts…”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“But…”
The Young Lady said, “If it hurts,” while applying ointment to the parts that weren’t hurt.
“It doesn’t hurt.”
The Young Lady wasn’t listening to me.
She was touching my wound, checking my reaction, and making a sad face when I flinched, saying, “Ah, it might hurt.”
Applying ointment to my scarred skin, which was affected by dark magic, was meaningless, but I liked the Young Lady’s careful touch.
I remembered the day I showed her my arm.
The day after I showed her my scar, she looked at me with a serious expression and said.
– Take off your clothes.
– What?
At that moment, I had an impure thought and felt conflicted.
– I’ll look at your arm. Take off your clothes.
– You mean my arm?
I hid my arm behind my back, but the Young Lady’s stubbornness couldn’t be swayed.
When I rolled up my sleeve, the Young Lady wiped away her tears and said firmly.
– I’ll apply ointment.
The Young Lady, who was determined, made me show her my arm, and she started crying while applying ointment.
I reluctantly showed her my arm.
– Hic… Hic…
– Why are you crying again?
– It’s disgusting, and it looks like it hurts.
From then on, showing my arm to the Young Lady became a daily routine.
She would ask me to buy her chocolate, take out a gold coin from her chest pocket, and tell me to buy ointment.
Of course, the warm gold coin was safely kept in my drawer.
“It’s done.”
The Young Lady, who had finished applying the bandage, smiled in satisfaction.
“Hic!”
The Young Lady, who was proudly looking at my bandaged arm, made me smile wryly.
“What is this?”
“Treatment.”
“Is this treatment? It’s too thick, like a cast. If the Honorable Maid sees it, she’ll ask if my arm is broken.”
The bandage was wrapped thickly, like a cast, and it seemed like I could even use it to hammer nails.
Hehe…
I couldn’t complain because she had an expression that said she was proud of herself.
The Young Lady started drawing a picture on the bandage with a pen.
“What are you doing?”
“Magic spell.”
“It doesn’t look like a magic spell, the drawing is quite hopeless.”
“…Be quiet, I’m concentrating.”
The Young Lady was drawing a picture on the bandage.
One Orc and one Goblin.
[Hurry up.] was written in elegant handwriting, but the monster family photo didn’t seem to fit well.
I looked at the Orc with a fierce expression and said.
“Is this, perhaps, an art piece?”
The Young Lady nodded vigorously.
“Yes.”
“…”
I wanted to flick her.
I pointed to the Goblin next to it, which had a suggestive design that reminded me of the Young Lady’s pocket.
When I pointed, the Young Lady’s lips curled up.
“Is this the Young Lady?”
She nodded in the same way, looking at me with bright, shining eyes, as if asking for my evaluation of her artwork.
“How is it?”
I turned my head towards the window.
“Why don’t you answer?”
“…”
“Are you surprised because it’s too good?”
It’s a rule not to give false hope to someone with hopeless talent, in case they think they have artistic talent and become a painter.
The Young Lady looked at me intensely.
She pouted and gave me a stern look, so I spoke in a muffled tone.
“Y-yes, it’s well-drawn.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the Goblin…”
‘Ah… I made a mistake.’
The Young Lady scowled.
“It’s not a Goblin…”
The disappointed Young Lady looked down, dejected.
I tried to comfort her.
“It’s fortunate that you don’t have big aspirations for art.”
The Young Lady threw her pen.
***
The warm sunshine enters my eyes.
Today, the estate yard is also sunny.
The Young Lady, who had not gone outside in a while, sat in a chair.
She said she would watch me practice swordsmanship, saying that if I got hurt, she would take care of me.
I swung my sword vigorously in front of the Young Lady, thinking that if I was going to show off, I should show off my elegant swordsmanship.
The sound of the wind cutting through the air echoed through the estate yard.
As I showed off my swordsmanship, leaving afterimages in the air, the Young Lady clapped her hands with bright, shining eyes.
“Oh…”
I wiped the sweat, trying to act like a protagonist from a romance fantasy novel.
“How is it?”
The Young Lady looked at me with an unimpressed expression, focusing on my right arm instead of my swordsmanship.
When I heard the applause, I thought she would be impressed, but the Young Lady just clapped without any enthusiasm.
The Young Lady said to me.
“Can’t you do something like Meteor?”
“No.”
“How about a laser that goes ‘pew’?”
“That’s impossible.”
“You’re not cool.”
The Young Lady provoked my pride, tapping her belly with a bored expression.
“Can’t you cut through something like a mountain or the sky?”
“Even a Swordmaster can’t do that.”
The Young Lady looked at me intently.
“Can’t Ricardo do it?”
“N-no, that’s…”
The Young Lady’s provocation, asking me to show off a level of swordsmanship that even a Swordmaster can’t achieve, triggered my switch.
The Young Lady said “You’re not cool” again and leaned back in her chair, looking like a loafer.
“I’m hungry.”
The Young Lady’s provocation.
This won’t do.
I had to make the Young Lady say “Oh, you’re cool” even if it killed me, or else I would be remembered as just a butler who is good at using a kitchen knife.
I raised my aura.
[Limit Break (L) is testing the limits of my aura.]
When the Young Lady saw my sword shining with a sun-like red light, she looked at me with bright, shining eyes.
“Can you see it?”
“Oh…”
The Young Lady showed an interested reaction, and I tried to gather more aura.
“Oh…”
“Oh…”
I heard the familiar voices of a man and a woman.
A man and a woman with bright brown hair.
They were uninvited guests.
I put down my sword and stood at the entrance, looking at the two guests who were watching me quietly.
“Miss Hanna?”
The Histania Siblings were standing at the entrance of the estate, looking friendly.
Hanna, with a bandaged sword and a gift, smiled at me.
“It’s me, Butler.”
It had been a while since I’d seen them.
“I’m hungry, so I came to visit.”