ICTIMP CH 08

Chapter 8. The Premature Death Flag Right from the Start (8)

A middle-aged woman hurried over while holding a child who looked about five years old.

“My child really likes Young Master. Could you hold him just once?”

Before she could even finish, a boy pushed his way through the crowd.

“I heard you once took Grandma Martin home. My grandfather also has trouble walking. Could you help him too?”

“I heard it’s easier to become a knight if you have a noble’s letter of recommendation. You remember when I told you I wanted to become a knight and you said you’d support me, Young Master, right?”

“I was scammed……”

“I need your help, Young Master……”

It was absolute chaos.

Requests came pouring in one after another—asking him to pay off debts, get revenge on someone who had bullied them, help them find a job, or even search for a lost puppy.

My head was throbbing.

The only thing I could do was clutch the sky lantern Adel had given me tightly in my hands.

The way people crowded around him made a wave of discomfort wash over me.

Unable to stand it any longer, I whispered to Adel,

“Adel, I think you need to become a little bit of a bad person.”

He probably hadn’t expected people to blindly rush toward him like this either.

Adel spoke in a low voice, but there was unmistakable determination in it.

“I cannot help any of you.”

The noisy crowd suddenly fell silent.

Then an even greater confusion swallowed the air.

“Y-Young Master?”

“Why would you say that?”

“You always did whatever we asked you to!”

For a moment, I wanted to cough blood all over the people who kept pushing against me.

Eventually, their anger turned toward me.

“Wait, that person just whispered something to Young Master.”

“You told Young Master not to help us, didn’t you?”

“Ugh—urp.”

Something hot suddenly surged up my throat.

Adel pulled me into his arms.

“Move away right now! Otherwise—”

Before Adel could finish speaking, the boy who had asked him to take his grandfather home sneered.

“Otherwise what? Are you saying Young Master is going to use his power against weak commoners?”

The woman holding the child burst out laughing.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Everyone reacted the same way.

“Young Master isn’t that kind of person.”

“There’s no way Young Master would do that.”

The hand Adel had wrapped around my shoulder stiffened.

I sighed.

Because Adel granted every request people made, they had begun treating him as though he were their personal servant.

This was ridiculous.

Why not ask him to breathe for them and spoon-feed them while they were at it?

If this continued, it would be a disaster if Adel resorted to his final option.

I knew that Adel absolutely hated using magic in front of large groups of people.

For one thing, his father had forbidden it.

And crowd psychology had a way of exaggerating even the smallest incident into something enormous.

I couldn’t allow Adel to carry that burden.

I pushed Adel away and stood up straight.

Then I took off my hat.

“Gasp.”

The people around us inhaled sharply.

Several immediately turned bright red or froze in place.

Most of them looked absolutely horrified.

The effect of my once-in-a-century beauty had completely captured their attention.

I slowly opened my mouth and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

“I have an incurable disease. And it’s highly contagious……”

I was already at my limit.

Even now, hot clots of blood kept surging up my throat.

“If you come into contact with my blood, you might catch the same disease.”

Blargh!

The moment I finished speaking, I vomited an enormous amount of blood.

What happened next was absolute pandemonium.

“Aaaah!”

“Blood……! It’s blood!”

“Move!”

“They said it might be contagious!”

“Damn it, it splashed on my face!”

People shoved, knocked each other over, and even trampled one another as they desperately fled.

“What the hell? Who is that crazy woman?!”

Never seen a crazy woman before?

I wiped the blood from around my mouth and looked satisfied.

Ah, that feels much better.

I finally feel like I can breathe.

Getting rid of the crowd was good and all, but I was on the verge of complete exhaustion.

If I lost consciousness for even a moment, I might faint.

And there was no telling when those people might try to retaliate against me.

The commoners here had an almost unlimited amount of trust in Adel, along with an extremely biased image of him.

Unlike other nobles, who routinely used their status to suppress people, Adel was exceptionally noble and incorruptibly upright.

He even spoke politely to young children, mentally ill people, and beggars.

There were undoubtedly people who saw that kindness and mistook it for weakness.

Adel really was far too kind to people.

Even among friends, someone who constantly agreed to every request would eventually be labeled a pushover.

Yet Adel was the sort of person who would give away the umbrella he was using himself on a day when rain was pouring down.

On top of that, Adel was still a minor and possessed extraordinarily good looks.

People came up with all sorts of ridiculous fantasies about him.

There were women who imagined themselves dating him, scammers who tried to extort money from him, and people who dreamed of rising in society by using Adel’s name.

In short, they were desperate to exploit him in any way they could.

But whenever situations like this happened in the original story, Adel, who didn’t know how to refuse people, always responded mildly.

I assumed things probably wouldn’t be much different now.

I called out to the frozen Adel.

“Adel, don’t just stand there. You should take me away while you have the chance.”

Adel blinked at my voice.

“I’m sorry.”

He picked me up in his arms.

I suppressed the awkward feeling and obediently let myself be carried.

Perhaps anticipating that this commotion would soon turn into anger directed at me, Adel quickly carried me out of the chaos.

His fresh face, more vibrant than a newly sprouted leaf, was stiff with tension.

Adel remained silent until we reached the carriage.

His red eyes, filled with guilt, made my heart ache.

I comforted Adel in a gentle voice.

“You know this isn’t your fault, right?”

“Anastasia, you’re pale. Don’t speak.”

Even after the carriage began moving, Adel didn’t relax.

He pulled down the curtains on the windows so no one could look inside, then sat beside me instead of across from me, following my lead.

I lightly rested my head against Adel’s shoulder.

“You smell nice.”

Normally, he would have moved away while talking about proper etiquette, but right now, Adel didn’t even seem aware that we were touching.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

His voice sounded as though he might cry at any moment.

Actually, I would have preferred it if he cried.

Then at least I could openly comfort him.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak as normally as possible.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“This is all because of me.”

“Adel, are you going to make me keep saying it?”

I abruptly lifted my head and gave him a playful glare.

Only then did Adel stop apologizing.

We were trapped in a brief silence.

The carriage raced toward the count’s estate.

I almost got motion sickness, but there was nothing left for me to throw up anyway, so I simply let the coachman go wild.

I occasionally swallowed back groans and concentrated on staying conscious.

My condition was worse than I had expected.

Finally, when the carriage came to a stop, I cheered inwardly and jumped down.

But an even greater ordeal was waiting for me.

“My lady!”

Ilina stared at me with a ghostly pale face.

“What happened?! Why did you come back covered in blood?!”

I followed Ilina’s gaze and looked myself over.

I hadn’t realized it in the chaos, but my dress was stained and glistening with blood.

The hand I had used to wipe my mouth was the same.

Before I could even make up an excuse, Adel picked me up just as he had earlier.

“I’ll take Anastasia to her bedroom.”

Isn’t Adel carrying me too much today?

If only I had even a little energy left to process things.

Right now, I didn’t even have the strength to feel excited or flustered.

Adel laid me on the bed and left, closing the door behind him.

I wanted to grab him and say something more to comfort him, but by then, I couldn’t even move a single finger.

Ilina, who had followed me with an anxious expression, had tears in her eyes.

“Sniff, what are we going to do with our poor young lady……”

“Don’t cry, Ilina.”

But apparently, that only made things worse.

Tears fell from Ilina’s eyes.

“I’ll…… I’ll give you your medicine. And I’ll clean you up too.”

Ilina quickly wiped away her tears as she spoke.

With extremely careful hands, Ilina gave me my medicine.

First, she gave me the white liquid medicine, and then she made me drink an opaque, viscous liquid.

After a while, my stomach felt considerably better.

While I caught my breath, Ilina carefully cleaned the blood from my palms.

I told her she could call another maid to help, but she repeatedly refused, saying she wouldn’t be satisfied unless she did it herself.

Ilina changed my clothes without letting me get up, then pulled out a blanket filled with soft down and tucked me in.

Only after that did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“I’ll go get some hot water.”

Ilina briefly left with an empty bottle and returned a moment later.

Her complexion was even darker than before.

“My lady, Young Master Magnus is still outside the estate.”

I stopped breathing for a moment.

“It feels like it’s already been two hours.”

“They say he’s blaming himself terribly. Apparently, he can’t even raise his head in front of the maids, so everyone seems quite bewildered.”

This idiot.

I forced myself upright.

“Tell him to come in.”

Ilina nodded briefly and relayed my command to another maid standing guard in the hallway.

However, even after some time passed, Adel still didn’t come in.

Only the maid who had gone to bring him returned alone and whispered something quietly to Ilina.

It wasn’t difficult to guess what had happened.

Ilina looked at me nervously before delivering the news.

“Um…… Young Master has gone home.”

I bit my lip.

Ilina continued,

“He asked me to tell you to rest well, and that he was truly sorry.”

“I told him he didn’t need to worry……”

I could only regret that I didn’t have the strength to stop Adel.

Ilina anxiously looked out the window before forcing me back down.

“My lady, get some sleep. I’ll stay by your side all night.”

A warm feeling spread through me beneath the blanket pulled up to my chin.

“Aren’t you taking your job a little too seriously?”

“I’m doing this because I’m worried about you!”

No wonder she had seemed unusually quiet.

I covered my ears.

“Ilina, my eardrums hurt.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

I pointed toward the sofa with my chin.

“Sit on the sofa instead. That chair is hard, so your butt will hurt if you sit there for too long.”

“No. I’m going to sit here and watch over you.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

“I’m going to make sure your breathing remains regular and check which position and angle makes you sleep most comfortably.”

Ilina widened her eyes and looked determined.

“O-Okay. Thanks for your hard work.”

Just as she said, Ilina stayed awake all night and took care of me.

Even though I was exhausted, I slept fitfully.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Adel.

Even if I told him a hundred times that it wasn’t his fault, he wouldn’t listen.

He would blame himself for everything.

Because that was the kind of person he was.