103 An Issue
After being called to head over to dinner, I immediately noticed a fairly big problem. Having a hand with a giant open bleeding wound was bound to give rise to questions. I should've seen this sooner, but I hadn't really thought about it at the moment.
Although the questions themselves weren't the biggest deal, attracting too much attention would be bad for now. In reality, the wound was actually fairly shallow, it just looked pretty bad.
If I had to say, this wound would probably heal within a week or so.
I looked around the room, sifting through the various things inside. Eventually, I was able to find a pair of gloves.
"Hm. This will be convenient."
After getting a random cloth to wrap around my left hand, I put on both gloves and headed down. There weren't that many chefs, and the amount of food served was smaller than normal.
As though embarrassed by this, one of the chefs bowed to me and apologized, but I reassured him it was fine. It was to be expected though, as most of them had gone out to the slums on their own, Gray included.
It was just because I wanted to reserve the weekends and spend time doing my own thing. As such, I basically decided to not go on weekends, but go on weekdays if there was no other scheduling conflict.
Jess had also shown up and didn't say much at all to me.
The meal itself was uneventful. Soon enough, I ended up going back to my practice. It was only when Jess ended up calling out to me, telling me it was time to take a bath. This was one of the initial concerns I had, Jess seeing my injured body and freaking out because of it.
Though it shouldn't be too big of a deal, I guess.
Before I could protest, Jess had already begun taking off my clothes. Naturally, it drew her attention when she saw my bloodied hands. With widened eyes, her gaze snapped from my hands to my face.
"What happened to you?"
I blinked a few times.
"I was trying to learn magic, and this ended up happening. The wound is quite shallow, so it isn't as bad as it looks."
Jess stared at me for a long while.
"Don't do it again."
I put on a slightly sad expression.
"But... if I'm not strong enough, then how will I be able to protect us?"
Jess only flinched slightly, but that was enough for me to see that she was kind of blown away.
"Protect us? What are you talking about?"
A small smile formed on my face.
"Don't you understand? There are many powerful people around us, Sister. If there's nobody strong enough to deter them, then how can we stop them from taking advantage of us?"
Jess' attitude had softened after that, wrapping two arms around my torso.
"Oh brother, don't worry. There are laws in place to stop them from doing something like that."
18:15
I promptly shook my head.
"There might be laws to punish them, but what's the point if someone kills you, Sister? In the end, you'll still be dead."
Jess froze for a moment, lost in thought. While next to my ear, she whispered softly.
"That's right. But don't worry about it, your Sister will become so strong, the entire kingdom won't be able to do anything to us, ok?"
I suppressed my instinctual reaction to shudder, though that left the side of my head painfully tingly. With a small smile, I responded.
"But Sister, you aren't that strong right now, so how can I believe you? If you do become strong enough, maybe I'll stop trying then..."
Jess hugged me considerably tighter, while her voice got a bit more high-pitched.
"Brother..."
She seemed to be on the verge of protesting against it, which honestly made me sweat.
"Fine. Your Sis will become the strongest in the world."
Thankfully, it was accepted. I knew that outright going against her would immediately make her retaliation more fierce instead of any positive outcome, so I turned it into an issue of Jess not being strong enough rather than my own recklessness.
I only imagined it had a seventy percent chance of working, and it seemed luck was on my side today.
Jess silently brought me over to the bathroom and began washing my body delicately, making sure to avoid my injured areas, but still getting the skin around them. For a little while, she slowly dripped warm water down my hands, which felt both painful and relaxing.
Blood seeped out and gave the water a copper tint, but it was otherwise fine.
Afterward, she did the same thing as she would always do. Though, unlike how she normally stayed silent, she muttered something into my ear.
"Don't worry, Brother. Your Sister will become strong very soon. It's only natural as the first heir to the Arden family, the one that became nobility solely through battle prowess alone."
Huh. That's an interesting fact. I only ever knew that the Arden family had a decent reputation when it came to fighting. However, I didn't know that they had become nobility solely from being good at fighting.
How good would you have to be to become a duke because of that?
...It seems that must be one of the reasons why Bryson was so desperate to get stronger. After all, his family was basically famous because of their power.
My thoughts were suddenly cut off when I felt Jess nuzzling her head against the side of my neck, rubbing it back and forth until I got itchy. I also couldn't help but notice that the way she was holding me had changed.
Before, I'd say it communicated you aren't allowed to go away from me. Now, it's something more like don't be scared, little child.
Though this definitely meant I was getting far closer to my goal with Jess, I was surprised by how fast it was going. Even if she was quite crazy, there was still enough logic in her if she was able to act more or less normal for quite a while.
Still, it's not like I was complaining.
This would make her easier to control.
...
Before I knew it, it ended up becoming the start of a new day. After getting ready and heading down, I noticed that there was a commotion near the entrance.
"Um, sir. Please understand that you cannot barge in here, even if you are acquainted with the lord."
"I need to tell him something as soon as possible."
I made my way down to see Nathan standing in the middle of a few guards. They were holding their weapons, but not pointing it at him, probably because they knew we were related in some way.
I cracked my neck and forcibly blinked a few times to wake myself up.
"Let him through."
After waving my hand lazily I walked to Nathan, who also walked straight to me. I noticed that he had bloodshot eyes and bags underneath them. It seemed he was breaking his back working overtime.
His overall grimy appearance made him look even more worn out, but that was kinda just something that came from living in the slums a lot.
Regardless, there was a solemn expression was on his face.
Considering how urgent Nathan was about this, I figured this was a serious issue. Yet, it seemed he couldn't find the words for quite a while, just standing there awkwardly. Eventually, his lips parted as he got out the words he wanted to say.
"I think I fucked up."
I took in a deep breath as I felt a headache coming on. If he was being like this, then chances are the problem was a pretty big one. While rubbing the side of my head with the base of my palm, I nodded.
"Alright. Come to my room and we'll talk about it."
After making it to my room and sitting down. Nathan began explaining the issue to me.
"I think I ended up starting the Poverty Plague early."
I remained silent for a few seconds.
"What? How the hell did you do that? Isn't that supposed to only happen like, six months from now?"
Nathan scratched the side of his head and let out a sigh of frustration.
"One of the items I needed to exchange on the black market was a crystallized eye. I was able to find the location of its grave within the first few days, but now that I think about it, the timing of the plague showing up comes along with digging up the grave before it happens. I first thought it was a coincidence, but now most people are showing signs of it."
My eyelid twitched. He was talking about a specific event where the main character can dig up someone's grave. That option only appears after a certain amount of time, and eventually disappears because someone else ends up digging the grave.
Timing it with the event that was called Poverty Plague, it ended up appearing just a few weeks afterward. Although they didn't seem related, it seemed the disease originated from underneath that very grave.
I took in a deep breath.
"Whatever, that was bound to happen if that really was the source of the disease, there's no helping it. Realistically, that's not something we could've known about."
The reason the event was called Poverty Plague, wasn't because the plague itself was broke or anything. Instead, it was because this disease mostly only affected commoners. While the disease was rampant, rapidly spreading to every single person in the entire kingdom, the disease itself could be fought off just with the body's immune system.
The only problem was that it would take a lot of energy, meaning that if one did not eat well, their body wouldn't be able to keep up and they would die.
If we didn't want countless people to die, then we had to figure out a plan right now.
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