Chapter 60

The always peaceful Count Zernias’ Mansion.

The fact that it’s always peaceful and nothing ever happens is the defining characteristic of the Count Zernias’ family, if you could even call it a characteristic.

“Emma! A wet towel here!”

“I’ll bring it right away!”

At least for today, it wasn’t peaceful.

“Cough!”

The reason was that I, the only child of Count Zernias’ Mansion, was suffering from a severe cold.

“……Are you okay?”

As soon as a cough escaped my lips, my mother’s voice, filled with worry, reflexively reached my ears.

If it were me before I got sick, I would have said it’s nothing to worry about, brushing off a mere cold.

“Cough.”

But now that I was actually suffering from a cold, it was hard to even pretend I was okay.

A fever that easily surpassed 39 degrees and relentless, strong coughs were tormenting me.

“……I’m… okay.”

“……”

Even though I struggled to speak to reassure my mother, my hoarse voice only multiplied her worries instead of calming her.

“You should have moderated your swordsmanship training.”

“……”

As my mother scolded me, the root cause of my cold was indeed my all-night training sessions.

After the last hunting competition.

The thought that lingered most was, ‘I’m still not good enough.’

The results of the hunting competition were overshadowed by the mysterious group of assassins who attacked the Crown Prince.

But even if the attack hadn’t happened, my chances of winning the competition were close to 0%.

Just by briefly observing Mikhail, who had been following me around during the competition, it was clear he would have won if he had taken it seriously.

And if Rebecca, who had lost to me in an archery bet, had participated in the hunting competition instead of me, she would have easily taken first place.

Although I won the bet, it was essentially Rebecca indulging my stubborn request as her fiancé.

If Rebecca hadn’t humored me and had taken the bet seriously, she would have won with a total of 30 points.

And that’s why I suddenly decided to train all night.

Because compared to Mikhail, the protagonist of the original novel, and my fiancée Rebecca, I felt utterly insignificant.

I felt like I was nothing special.

So I wanted to improve my swordsmanship, even if it meant training through the night.

“Cough!”

……As you can see, the results weren’t great.

But at least it wasn’t for no reason.

“……I should have stopped you when you said you were learning swordsmanship.”

“……”

After leaving me alone for a while, lost in her own worries, my mother finally spoke.

“Anyway, a priest from the Church is coming here, so don’t even think about training for a while.”

“……Yes.”

With those final words, she left my room.

“……A priest?”

I was more puzzled by the sentence my mother left behind than by her muttering about how she should have stopped me from learning swordsmanship.

It wasn’t that I was surprised a sick person would see a priest with sacred power.

In fact, that was perfectly normal.

Even commoners, if they had wounds or illnesses that couldn’t be healed by simple treatments, would seek help from priests at the Church.

What puzzled me was the part about the priest coming here.

For a priest from the Church, which even the Imperial Family wouldn’t dare to meddle with, to come here personally was no small matter.

It was something that wouldn’t happen unless the person was suffering from a life-threatening illness or had a long-standing connection with the Church.

In all my years, I had never felt like I had a life-threatening illness, so the priest’s visit implied that ‘Albert Zernias’ had a long-standing connection with the Church.

But the Zernias family wasn’t closely tied to the Church. There was no obvious connection that I could see.

The only plausible explanation was that ‘Albert Zernias’ had been receiving sacred power treatments for a long time before I possessed him.

If his health had always been poor and he had been receiving sacred power treatments, then the priest’s visit to the Zernias mansion, and even my severe cold from just a week of all-night training, would make sense.

“……Why didn’t I feel anything when I first possessed him?”

But the fact that, apart from this time, I had never felt like my body was weak in all the years I’d lived here contradicted that assumption.

If he had been receiving sacred power treatments regularly and for a long time, his body should have been in poor condition when I first possessed him.

But instead of being sick in bed, I had even argued with my fiancée, whom I was seeing for the first time.

At that time, my body was clearly in normal condition.

Knock knock-

“Young master, a guest from the Church has arrived.”

Just as I was being swept up in endless waves of worry, the sound of knocking and the voice of Emma, a maid of the Zernias family, reached me.

Judging by what Emma said.

It seemed the priest from the Church who was supposed to come had arrived.

Even though I hadn’t figured out the connection between the Church and this body, there was no reason to turn away a priest who had come to heal me.

“……Let them in.”

Despite my hoarse voice, I absentmindedly allowed the door to be opened.

And I regretted it almost instantly.

“Long time no see.”

The priest from the Church who entered with a slightly shy smile was someone I knew well.

“……Saintess?”

“Nice to see you, Albert.”

Estelle, the saintess with the strongest sacred power in the Empire and Mikhail’s first heroine, had come to heal me.

***

Watching the saintess stride confidently into my room.

“……Cough, why is the Saintess here…?”

The first emotion I felt was bewilderment.

If what I knew was correct, the position of the Church’s saintess wasn’t one that allowed for much free time.

So why would the saintess visit a mere count’s mansion to heal their child?

My mind was already tangled with thoughts about whether this body had been receiving sacred power treatments.

And Estelle’s unexpected visit only made my already complicated thoughts even more tangled.

“Healing the sick is the duty of the saintess.”

“……”

Moreover, Estelle, who clearly knew why I was flustered, was acting all innocent.

Seeing what might be the most annoying expression in the world.

‘……At least that’s something to be grateful for.’

I felt thankful that my fiancée didn’t know I was sick.

Last time at the Imperial banquet, Rebecca had seriously misunderstood when she saw me alone with Estelle in the garden.

At that time, I had to drop the formal speech I had never abandoned before to convince Rebecca, who had been misunderstanding.

If Rebecca found out that another woman, the saintess, knew about my cold while she didn’t.

‘……’

I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen next.

It wasn’t that I had planned to hide my cold from Rebecca from the start.

When I sent a letter to the Valencia Duchy Mansion saying I wouldn’t be able to visit for a while, the letter had detailed the reason why I couldn’t come.

But just before giving the letter to the Zernias family butler.

I suddenly remembered how Rebecca had rushed over, using so much magic that she nearly collapsed from exhaustion, when she heard I had gone missing during the hunting competition.

After a brief moment of thought, I changed the part about having a severe cold to a personal matter.

There wasn’t any special reason.

I just didn’t want Rebecca to come here worried if she heard I was sick.

I didn’t want her to catch my cold and suffer even more.

Honestly, the chance of Rebecca, who was healthier than me, catching a cold worse than mine was almost nonexistent.

But it was the right mindset of a fiancé to wish their fiancée wouldn’t get sick, even a little.

Anyway, for these reasons, I didn’t mention my illness in the letter saying I wouldn’t be able to visit for a while.

“……Cough, Saintess.”

“Yes? Did you call?”

“Why exactly have you come here?”

What I needed to do now was deal with Mikhail’s number one heroine right in front of me.

Even if a regular priest from the Church could have handled this, the saintess had come personally.

“……Well, why do you think I came here, Your Highness?”

“……”

Estelle, who had become much more inscrutable since the last time I saw her.