Chapter 12

“Oh, Meriel.”

On the day of the hunting party, Anne immediately signaled that she recognized me the moment I appeared at the meeting spot. Even after not seeing her for a long time, Anne was elegance as a noble lady personified.

“It’s been a while.”

“Indeed. I understand you’ve been in the capital for quite some time, so why haven’t you stopped by home all this while?”

“I was feeling a bit under the weather during the long-distance travel. I’ve just recovered, and I was planning on visiting my parents’ home soon.”

“Well, I suppose the North is quite far from here. I still find it regrettable that you live in such a place. It’s an environment much too harsh for someone like you, who dislikes the cold.”

Anne prodded me to take this opportunity to properly persuade the Count so I could stay in the capital for a few years. Since it was impossible anyway, I just smiled.

Anne soon led me to a group of ladies. Most of the younger ladies were strangers, but among the middle-aged and older ones, there were quite a few familiar faces.

“Oh my, Lady Melas. And who might that be?”

“Hoho, don’t you remember? It’s my daughter, who married Count Lallanne.”

“Oh…! I see, I remember now. Welcome, Countess Lallanne. It’s been a long time.”

“It’s been a while. Marchioness Valois.”

After exchanging greetings with the other ladies, I sat in a chair and listened quietly to their chatter. Topics about the latest jewelry designs, dresses, and perfumes were passed around. It didn’t seem like there was a topic for me to jump into.

‘I guess I’ll be bored while the master is out having fun,’ I thought, when a young lady approached and sat near me, speaking in a quiet voice.

“Excuse me, Countess Lallanne.”

“Yes. Um, Lady Zaranz?”

I was a bit confused because there were so many ladies I had just been introduced to, but seeing her give a slight nod, I realized luckily that I had guessed right. Lady Zaranz leaned her body slightly toward me while covering her mouth with her fan. I leaned in close to match her, and she whispered a question.

“Um… were you a candidate for the Saint selection seven years ago?”

I looked at Lady Zaranz in surprise and then gave a small laugh.

“Yes, that’s right. I didn’t think anyone would remember.”

“I apologize if it was rude. I was a candidate back then as well. I was just happy to see a familiar face…”

“Really? We were candidate peers.”

As I laughed and suggested we get closer in the future, Lady Zaranz followed with a laugh as well. She seemed to have a rather shy personality.

“I’m Helen Zaranz. Please call me Helen.”

“Yes, Helen. You can call me Meriel.”

Helen, like me, said she hadn’t been in the capital for long. She had come following her husband, who started working at the Imperial Palace, and since she didn’t know many people yet, she was attending as many gatherings as possible to build connections.

“Once you’re selected as a Saint candidate, it’s not easy to get married even if you drop out midway, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So they say most of them give up on marriage and head toward adventurer support.”

I responded to Helen’s story, pretending it was new, even though I already knew the fact. She said I was the first person she had met who had become someone’s wife among the candidates from that time.

In truth, the Count hadn’t put in a proposal expecting me to play a proper wife role, so I couldn’t be viewed as a case of successful marriage. To the Count, I was precisely this: a lab animal.

“Then, do you still remember the faces of the candidates from then, Helen?”

“I’m the type who remembers people quite well.”

“That’s amazing. It must be a great help to your husband.”

Especially if one has to manage connections at gatherings with many people, he would have no choice but to rely on her. Helen blushed slightly.

“It-it’s not to the extent of being amazing…”

I was in the middle of a lively conversation with Helen when a sudden roaring sound, as if something was collapsing, came from the direction of the hunting grounds in the forest where the husbands were. Startled, the people froze for a moment before rising hesitantly. Helen and I also stood up from our chairs and watched the dust rising far away.

Suddenly, my heart began to hurt as if it were breaking.

“Hah!”

As I clutched my chest and doubled over, Helen immediately supported me and cried out.

“Meriel! Are you okay?”

Amidst the murmuring ladies, Anne approached with a surprised expression.

“What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well somewhere? Your heart? Does your heart hurt?! Meriel. Meriel!”

I could hear both Anne’s voice and Helen’s voice clearly, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

The sensation of cold sweat running down my forehead was vivid.

‘This is definitely because of the master.’ Even as I couldn’t breathe from the pain, I instinctively thought so. I didn’t know what had happened or if he had caused it, but this was definitely because of the master.

Before long, my vision gradually began to blur.

“…Huh?”

When I suddenly came to my senses, I was lying in bed.

I had no memory of the moment I lost consciousness. I was able to hear about the situation from the maid who had been keeping watch by my side.

She said I had been brought in on a servant’s back while I was unconscious. They had called for a doctor immediately, but he couldn’t provide a clear diagnosis, merely guessing cautiously that I seemed to have been shocked by the sudden roaring sound that occurred at the hunting grounds.

I asked about the master’s condition.

“Is the Count safe?”

“The Count was injured at the hunting grounds. They say he was caught in the commotion at the time.”

“What is his condition?”

“Fortunately, it wasn’t as serious an injury as it appeared.”

They had all been surprised at first because his whole body was covered in blood, but when they actually went to treat him, it turned out to be almost entirely abrasions.

“What did they say the commotion at the hunting grounds was?”

“I heard they are still investigating.”

That was all I could hear from the maid.

That night, the master, dressed in pajamas, lazily came to the bedroom. He sat casually on the edge of the bed and asked.

“How is your condition?”

“What happened at the hunting grounds?”

“Ah—that? I failed to control my strength, so I broke the body.”

The master said that he had started restorative measures immediately, but because most of the upper body had been blown away, he judged that it would take quite some time. However, people were already flocking to the scene of the commotion.

It seemed like there would be a massive uproar if it were discovered that a corpse was moving. So, he made the outer shell as quickly as possible and intended to restore the unseen parts somewhat slowly.

“But I fixed everything else, only the power was lacking for the heart part. If I had used a little less strength when checking the durability, I could have fixed even the heart.”

He giggled, saying the doctors who came running in the midst of that kept asking to see the wounds and groping the body, making him lose his mind.

“So, what can you do? I can’t let it be discovered that the heart isn’t beating. So, I temporarily swapped this body with your heart.”

“…Pardon?”

“Anyway, the Count and you are both my property. It happened that the distance was close, so organ swapping wasn’t difficult. It was a bit wasteful to kill a human with your qualities, but I thought it couldn’t be helped.”

A meaningless life. Even if one possesses special qualities, that is all. It would be inconvenient if one suddenly disappeared, but it isn’t something to worry about greatly, either. After all, there are other Divine Compatibility candidates besides me. Even if rare, if I look for them, the confidence that I can find as many as I want was visible. If I didn’t have to worry about the eyes of those around me like the Count does, I could get my hands on them even more easily. I realized desperately the fact that to the master, I am no different than a slightly expensive tool.

“Wow, but Divine Compatibility candidates are indeed different. Even if you can draw out some of my power on your own, I put in a burst heart, but you, a mere human, are holding on and keeping it alive.”

The master, who had been speaking cheerfully, soon smiled eerily and giggled. It felt as if that laughter were crawling all over my body in the form of bugs. I felt a chill.

“Thanks to that, I learned something good. Now I think I finally know how I should properly use you.”

If there is such a thing as a demon, I thought it might be something like that.

I haven’t heard any specific words about what he plans to do, but he must surely be thinking of something bizarre.

I can predict it just by looking at how the master uses the Count’s body. My end will be even more miserable than that.

He said the swapped heart had already been replaced with the original while I was lying there. He said that if the physical conditions aren’t similar, problems are bound to arise, so it was merely a temporary measure to get through the situation from the start.