WDEDLF-Chapter 109

“Oh, miss! I forgot, Sir Courbet made a rum cake! Why don’t you go and try it right away?”

 

“Rum cake? No, I’m not really in the mood for—”

 

“Sir Courbet’s rum cake is the best! Seriously! You won’t find a rum cake like it anywhere in the Empire.”

 

“But we have to catch the butterfly….”

 

“I’ll catch it! So, Miss, you go to the dining room with Emily and have some freshly baked rum cake. Come on! It’s really, really delicious.”

 

Elaine, who was drinking cocoa, didn’t really want to eat anything sweet, but since Rosie kept insisting, she felt bad about ignoring it, so she nodded.

 

Emily also seemed to be salivating at the mention of rum cake as she linked arms with Elaine and led her away.

 

“It seems like Rosie is good at handling butterflies, so let’s leave the butterflies to Rosie and go eat some rum cake.”

 

“Yes, Emily! Quickly take the young lady and go. You can eat a lot too.”

 

“You’ll be there soon too, right?”

 

“Yes! I’ll follow you right away.”

 

Elaine left the living room with Emily, laughing heartily, but then looked back, still worried about Rosie.

 

Rosie was still waving with an awkward smile on her face when Elaine suddenly realized that there was no butterfly anywhere in the room.

 

And as Elaine looked around the room with a puzzled expression, Rosie’s face turned slightly pale.

 

Elaine smiled and said goodbye to her, feeling that she shouldn’t ask about the butterfly’s whereabouts.

 

“Rosie. Then, I’ll go first.”

 

“Yes, Miss!”

 

Rosie’s answer was strangely loud.

 

‘It’s true what Emily said about the Lindell’s servants being a bit strange.’

 

Elaine snickered as she watched Emily giggling without any suspicion.

 

But something strange happened in the dining room too.

 

“Huh? Rum cake?”

 

When she told him that she had come to eat rum cake, Chef Courbet asked her back with a face as he had never heard of it before.

 

“Rosie said that. Sir Courbet baked a rum cake, so we went to eat it…”

 

“Rosie?”

 

“Yes. I was watching a butterfly that followed Rosie out of the greenhouse—-”

 

“Ahh! Rum cake? Hahaha! I’ll bring it right now.”

 

Courbet, who had been looking at Elaine like he was wondering what she was talking about until just now, suddenly remembered something and ran into the kitchen.

 

Then he brought out a really hot baked rum cake.

 

The combination of the ring-shaped cake with the sweet rum syrup scent and the warm black tea looked so delicious that even Elaine, who had never thought of cake, drooled.

 

As Courbet set the table, Elaine and Emily took small bites of the rum cake with their forks.

 

“Delicious!”

 

“It’s really delicious! When Rosie said it was the best in the empire, it wasn’t an exaggeration!”

 

“Hahaha! My rum cake is pretty tasty.”

 

Elaine had a happy snack time with Emily and Courbet.

 

At that moment, the gardener, Marka, entered the dining room.

 

Emily, who had been getting along well with the servants of this mansion, greeted him first.

 

“Sir Marka! Did you go out to the garden?”

 

“Hey, Emily! How did you know?”

 

“I could smell the snow.”

 

“You’re really dog-like. Your sense of smell is very good.”

 

Marka, the oldest of the servants, laughed and took off his coat.

 

Elaine, who had been looking at the garden from the living room before coming down to the dining room, thought to compliment Marka.

 

“The garden here looks so pretty with the snow falling. It’s almost like a painting.”

 

“Ah, hahaha! We were lucky.”

 

“But which path in the garden are you walking on? There’s so much snow there, and I can’t even see Sir Marka’s footprints.”

 

At those words, Marka smiled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.

 

“Haha, is that so? Ahem! Hey, Emily! What are you eating right now? It looks delicious.”

 

“Sir Courbet baked a rum cake for us. It was delicious.”

 

“Courbet! Give me a piece too.”

 

“Please wait a moment. I will make you a cup of tea shortly, so please eat it with the tea.”

 

Marka and Courbet’s attitude was somewhat flustered, but Elaine was so happy with the situation that everyone was sitting around eating snacks that she laughed along with Emily.

 

Then, at one moment, she suddenly felt a sense of discomfort.

 

‘That’s strange. If the cake was baking, we would have smelled it baking when we entered the dining room.….’

 

It was hard to ignore the smell of snow blowing in from outside, so how could the smell of baking cake not be felt?

 

Elaine bit into the rum cake, putting a piece in her mouth.

 

“But Sir Courbet, when did you bake the cake? It looks so warm that I think it was just baked, but I didn’t smell it, so I had no idea.”

 

“Oh…That, that…”

 

“Ahem! That, uh, that’s because the kitchen is well-ventilated. Isn’t that right, Courbet?”

 

“Yes, that’s right! There are several windows. Haha!”

 

“Oh, I see.….”

 

Courbet seemed somewhat confused, and Marka seemed to be helping him.

 

Elaine didn’t ask any more questions and returned to her room after enjoying the warm rum cake and black tea.

 

‘No matter how much I think about it, it’s strange…’

 

Elaine tilted her head and slumped down on the sofa.

 

A butterfly that was sitting quietly and then disappeared, a butterfly that should not exist this winter.

 

The gardener went out and came back, but the snow-covered garden left no footprints.

 

A rum cake that has no baking smell at all.

 

‘Am I being sensitive?’

 

Elaine wondered, mulling over the incomprehensible things again, and then shook her head.

 

‘I’m not in a position to think of other people as weird right now, and since I’m weird, other people must think I’m weird.’

 

Elaine rubbed the bruise on her arm from the debutante banquet.

 

‘The wound is healing faster and faster.’

 

Until she’d been at Newt, most wounds had healed within a day or two. That was to be expected.

 

But it was too strange for Elaine that a letter-knife cut healed overnight after Debbie pointed it out as odd, or a scratch from a banquet disappeared in five minutes.

 

And every time something like that happens, she keeps thinking of her mother’s words, “You are my daughter and you are human.”

 

‘Am I really…a human?’

 

When Elaine thought about it like that, she felt a little scared because she felt unfamiliar with herself.

 

As Elaine was rubbing her injured arm with those thoughts in mind, she heard a rustling sound behind her.

 

“Oh my god!”

 

[Why are you so surprised?]

 

“Rabes!”

 

The culprit of the noise was Rabes, who had just appeared in the room.

 

Elaine was able to calm her anxiously pounding heart at the sight of Rabes, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time.

 

“Where have you been?”

 

[Monster hunting. I hunted a lot because I thought I would have to work hard in the future.]

 

“Work hard? Why? What’s wrong?”

 

[You don’t have to worry about it. It’s not even certain.]

 

Rabes was saving his power for Sasha and Abel, or more precisely, for the dragon that was controlling Abel.

 

If he wasn’t going to take the power core he had given to Elaine, he would have to eat many monster power cores to make up for his own incomplete power core.

 

[But why is your face like that?]

 

“Huh? How is my face?”

 

[I think you’re thinking about something bad.]

 

Elaine touched her face, wondering if it was really that serious.

 

[Tell me. What useless thoughts have you been thinking?]

 

“It’s not a useless thought.”

 

[Just say it, I’ll decide if it’s useless or not.]

 

Elaine hesitated and decided to confess her strangeness. Maybe the dragon knew something.

 

“My body is a little weird.”

 

[Weird?]

 

Elaine sighed softly and calmly explained how she hadn’t been sick since she was a child, how her wounds healed quickly, and how her scratch at the banquet disappeared in less than five minutes.

 

“I just thought I was healthy, but I found out that other people aren’t like that. If you grew up starving like me, it’s natural to get sick, and it’s common for bloody wounds to last for over a week.”

 

[so?]

 

“Do you remember when Rabes called my mother’s spirit on St. Nicholas’ Day? At that time, my mother told me ‘You are human’. She said something like that. But isn’t it strange? It’s so obvious that I’m human, so why did my mother say something like that to me?”

 

Elaine’s eyes were trembling with anxiety.

 

She wondered if this life was real if even her most basic beliefs were being shaken.

 

That’s understandable, those days were so unrealistic.

 

Becoming a dragon contractor, shooting cocky remarks at Lark, making friends, leaving the temple and living a life of luxury. There was no way that could really be her life.

 

While she was in such confusion, Rabes blurted out in a grumbling tone.

 

[What does it matter?]

 

“Yes?”

 

[Let’s say you’re not human. What would change then?]

 

Elaine was speechless at Rabes’ question.

 

[What on earth are you worrying about? If you’re not human, is there something you have to do differently?]

 

“That’s not, but—”

 

[If you think about it, you’ve become quite different from other humans since the moment you became my contractor. You didn’t care when I gave you my power, but are you so scared of things like your wounds healing a little faster?]

 

“Oh, no….”

 

[See, that was a useless thought. You just stay here and eat something delicious and make yourself comfortable.]

 

Rabes said as he flopped down on Elaine’s bed.

 

Seeing Rabes scratching his ear with his paw as if he had heard all sorts of nonsense, Elaine also began to wonder about herself.

 

‘Yeah. Why was it so scary to think that I might not be human?’

 

Elaine smiled faintly, forcing down the anxiety that still lingered.

 

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