“Your Highness the Princess, sorry to bother you.”
“We all know there’s no such thing as a person without any mana, yet someone managed to kill Parks while releasing that kind of magical beast… If it’s the work of an evil god, you probably have no clue how it was done either.”
“Going to the capital was just for show. We’re only trying to complete the mission, so we hope Your Highness won’t take it to heart.”
“Feel free to tell us whatever you want for dinner tonight…”
“Mm.”
On the road from Luke to the capital.
By a clear, flowing stream, the messenger who had planned to conduct a thorough investigation of the Clemence Family halted the coach, having changed the plan after Princess Amidina decided to personally head to the capital.
Through the carriage’s curtain, the messenger reported to the princess inside.
The messenger was well aware of the unfair treatment Princess Amidina had suffered at the Angekesai Family and the despicable scheme those people had hatched—to sacrifice her in exchange for the Magic Whale and their family’s future…
A believer in justice, the messenger had felt angry but was relieved to see the princess safe and finally breathing freely.
What puzzled the messenger was that the marriage between Princess Amidina and that bad boy of the Clemence Family, Lin Nuo, was probably just a demand from the Angekesai Family.
The disappearance of the Magic Whale was a good thing.
Leaving the Clemence Family should have been even better, yet on the way to pick her up, the messenger had seen Princess Amidina glance back several times toward Clemence Manor with a look of melancholy and absent-mindedness in her eyes…
At night, the princess would gently clasp the Spirit Pearl pendant that glowed as purely as the moonlight before her, her gaze distant.
Her delicate face was cold, but the unconscious motion of her fingertips tracing the surface of the pearl seemed to betray a rather good mood.
The princess must be thinking of something…
Sensitive and having experienced the pains of love herself, the messenger knew this kind of young lady all too well.
If that Spirit Pearl were a gift from some prodigy in magic or martial arts, the messenger would surely indulge her girlish nature and tease the princess loudly: “You’re done for, you’ve fallen in love!”
However, upon hearing from the princess’s younger sister that the Spirit Pearl was a gift from the Clemence Family’s Lin Nuo bad boy, the messenger was taken aback.
She just couldn’t understand what Lin Nuo had that made the usually aloof princess so attached…
“Sis!” A crisp loli voice sounded.
Amidina, sitting by the stream and rolling up her sleeves while watching fish swim back and forth, looked up at her finally returned, silly little sister.
“Sis, I used my far-sight magic to secretly follow Brother Lin Nuo on a little trip!”
“Mm.”
“Hmm… He just stays cooped up in the house every day. I only see him come out during mealtimes.”
Yulilian pouted: “Some of the maids even say they remember that a few days ago when the princess and her little sister were eating, their appetite got better just by seeing me eat! But he doesn’t seem to have any interest in anyone!”
“Yesterday a priestess helped him wash his clothes, and after that, she even fed him grapes…”
Amidina’s hand paused in the water, her fingertips curling slightly, her red lips tightened.
It was normal for maids to feed young masters, and it had always been that priestess before, so even seeing it herself didn’t stir any particular feeling.
But this time, remembering how she herself had fed Lin Nuo…
For some reason, it made her feel strangely unsettled—as if replaced.
“Today, he sat on the garden swing for a while, then went for a walk on Luke’s Confluence Street…”
“Oh! Sis, how do you know far-sight magic and stuff like that so well?”
Counting on her fingers, Yulilian suddenly furrowed her small brows seriously: “I think that kind of magic is for secretly spying on people without being noticed, right?”
“…”
“Kids don’t understand, so don’t ask too much.”
“…Okay!”
“Then I’ll tell you this! I also saw Brother Lin Nuo buy twenty catgirls and slave girls, all wearing slave collars, on Confluence Street. After buying them, he had the apothecary heal them with magic, then set them all free…”
Holding Yulilian’s hand as they strolled through the dusk, Amidina’s steps slowed without her noticing.
…His kindness, turns out, it was something anyone could enjoy?
Perhaps suspecting that her place in his heart could easily be taken by another girl, Amidina’s expression turned somewhat desolate.
Unintentionally, she kicked a small stone on the ground with her shoe, as if that pebble were some rogue disturbing her mood…
“But I think Brother Lin Nuo misses you!”
“I overheard the apothecary next to him ask why he used the Great Healing Magic that can only be used once every thirty days to heal those catgirls, and spent so much silver to buy them all just to set them free…”
“Sis, do you know how Brother Lin Nuo answered?”
Yulilian couldn’t wait: “He said, because one of those twenty slaves looks a little like you.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
Those words were like a breeze under the warm sun, stirring the girl’s anxious, sorrowful feelings.
At least, he still remembered and cared…
Looking up at the moon, just like the night they parted, Amidina’s furrowed brows softened.
A tender color flickered in her peach blossom eyes.
He’s always like this… impossible to stay mad at.
“I think this roasted suckling pig looks like Brother Lin Nuo too, so let’s say I’m thinking of him as well!”
At dinner, Yulilian held the roasted suckling pig with bright eyes and said “Nom nom” like that.
Finally, bedtime arrived.
The cramped space inside the carriage was greatly expanded by Amidina’s extension magic, creating a large area.
After Yulilian laid out the bedding, she started chatting nonstop: “Sis, I guess the Angekesai people must be really angry seeing you come back safe and sound! But they also want to know if the Clemence Family really has someone who can kill Parks without using magic………”
“Because they fear the Clemence Family, the messenger was unusually polite and humble when asking us to return early.”
“Probably our treatment will be much better once we get back, but I still think it won’t be as comfortable as staying with the Clemence Family…”
“Mm,” Amidina asked, “How’s their investigation progressing?”
“Absolutely no progress at all!”
Yulilian wiggled a finger playfully: “That old Deng and his son don’t even know what beat them into hero pieces… What can be found out from that?”
“You never even told me what happened that day when you came back. I don’t know how Brother Lin Nuo managed to get everyone back safe…”
Amidina, kneeling in another spot with eyes half-closed as she concentrated mana, didn’t answer this time.
Actually…
Not everyone was safe.
That person put everyone in a safe place while bearing the greatest risk himself…
Amidina had already discovered that Lin Nuo was poisoned with the Blood Leech Curse.
There was no cure.
The most terrifying part was the black magical energy with a corrosive aura that could multiply infinitely inside the host’s body.
That night, Amidina not only gave Lin Nuo her own blood but also, using several magic arrays she knew and her Sublimation Ability, stripped seventy percent of the poison and the infinite proliferating black energy from his body into her own…
She was poisoned too.
And if Lin Nuo’s poison flared up, she could feel it instantly and suffer twice the pain.
Amidina had prepared herself for the unbearable agony this poison, capable of killing demigods, would bring.
But in the past two days, the poison seemed suppressed by something and strangely hadn’t broken out.
“I’m not sure if the Blood Leech Curse has long dormant periods. I just… definitely can’t cure this poison. The stripping effect of the Sublimation Ability can slowly transfer the poison from his body—that’s the only lucky thing…” Amidina silently recited to herself.
Next time they meet, she’ll knock him out and make him drink her blood, then strip the remaining poison from his body into hers.
Though it couldn’t be completely healed, reducing the poison inside him and delaying its activation was a good enough result.
That way, his lifespan might be extended…
She’d have to do this secretly…
Before their next meeting, she’d better prepare to forcibly kiss him again, letting him suckle her all night long.
Amidina’s jade fingers instinctively touched her lips.
The slight chill on her fingertips stirred memories of that night holding him down.
Her cheeks gradually flushed, and her lips seemed to remember that sensation, growing a bit hot.
“Sis, I heard from the messenger sister that you didn’t bring many clothes and even left your dresses in the Clemence Manor bridal room… And your clothes and mine are still drying in the room. Washing Brother Lin Nuo’s clothes and hanging them out for others to see…”
“The messenger said it seems like you’re marking your territory!”
After lying down, Yulilian hugged Amidina’s arm, her face full of curiosity.
“I won’t be spending much time with him. Leaving my clothes there just feels like I might have a chance to see him again.”
“…Huh~?” Yulilian didn’t understand.
But it seemed her sister didn’t deny what she said!
A long time later, as Amidina turned over restlessly, Yulilian, also having trouble sleeping, opened her eyes and tugged her to ask again: “Sis, what are you still thinking about?”
“I’m thinking…” Amidina hesitated but finally spoke her true thoughts, “About how to feed him next time we meet.”
***
“The Blood Leech Curse is an extremely and extremely poison. I only found one precedent of a succubus who was poisoned by the Blood Leech Curse and survived after it was cured. The succubus’s lover’s body was treated with ‘White Magic’—a restorative art based on light and yang elemental magic. Afterward, the poisoned succubus and her lover made love, and then the poison…”
“Stop stop stop! You’re not making this up, right? Such a powerful poison, the cure sounds way too casual…”
“Cough cough, Young Master, according to that one safe precedent, the cure was indeed to find someone who knows White Magic, then have that person fight the poisoned individual in battle over a hundred rounds…”
“Uh… to put it simply, make the poisoned person spray water over a hundred times…”
“Exhaust the Yin and cold air inside the body, not only curing the poison, but also making future learning of light-element magic twice as effective.”
“Water…?”
“Do they really have to make the poisoned person spray it? But what if that ‘someone treated with White Magic’ is a guy like me? What am I supposed to do then?”
Lin Nuo had already imagined that scene!
…He had finally found the rare healer who knew White Magic, rarer even than the Blood Leech Curse, and worked hard to get close to them, only to reveal this lewd request of “Please at least spray me a hundred times”…
What if the other person turned out to be male, wuwuwu!
‘Damn it!’
After asking the apothecary and only getting this absurd conclusion—without even hearing where White Magic originated—Lin Nuo decisively gave up on this method, cursing: “Blood——Leech——Curse!”
“I——f**k——your——mother!!!”
At the same time, Amidina also found the same precedent.
A succubus who was accidentally poisoned by the Blood Leech Curse, and her lover, a skilled healer of white magic who successfully cured her poison, who after gaining enough faith was called: —The Lady of Lights