When I woke up, the room was dim. I peeked between the curtains to look outside and saw that there was a little bit of light, which meant that I’d probably woken up earlier than usual. It was before sunrise—right around the time that the eastern sky began to gradually grow brighter.
It was rare for me to wake up this early. The early morning was chilly since it was winter, but waking up naturally felt refreshing. I was in my bed in my room, and I sat up and stretched out both my arms... Huh?
“Is it asleep?” I’d tried to stretch my arms up, but my left hand just dangled by my side. It had no sensation either. Maybe my arm’s asleep because I slept in a weird position?
I tried massaging my left hand with my right, but...there really wasn’t any sensation in it. I couldn’t even move a single finger on my own, and my left hand was just letting my right do whatever to it.
It isn’t just asleep—it’s in deep sleep.
“Wow... Hey! Someone come here and look. It’s amazing!” I wanted to tell someone about my hibernating hand. The first person that came to mind was my beloved Patrick.
It’s really early, but I want to shake him awake and show him what’s going on.
I jumped out of bed to run to his room, but I lost my balance and fell to the ground. That’s weird—no, impossible. It’s unusual for my balance to be so unstable that I trip just because I’m in a hurry.
“It’s my leg too,” I said after inspecting my leg while still on the floor.
My left leg was incredibly asleep as well. I used my working hand to massage it, but there was no sensation at all. No wonder I lost balance and fell to the left.
After investigating my body with my working right hand, I found out that I had no sensation whatsoever on my left side, from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. While still in disbelief, I checked my eyes and found that I couldn’t see out of my left eye either. Half of my mouth wasn’t working either, so it was a little difficult to speak.
“Is this caused by...my brain?” This wasn’t the time to be joking about my falling asleep. I could’ve had a medical issue, like a stroke, while I was sleeping.
I should call an ambulance and... Wait. There aren’t any phones, and there aren’t hospitals that can check the blood vessels in my brain. That’s okay—that’s what handy-dandy recovery magic is for.
As long as they weren’t caused by bacteria, viruses, or your own immune system, recovery magic was effective against most symptoms. I used my plethora of mana to cast recovery magic over my whole body.
Now I should be good as new. I stood up, then fell towards the left. My symptoms on the left side of my body were still there—magic hadn’t worked.
I finally realized that I was facing an emergency.
“Somebody, help me!”
Rita, my maid, heard my SOS and came to save me. She’d been with me since I started living in the Academy dorms, and she was composed to the point that it wasn’t easy to fluster her. Even while seeing her lord on the floor, she seemed completely unfazed.
“Good morning, Lady Yumiella.”
“Morning.”
“Did you wake up by falling out of bed again? If your sleep habits don’t improve, you’ll face difficulties once you start sharing a bed with Sir Patrick.”
Despite the fact that I was on the floor with half of my body numb, my incredibly loyal servant didn’t seem worried at all. Yeah, maybe it’s nothing out of the ordinary for me to be flipped upside down on the floor in the morning, but I wished she would’ve noticed something was off through some special lord-servant connection. At this rate, she was going to ignore my crisis. I decided to properly ask for help.
“Help meee.”
“Of course, I’ll prepare your morning tea right away.”
Yeah, maybe it’s nothing out of the ordinary for me to say nonsensical things that are a waste of time to think about, but I wished she’d help me when I ask for help.
“Listen, Rita—this is serious.”
“You can’t use a giant cream puff as a pillow.”
“I’m not talking about the silly things I say while half asleep! Well, no, that one was serious.”
“What’s going on today?”
I was in a classic “boy who cried wolf” situation. I wanted to tell her about my symptoms, but Rita was giving me as much attention as someone insisting on a giant cream puff pillow. On that note, something was wrong with me that day, even if I’d just woken up. No matter how big it is, a cream puff could never be a pillow because of the shape.
“A jumbo éclair is more suited for a pillow, but the chocolate might turn my hair completely black,” I said.
“Yes, it might...”
“Oh, I guess my hair’s already black.”
“Well, I need to prepare tea, so—”
“Wait, wait! The left half of my body won’t move! I can’t use my arm or my leg, and I’m having trouble standing up!”