2

I had no intention of letting anyone come near me. However, so much blood had flowed from the cuts on my hands that I collapsed from loss of blood. At that moment, an old man who came out of the servants approached me and told me that he was a doctor and asked me to trust him. I was in no mood to trust anyone, but I had to let him treat me.

The doctor was a tall man in his late fifties with grey hair. He smelled of mint and a few spices I didn't recognise. With his large, warm hands, he carefully cleaned the cuts on my small hands, making sure that no mirror fragments were left in them.

I made an involuntary hoarse sound when it hurt. "Ah..."

"Huh!"

There was a simultaneous gasp from the servants at the other end of the room.

The doctor's hands on my hand froze. One of the beads of sweat accumulated on his forehead ran down his cheek. His blue eyes behind his glasses met mine.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, forgive me, my lady," he said timidly. He pressed his thin lips together and looked at me expectantly.

I was surprised by this state and was late in reacting.

While I was waiting for my reaction, the man's face turned white as if all the blood had drained from it and his hands trembled more than the previous moment every second I kept him waiting. That's when I realised something.

The doctor was afraid of me.

The servants were afraid of me.

Everyone in the room expected me to freak out, shout at the doctor, hit him, throw something at his head, or at least fire him. Otherwise, there was no other way to explain their fear of me.

"Go ahead doctor, it's okay," I said in my childish voice that I was still not used to.

The doctor continued to do his job with a cautious relaxation. What kind of monster did these people think Elisa was?

As the doctor continued to administer the treatment, he took superhuman care and effort to ensure that I was not hurt. It was not difficult to read the surprise and satisfaction on his wrinkled face that I had not cried, screamed or hit him with everything I could get my hands on.

I didn't write much detail about Elisa's character in my book. There were a few moments when she was sometimes rude to her older brother Marcus, the protagonist, but that was it. All the information about Elisa was written according to what Marcus thought about her.

Even though Marcus was one of the protagonists, he had an undeniable jealousy towards his brother. This was one of his characteristics that brought him closer to a real person...

Elisa was born with many privileges that Marcus would never have. Even though Marcus would one day become the lord of the north, these gaps could never be filled.

Elisa did not give Marcus a chance and did not accept him as her brother. That's why brother and sister preferred to keep the distance between them.

It wasn't until his sister died that Marcus realised how unnecessary this distance was. To him, his sister Elisa was the one who alone had all the love and attention of his father. She was a spoilt noblewoman who had everything she wanted or didn't want. She was... Or was she not? Marcus had only asked this question when he learnt that she was dead. Even then, he wondered if it mattered.

In fact, Elisa, like Marcus, had grown up without a mother. Yes, only her sister had all her father's love, but how much did she see him? Fathers, Duke Orion, working in the service of the empire, couldnt be in the castle much and had no time for his daughter. So Elisa always grew up under the care of servants. Because she was born with a weak constitution, she could not leave the castle much and was often ill. If she grew into a spoilt and ill-tempered child, this could have been the reason. His reactions were perhaps cries for help.

Marcus had always felt guilty for never listening to his sister and making no effort to spend time with her.

Marcus, he had left the north suddenly one night without even attending his father's funeral and had travelled to the capital to make a way for himself.

The regret he felt towards Elisa would always tear at his heart...

Yes, my duty as Elisa was to make the protagonist experience this guilt... Was poor Elisa's suffering justified because the protagonist had to suffer two dramas? Even if I wrote this ending for Elisa myself, I couldn't accept to live.

While I was lost in thought, I heard the doctor's voice.

"I hope I didn't hurt you too much, my lady," he said, and I snapped out of my thoughts. Obviously the treatment of my hand was over.

"Thank you for your concern, Doctor," I said with a polite smile.

The doctor, whose name I learnt was Paleo, told me that he had served the Averia castle for more than twenty years.

He untied the bandages on my head. He cleaned the wound on my temple, working slowly and meticulously. He seemed more relieved than I was when he applied ointment to the wound and rewrapped it with a clean cloth.

"Did you have any complaints?"

I nodded. "Yes, I have a nagging pain in my head."

"I was expecting this... Wait a minute..."

When he reached for the leather handbag and opened it, the clinking of glass was heard. The bag was filled with hundreds of small jars. The jars with medicines that I didn't know what they were for were like a model of orderly organisation and each one had name labels stuck on them. Although the letters looked very different from the alphabets I knew, I realised that I could read them. It was a beautiful alphabet formed by a set of curves, lines and dots, with care in every pen stroke. I could find the same harmony in writing that I felt when I was speaking, and to be able to understand an alphabet and spoken language that I had not been trained in in such a miraculous way caused a strange feeling to tickle your brain. Well, if I was trying to digest the fact that I died and found myself in a different body and as a side character in a novel world, this much should have been acceptable.

I tried to act calm.

The doctor took a small jar labelled with painkillers and shook it, squinting as he looked inside. The pills inside made a sound by hitting each other.

"I am going to prepare a special medicine for your pain, but for now it will not be a problem for you to take this. It will ease your pain and give you relief. If you get enough rest, you won't have a problem. " He placed another pale coloured pill in my palm. "This will help you regain some of your lost strength." In my previous life, being drugged in my drink and easily killed because of it was the basis of my distrust, but Dr Enderson was one of the duke's men, Elisa's personal physician. He didn't seem to be the kind of person who would dare to take any steps to harm Elisa, to harm me. So I accepted the medicines promised to help me without much thought.

One by one he pushed the pills out of their jars between my lips and then helped me drink a mouthful of water. The pills were not in the pill form I was used to. One was like a small green ball. It had a bitterness parallel to the odour of a mixture of herbs and spices. The other was a blue marble with a mentholated freshness. It washed away the unpleasant taste that the other left in my mouth. I smiled as I felt the effect of his medication miraculously fast.

If I had sold such medicines in my past life, I thought, I could have made a lot of money. The medicines in this world were the product of alchemy, and it was different and exciting to feel the effects of alchemy first hand.

The doctor cleared his throat, and when he had my attention, he began to speak.

"The cuts on your hands are not very deep, but I would like you to refrain from using your hands for a few days, My Lady. Do not have much contact with water for now. As for the wound on your temple, it will disappear as if it never existed thanks to the ointment I have prepared. Rest assured, I'll be back every day to attend to your dressings. Your amnesia... Personally, I believe that your condition is not serious and I believe that you will find your lost memories again in time. I will talk to the cooks about your diet. Since you have not eaten solid food for a week, you should not strain your stomach too much.

so I'll ask the cooks to prepare soup for you. I imagine you're very hungry. Please try to rest after you've eaten."

"Yes, Doctor," I said with a smile.

"You are welcome, my lady. It is an honour to be of service to you." He bowed repeatedly and retreated towards the door. "... I will leave now, I will convey the information about your condition to the Lord."

As my confusion reflected on my face, I heard myself asking, "I beg your pardon... Lord?" I heard myself asking.

According to what I learnt from the servants and what I know from the novel, although the Lord, Elisa's father, managed to protect his daughter, he himself was not lucky enough to survive. He was killed in the accident, as a result of the severe injuries he sustained.

Doctor, he couldn't have been talking about him.

On the other hand Marcus, Elisa's half-brother, did not have any title because he was not legitimate, he was not called Lord. There was only one name I could think of. Why was I surprised? I already knew that Kairos, Elisa's uncle, would already be a nightmare for the duchy.

The doctor smiled and fixed his warm, understanding eyes on me. He expressed what I had already guessed.

"I-I was referring to your uncle, Baron Kairos, my lady. He was very attentive to you during the week you were unconscious. They were very concerned... They'll be expecting an update from me now."

"My uncle... Baron Kairos... now that you mention it, I think I recognise him. You are quite right, doctor, they must have been very worried. It would be appropriate for you to inform them, but as I recall, don't you think it would be a heavy burden on a baron who is a guest in the castle to address my honourable uncle as a lord? For we all know that my father was the Lord of this land, don't we? I don't think the order of succession changed during my unconsciousness."

The slight smile on my face faded as soon as I finished my speech. Then I raised my eyes and looked at the man's face.

I watched the moment when the Doctor stopped breathing and realised what I had said. It was exactly one second later when he folded his hands in front of him and bowed his head in greeting. "Please forgive me, my lady. I have made a mistake big enough to deserve death."

Death... This is a world where a word mistake can cost you your life.

"Look at me, Mr Enderson." When he sat up and looked at me, I continued. "I have no problem forgiving you for a mistake. I can understand that the fact that my dear uncle has established the authority in the castle for me has led you to this mistake. It is natural to have a misconception. Now that we've righted that wrong, I'm going to trust you that the same thing won't happen in the future. Now you can go and inform my uncle."

...

It was incredible that Kairos had the castle in his grasp before time had even passed. When he learnt that Elisa had opened her eyes, I am sure he would have been so overjoyed...

When the doctor left the room, I called the servants to me.

"I want you to tell me what happened in the castle during the days I was unconscious."

"My lady... first of all, you should eat the soup we have prepared for you and then listen to the doctor and rest. After you have regained your health-"

I interrupted her by raising my hand.

"I thought I was the only one with amnesia, but I see I am not. Now must I remind you that I don't like repeating my orders?"

I realised I was being a bit harsh, but just because I was in the body of a small child didn't mean I was going to tolerate being treated like one. Besides, I had no time to lose. I had to act before what I feared happened.

"Come on, start telling me now."

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***