MHHC Chapter 124

Purpose

Those days continued afterward.

People kept getting injured with relentless frequency, and Adelheid accepted everyone who came seeking treatment without refusal.

She even lavished healing magic generously on trivial wounds—fingertips barely nicked by kitchen knives.

Healing magic consumed considerable mental and physical strength.

After wringing out every last drop of magic in a healing session and returning to the carriage, she had to lie sprawled for some time without the strength to move even a finger.

At least she was fortunate to sleep during the day while the carriage traveled.

Otherwise, she would have collapsed long ago, unable to endure.

Even amid such exhaustion, she couldn't refuse treatment because she could see people's attitudes toward her gradually changing.

Though some still gossiped behind her back, at least to her face they maintained a minimum of courtesy.

The openly rude stares had noticeably diminished as well.

'The more I use healing magic, the more skilled I seem to become. It might be my imagination, but my magic seems to recover faster too.'

Magic, origin, healing power, divine power—whatever it was.

Sometimes Valentin's explanations were confusing, and now she didn't even know what to call the 'power' she possessed.

Adelheid paused in checking her remaining magic and let out a light sigh.

'If I asked Valentin again, I could understand more clearly.'

It had already been well over four days since she'd seen Valentin.

As the weather warmed and monster activity intensified, he'd grown increasingly busy clearing areas within several thousand acres of the carriage radius with five or six elite knights.

She rarely saw his face even at mealtimes, so she worried whether he was eating properly or resting adequately.

If she hadn't seen him in pain, she might not know, but having learned he wasn't as robust as before made it all the more concerning.

'Though it seems he returns every dawn.'

When she woke at dawn after fainting from magic depletion, her soiled clothes had been neatly changed.

Valentin was the only one who could board her carriage without permission, and if not for magic, she would have woken at least once while being changed.

She was dreadfully light sleeper.

'I wish he'd just wake me. Or... is he truly avoiding me?'

She paused in wrapping bandages and blankly retraced the past. Come to think of it, when was the last time she'd had a proper conversation with Valentin...

"Y-Your Grace. It... hurts."

At the halting moan, Adelheid snapped to attention with a start.

She hurriedly released her grip on the bandage she'd been pulling tight. Lost in thought, she'd unconsciously applied too much pressure.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Sir Ian."

She awkwardly unwound the bandage she'd wrapped tightly around his leg.

Then immediately resumed with a dazed expression, smearing crushed herbs onto the bandage.

She realized her mistake when Ian's sigh grew louder.

"I-I'm sorry. I made a mistake."

She hurriedly scraped off the herbs and brought clean new bandages to start wrapping from the beginning.

Knight Ian watched in silence as the Grand Duchess carefully tended his wound.

"..."

The gentle line of her brow and nose bridge, flushed lips, gleaming golden hair flowing over shoulders and down her back.

Shy, soft eyelashes and composed bearing.

Objectively, the Grand Duchess was quite beautiful.

That's why she won everyone's favor so easily at first glance, but if you watched even briefly, she exuded a somehow unnatural atmosphere.

'Is it because her expressions rarely change? Or because she seldom reveals her preferences?'

Though he couldn't articulate it precisely, he always felt an instinctive, peculiar distance.

It was almost instinctual perception. That she was fundamentally different from me, from us.

Perhaps that's why? As soon as rumors spread that the Grand Duchess was a monster, public opinion immediately coalesced around "I knew it."

Even now, after everyone had received healing magic from the Grand Duchess at least once, such views still lurked beneath the surface.

"Your Grace."

At his call, the Grand Duchess's dazed eyes widened, her lashes blinking softly.

"Ah. I must have lost focus again."

"...It's particularly severe today."

"I didn't get much sleep yesterday. The distance we traveled by carriage was also short today, so I couldn't sleep much. Oh..."

No sooner had the words ended than the Grand Duchess let out a short gasp.

Wondering what now, Ian exhaled deeply and looked up—then gasped at the sight of red blood dripping from Adelheid's nose.

"Your Grace, blood..."

"It's fine. This kind of thing stops quickly... if I press like this."

Adelheid pressed a nearby cloth to her nose as if accustomed to this, then wiped the blood that had dripped copiously onto her front with a handkerchief.

Her pale, bloodless face and the bluish cast under her eyes were somehow particularly grating today.

Ian asked abruptly, driven by an inexplicable frustration, "How long will you really continue like this?"

"The toxin hasn't fully cleared yet, so I'll need to use lamtil a bit longer for now. Since no blisters are appearing, it means it's having some effect..."

Listening to the explanation continue at length, it seemed she'd completely misunderstood his meaning.

He waved his hand, rudely cutting off the Grand Duchess's words, and asked again.

"That's not what I meant—why are you going this far?"

"Ah."

Only then did she seem to notice the suspicion and wariness hidden in his words.

The pale green eyes that had been feigning vitality until moments ago sank deeply for an instant.

What dwelt there was the familiar resignation and surrender one might see only in the very old.

'Yes. This is what's unsettling.'

To put it kindly, she was worldly-wise. To put it harshly, she didn't seem like a living person.

The life goals or aspirations everyone possesses, likes and dislikes—the woman gave off no scent of a 'living' person.

So watching her felt like observing some ancient, musty specter.

Despite being barely twenty years old, still young.

'They say for three years after marriage, she was treated like a ghost. Now it's open treatment as a monster... And yet, to this extent.'

Viewed charitably, it was an altruistic nature. Viewed harshly, it was stupidly self-destructive sacrifice.

The moment he realized that, something twisted in his chest. Perhaps something that could even be called guilt.

"I called you a witch and insulted you. I even refused treatment."

"..."

"Yet Your Grace saved me, and as if that weren't enough, you're pouring such care into this."

"..."

"I am someone who dislikes you. Are you... even a living human being with emotions?"

Ian clenched his teeth. Whatever treatment the woman received in Ansgar, however she was treated, it was none of his concern. He didn't even feel personal fondness for her.

But the frail woman before him wasn't the monster that had devoured his father.

"Even with healing magic—do you think anyone will appreciate you working like this day and night? Ah, of course, on the surface they'll pretend things have changed."

"..."

"But why don't you understand that even that is nothing more than a scheme to exploit Your Grace at will?"

"I'm not ignorant of it."

Her voice was so faint it would be lost if one didn't listen carefully. But Ian swallowed his surging breath and closed his mouth.

With eyes gone dead and black, Adelheid smiled hazily.

Was she even a living human? Well—the only moments she felt alive were the instants spent with Valentin.

The abuse and neglect from the father who should have been closest, the resignation accumulated over hundreds of years now that all memories had returned.

"You say people are using me."

Adelheid gripped the blood-soaked cloth tightly. Her knuckles trembled finely with shame, but it didn't matter. It was fortunate he didn't know the details. These were feelings she couldn't even be honest about with Valentin.

"So what? Then what more should I do, and how?"

"..."

"Will everyone like me if I work hard at everything? Or should I become more capable? Should I embrace even those who hate me? Should I smile at those who stab me—would that work?"

"..."

"I learned before you did that such things only happen in fairy tales."

Ian stared at her with an expression of disbelief, then asked with something like a hollow laugh.

"...Then what is your purpose? What exactly do you want that makes you shake people up like this?"

Adelheid looked once at Ian, then once each at the ground and sky.

Then she removed the blood-soaked cloth from her face. The blood that had been flowing freely had somehow stopped cleanly.

"Purpose."

Adelheid ruminated on the knight's word.

Of course, she was vaguely aware that some part of her emotions was broken.

In the moment guilt preceded love, in the moment paltry hypocrisy preceded hatred of others, in the moment she thought her sacrifice for the greater good was proper.

Even in the moment when all of it was disgustingly sincere.

"I simply want the people around me to live long without getting hurt."

"...Survival is your purpose? You speak as if we're all going to die together."

Ian spat the words out again, unaware himself why this made him so angry.

Adelheid gazed at his anger with unfamiliarity, then broke into a soft laugh.

"You..."