How Can You Pay Back The Kindness I Raised With Obsession?

“It’s not God you should be thankful for…”

 

The chief’s eyes pointed to a young woman standing in front of a huge pot, tasting the soup.

 

“It’s Miss Hazel.”

 

“If Miss Hazel, is that witch?”

 

When everyone miraculously returned to life about an hour after her witch arrived, the eyes of the villagers who saw the witch changed. The look in their eyes changed again as soon as they ate the witch’s soup. This time, there was emotion beyond awe.

 

“Thank you for saving my father.”

 

“Thank you very much, Miss Hazel.”

 

People who had been thanking the Grand Duke when they first arrived in the village now bowed their heads to the witch.

 

“I don’t know how to repay this favor.”

 

“Shouldn’t you apologize first before repaying the favor?”

 

Elliot, who had been laughing all along, erased his smile, and as if he had been waiting for this moment, he started scolding the villagers severely. The people who had baselessly blamed the witch and spread rumors about her were at a loss and apologized.

 

“I’m so sorry, Miss Hazel.”

 

“Yes, please refrain from spreading rumors from now on. If you want to spread rumors, only good ones! You know?”

 

“Sure, sure.”

 

“Anyway, how did you make that soup?”

 

“Ah, there is nothing wrong. Just stir-fry the beef and onions in butter, and when they cook well, what?”

 

The witch, who received the villagers’ thanks and their apology with a proud face, was surprised and suddenly she ran somewhere.

 

“Are your legs okay? Wait a minute. I will use healing magic.”

 

The witch, belatedly discovering the wounded, tried to cast a healing spell.

 

“Never forget that you received grace today.”

 

“Yes, would you like to?”

 

“And…”

 

Elliot, who was shouting bitterly at the village chief from a place away from Hazel, wrinkled his forehead as if disapproving of it, and followed the witch to stop her.

 

“Hazel, don’t overdo it.”

 

Daniel watched with his dazed eyes as Elliot opened a bottle of mana and the recovery medicine.

 

‘They look like a married couple of 10 years.’

 

Unknowingly, his face contorted at the thought. To think that her reputation as a witch would change in an instant like the flipping of the palm of her hand. But it wasn’t the only time Daniel witnessed that amazing sight that day. After saving the miners, rumors about witches and Elliot circulated for a while.

 

“It is a self-made play by a witch and the Grand Duke!”

 

They said that a witch who knew how to use weather magic deliberately drove the rain clouds into a mine to cause an accident and save the people. It was not enough even if the villagers came forward to refute whether there was someone fanning the rumors. However, as Eliot and the witch continued to solve problems from village to village, the vicious rumors naturally disappeared. Witches were no different from saints among the people of the territory. In the end, they did what Elliot said. On the carriage back to the villa after resolving a plague in a city, Daniel stared at the witch sitting across from him. She spent a lot of her mana all day, and the exhausted witch leaned on Elliot and fell asleep.

 

“She is not that witch. Imposible.”

 

Daniel’s intuition observed from close range for two seasons also sounded the same as Elliot’s in the past. He muttered absentmindedly as he turned his head out of the sleet-drenched window.

 

“What is her identity?”

 

“You don’t know? I know.”

 

Elliot lowered his voice in response. What? Did he figure out the identity of that woman? But he wanted to talk about it in front of her? The moment Daniel was about to shut his mouth, Elliot did it.

 

“An angel who fell from the sky.”

 

“…”

 

Elliot kissed the sleeping Hazel on the forehead while Daniel glared at her with eyes colder than the cold of the north, smiling triumphantly. Daniel rolled his eyes in disgust. There was no medicine for that disease.

 

* * *

 

Croak, croak, croak.

 

The chef of the Empress’ palace was on the verge of fainting at the sound of the frog. Loud cries were coming from a basket on the countertop in the corner of the kitchen.

 

“Is it time again?”

 

The Empress ordered a frog hind leg dish once a month. It seemed to him to be bad taste, but she did not dare to show that she was disgusting to the empress.

 

“Hmm?”

 

The chef opened the basket with a deep sigh, and his eyes widened.

 

“This guy…”

 

In the midst of the green frogs, something strange sat there. Bigger than the others and with a black pattern on its back like a watermelon, it was a frog that only lived in the Black Forest in the west.

 

“How did this get mixed up here?”

 

The chef tilted his head. The frog must have been caught in a swamp near the islands.

 

“You must have had a wonderful trip on the frog subject.”

 

Among the frogs who blinked their eyes, the black forest frog stared at him with a bizarre feeling.

 

“But it’s a pity that the end of the trip is inside the belly of Her Highness the Empress.”

 

Well, for a frog subject, that would be an honor. The chef, who was laughing and reaching for the black forest frog, suddenly screamed. The frog, which had been still as if dead, suddenly jumped up and clung to his face.

 

“Ouch, away!”

 

Even if the frog understood his words, it fell off before the chef could even touch him. The problem was then.

 

“Catch it!”

 

“Ahh!”

 

The cooks who tried to avoid the jumping frogs got tangled and fell over, turning the kitchen into a mess. They ran out of the kitchen because of only one frog.

 

“Where have you been?”

 

After a while, the cooks returned and looked closely at the messy kitchen and asked. However, the suspicious frog disappeared without a trace.

 

“This one has grown very plump and well.”

 

“I’m glad you like it, Your Highness.”

 

When the Empress praised it, the chef smiled happily and hunched over.

 

‘How can I laugh at that disgusting thing?’

 

Gerald couldn’t help but look at his mother eating a frog’s leg. He couldn’t even touch his dinner because he lost his appetite just by looking at it.

 

“Your Highness’ skin seems to already glow.”

 

“Really? Ho ho ho.”

 

When the lady-in-waiting flattered her, his mother stopped tearing off the frog’s leg and laughed.

 

“Don’t forget that the reason you are in the world and in the position of crown prince is all because of my beauty.”

 

They said that his mother earned the Emperor’s favor thanks to her beauty, and she ate and wore whatever was good for maintaining her waning beauty.

 

“However, it is up to you to keep your seat and protect the throne.”

 

She meant that since beauty did not protect her son’s throne, Gerald should make a worthy contribution to the throne.

 

“Mother.”

 

His mother, who pursed her lips and ate the bone in her leg, looked at Gerald.

 

“I have a plan I’ve been making by myself lately. Would you like to hear it?”

 

He emphasized the word ‘alone’. He was proud to have come up with this idea alone.

 

“Okay, let’s listen.”

 

“These days, thanks to witches, the Grand Duchy is prospering and Elliot’s popularity has grown even more.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then why don’t we take the witch to our side of the road? Now that she’s a good witch, she says, if the good witch sticks to my side, won’t all the respect of my people that goes to Elliot come to me too? With my beauty resembling my mother’s, I could easily seduce the witch…”

 

Thanks to the ladies-in-waiting’s flattery, the Empress’ smiling face crumpled.

 

“Gerald.”

 

The wrinkles on her face were all the fault of her son.

 

“This stupid thing.”

 

How did she ever give birth to something like that? The Empress, who even added a blatant complaint, clicked her tongue.

 

“Popular among commoners. The Grand Duke’s popularity among nobles is rolling in the mud.”

 

The Duke of Monette was already looking for a husband for the princess among the nobles from other families. Although the resistance of the princess was not formidable. In addition, in the past year, he said that there was no family that had married the Grand Duke, so it was clear that the Grand Duke’s popularity as a marriage partner had plummeted.

 

“In love with a witch. It is a way to isolate yourself from society.”

 

Peek, smiling, the mother immediately turned her arrow toward Gerald.

 

“Being so shortsighted. How did I really give birth to something like that?”

 

The prince, who gave out all his good ideas and made the noise that he was stupid, jumped up from his seat without eating dinner.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“…”

 

“Gerald!”

 

Gerald didn’t even respond. He didn’t know if it was his father’s case, but his mother wasn’t afraid. In any case, without him, she would soon come after him to appease him, since her ambition to have the throne would not be fulfilled.

 

“What did I do wrong…”

 

Gerald went out to the nearby garden, biting off his entourage who always followed him. It was a time when he breathed in the cool winter air and cooled his boiling insides.

 

“The Crown Prince?”

 

He heard the voice of an old woman calling him. Not His Highness the Crown Prince, but the Crown Prince. It must have been a senile old woman.

 

“Who dares to call me that?”

 

He looked around, scolding himself severely, but there was no one in the dark garden.

 

“What? Could it be a ghost?”

 

It was about to become spooky. Gerald stepped back and found a frog sitting in the fountain. At that moment, the frog opened its mouth. The sound that comes out is not a ‘frog’…

 

“Prince.”

 

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Translator Note: