HH Chapter 42

‘Of course… because I healed myself with money, not magic.’

I just gave an awkward smile.

“It’s a misunderstanding. I’ve never been affiliated with a temple.”

I vaguely explained that it was just a clumsy imitation I had learned. I added that it was limited to self-use and couldn’t be used on others.

‘That should be enough to fool him, right?’

But I was completely wrong.

“My goodness, you mastered self-healing magic on your own without proper training in divine magic! Didn’t you know that’s even higher-level magic? You’ll be able to learn healing magic for others in no time!”

…This wasn’t going as planned.

“Have you considered proper training? It just so happens that the High Priest is currently…!”

“Get him out of here if you’re done.”

At Haylan’s words, the priest was dragged out by his arms.

Even here, I’m getting called by the temple. Whether it’s Asileth or here, the temple people all seemed a bit… crazy. Scary…

Haylan, seeing me trembling, sighed and said,

“……That wasn’t particularly helpful.”

“Why did you call him? He said I’ll recover in a week.”

“I heard.”

Haylan chided me, saying there was no need to repeat it, and jumped down from the chair he was perched on.

“Just rest.”

“A walk…”

He said firmly, emphasizing each word with a scary expression,

“Don’t even dream of it! You’re not allowed to take a single step out of this room.”

“What about lessons…?”

“Rest!”

“…….”

And so, I was confined to my room.

“Young Master, it’s your usual walk time, aren’t you going out?”

At the servant’s question, Haylan scoffed and said,

“I’m nursing someone.”

“……?”

Puzzled, I looked at him. Sure enough, the servant who asked the question had the same expression as me.

‘This is… nursing?’

It seemed like Haylan didn’t quite understand the concept of nursing.

From what I could see, Haylan was just coming and going in my room as he pleased, treating my room like his own, playing around.

He’d nibble on snacks next to me, then read a book. And since he had nothing much to do, when I woke up from a short nap, Haylan was also dozing off beside me, curled up like a shrimp.

‘Is he sleeping again?’

His eyes had been half-closed earlier, and now he was completely asleep, face down.

‘Oh my, so cute.’

He looked even more like a baby angel when he was asleep. I put down the novel I was reading and covered Haylan with a blanket. The bed, which was just big enough for me, felt a bit cramped with Haylan on it as well.

Haylan, waking up after tossing and turning, stared at me blankly and then reached for the book on the bedside table.

He flipped through a few pages while lying on his stomach, repeatedly dozing off and waking up.

‘Is he that curious about the contents? If he’s going to be like this, he should just sleep comfortably…’

Unable to stand it any longer, I asked,

“Would you like me to read it for you?”

“…….”

After a moment of serious contemplation with a drowsy face, Haylan handed me the book.

‘He didn’t refuse.’

I swallowed a chuckle and pressed my lips together. This was also the first time I had been nursed by such a demanding young master.

As I sat up, leaning against the headboard, he naturally snuggled up beside me.

“In the year when six stars aligned, on the day of Evibra…”

Thud, Haylan’s head rested on my shoulder. I was startled by the slight weight and turned my head.

“……!”

It was nothing much, but why was I so shocked and touched?

“……T-To the sound of the watermill turning.”

“You already read that part.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I momentarily forgot which sentence I was reading.

Haylan continued to doze on and off while I stuttered through the book, eventually leaning completely against me and starting to snore softly. I didn’t even move the arm he was leaning on, afraid of waking him up.

‘He’s sleeping soundly…’

Children are cutest when they act their age. Playing well, sleeping well, eating well. Come to think of it, he wasn’t usually this sleepy. Did he not sleep well last night?

“Is he going to grow taller again?”

I secretly played with Haylan’s hair while he was sleeping. Like most kids his age, his hair was fine and soft.

I gently laid the sleeping Haylan down on the bed, kissed his forehead, and whispered,

“Sweet dreams.”

I sat beside him, reading the book and patting his chest, completely unaware that his eyes had fluttered open a few times before closing again.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

They say if you keep eating and sleeping, you’ll become a cow. 

Every time I woke up from a nap, I confirmed that I was still human, and thought it would be fun if I actually turned into a cow. In other words, I was going stir-crazy from boredom.

‘I want to do something.’

Haylan absolutely hated it when I left the bed. When I asked if I could at least go sit at the desk, he asked,

“What are you going to do? Bring it here and do it next to me.”

“…….”

I’ll just read a book. Unable to fix Ogre No. 3 in front of Haylan, I obediently lay back down.

Then night came. I carefully got out of bed, checking on Haylan, who was still sleeping in my bed instead of returning to his own room, careful not to wake him.

Inside the red box hidden under the desk, there was an error report I hadn’t seen yesterday.

Comparing the missing functions with the blueprint, I realized what Mei was talking about.

‘Only one function is left?’

The core of my intended design was the combination of several functions: vibration, lubrication, and temperature control. But for some reason, during the process of combining multiple magic circles into one, only the vibration function remained, making it no different from Ogre No. 2.

Just in case, I drew the circle on a piece of paper and tried activating it, but the magic circle stopped working before it even reached the latter part of the formula.

‘Why is this happening?’

When I separated the combined magic circle and activated it, it worked fine. This meant there was a problem with the combining process.

Chewing on the end of my pen, lost in thought, I remembered seeing a potentially helpful book in the library. There was still some time left before midnight.

I opened the door and left the room before Haylan woke up. As soon as I stepped into the library, I saw the date change.

“……!”

I barely managed to throw myself through the open library door just in time, as a white figure swept past behind me. Seeing the ghost, who hadn’t noticed me, move away, I was about to close the door when I was startled to see the door to my room open again.

The one who came out was none other than Lena. He was wearing only a sheet, stealing different clothes to wear as usual.

‘His exhibitionism is acting up again…’

Completely oblivious to my thoughts, Lena strode over and stood before me. I clearly saw the ghost turn towards Lena, but perhaps because they were both ghosts, it didn’t try to attack him.

“How’s your body?”

Lena asked. I gave him a thumbs-up and replied,

“I feel much better after resting all day. If you could just find me one book, I’ll go back and rest.”

When I told him the title of the book I vaguely remembered, Lena, like a helpful system, obediently guided me to it.

“Combining magic circles?”

“Yes. I combined six functions, but only the first one activates, and the rest stop working.”

“You mean your portable rotating penis?”

Putting it so bluntly made it sound even weirder. I glared at him for his embarrassing words.

“Don’t talk about it like that. It’s a profitable business.”

“So it’s not that it doesn’t activate at all, but that it stops working midway?”

“Yes. Why?”

“……Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re a fool or a genius.”

He said something incomprehensiblle in a sarcastic tone and tossed the book at me.

“Try it yourself.”

It was the book I was looking for. I immediately opened it to compare it with my magic circle, then realized.

‘Crap, I didn’t bring any paper.’

I only just noticed that I had left the room empty-handed.

To do anything, I had to return to my room to get the book. Glancing up at the still-open library door on the second floor, I saw the ghost just happening to pass by.

‘I’ll definitely die at least once if I go back now.’

Should I stay here all night and go back in the morning to finish?

But having been bored all day, reading to Haylan or staring blankly into space, I didn’t want to spend the night in the library for no reason.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my room. I told you I’d go back after finding the book.”

“So you’re not completely out of your mind.”

“That, and there’s a kid sleeping in my room. He gets really fussy whenever I try to get out of bed. He’ll look for me if I’m not there when he wakes up.”

“……Fussy?”

There was no telling what would happen if Haylan woke up and came out into the hallway. The ghost seemed to react only to humans. The proof was that Lena, also a ghost, wasn’t targeted.

“Wait here. I’ll go get it.”

“……?”

“You might need other books too. Wouldn’t it be more convenient to work here?”

Now that he mentioned it, he was right. Usually, when you fix one error, another one pops up. I thought his words made sense.