Lark, the person who had driven Lorina to the edge of an emotional cliff, quickly forgot that Lorina had come to see him.
“Sergey…Sergey Lindell….”
Lark tapped his fingers on the desk, lost in thought.
To him, Elaine, who had become an uncertain person, was a much more important concern than Lorina.
But no matter how much he thought about it, there was no reason for a human being, the successor to the Count of Lindell, to touch Elaine.
Even if he had tried to establish a connection with Count Newt, it would have been the same. Since both Elaine and Ellie were too young to be having any marriage proposals anyway, it would have been better to approach Lark, who was around the same age, with the intention of becoming friends.
‘But that guy was hostile to me from the beginning.’
On the day Elaine was locked in the temple coffin chamber, the cold gaze Sergey gave to Lark could only be interpreted as ‘hostile’, no matter how positively one tries to interpret it. It is unclear why he did that to someone he had just met.
‘It’s unlikely that he did that just because I couldn’t discipline my younger siblings.…Did I miss something?’
Lark opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a notebook.
It was a scrapbook containing newspaper articles about Count Lindell, from the day Elaine and Sergey met.
[Count Lindell requests attendance at the Noble Council after 75 years: The representative is his heir, Sergey Lindell, who is only 20 years old but fully authorized by Count Lindell…]
[Who is Count Herman Lindell? – He is the 24th generation of the family of Count Lindell and a businessman who turned his attention abroad early on. He has a wife, Diana Lindell (foreigner), and a son, Sergey Lindell (only child).]
[Shock! Count Lindell’s immeasurable wealth: the family has been in the spotlight recently for their huge contribution of 650,000 gold to the imperial family. This paper estimated the wealth of the Count of Lindell based on the scale of their business abroad…]
Within a year and a half, the Lindell family had become a household name in the newspapers.
Even among those many newspapers, there was nothing particularly negative. So, in Lark’s eyes, it seemed like nothing more than a media manipulation to intentionally expose that family.
The imperial donation, which attracted the attention of not only the royal family but also the nobles, gave Sergey, who had just become an adult, a seat in the noble council, and the size of the family’s business, which was not particularly hidden, became a bait that attracted people to the Lindell family.
Certainly, Count Lindell was making his presence felt quickly enough to be in a hurry.
‘But why is the Count Lindel family, who has been focusing on foreign business until now, suddenly trying to increase their family’s influence within the empire? And why is the already busy Sergey Lindell pretending to be friendly with Elaine of all people?’
Lark tried to think of it from different angles, but he couldn’t see the connection.
Finally, he even thought, ‘Could it be that he has a crush on Elaine?’, but Lark quickly shook his head.
‘There’s no way an heir who has become the representative of a family would date someone with such frivolous thoughts.’
To Lark, that was what it meant to be the heir of a family. A position where the interests of the house are prioritized over one’s own feelings, where one must put aside one’s own self in exchange for power and gain.
So there was no clue left to understand Sergey.
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on him to see what he’s up to, to see if he’s going to harm or help my family…’
Even as he thought that, Lark ignored the option that would benefit the family, which was to ‘use Elaine to create a connection with the Lindell family.’
It was a contradiction that even as heir, Lark could not erase from his mind.
* * *
In the middle of summer, a coughing sound continued in the dorm room.
“Try this, Debbie. It’s lemon ginger tea and supposedly good for colds.”
Elaine handed the hot tea to Debbie, who was suffering from a summer cold.
“Thank you, Elaine. Haa…. a cold in the middle of summer, it’s really annoying.”
“Well, you already have it, you should focus on getting better quickly.”
Debbie grumbled at Elaine’s nagging, but pulled the blanket up to her neck and sipped her tea little by little.
Debbie, who had been feeling heavy for the past two days, finally got sick, whether it was because she had been kicking off the blanket and sleeping because it was hot in the summer, or because she had only been drinking cold water.
She was shivering all night with chills, but when the fever went down a bit in the morning, she started coughing.
And all that time, Elaine was there to nurse Debbie.
Debbie gave Elaine an apologetic look as she sipped her hot lemon ginger tea.
“I’m so sorry, Elaine. What if you catch a cold like me?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve never had a cold in my life.”
Elaine smiled brightly.
In fact, being healthy was Elaine’s only pride.
As far as Elaine can remember, she has never been sick since she was a child, even if it was just a minor cold.
Her mother and Emily always said it was a good thing.
If Elaine was sick, Newt would have just taunted her and said she was fine, and he would never have called a doctor or given her medicine.
But when Debbie heard that, she tilted her head with a subtle expression.
“Isn’t that a bit weird?”
“Huh? Is it weird?”
“Yeah. This is the first time I’ve met someone who’s never had a cold.”
“Really…?”
Elaine had never felt weird before. She had no reason to feel weird because her life was ‘normal’ without being sick.
“I guess I’m just a healthy person?”
“Hmm…Then you haven’t been hurt anywhere?”
“I’ve cut my hands a lot, or fallen and scraped my knees. But those wounds heal in a day or two, so I’ve never had to suffer from them.”
“That’s weird too. Usually, if you get hurt like that, it takes a week to heal.”
“Really?”
“Yes! Look at this.”
Debbie sniffled as she pulled back the covers and pajamas to reveal the cuts on her shins.
“About a week ago, It’s a wound from hitting the stairs of the auditorium on the first floor. The scab hasn’t even fallen off yet.”
Elaine knew about that wound because she had been surprised that day when Debbie came back with blood on her stocking.
“This still hasn’t healed?”
“This is not unusual, this is normal.”
It was something Elaine never thought of.
The only time she’d ever been sick in her life was when she’d been locked in a closet by Martin and Damon and had been sick for two days after being rescued.
That doesn’t mean it was a cold or a fever. She was just dizzy from the shock, and she recovered in two days without taking any medicine.
Besides, she had been injured many times by Martin’s gang, but none of her wounds had lasted more than two days.
And no one in the Newt family seemed to question that fact.
‘Maybe they just weren’t interested in me.’
Elaine tilted her head, then forgot about the topic when Debbie began coughing violently.
But that night, just as Elaine was finishing her homework and about to turn off the oil lamp, the conversation she had with Debbie came to mind.
‘It takes over a week for a wound to heal? Does that mean my wound healed faster when I was younger?’
‘I had heard somewhere that children heal faster. Now, it seemed like I might be healing at a similar rate to Debbie.’
It’s something she could have just thought of and let go of, but for some reason, it kept bothering her.
She couldn’t forget the look in Debbie’s eyes as she looked at her strangely.
And Elaine’s gaze lingered on the letter knife stuck in her pencil case.
‘Let’s try it.’
It was a risky idea, but Elaine took out her letter knife and lightly cut her forearm without a second thought.
It stung, but she’d been beaten by Martin’s gang since she was a child, so it didn’t hurt much.
Red blood oozes out of the sharp wound, but after wiping it off a couple of times, the bleeding stops.
‘I’ll know when I wake up tomorrow morning.’
Only then did Elaine turn off the oil lamp and go to bed.
The next morning, Elaine woke up to the sound of Debbie coughing.
Before she could fully open her eyes, she lit a fire on the stove and boiled water.
Then she poured some warm water into a cup and gave it to Debbie.
Debbie’s cough was worse than the day before.
“Ugh, I think I’m going to die.”
“People don’t die from this, Debbie. Drink some warm water and cheer up, okay?”
Elaine supported Debbie’s back with one arm so she could drink the water. And then she remembered the cut on her arm yesterday.
‘It doesn’t exist…!’
If she remembers correctly, she thinks she drew a line somewhere between her elbow and wrist, but there was no trace.
Elaine checked her entire arm to see if she had remembered incorrectly, but there was no sign of it having been cut anywhere.
“What’s wrong, Elaine?”
“Oh, no! Give me the cup. I’ll wash it right away.”
Elaine smiled awkwardly and took Debbie’s finished cup and walked out of the room.
She examined both arms again, but there was not a single wound.
‘I healed faster than before!’
‘No, I’ve healed quickly before, but maybe I didn’t care about the wound then, and it passed like it was no big deal.’
‘This is really weird.…’
A strange sense of uneasiness seemed to be creeping up her back.
And then, for some unknown reason, suddenly the words she had heard from her mother came to mind.
[No matter what anyone says, you are my daughter and a human. You just have to never forget that.]
‘Why did my mother insist on such an obvious thing…?’
Elaine rubbed her forearms, which gave her goosebumps even in the middle of summer. She didn’t want to think about that anymore.
* * *
