Senior, I've Come to Visit - Chapter 4

Nardi didn’t stop there. He made another wet towel and began lightly wiping my cheeks. For some reason, I couldn’t move at all.

“….”

In the silence, Nardi’s hands moved with delicate care. He finished wiping my face and quietly slipped the towel down under the blanket toward my neck.

“To bring your fever down, it’s better not to cover yourself too much.”

His voice was very cautious.

Without a word, I lowered the blanket to my upper chest and took my arms out. Any more was impossible.

“I’ll wipe you down.”

The wet towel touched my exposed neck, then my arms, passing slowly over my skin. As the moisture evaporated, it drew away the heat. A chill crept over me, but I didn’t show it.

It felt extremely strange and embarrassing.

Being like this… it felt unreal.

Even if I was sick, I was still his senior. As a senior, this made me lose face. He was nursing me the way an adult nurses a feverish child. And not only were we senior and junior, but we were also colleagues in the same team at the Magic Tower. The two of us alone in my bedroom, with me lying in bed… it was hardly a desirable situation.

“Please sleep, Senior.”

There was no way I could sleep with him right there. And there was no way I should sleep, either.

Nardi was a sensible person, but I didn’t trust people much to begin with.

“Just help a little and then go.”

If I told him to leave immediately, he obviously wouldn’t listen.

“I will.”

The lukewarm wet towel wiped under the sleeves of my pajamas, over my arms and the backs of my hands. His touch wasn’t rushed, moving at a steady pace.

Even though I felt uneasy, a corner of my heart tingled faintly. It wasn’t even a serious illness, just ordinary body aches, so why was I being nursed like this? Yet I’d never been cared for like this before. At least not in any memory I had.

I didn’t remember my parents’ faces, so I certainly didn’t remember ever being cared for by them. Maybe Iella had done it once or twice, but no memory came to mind. When I was young, I was small and scrawny, but oddly enough, I hardly ever got sick. It felt like my body instinctively knew it couldn’t afford to fall ill.

Anyway, even though I’d slept so much yesterday, my eyelids grew heavy again.

Was I making up for all the lost sleep from before?

Thinking I’d sleep as soon as Nardi left, I waited for him to step away.

My consciousness grew faint.

Iella and I were walking through a forest.

She was young, and I was even younger. Iella held an herb basket in one hand, and with the other hand, she held mine tightly. Sweat from her palm soaked into our joined hands.

‘Eloise, from here on, you have to stay quiet, okay? Until I say you can talk, you can’t say anything.’

I nodded at the barely audible whisper.

‘Yes, Unnie.’

I mouthed the words and raised my index finger to my lips. Shh.

The deeper we went into the forest, the rarer the herbs became, but there were also beasts. I was so terrified of them that I didn’t dare make a sound. I walked softly, careful with my breathing and my footsteps. Iella anxiously looked around over and over, her eyes flashing as she alternated between scanning the ground and checking the surroundings. Countless plants grew thick in the dense forest.

I wasn’t as knowledgeable as Iella, but thanks to learning from her, I could identify a few herbs.

Lembsia – pale yellow flowers and leaves blooming upward; boiling its roots made a fever remedy. Dilbena – long, thin leaves dotted with white specks; pounding the leaves and stalk made a salve for skin wounds.

‘……’

I held my breath and searched the ground too. I was nervous, but a little excited as well.

It felt like we were treasure hunting.

If we found valuable herbs and harvested them, we could sell them to the herbalist and get money. With that money, we’d buy delicious bread from the bakery for dinner. If we earned enough, we could even save some in the coin jar. Iella said that once we’d saved enough, she’d buy me a toy.

‘……!’

Iella gripped my hand tightly, as if she’d found something. I trailed along in the direction she led, following her gaze.

Ah.

I saw Lapirilly, bearing clusters of red berries. The berries, red and looking as tasty as cherries, were poisonous despite their appearance and absolutely not to be eaten. However, if we handed them over to the herbalist, we could get a decent price, even if it wasn’t all that high. They could be used to make rat poison, and there were people who sought out toxic plants.

When we reached the place where the Lapirilly was blooming, Iella let go of my hand. Then she took a small knife out of the basket and started cutting the berry-laden stems. I wanted to do it too, but Iella said it was fine for me to dig up herb roots with a shovel, yet I was still too young to use a knife. She said it was dangerous because I might cut my hand.

As I watched her skillfully cutting, our eyes met. We exchanged smiles without a word.

‘This is enough.’

I read the shape of Iella’s lips and nodded. With Lapirilly blooming in such abundance, it seemed we wouldn’t have to go searching for any more herbs today. While I waited for her, I looked around. The forest held many dangers besides demonic beasts. Bees and snakes, and large wild animals….

Bees and snakes wouldn’t attack first if you didn’t bother them, but you still had to avoid accidentally disturbing them. As for wild animals and demonic beasts, all you could do was pray you never ran into them.

‘Just wait a little, Eloise.’

‘Okay.’

Lapirilly branches piled up thickly in the herb basket. A cool forest breeze wrapped around my body once and passed by.

It was then.

I felt a strange sensation I couldn’t explain. I spun in place and looked all around.

The forest looked so similar in every direction that it felt like you could easily lose your way, but I couldn’t find anything obviously wrong. But as the persistent sense of wrongness put my nerves on edge, something appeared from deeper in the forest.

‘……!!!’

It was a demonic beast.

It was far away and looked small, but it was definitely a demonic beast.

A huge ash-gray wolf standing upright on two legs.

Its pointed head was a bare skull with the bone exposed, and where its eyes should’ve been were gaping, pitch-black holes. The demonic beast came closer moment by moment, twisting its head this way and that as it sniffed. It seemed unable to see and was searching for prey, for us, with its sense of smell.

At some point, Iella also spotted the demonic beast and silently stood up.

Her large eyes were filled with shock, but she calmly signaled with her hand. At her gesture telling me to hide behind the nearest tree, I forced my frozen, unmoving legs to move.

Grrrrrrrrr—

An eerie growl rang in my ears. My face twisted in fear as I forced myself to take one difficult step after another.

I barely managed to hide behind a thick tree trunk, but I couldn’t relax at all. Iella met my gaze and hid behind the tree next to mine. The distance was short, but it felt endlessly far. Being apart from her frightened me, and with the demonic beast seeming to draw closer, I was completely terrified.

Hhh….

I clamped both hands over my mouth and couldn’t even breathe. The dull sound of footsteps came nearer and nearer, and my heart pounded as if it would burst out of my chest. I prayed the forest’s energy, the smell of the trees, would hide me. Pressed against the tree with my back to the demonic beast, I couldn’t tell where it was.

At that moment, the demonic beast appeared beside Iella’s tree.

‘!!!’

Its hideous skull, sharp claws, and enormous bulk. The demonic beast, easily three or four times Iella’s height, lowered its body toward her.

‘…….’

Iella pressed herself flat against the tree and didn’t make a sound. One hand still held the herb basket, and the other still held the small knife. The demonic beast sniffed at Iella, then at the basket she was holding out in front of her, and at the scent of Lapirilly.

Whoosh—

Its head swung to the other side as a high-pitched howl rang out. Twisting its head at an unnatural angle, the demonic beast, thank goodness, passed in front of Iella.

And then it started coming toward me.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

As the enormous demonic beast approached, the ground trembled.