7

After briefly examining the crown prince, Noel had planned to convey his view to the medical team, issue prescriptions if necessary, and then leisurely enjoy the hot springs, but it seemed Crown Prince Felix was considerably severe.

If they left his condition as it was, for now the effects of the unpurified old magic had only resulted in a skin disease, but once the poison settled, it would next affect his internal organs.

Unless they suppressed the generation of new magic as soon as possible and drained the old toxic magic outside, it would become a matter of life and death.

The situation was far more serious than he had thought.

Noel planned to hold a conference with Felix’s medical team from tomorrow onward and decide on a treatment policy.

The medical team would arrive tomorrow from the royal capital at the town at the foot of the village where this detached palace was located.

It was a long-awaited vacation, but as a healing magician, Noel could not abandon this seriously ill patient.

“But the crown prince-sama came here for hot spring treatment, did he not? If he washed his body in clean water, it seems as though all sorts of impurities would flow away.”

Beth had prepared country cooking and waited for Noel when he returned to the inn where the two of them were staying.

There was a dining area attached below the inn, so Beth did not need to cook, but Noel was always very delighted by the things Beth made, so today she had pressed the inn and been allowed to cook.

The simple country cooking Beth made was always served in a state exactly right for what the heart and body needed.

On days when he seemed a little cold-ridden, there was soup with plenty of ginger; on tired days, there was fish stew using tomatoes Beth had grown.

One day, a large amount of roasted eggplant suddenly appeared on the table, but even when he asked Beth, she did not know the reason. Noel only remembered that the next day, he felt very well.

Since Noel had started eating Beth’s cooking, he had become truly healthy.

He had always had a pale face and spun magic with a slender body, but now he had filled out a little, his cheeks had gained a flush, and he was always brimming with energy and stamina.

Today as well, Beth had prepared a wonderful meal and waited for the tired Noel.

It was a pie made with eel raised in the hot spring water pond of this small village and spinach from the garden of the woman next door.

The only seasoning was salt.

However, the salt balance of Beth’s cooking was truly exquisitely perfect.

When he put Beth’s pie, which she said she had baked for a full three hours in a low-fire oven and whose salt balance was genius-level perfect, into his mouth, he felt as though the strength to live was welling up from deep within his body.

“Ah… the salt balance is perfect. Delicious. The heat is truly exactly right as well. I feel revived.”

After Noel deliciously ate everything that had been served, he ruffled Beth’s head and lovingly dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.

“Until I became engaged to Beth, I truly cannot remember at all how I lived up until now. I love you, Beth. Thank you so much for becoming engaged to me.”

Noel, who had become truly rich in his expressions of affection since becoming engaged to Beth, looked straight at Beth and said that.

Beth’s cheeks faintly colored.

She was not very used to receiving such straightforward expressions of affection.

“Noel-sama. It is embarrassing.”

After saying only that, Beth served peaches that she had merely cut as dessert.

Incidentally, even when it came to ordinary fruit bought at the market, Beth knew exactly when it was at its very best.

Noel put the merely cut peach into his mouth, chewed it for a long time, then raised both hands into the air in a pose of surrender.

It seemed to have been a truly delicious peach, cooled to an exquisite temperature and at the absolute peak of ripeness.

When placed in Beth’s hands, everything about living an ordinary life changed into the most wonderful gold.

Noel always praised Beth to the skies as “the nation’s greatest alchemist.”

Everything Beth touched was simply pleasant to the heart and body, and when Beth smiled, it felt as if nothing bad could happen in this world.

Noel had become completely dependent on Beth and everything Beth made.

Noel, who when they first met had been an arrogant, hasty, and hopelessly insolent young man toward Beth, now, if it was for the sake of winning Beth’s heart, would whisper his love to Beth without hesitation even in public, and if he could be of use to Beth with his own magic, he did not mind at all doing housework with magic, whether laundry or cleaning, like a manservant.

It seemed that society at large said various things about the fact that a nobleman of Noel’s level of beauty used his precious magic to do housework, and also about the fact that he had become engaged to Beth, a plain commoner and miller’s daughter, but,

“Ah, what a fortunate man I am. When I wake in the morning, Beth is there. When I sleep at night, Beth is there.”

He bragged about his love like that and did not care at all.