Chapter 25

It felt as if I had slept a long, satisfying sleep.

All the while, my consciousness had been slowly but steadily cutting through the current, escaping the sea of unconsciousness.

Twitch.

The white fingers folded neatly on the bed moved.

Once feeling returned to my fingers, the sounds around me began to reach me.

“...now, soon...”

“...the royal family... even magic...”

What are they talking about for so long?

I still wanted to sleep.

Just a little longer.

Just as I was about to pretend I had not heard anything and sink back into sleep—

“I can’t send her!”

“Hweeh!”

My eyes snapped open at a voice so loud it made my ears sting just hearing it.

“Wh-where...”

Where am I? And who am I?

With my eyes wide at the familiar cliché, I looked around like a meerkat.

“...Aisha?”

“Oh! Young lord! ...Why are you crying?”

Lucas, whose eyes were red as if he had cried out every tear and every bit of snot, stared at me and rose blankly from his seat.

“...Aisha.”

“Mister?”

Beside him, the duke mister had shadows under his eyes, as if he had not slept a wink.

Thud.

“My goodness. The young lady was certainly...”

And there was even an old man I did not know, who had dropped the medicinal herbs he was holding.

“Wh-why are you all acting like that?”

What on earth had happened?

I tilted my head in confusion, unable to grasp the situation.

“Aisha!”

All of a sudden, the young lord burst into loud tears and hugged me.

“No. She’s still a patient, Lucas!”

“I will check the young lady’s pulse first! This is a miracle!”

“Uwah!”

Starting with Lucas, the mister and the old man all rushed toward the bed. Frightened by that, I ended up screaming.

What in the world is going on?!

***

“Her bruises remain, but she is healthy. This is... this is truly a miracle!”

“Aisha!”

Delta, who introduced himself as the physician, shook his head in wonder.

Lucas threw himself at me again, and this time the mister did not stop him.

Instead, he looked at me and covered his face with his hand. Somehow, it seemed as though something wet glimmered around his eyes.

Several days passed after that.

During that time, I had to recuperate in the infirmary.

Only belatedly did I learn what had happened before I lost consciousness, and that because of it, I had died and come back to life.

Honestly, for someone who had crossed the line between life and death, my body was so perfectly fine that I wondered whether recuperation was even necessary.

“It is n-necessary. No matter how fine your body is, you must rest properly for one week.”

Delta glanced sideways at something and broke into a cold sweat. There stood Calypse and Lucas, glaring with murderous eyes.

“Then I’ll recuperate here for one week!”

“Oh, my, y-young lady. Thank y—no. Yes, of course you must!”

After giving my solemn answer, I soothed Delta, who was sincerely thanking me, and sent him away.

At this point, hadn’t I possessed a hero instead of a spy?

How many lives had I saved in just a few days?

In any case, they said my condition was so healthy that it could only be explained as a miracle.

The reason I died was the blunt weapon I took in Lucas’s place. Because of that, there was apparently still a small bump on my head.

But nothing hurts at all.

The fact that I had come back to life too—what exactly had happened?

Could this be the possessed-person bonus?

“Hmm...”

I turned my body this way and that, but there was nothing wrong.

Too perfect!

“I don’t know. If it’s good, it’s good.”

The most convincing explanation was that it was because I was a possessed person.

You know, settings like that were common in romance fantasy works.

Was the reward for being rolled and rolled around in the Pose family for five years finally manifesting now?

I’ll have to look into it properly later.

Right now, there was something else that bothered me more.

At the very beginning.

When I had been knocked unconscious by the staff at Ahili’s Circus and had a nightmare.

“You went to the duke’s family and came back having made something very interesting.”

The scene in the dream had no background, nor the face of the person speaking.

All I remembered was myself surrounded by shadows in a dark place, and eerie teeth smiling as they looked at me.

“...What memory was that, exactly?”

I had possessed Aisha from the time her mind first began developing an ego, but nothing like that had happened in the past.

It was a fleeting scene as clear as a photograph.

Just thinking of it made goosebumps rise all over my body, unpleasant and frightening.

While I was lost in thought—

Bang.

“Dandelion!”

The door opened without a knock.

Lucas, his eyes round as a rabbit’s, opened the door and came running in breathlessly.

He must have been in such a hurry that the petals of the flowers clutched in his small hand fluttered down onto the floor.

“Young lord?”

Lucas looked horrified at my call.

“Young lord? I heard from Father. You were adopted into our house, right?!”

Ah. So that was why he had come running in such a hurry.

Well, even I would be shocked if I came home after five years and some kid had become my younger sister.

Maybe I should have told him in advance at the circus.

Feeling needlessly sorry, I opened my mouth hesitantly.

“Yeah. That’s what happened. You were surprised, right? I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you befo—”

“Then from now on, I’m your older brother, right?!”

Lucas shouted, cutting me off.

Seeing his flushed face, I quickly nodded.

“Yeah!”

“Th-then. Calling me young lord is banned from now on!”

“Huh?”

When I asked back because I did not understand, he looked at me with strangely sparkling eyes.

His expression was as if he were expecting something.

What is it? What is he expecting?

I narrowed my eyes and rubbed my chin, then looked down at his hand with an “Ah!”

He was holding a cluster of flowers with only a few petals left.

“Wow, you picked flowers for me? Thank you. They’re so pretty!”

“...Not that.”

Lucas immediately refuted me.

“Huh?”

“That.”

Lucas muttered something, his earlobes turning red.

“...Call me that.”

“Call you what?”

“From now on, call me older brother!”

Lucas’s face turned bright red after he shouted loudly enough to burst my eardrums.

Suddenly huffing, he shoved the flowers into a vase.

Then he added an explanation that was not particularly necessary.

“From now on, I won’t forgive anyone who bothers you! So if anything happens, call me. That’s why I’m telling you!”

Ah, this little guy. Was he being prickly?

“I see. Thank you, Lucas, my older brother.”

Feeling oddly pleased, I gave him the answer he wanted, and the tips of his ears burned red as he poured water into the vase.

“Ahem. Right. I’m your older brother.”

“Oho.”

“You’re my younger sister. We’re siblings. Family. Ahem!”

Just as the corners of his mouth began melting while he repeated it to himself—

“Ahem!”

Lucas coughed solemnly again and sat in the temporary chair beside me.

Then he opened a small sketchbook and showed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“My daily schedule. Now that I’m back at the ducal estate, I already have a lot to do. Even though I’m eight years old, I’m a young lord of Kreutz.”

“Oho!”

Apparently, he had come to boast about what he had been doing while we had not been able to meet.

How cute. It was exactly the kind of thing children around that age did.

A circular schedule had been drawn in blue crayon in the sketchbook.

“Tell me your daily schedule, older brother!”

“Of course.”

He seemed pleased by my bright gaze and raised his thick eyebrows diagonally.

His energetic finger pointed at lunchtime.

“Lunchtime is twelve thirty. They say since I need to replenish the strength I used in the morning and prepare for the afternoon, they usually give me a lot of bread and meat. For now, I’ll come to your hospital room at this time, so be ready.”

My eyes widened at his unexpected words.

“We’re eating together?”

“Of course. We’re siblings.”

“Oho...”

“Now, dinner time. Dinner is six thirty. It changes from time to time, but usually, we eat something simple with meat and vegetables.”

After explaining that far, Lucas narrowed his eyes as if he were about to reveal an enormous secret.

“The important part starts now.”

“Hut.”

At his suddenly secretive voice, I pursed my lips into a triangle.

What is it? Is there some intense training? Or a ceremony to be recognized as part of the main line?

As I waited tensely for what would come next, he looked around and whispered.

“Between lunch and dinner.”

“Yeah!”

“...There’s also something called dessert time.”

“Dess...ert time...?”

Excuse me?

“Dessert?”

When I asked again, thinking I had misheard, the brave diagonal eyebrows facing me drew even closer together as if to say yes.

“Yeah. You must never, ever miss it. The strawberry cake is seriously good.”

“...Oh.”

Lucas seemed a little dumb.

That was what I was thinking when—

“If your presentation is over, step out for a moment.”

A large man entered through the door that opened slowly. Perhaps he had gone out, because the scent of cold wind drifted from him even at a distance.

It was the duke mister.

“Mister!”

“Little one.”

When he smiled faintly, Lucas, who had seemed happy until just now, put on a sulky expression.

“My presentation isn’t over yet.”

“No. We agreed you would stay only thirty minutes, but it’s already been an hour. I let you have plenty of time.”

“Then let me have more.”

Calypse stared at Lucas, who looked exactly like him, then chuckled.

“The chef said he made strawberry cake for you.”

“...Huh?”

“Aren’t you going to eat it?”

Rumble—!

It felt as if thunder had sounded from somewhere.

At his father’s suggestion, Lucas seemed to face the greatest crisis since entering the Kreutz estate.

His younger sister, or strawberry cake.

This is when a generous younger sister is needed!

Honestly, Lucas was a little noisyyy!

I waved my hand lightly and said to Lucas,

“Go on, older brother.”

“...Older brother?”

But suddenly, the mister flinched and narrowed his eyes.

“He’s your real older brother... and what am I? Not Father, but mister?”

“...Huh?”

Oh no. The sparks flew this way.