C102
Liena said she had nowhere to stay at the moment.
I could see from her expression and behavior how difficult her life had been, so I didn't ask for details.
"Come in! Consider it your home and stay as long as you want."
"Thank you, thank you so much..."
I took Liena's hand as she hesitated at the door and led her inside the house.
Just as I was about to serve hot tea to Liena and clean the empty room.
Ding dong, another visitor arrived.
"Who is it?"
Liena asked a question as she watched me read the letter given by the messenger.
"Someone I know invited me to a family dinner. It's tomorrow night."
"You must be close to them to be invited to such a family event, right?"
"Yes, more or less."
"I think I know who it is."
What kind of expression did Liena have when she said that? Strangely, only that part was blurry.
"Is it Duke Cassius's family?"
* * *
My eyes opened. While I was half-asleep, I remembered the scene I saw a moment ago.
"What? Was it a dream?
Rather, where was that place? It doesn't seem to be Ambassador Leok's mansion.
I had random thoughts, but as my consciousness gradually cleared, what happened just before I fell asleep came back to me clearly.
Terence! He was on the brink of death due to the consequences of using too much magical power while dealing with the divine beast.
I infused him with divine power, and he showed signs of improvement, but then he collapsed, so I don't know exactly what happened to him.
"You..."
I got up and tried to say his name.
"Ugh."
I don't know why, but my body was very stiff. My voice didn't come out well.
When I barely raised the upper part of my body, black hair came into view. It was Terence.
He was asleep in an uncomfortable position, sitting on a chair next to the bed where I lay.
I lifted his loose bangs. Only the sound of regular breathing filled the quiet room.
He's safe. Although he looked tired and had some dark circles under his eyes, Terence looked fine.
I finally felt completely relieved.
If he hadn't fully recovered, I would have regretted my choice to possess the magical stone mine for the rest of my life.
"Mistress, did you wake up?"
At that moment, a furry lump jumped onto my lap.
"Divine beast?"
A loud noise was heard, and Terence opened his eyes.
"Ethel!"
He also looked at me and shouted like the divine beast. It was a somewhat violent reaction.
"How do you feel?"
"Fine..."
This time, I couldn't speak properly.
"Ah."
Terence seemed to have realized something and headed to the nearby bedside table. There was a teapot and cups.
"Drink slowly."
He handed me a glass of water. Now that I think about it, I felt conflicted.
"Thanks..."
When I tried to take the cup, Terence avoided my hand and brought the cup to my mouth.
I could have taken it and drunk it myself, but his attitude was firm, so I reluctantly took the water from the cup and drank it.
In a concerned tone, he said.
"You've been unconscious for three days."
What? Three days?!
"The doctor who came said there was nothing wrong, so it was a blessing in disguise, but I was very worried because you wouldn't open your eyes."
The divine beast intervened.
"I told him several times that you would wake up when the time was right, but he didn't listen. He's a very stubborn person."
Terence looked at the divine beast for a moment and then continued.
"It's embarrassing. I wanted to take you to accommodation with more comfortable facilities, but they said there was no such place around here."
I shook my head. After clearing my throat, speaking became easier.
"It's okay. Here is good too."
This was the tourist accommodation where we stayed for a night after arriving in this village.
To be honest, I couldn't say that the facilities were good, but it wasn't a place that couldn't be used since occasional travelers set foot in this mountainous area.
"And where is Vinetta?"
She should have appeared after someone who had been sleeping for three days had awakened, but Vinetta was nowhere to be seen.
"She received my orders and headed to the capital."
"Alone?"
"Yes, since I stayed with Ethel..."
Terence let out a sigh of relief, still occupying my lap.
"It's not that I trust her much, but as that thing is here, I decided it would be fine for Vinetta to act separately."
"What? That thing? How insolent!"
The divine beast rolled its eyes, but it wasn't that important to me.
"Did Vinetta go to the imperial palace?"
"That's right. I also sent her a magical stone I found in the mine."
Even while lying down, our plan was steadily being implemented.
"So, until Vinetta returns with the others from the imperial palace, we..."
A growl prevented me from saying that we should wait here. It was the loudest growl I had ever heard in my stomach.
My face heated up because I was embarrassed. Terence smiled casually.
"Wait a moment. I'll serve you some soup."
"Soup? Did a neighbor give you this food?"
Next to us was the house of the girl who had guided us to the mine.
"Instead of giving it to me, I taught her how to make it."
"Terence cooked it himself?"
"Yes, the taste is not bad."
"I didn't know you could cook."
"There were times when I roamed pretending to be a mercenary or a traveler. I can do the basics."
It was the moment I got to know a new side of Terence.
"Oh, it's not necessary to bring it. I can eat it at the table."
But he firmly prevented me from getting up from the bed.
"It's not possible. Since you've been unconscious for three days, you should be careful for the time being. What if you move too much and hurt yourself?"
No, how can I hurt myself by walking to the table?
Even though he was the one who returned from the dead, he actually treated me like a critical patient. His overprotectiveness didn't end there.
After a while, he brought a tray full of soup and tried to spoon-feed me.
Thinking that this really wasn't possible, I rejected his excessive favor and managed to lift the spoon with my own hand.
"But it wasn't a completely unfounded concern."
I thought as I felt my body creaking all over. A person with strong body aches had pains everywhere.
"Please, you must know that you are lucky that everything ended that way, even if you accepted my power in a human body."
The divine beast explained my condition this way:
"The Great God must have helped. Is it true that even if the divine power is weak, a blessed person is a blessed person?"
Terence, who was nearby, murmured quietly.
"A blessed person..."
He wouldn't have understood what the divine beast and I meant.
"It's hard to hide it now."
When Terence collapsed, I asked the divine beast how to save him and talked a lot about the blessing and divine power of the goddess.
The situation was urgent at that time, so they didn't ask me, but Terence and Vinetta, who heard our conversation, probably had their doubts.
"Hey, Terence."
While watching him closely, he smiled and picked up the empty bowl.
"Do you want another bowl of soup?"
Terence didn't ask. How could I cure the side effects of the royal family's power and what does the blessing mean?
"You're considerate of me."
While my heart warmed, I also felt a slight sense of self-contempt for hesitating to tell him the truth.
Although I had decided to tell him everything inside the mine, his kindness bewildered me.
"Later."
Let's talk about it later. After thinking about the best way to reveal this incredible truth.
I simply answered Terence's question like a student postponing a task they didn't want to do.
"No, I'm full now, so I'll stop eating. Thank you. It was really delicious."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd like to serve you other dishes next time."
"I can't have His Highness the Prince as a cook."
"This is nothing for the person who saved my life. Aren't you bored? Do you want me to bring you a book I borrowed from the townspeople?"
This is too much favor.
"It's okay, Terence, you can rest for now. I'm going to take a shower now. I fell in the mine and couldn't wash for three days afterward, so I was worried..."
Then I discovered an important fact.
"What? I've changed clothes."
My eyes turned to the only other person here besides me.
"Maybe Terence...?"
He looked very embarrassed and desperately raised his hands.
"Absolutely not! This is what Vinetta did before heading to the capital!"
"Ah."
"Then I'll go. I'll bring the hot water to the bathroom."
"Oh, that's fine! I'm so sorry..."
Unusually, he disappeared before I finished speaking. I guess I asked a very rude question.
After taking a warm bath, while Terence prepared dinner, I asked the divine beast about the memories I saw.
"What? Did you say you had a strange dream while sleeping?"
"Yes. It was a really strange dream."
In my dream, Liena and I were friends. We also seemed to be quite close friends.
What was even stranger was that while I interacted closely with the Cassius family, Liena seemed to have no particular connection.
"If we look solely at the content, it didn't make sense."
"Then it must have been a senseless dream."
"But it didn't feel like a dream. It was quite realistic for a dream..."
Unknowingly, I felt like I was missing something.
The divine beast, who had become smaller than before and was the size of a newborn puppy due to the power it had given me, was lost in thought while gently moving its tail.
"Did it really happen? In the process of turning my power into your divine power, it's possible that forgotten memories may have returned."
"Is something like that possible?"
"Your body has undergone changes comparable to being born again. It's not far-fetched."
So, are these memories the ones the real Ethel had, not me?
"Oh, that's ridiculous."
I had never heard that Ethel and Liena were friends, and there was no indication that they were.
Moreover, Liena in the dream was dressed in ragged clothes, and although she was an adult, she had no particular relationship with Cassius...
"Oh? Wait a moment."
There was a premise that would solve all these contradictions at once.
If the memory I saw was Liena's last life, not this one, and it was the first life in which she died after living an unhappy life, it should be true.
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