Chapter 67: Obvious Mistake (3)

Minon was feeling a bit resentful towards Signa.

‘Is the sea that good to her?’

Since she had refused even dinner yesterday and locked herself in her room, Minon hadn’t even seen Signa’s face until noon today.

According to Karat, she had gone out for a walk early in the morning.

But why? Alone? For this long?

She had finally come to such a good villa, so if she wanted to go for a ‘walk’, shouldn’t she have woken herself or Aina up and gone together? Minon couldn’t shake the suspicion that Signa was avoiding her right now.

Was she really in puberty? Had she become that age where she was immersed in sorrow while looking at the dawn sea and writing a poem or something?

Her sister’s condition had been a bit strange since Signa had belatedly returned yesterday.

Even if she asked Aisha and Aina about it, she only received answers that they had no idea what was going on.

‘I’m a bit worried too. She’s not usually like this…’

Aisha had said that she should try to make her favorite food for lunch to cheer her up.

Aina had also stuck to helping her sister, and Karat had followed, saying that there should be someone to help.

So Minon wasn’t going out to the sea today even though the sun had risen and was spending time in her room. Anyway, the core and most important person in this group was Signa.

The fact that she was away made it so she couldn’t settle down, so to speak. It had become a somewhat floating atmosphere.

But even just looking at the beautiful sea scenery from her room on the second floor…

She was already having a great time enough. It wasn’t something to complain about with just this.

This perfect vacation was something she couldn’t even imagine until a few months ago.

Even if Signa didn’t read the mood at all or whatever, when you thought about it, all these luxuries were thanks to her, no, her…

‘When Aisha and Aina come back, I should help them too.’

One way or another, Minon was a bit excited.

It was a place where it was easy to get good seafood, and the two of them had a budget that was almost unlimited to purchase food ingredients.

As Karat had said, as long as they put the seal on it and ran it under the duchess’s name, there was nothing they couldn’t purchase in Pranun.

Looking back, the meals at the ducal mansion were really wonderful too, but this was the southern part of the south.

There were a lot of rare food ingredients that were hard to find outside.

‘Come to think of it, what food does she like?’

It had been the table of a poor baronet’s family.

She wasn’t a kid who complained much about what Aina or Minon prepared there…

‘She was a bit picky with desserts, but snacks aren’t meals, they’re just favorites.’

If she didn’t like cookies or something like that, she just wouldn’t eat them, so she just naturally learned what she liked. Signa must have had a lot of good food at the ducal family in the meantime. It was a chance to learn about her younger sibling’s tastes.

“…?”

She was resting her chin on the windowsill and looking outside while having those thoughts.

From beyond the coastline, a woman’s silhouette was approaching this way.

“Who is it? Is it someone who lives nearby?”

But Karat had said that this area was a place where access was strictly controlled.

It was a bit of a strange impression, but even from a distance, it was a woman who had a very good figure and was slender and tall.

Because a lot of her bare skin was visible, she wondered if she was wearing a swimsuit, but

She soon realized that that wasn’t the case as she got closer to her.

It was just a piece of cloth.

The naked her was barely covering only her important parts with it.

Had she been greatly injured? Her steps were irregular and very slow.

As her silhouette slowly grew larger, Minon’s pupils also grew larger together.

“Oh my god…!”

Realizing that the situation wasn’t normal, she ran down to the first floor.

Maybe she was a castaway or something. Had she been swept here from a shipwreck?

Those were the only possibilities Minon could think of for someone who would appear in this kind of place in that state.

Minon, who had gone down to the first floor, ran out into the villa’s yard.

“Milady?”

Karat and the Aisha sisters were also coming back from shopping at the entrance in the opposite direction.

“Where are you rushing off to so quickly?”

Aina, who was holding something full in both hands with her sister, asked.

A paper bag in one hand was emitting a great scent of various tropical fruits and spices even from this distance,

And large claws of crustaceans and thorns were randomly sticking out of the basket in her other hand.

It was a sight that would have been exciting as usual, but now wasn’t the time for that.

“Aina, there’s someone who’s hurt beyond the yard!”

“Yes? Someone who’s hurt?”

Aisha asked back instead of her sister.

“That can’t be. Milady. This is a villa where access is controlled.”

“She looks like a castaway!”

“Kkeueung… Yeongcha. You’re talking about a castaway?”

This time, it was the words of Karat, who had followed them.

He was barely looking ahead because he was holding luggage that was larger than what the sisters were holding combined.

“That statement is a bit strange too. There shouldn’t have been a storm that would cause castaways in this area for at least the last few days.”

Karat carefully put down the luggage.

“But, she really looked like she was badly hurt. She was limping, and she didn’t have any clothes…”

“Isn’t it an intruder disguised as a castaway or something? A thief who was stealing from the empty villa or something…”

“She was naked! Do the thieves in this neighborhood go around naked?”

“She was naked?”

While they were arguing for a moment, the steel wicket gate outside the garden creaked open.

As everyone turned their eyes towards where the sound had come from, the woman that Minon had seen from the second-floor window was leaning against the side of the gate in a precarious posture.

“Haa… Haa…”

She was still naked.

The clothes she was wearing to cover her body were too small for her build, and she was forcibly catching her breath.

“It’s that person! So I told you. I said she looked badly hurt!”

Minon ran towards her without delay.

And at the moment she brought her hand to her shoulder to support her, the mysterious woman strongly shook off Minon’s touch.

“D, don’t touch me…! Hic!”

Minon was greatly embarrassed at that sharp voice.

She had just extended her hand to help.

The other person, who had pushed away Minon’s hand unbelievably quickly, sat down on the spot as if she had been even more shocked.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Eueueut…”

“Ah, please rest assured. I’m not trying to do anything strange. I’m just trying to help…”

“D, don’t touch me!”

She strongly rejected Minon again.

“Eh… Eeeh?”

Her face, as well as her entire body, had turned red, and tears were even dripping down from her eyes.

They weren’t tears that were flowing because of a specific emotion, but tears that were flowing because the nerves and hormones that controlled her body had broken down in general.

“…I, I’ll walk on my own, so please just stay away.”

She forcibly got up again.

As if even that simple action was too much for her, she would flinch every time the sea breeze brushed against her.

Even in this situation, Minon inadvertently thought that she was a really beautiful person.

Delicate and beautiful eyes, a chiseled nose and jawline, a voluptuous and balanced, yet slender figure.

Shimmering jet-black hair.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Minon had used honorifics from the first words she had spoken to her. Even though she wasn’t wearing anything, she had an aristocratic appearance that was full of elegance.

‘But doesn’t she look a bit familiar?’

She looked a lot like someone. Someone I know.

Beyond that, she looked like someone she had seen often recently.

No. It wasn’t just recently. Where had she seen this face?

Oh right. For example, even this morning…

‘…Morning?’

“Kyaaaaak!”

Someone screamed from behind Minon, who was thinking that.

When Minon turned around, Aisha was dropping the luggage on the floor and covering her mouth with both hands.

“Milady!!”

Milady?

“So that’s Thermis-nim’s appearance?”

“Yes.”

Outside of Signa’s room, Karat answered with an expression that couldn’t hide his dismay.

“To be exact, that’s her appearance right before the Great War. And…”

“And Signa became that appearance?”

“That’s right.”

Minon was dumbfounded at that answer.

“Why?”

It was a question that struck the core, but unfortunately, Karat couldn’t answer that question.

“And how similar is she, really?”

“This is also the first time I’m seeing Thermis-nim from before the war in person… But I think she’s probably completely the same.”

“What do you mean by the time before the war…”

“Aisha knows.”

“Aisha?”

“Yes. As you know, Aisha was an exclusive maid who served Thermis-nim even before the Great War.”

“That’s… that’s what I heard.”

“I, who met that person late, can only distinguish between the time when she had white hair and the time when she didn’t, but Aisha… still remembers her perfectly. To be exact, she said that that’s her appearance right before she turned twenty.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Minon had a completely spaced-out expression.

“I understand that Signa has become a woman, and I even understand that that appearance is based on Thermis-nim’s appearance. But… even if she grows up from that appearance, she’ll become exactly the same as Thermis-nim?”

“That’s how you should see it.”

Even though he said that, Karat had no way of knowing how Manya’s magic worked.

The appearance of her twelve-year-old self was the same, so was the appearance when she turned twenty also the same as Thermis-nim?

What was inside was definitely Thermis’s mind. That was certain.

But the flesh was… it just looked the same, but when you thought about it, it wasn’t the exact same individual.

As he had said, Aisha knew this appearance of Thermis best, but Karat also knew that the large burn on her right eye wasn’t present on the current Thermis.

‘Come to think of it, does Thermis-nim in this state naturally age?’

Even though so many things had happened, it hadn’t even been a year since Signa had been hit by Manya’s magic.

There was no way they could track the transitions in her growth.

Karat recalled that his master, Yukomis, had accidentally made Signa’s flesh three years younger.

She could make her three years younger, so she could make her age like this.

That part was understandable.

Then… if she could change the shape of her body so naturally.

If she could change freely into a child or an adult at any time…

Maybe it was meaningless to even say what the age of her body was.

Moreover, even if she was being influenced by her flesh, what was inside was definitely Thermis’s mind.

‘Maybe Thermis-nim wasn’t an ordinary child.’

Moreover, her master’s magic was also in that person’s body again, so she would recover from most injuries…

Really, that wasn’t so much the body of an ordinary child.

‘Isn’t it like she’s in a state that’s closest to being immortal…?’

Minon asked Karat again, who had been lost in thought for a moment.

“Why did she become an adult? And why is her body… like that again?”

From what Minon could see for a moment, it really looked like she was suffering from a terrible fever.

“And why did she shake off my touch…”

Looking at the gloomy Minon, Karat heavily opened his mouth again.

“Minon-sama, you must already be aware from hearing the explanation from Parnen-nim that the current Signa-nim’s body has become vulnerable to magic.”

“Th, that’s right.”

Karat carefully chose his words so that he wouldn’t accidentally tell Minon that Signa was not only having flesh that looked similar, but was actually the same person as Thermis.

“Any magic has an effect that’s close to completely random on the current Signa-nim. So… I don’t know the specific reason why she became like that.”

“She was hit by magic?”

Minon, who was just a baronet from the countryside, was a mage, but she wasn’t a great mage even as a compliment, and she had little knowledge because she hadn’t received a formal education.

“Is there a mage in this area?”

“No. However, she might have been hit by magical creatures… or wild sea monsters. It’s a safe place here, so the probability is low, but…”

He said that, but Karat definitely thought it was because of that person who Signa had said she was ‘going to meet’.

“Whatever it is, she looked like she was in a lot of pain. You don’t happen to know of a cure, do you?”

Karat carefully denied it.

“That’s the most complicated magic in this world. You’ll have to have my master give her a direct examination.”

“Then we have to summon her right away!”

At that time, Signa’s door opened and Aisha walked out with a complicated expression.

And she carefully denied Minon’s hope.

“That might be difficult, milady.”

“What’s difficult?”

“I also made a suggestion, but the master… no, Signa-nim is strongly refusing it.”

“Why again?”

Minon thought that her words had been ending with question marks all along.

But that was inevitable.

That was because it was a situation where if she heard one answer, two more questions would arise.

“I don’t know either. She’s rambling so much. She seems to be very confused. ‘Who knows if I’ll be hit with the same thing here.’ or ‘If that happens, I really can’t endure going through that again.’ or something like that…”

“…?”

This time, it was words that not only Minon but also anyone in this place couldn’t understand.

“So you’re saying we should just leave her alone?”

“Signa-nim herself… seemed to want that.”

“She’s voluntarily going to stay in that state?”

Minon was stunned.

“Did she even eat?”

Minon pointed to the bowl of white and thin porridge that Aisha had carried in.

But it seemed like it hadn’t decreased at all even if Aisha didn’t answer.

“She says she can’t eat. If she puts something in her mouth right now, uh… well… that will…”

Aisha hesitated for a moment.

“Th, that… the, it even feeeeels like thaaaat when I swallow saliva, but this, this hot liquid, that hot liquid will, what, will reach right and then that is the worst…”

Because of the code thing like that.
up to the throat is not included in that quote
‘Sh, she even said that she could feel ‘that bad feeling’ even when she swallowed saliva, so the f, feeling of this white and h, hot liquid flowing down her throat would be the worst…’

“Ah, anyway!”

“???

“Ah, anyway, she said she couldn’t eat.”

Aisha, who somehow had a slightly flushed face, glossed over the topic.

It was a very rare occurrence for Aisha, who was always polite and respectful to Minon.

But Minon, who had a friendly personality even with the servants, didn’t particularly take issue with that attitude.

“What on earth is this situation? Karat doesn’t know anything either, and you don’t know anything either…”

“I’m sorry, Minon-sama.”

“No. It’s not your fault. How long has it been since I last saw her, but why has Signa become a woman with so many secrets…”

Aisha, who had been checking on Signa, no, her former master Thermis’s condition just now,

Still hadn’t come to her senses because of the suffocating air that filled the room.

Even if Signa was trying not to explain to Aisha, it was too clear that this wasn’t a normal fever.

The sexiness and seductiveness contained in each and every one of those gestures and voices wasn’t something that could be hidden.

She was trembling even when her fingertips lightly brushed against her, and she literally looked like her whole body was an erogenous zone that was about to reach climax.

It was an act of impiety to even bring such a comparison to her master, but

Really, Aisha couldn’t find an appropriate impression other than that.

And that sexiness was incredibly contagious.

It was to the point that Aisha, who was next to her, was unknowingly blushing.

While looking at that master, she was having all sorts of thoughts and imaginations she shouldn’t have, and they were spreading freely with wings.

If she let her guard down even a little…

If she didn’t try to restrain herself, she felt like she would even have the most lewd thoughts about her master.

There was a reason why Signa had left Minon and Aina, who were still men, outside and only let Aisha into the room.

‘So it was like that after all.’

It must be really embarrassing to show this appearance to her family.

It was really a happy thing that her master trusted her enough to show her even this appearance, but…

‘But what on earth is this feeling? Even though she’s the same s*x, and my master and I are the same s*x… but that appearance is…’

Aisha had no way of knowing, but it wasn’t that she was special.

The current Thermis was someone who had set fire to the hearts of all kinds of noble children, regardless of gender.

It was Thermis from that time, who was the most beautiful and fresh, who had that appearance.

“Anyway… She told me not to enter her room for a while.”

Aisha forcibly continued speaking.

“Even me, when Karat is a man? I’m Signa’s sister…”

Minon asked back with a slightly hurt expression, but Aisha already had a prepared excuse.

“Signa-nim said that since you’re also a mage, it’s to prevent accidents, just in case.”

“That’s…”

“Signa-nim said that because you’re an amateur, if you accidentally hurt her more, you’ll be the most hurt…”

Minon forcibly accepted those words.

But even if those words were right, the fact that there was no way to resolve this situation remained the same.

“But if it’s a magical symptom, shouldn’t we summon the duchess then? Does another way even exist?”

“That’s…”

“Sister! Sister sister!!!”

At that time, Aina, who had gone down to the first floor, came up the stairs while making a fuss.

“Sister, or Karat-nim, or master! Ah, Master!!!”

Aina shouted after finding Minon.

“Aina, what’s wrong? I told you to prepare milady’s meal.”

“Someone else has come!”

“Someone else has come?”

One mountain after another. As if there wasn’t enough to worry about yet.

Minon, who was facing another problem beyond the piling problems, frowned.

“Again? No, who else would come here? Maybe this time she’s really a castaway…”

“I don’t think so. Her clothes weren’t those kinds of clothes, no… She was wearing really expensive riding clothes.”

“Riding clothes?”

“Yes. She was blonde. She was tall. She was a really beautiful person, but that’s…”

Aina clenched both fists and stamped her feet.

“Calm down. What’s wrong?”

“She was crying buckets. She was dropping tears tap tap and begging me to let her in…”

Now that she said that, there was a bit of a wet stain on Aina’s apron.

“She was crying?”

“Yes. I really didn’t know what to do…”

She seemed like a very high-ranking person. But I’m just a maid… She was even using honorifics with me and begging me…”

Aina couldn’t properly describe that heartbreaking sight.

“Anyway! Come down quickly! She looked like she was about to lose her mind!”