I’m All Out of Health!

Chapter 6

Ninenya lightly put a hand on her bed, as if wondering what danger could possibly befall her if she didn’t leave it. Her clear eyes sparkled innocently.

Kaisar seemed to pity that naïveté as he replied, “I guess you’ll soon find out.”

Of course, it wasn’t like he had any sympathy for her. The man had no affection for anything. Not even a little sparrow chirping in spring sunlight could bring a smile to his face. Humans generally lived with that kind of universal affection, which was different from mercy. But there were exceptions to every rule, and Kaisar was one of them. He probably had no mercy or affection even for himself, so what he was about to do was solely because of the promise he had made.

“Excuse me? But how will I—”

Crash!

Ninenya didn’t get to finish her sentence because the window suddenly shattered. She froze in shock as shards of glass flew toward her.

“Excuse me,” he said.

Kaisar then lifted Ninenya to get her out of harm’s way. His feet were momentarily suspended in midair when an arrow came flying through the broken window. It came so fast that the stunned girl didn’t even notice, but Kaisar noted it calmly. The archer’s magic flew behind like the long streak of a shooting star’s tail. It was no ordinary arrow and could not be avoided in any ordinary way either.

Kaisar clenched a fist in front of Ninenya’s forehead, leaving only a small gap for the arrow to go through. Then, as it whooshed past at an almost imperceptible speed, he grabbed it while it was mid-flight. His reflexes were impossibly fast.

“What the…”

To Ninenya’s eyes, it looked like the arrow had materialized out of thin air the moment Kaisar clenched his fist. When she saw the flaming arrow in his fist, she realized why he had bothered to raise his hand in the first place.

“It’s an assassination spell that only goes after a designated target.”

The arrow had failed to impale her skin by an inch. It then turned to dust in his hand. It would have mangled her brain if Kaisar had been even a little late. Instead, it was the arrow that got mangled.

“I think I’ve proven my necessity.”

Ninenya couldn’t argue with that. And it wasn’t only because he was right—the moment she saw the sharp arrowhead, she passed out.

Kaisar’s dead eyes gazed at her pale face as he carried her out of the room.

Ninenya was put in another room while her maids cleaned up the bedroom, and Kaisar washed up in the new room’s bathroom.

The staff could now see why he had stayed at Ninenya’s side instead of going to wash up immediately despite having such a severe fear of germs. But no one was happy.

* * *

In the book, Ninenya’s life had been threatened thousands of times.

When she was still an unborn child, her mother was in bad shape. And after she was born, she was so weak that she nearly died multiple times. Even so, this was new. Ever since Ninenya came to this house as a baby, she’d been sick all the time, but she’d never faced any threats from the outside.

Why? As if being in this fragile body isn’t enough, now there’s an assassin after me?

I had thought that getting healthy would be enough to keep me alive, but now, there was no telling if I’d survive even for three months. Getting sick wasn’t the only way to die. Death was everywhere.

As soon as I regained consciousness, I looked for Kaisar.

“You need to explain what on earth just happened,” I told him.

“Rubenio wants to replace his father as the duke.”

“So?”

“It seems the duke got mad because of Rubenio’s defiance.”

“Are you saying he’s taking that out on me?”

“Yes.”

I thought it was highly unfair, but I tried to curb my anger with rationality. In the original story, Rubenio didn’t become the duke until Ninenya died. This was because the man had a huge weakness. His precious yet weak daughter could die if she took a breath the wrong way. She was his absolute weakness. Because of her, Rubenio didn’t dare to oppose his father until she died.

In the story, Rubenio tried to get more power yet was worried his father might notice. He waited for the day he could rebel against his father, yet he wanted to move carefully lest his daughter pay the price. He was too concerned and careful to really do anything, so he could never become Duke Seiah until Ninenya died. But now, he was really trying to become the duke.

I doubted he had lost his love for his daughter. Ninenya had been taken from him almost as soon as she was born, which must have made him love her all the more. Rubenio was simply incapable of giving up her. His fatherly love for her was the only thing that motivated him. It was his one absolute value, and there was no way that would change so easily. As proof, he had sent me Kaisar, who was probably the most capable man he had.

Then why? Why the sudden change of heart?

I hadn’t done much ever since I woke up in this world. I’d been trying to eat well and sleep well, but that was all. I believed it was too little of a change to make any difference, yet it had altered the course of the story.

Why has Rubenio changed his mind? And Kaisar said, “For now.” Does that mean until Rubenio becomes Duke Seiah? What if… What if he fails to replace his father? What would happen to me then?

Fortunately for me, the chance of Rubenio not becoming the duke was pretty slim if his one weakness was off the table. The way I saw it, Ninenya was not only his weakness but also a hindrance. Right after she died, he started to do what he should have done all along. Ninenya was already gone, so Rubenio’s father couldn’t use the assassination spell he had cast on her as leverage.

Oh, right! The arrow!

Now I could see why the arrow had come to kill me all of a sudden. Now that Rubenio was openly opposing his father, those kinds of threats would keep coming. Maybe that was what Kaisar meant when he said “For now.”

Rubenio has Kaisar, yet he hasn’t made a move against his father until now. He probably doesn’t know exactly how great a warrior Kaisar is. Does that mean he took a chance?

No, there was no way Rubenio would have risked his daughter’s life. He must have trusted Kaisar to stop the assassination spell. He would have been at least 90 percent sure of it.

Back to the start, then. Rubenio lost his will to live the moment Ninenya died, and it gave him so much sorrow in the original story. So why is it different now? Oh…

As the realization hit me, it made me somewhat sad. It must have been because of Rubenio’s fear. He was afraid Ninenya might pay the price with her life if he made any wrong moves, and that became a shackle that restrained him.

I pitied him. He was a wise, strong man, yet he was so scared for his daughter’s life that he was completely helpless. And then Ninenya died. In the end, unable to bear the guilt, he killed himself.

His despair and regret must have been immense. But Ninenya was so useless—he could have just discarded her. Why did he— Huh?

Thinking of Rubenio’s suffering strangely made my heart ache as if words were being branded on it. Then suddenly it disappeared, and my head cleared as though someone were organizing my thoughts.

Soon, I started to wonder something else.

Why did Kaisar demand to be alone with me? Does he simply hate being with others? Or was it because it was easier for him to protect me when there was no one else around? He must have known I was about to be attacked… Well, it’s Kaisar. I’m sure it was the first reason.

Because of his fear of germs, he hated being in a confined place with other people all breathing the same air as him. Plus, he would have protected me perfectly whether we’d been alone or not, just like he did with Meya in the story.

Ugh… My head hurts.

It wasn’t like I’d thought about it for hours, but my brain started to protest. Without my health, I couldn’t even think properly.

Health! Health! I chanted in my mind. That was all that mattered to me.

First, I need to get some rest.

“You know what?”

“Do I need to know something?” he asked back.

I chuckled faintly. “I haven’t said what it’s about yet.”

“It sounded like you want me to know something.”

“You’re quick to notice.”

Kaisar didn’t say anything more, but I wasn’t exactly waiting for his reply. I was convinced he would pay attention to what I had to say because it had to do with keeping me safe.

“This body will die if it rolls off this bed,” I said, pointing at the mattress that was only two hand-spans above the floor. “I’m sure of it.”

He frowned slightly and muttered, “Humans aren’t made of tofu.”

They had tofu in this world too. It was made in the east, and at first, it was preserved with magic and exported. Now, it was called healthy cheese and was enjoyed by nobles who wanted to lose weight. It wasn’t a common food, but even Kaisar knew what it was.

“That’s a good metaphor. From now on, treat me as if I were made of tofu. Okay? Like I’m made of tofu!”