Senior, I've Come to Visit - Chapter 5

My heart pounded fiercely like a drum. I pressed my back flat against the tree, unable to breathe.

The demonic beast came right up to me and sniffed. Trapped in its dark shadow, its damp, foul breath brushed against my skin. My mind went completely blank. In that moment that felt frozen in time—

Kkuweeeek-!

The demonic beast lifted one massive foot. Its six sharp claws caught the light and flashed.

‘Eloise!!!’

At the shrill scream, the demonic beast’s movement abruptly stopped. Its head slowly turned, and then immediately, it charged toward the source of the voice: Iella.

‘Run!!!’

Iella wasn’t looking at the demonic beast, but at me. She had made the sound on purpose to lure the demonic beast away and give me time to escape. She stepped out from behind the tree and raised the small knife, glaring up at the creature. The demonic beast closed in an instant and swung its foot.

No!

My heart plummeted.

When I blinked, Iella was unharmed, standing behind the demonic beast. It looked like she’d slipped between its legs to dodge. The startled demonic beast looked around frantically, searching for her.

During that moment, I stepped out from behind my tree too. Terrified and shaking, I instinctively backed away. Iella had told me to run.

Should I run to the village and get help?

For a moment, but what felt like an eternity, I hesitated. I looked at the demonic beast, then turned away with a heart full of agony.

As I ran from the demonic beast and Iella, tears nearly burst out. Deep down, I already knew. Iella wouldn’t make it out alive. And yet I was running away alone, like a coward.

‘Aaagh!’

At the scream, I spun around without thinking.

Blood poured from Iella’s upper body as she lay on the ground. Crimson blood gushed from the place where the demonic beast’s claws had torn through. Her tattered clothes were soaked in dark red. Something inside me snapped. Despair and rage surged up, and the only thought left in my mind was that I had to kill the demonic beast.

I’ll kill it.

Fwoosh—

A huge fireball formed in the empty air beside me. Without questioning where it came from, I hurled it at the demonic beast on instinct.

Kraaaagh-!

Flames ignited on the demonic beast’s massive body, and it thrashed around in agony.

But something was wrong.

The fireball was burning the demonic beast’s flesh and bone, yet my unharmed body felt unbearably hot. My chest in particular burned painfully, as if it were on fire. Unable to withstand the heat, I twisted in pain— and my eyes flew open.

“…Haa, haa.”

“Are you alright, Senior?!”

The voice next to me made me jolt. I almost cast a barrier spell on reflex, but when I saw Nardi, I stopped myself.

“It looked like you were having a nightmare. You suddenly winced and groaned, so I was about to wake you.”

Ah….

So it was a dream.

A dream I repeated whenever I was physically unwell or mentally strained. A trauma from the past.

Once I calmed down a bit, everything was just as it had been before I fell asleep. I was lying down with the blanket covering me, leaving only my face, neck, shoulders, and arms exposed. Nardi was wiping my exposed skin with a wet towel.

“Why… why haven’t you left yet?”

I didn’t know how long I’d slept, but it felt like quite some time had passed.

“Your fever isn’t going down. I didn’t use healing magic because you asked me not to, but at this point, I really think I should. It’s dangerous since your fever still won’t drop.”

“No, I’m fine.”

I weakly waved my hand and sat up. The wet towel slipped off my forehead and fell. As I grabbed it, I heard a sharp gasp.

“?”

Nardi was staring at my chest, completely stunned.

A sudden, terrible feeling swept over me.

I looked down, and of course…. The blanket had slipped, and the chest area of my pajamas was soaked. The pale lavender fabric was stained dark in two wide circular patches.

Oh no….

My drowsiness vanished instantly and my head spun.

“S-Senior.”

Nardi looked even more shocked than I was. Even back at the Academy and the Magic Tower, when he never acted like a typical newcomer, I’d never seen him this startled. His gaze was fixed on my chest, and without realizing it, I covered my chest with one arm. Only then did his purple eyes lift to my face.

“Senior, did you… have a baby?”

What kind of question was that? But I also understood why someone else might misunderstand. Usually, you had to give birth for milk to come.

“I’ve never once seen you with a pregnant belly, so when…. No, more importantly, who’s the father? Senior, did you have a lover?”

Now I was being asked if I had a lover on top of having a baby. A throbbing headache bloomed as I shook my head.

“That’s not it.”

“Really? Then this is… why…?”

Nardi still couldn’t escape his shock, looking completely lost.

It was something to be surprised about, but was it really this surprising?

Was this really the same person who didn’t even flinch during that sudden demonic beast attack last time?

“…There’s just something going on. Can you pretend you didn’t see anything?”

“…If you don’t have a lover, then… did some man force you?”

“What?”

How could he even think that?

On his handsome face, absurd anger began to seep in. Before the misunderstanding grew any further, I quickly opened my mouth.

“You’ve seen me use magic, haven’t you? There’s no way anyone could force me. It’s nothing like that at all.”

“Then what is it…?”

Nardi whispered in agony.

Wow, he was unbelievably stubborn.

I had no idea he had this relentless side. My head already hurt, and not finding a good excuse made it worse. His expression was still full of confusion. I seriously couldn’t tolerate this ridiculous misunderstanding any longer.

“…You won’t tell anyone else?”

“Of course not. I won’t tell anyone.”

Resigning myself, I confessed the truth.

“The Queen gave me a secret research request. Apparently, when she gave birth to the Princess last year, she had trouble producing breastmilk. You know how she recently announced her pregnancy, right? She said she really wants to breastfeed this time, so she commissioned me to create a milk-production-enhancing magic potion.”

“Oh….”

It was clearly far outside anything he’d imagined, because Nardi looked utterly stunned.

“I managed to succeed in making the potion, but to confirm the effects and side effects, I have to run tests… and since it’s a secret project, I can’t recruit volunteers, so I’m personally taking it for experimentation.”

Now that the mystery had been resolved, he slowly nodded. “So you really didn’t have a baby. Then a lover too….”

“I told you, I don’t have one.”

He really fixated on the strangest things.

His previously dark expression instantly brightened, and he let out a sigh of relief.

“Whew, so it was all because of the research and experiment. That’s why you said no to fever reducers and healing magic?”

As expected, talking to a fellow researcher made things easy.

“Yeah, for accurate results.”

“Then… the body aches you mentioned… it was breast engorgement?”

…He really knew a lot.

I’d assumed a man wouldn’t know about breast engorgement, but maybe that was my own prejudice.

“Something like that. The magic potion itself works fine, but since I didn’t express properly….”

Before I knew it, I started rambling useless details before abruptly stopping.

For some reason, my face felt like it was heating up. Milk coming out was purely because of the experiment, and I was only doing my job as a researcher.

But my chest still hurt as if it were about to burst. Hot and throbbing, just like in the dream. Because I was actually in pain, the dream must’ve twisted around it.

In reality, back then, the demonic beast burned to death and I survived without a scratch.

“I need to go to the bathroom. You can really go home now. Thanks for coming today and taking care of me.”

It was time to take off the damp, milky cloth and clothes and hand-express.

But Nardi didn’t move from his chair. He just watched me with a serious expression. I’d always seen him smiling brightly, but today I was seeing many new sides of him.

“Senior.”

“…What?”

“Should I… suck it out for you?”

“…What?”

I thought my ears were broken.