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Lord Felix woke up much sooner than expected. Since I didn’t know the full effect of his curse, I’d been prepared to spend several days transferring mana to him, but in the end, it felt like only a couple of hours had passed.
Maybe it wasn’t nearly as serious as I thought? Now I feel bad for scaring Sir Kain with the whole “Lord Felix might die” thing.
Or maybe I’m more powerful than I thought? Heh heh heh! Well, there’s no way that’s true, but they can’t read my mind, so I can believe that all I want!
As I was gloating in my head, Lord Felix, still a bit dazed, suddenly gasped and snatched his hand away.
“Lucille, your hands!” he exclaimed.
“Huh?” I looked down and saw blood oozing from several cuts on my hands. “Oh my! When did this happen?”
I didn’t notice because there was no pain at all!
Pain was often delayed until one realized they were injured. With recognition granted, mine suddenly came alive, the wounds hurting like crazy.
As I stared at them in shock, I noticed in the corner of my eye that Lord Felix’s own hands were trembling. He clenched his fists as if to stop the shaking, so tightly that his fingertips turned white.
Eventually, he said in a pained voice, “I’m sorry. It’s because you were holding my hand.” He hung his head in sorrow.
What?! Why would he think that?
It was such a strange leap in logic, yet Lord Felix seemed convinced that he was right.
Being the smart person that I was, I quickly hypothesized that his curse was to blame for my bleeding hands. However, since its exact nature was still a mystery to me, I couldn’t come to any clear conclusions about it.
It was hard to reassure someone who was depressed about a curse when you didn’t have any idea of the curse’s function. I considered asking about it once and for all, but Lord Felix probably needed to rest and recover first.
“Look, Lord Felix!” I held out my palms for him to see.
He winced in pain and stared at my hands as though he was being forced to confront his crime. Instinctively, he reached out like he wanted to treat them, only to immediately pull back, perhaps because he thought touching them would make them worse. Again, his fists clenched tight, making me fear that the both of us would end up with injured hands.
In the glimpses of his inner conflict that I caught, it was obvious that he wanted to help, but he couldn’t.
But even if this was the curse’s fault, Lord Felix definitely wasn’t to blame. Wanting to free him from his guilt, I quickly continued with my plan.
“Keep watching, okay? Ta-da!”
I used a little bit of the holy magic Saint Clarissa had shared with me and healed my palms. The cuts disappeared in the blink of an eye.
“See? The wounds can be healed!”
For a moment, Lord Felix looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected me to be able to use healing magic. But since I was acting like it was perfectly normal, he simply gave a confused nod and said, “O-Oh.”
“They’re completely gone! Heh heh! Aren’t I amazing? But you know, if you kept looking away, you wouldn’t have known they were healed.”
Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, but since I personally didn’t like brooding over things, I didn’t want Lord Felix to be depressed about my injuries forever. That would’ve made me very sad. Plus, I’d soon forget that my hands had ever been wounded in the first place.
Actually, if anything, I’d rather he thank me instead of apologizing. I did just give him a lot of mana, even if it wasn’t as much as I’d anticipated.
Suddenly, I realized something. It seemed that the curse on Lord Felix’s body had become a curse on his heart as well. In other words, all of the pain he’d endured because of his curse had taken a toll on him.
I pushed Lord Felix down onto the bed and patted him on the stomach.
“Now, it’s time to rest! And if you feel better when you wake up, please tell me everything about your curse!”
It was about time I gave the cats the attention they wanted anyway. They were still meowing impatiently at my feet. The entire time I’d been sharing my mana with Lord Felix, they’d been saying things like “Hey, are you done yet?” “I wanna play with Lucille too!” “Hurry up! Let’s go outside!”
Cats were free-minded creatures. I wished Lord Felix could have more freedom too.
By the way, there was something I’d discovered while holding Lord Felix’s hand, though I didn’t fully understand it yet.
This curse feels very familiar to me... Hmm... What is it reminding me of?