Chapter 8

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Translated and edited by sleepypanda

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“Sit down”

I stood still after entering Devan’s office. It was honestly strange no matter how much I thought about it.

Was he truly blind?

I deliberately didn’t make a single sound to see if he noticed. Despite not making a noise he looked straight at where I was standing.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”

He noticed.

He moved seamlessly through the room, and even looked straight at me. As far as I could remember, there was nothing like this in the original. It seemed as if he was extremely wary of bumping into things here and there.

“Hey.”

I stopped thinking after the last time he called me and sat next to him. When I sat down on the sofa, he frowned a bit.

“Why are you sitting here?”

“I have to be physically close to you to treat you.”

He became quiet after I responded to him. This was the important part. It had been 8 years since I had last used my powers if I excluded the incident with the dogs.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I was anxious at the same time. What would happen if my divine power wasn’t enough to break his curse?

Closing my eyes, I focused. Within my body I could feel my power surging through me. I grabbed Devan’s hands in that state, and could feel him flinch away.

“Before treating you, I have to create a space for the energy within your body. So for today, I will create a vacuum for the energy to flow into you.”

“A vacuum?”

“In other words, it’s to fill up the blood that flows within you with divine energy.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s not exactly what I mean, but it’s a metaphor to explain what exactly I’m going to do right now.”

“…Sure.”

Through our interlocked hands, I felt the power that was swirling within me flow to Devan. My face scrunched up as I felt nauseous. It felt like I was going in the opposite direction of what was natural.

“Ugh.”

Devan was also struggling. A person’s ability to adapt to divine power differed from person to person, and some found it harder than others to accept such power. Devan was probably the latter.

I held Devan’s hand tightly even as he was flinching away. She had to at least fill up his arm. Devan’s hands were clammy; I could feel the sweat accumulating on my forehead.

“Mmm…”

I could feel myself groaning. My body was trembling.

It was strange – at first, I felt like my reaction was due to the amount of divine power I had accumulated from 8 years of disuse, but that wouldn’t explain the amount of resistance that I was feeling, particularly as someone who had a high degree of affinity to divine power.

“Hey.”

I could hear Devan call out to me in a strange voice. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

Despite last using my powers almost 10 years ago, my memory of healing others was vivid. I had treated hundreds of people before. This was the first time I had ever felt this way during a treatment.

I felt like all my hair was standing up. I didn’t know what was going on.

However, I couldn’t let go. The power had only just reached his elbow.

If I don’t reach my entire arm today…

“Are you OK?”

I felt him trying to let go of me, so I quickly strengthened my grasp.

I couldn’t afford to drag this on. I wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, and that required healing him as fast as possible.

My hands turned white. Finally, the divine power reached his shoulder. This was the limit.

“Whoo.”

I breathed heavily and shook off his hand.

“Are you okay?”

As I opened my eyes I could feel his gaze on me. My head was spinning, and it felt like my eyes were distorted.

“No… I don’t feel that great—“

That was the last thing I remember

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Hi there ????

Something chuckled and talked to me.

Who is it? I felt the presence of something, but I couldn’t see or make out what they looked like.

What should I call this? It felt like everything was shaking…

You don’t have to try to understand.

That thought seemed to be beamed straight into my brain. Was it reading my thoughts?

It’s not just your mind.

Then what?

I could feel it laughing. I frowned. Who are you?

I…

At that moment I opened my eyes. I could see a lion for the third time.

What was that? Was it a dream? My back was covered with sweat.

I could feel my memories fading. I heard that laugh again, and that was too vivid to call it a dream.

What was it? And that laughter…

“Lady! Are you okay?”

It was Hilda. She suddenly came into my view – she must have been by my side all night long.

“No, I’m not okay.”

I didn’t know what to say first, so I just stayed silent. I was still in a state of confusion. What was that dream?

Something that was at the tip of my tongue quickly seemed to disappear into a vortex that was deep in my subconsciousness.

In fact, I seemed to remember how uncomfortable I felt the moment I started to heal Devan…

Remembering that incident, I asked.

“How is the Duke?”

“I’m not sure. Surely he is sleeping right now?”

“I’m asking about his treatment.”

“I only heard that you had fainted after the session”

Did that mean Devan was fine?

Why did I collapse? Was it because it had been so long since I last used my powers? I hadn’t heard of anyone using their abilities after taking a multi-year break, so I wasn’t sure if there were any side effects of doing so. I chewed my lips nervously.

At least we had reached his shoulders. Perhaps in a few days we could even reach his eyes.

“That’s not the important thing, Miss!”

Hilda looked anxious.

“What happened?”

“…That’s… The temple is looking for you, Miss!”

“What?”

“The temple, Miss! The high priests are looking for you personally!”

My mouth dropped open.

I learned that Hilda, while I collapsed, got a lot of information.

She knew that I was an orphan with tremendous ability who was adopted by Count Diego. She had even learned that the duke and I had reached some sort of agreement.

When I asked where she got that information, she winked, saying she could find out about anything.

This amount of investigative ability was a talent after all. But even she didn’t know why the temple was looking for me, so I asked her the directions to the duke’s room.

It was early in the morning, and the duke was in the room where we had our first treatment session. When I opened the door and entered, the duke looked up at me politely.

“It’s me.”

“I know”.

Without waiting for his permission, I sat on the sofa. Yesterday, I didn’t even look around, but from the traces and desk arrangement, this room seemed to be his office.

Surely he couldn’t see, and the duke didn’t seem to have any intention of getting up from the chair.

“I would like to discuss something with you.”

“Is it about treatment?”

“No, not about the treatment.”

“Then let’s discuss over food.”

What was going on? I stared at him from the sofa. There was not a single piece of paper on his desk. Instead, there was a round sphere. Devan had one hand placed on the object. He would sometimes nod or frown slightly. Was it a magical tool?

I closed my eyes and focused my mind. I had divine power, but mana and divine power were related enough for me to feel the flow of mana even if I couldn’t use it myself.

As expected, I felt power flowing between the object and the duke. I couldn’t see the energy, but it seemed like he was receiving updates through this magic tool. Despite waiting a while, the duke still made no move to get up.

Was he not curious at all? He seemed to genuinely want to wait until we ate to discuss.

It’s seven o’clock now, so there was about an hour left until the meal.

While I was waiting I got up from the sofa and walked around. Much like the rest of the mansion the room was extremely bare, and fit well with Devan.

Looking around, I was distracted by a colorful sword that hung on the wall. I slowly moved towards it. The scabbard and the sword were displayed separately, but even the sword itself was dark black. The jewels – everything from black pearls to dark red rubies — in the handle added to the sense of splendor. Despite their dark hues they seemed to glow in the light.

“Would it be alright to touch this?”

When I asked Devan, he seemed to wave my question away. It seemed as though he didn’t care what I did or what I was referring to.

Permission granted it seemed. I gently put my hand on the sword. As soon as I put my hand on it, blood poured from my hand.

Now that I think about it… I had an idea.

I put my entire palm on the blade and pulled with all my strength. I could hear the skin tearing.

“Oh.”

I felt a sharp pain in my hand. The blood dripped loudly on the floor.

“What…”

Devan jumped up from his seat and stepped up.

“What are you doing?”

He looked at me.

“It smells like blood.”

He grabbed my wounded hand and pressed on it as if he wanted to hurt me more.

“Are you interested in swords?”

Devan suddenly skillfully grabbed a sword hanging from the wall.

Only then did it come to mind that he was better at swordsmanship than most knights, even if he was blinded.

With the sword in one hand, Devan frowned.

“My apologies for dirtying your floor.”

I muttered as if I were making excuses.

Devan stared at me.

“Tell me next time.”

“…what?”

“If you want to cut off your limbs, I’ll do it painlessly.”