Chapter 76: Lovesickness

“Hehe, hihihi.”

Seron laughs foolishly.

“Whooo.”

Seron sighs.

“Hmm.”

Seron hums a tune.

I wonder how many times her emotions change in a day.

Watching her is exhausting.

But Seron never seemed to tire.

She always looked happy amidst her raging emotions.

“Seron.”

“Whoo.”

“Hey.”

“Hehehe.”

“Forehead.”

No matter how much I call, she doesn’t respond.

“Seron, what’s wrong with her?”

Isabel looked at Seron with a puzzled face.

Even to her, Seron didn’t seem normal.

“I don’t know. Ask her.”

I don’t want to ask anymore.

Isabel, noticing my attitude, sat next to Seron.

“Seron.”

When Isabel called Seron while tapping her shoulder, Seron came to her senses a bit.

“What happened? Why are you like this?”

Hearing Isabel’s question, Seron looked dazed and then stared out the window with a mesmerized face.

“Haa.”

And sighed once more.

“Belle, I saw a prince.”

“…There shouldn’t be anyone of royal status at Zeryon Academy, right?”

“No, it’s not like that. Hoo, Belle, you wouldn’t understand.”

Seron reacted as if saying, ‘You poor thing who doesn’t know love’.

Isabel also looked at Seron for a moment and then quietly stepped back.

“…You talk to her.”

“Just leave her alone.”

They say there’s no cure for lovesickness.

I have no choice but to leave her alone until she forgets about me.

“That attitude, don’t you know something?”

“Not at all.”

I don’t want to know either.

Time passed under Isabel’s suspicious gaze.

In this scenario, I had a few new tasks.

The first was to regularly visit the women’s dormitory for Iris’s peaceful sleep.

Iris’s nightmares were the most important factor.

I had to sleep with her at least once a week.

Iris wanted me to come every day, but no matter how much, I didn’t have the energy for that.

Entering the women’s dormitory every time was nerve-wracking, the maids’ eyes were terrifying.

The second was to shake off Isabel.

Isabel almost followed me around, trying to take care of this and that.

I underestimated her determination a bit.

She was desperate to treat me back to normal.

To the point where people around thought Isabel and I had reconciled.

In the end, I started avoiding Isabel.

The more Isabel got annoyed, the more persistently she followed me around.

But as a seasoned introvert, I hid well in places Isabel couldn’t find.

Extroverts don’t understand that introverts need time alone.

The third issue was Seron.

Seron promised not to come to the boycott with me.

Because it was something said by the person she fell for.

Seron faithfully followed this.

But as time went by, Seron became noticeably emaciated.

The periods of her sighing kept increasing.

It clearly showed what severe lovesickness looked like.

‘The Last Leaf.’

Seron looked at me with eyes full of melancholy, enough to remind me of that story.

Her behavior became more reserved, and she spoke less.

This really seemed like something needed to be done.

“Lovesickness isn’t called a sickness for nothing. It’s a disease of the heart, so the heart rots away.”

Card, who had extensive knowledge about women, clicked his tongue while looking at Seron.

“She’ll collapse at this rate.”

And not long after.

Seron really collapsed.

The incident happened during regular training.

A mock battle where we were assigned opponents to fight.

Seron, who was absent-minded, couldn’t avoid her opponent’s fatal attack.

Thud!

Seron, who had been flying through the air, rolled on the ground.

“Huh, huh?”

Her mock battle opponent looked back and forth between his sword and Seron with a bewildered face.

With this level of attack, Seron would have definitely avoided it under normal circumstances.

Knowing this, he had made the attack, but Seron didn’t even try to block it and just fell.

Seron didn’t get up after collapsing.

Everyone looked at the fallen Seron with shocked faces.

While I unconsciously stood up, Professor Beganon hurriedly checked Seron’s condition.

But her worried face quickly returned to normal.

“Hanon.”

At the professor’s call, I quickly approached.

“Yes, professor.”

She promptly handed Seron over to me.

“Take this fool to the infirmary. Ask them to give her some nutrients.”

Nutrients.

As soon as I heard that, I looked at Seron with a bewildered face.

Seron, suffering from lovesickness, had come down with malnutrition because she wasn’t sleeping properly and skipping meals.

‘Is this girl really an idiot?’

Following Professor Beganon’s words, I had no choice but to carry Seron on my back.

Then, under the gaze of the children, I left the training ground.

Seron was fainting with her eyes rolling back.

I sighed as I glanced at her.

All we did was have a brief conversation.

But how could someone end up like this because of that?

I couldn’t easily understand it.

I took Seron and headed straight to the infirmary.

Sunlight streamed in through the corridor windows leading to the infirmary.

“Seron.”

I called Seron’s name as she fainted.

“What do you like so much about that guy?”

I understood that she liked his face.

But it was a mystery to me how she could like someone so much just because of that.

“What’s so special about a face?”

I don’t know much about Seron.

One thing I do know is that Seron was born unlucky.

She was always unlucky.

If something special happened, she would get a stomachache or get hurt somewhere, and if she prepared something diligently, it would fall apart, making her efforts seem in vain.

That’s why Seron’s nickname was ‘Unlucky Girl’.

Seron’s personality became sharp and eccentric due to this bad luck.

Nothing ever went her way, so she couldn’t help but become irritable.

Creak-

When I opened the door, the infirmary’s characteristic disinfectant smell hit me.

It seemed the nurse had stepped out for a moment.

‘She’ll be back soon.’

I laid Seron on the infirmary bed.

After roughly taking off her shoes, I covered her with a blanket.

“Ugh, ugh.”

Seron groaned.

She was still half-asleep.

“Prince.”

Yes, your prince is here.

Seron’s complexion was noticeably bad.

Watching her, I slowly brushed her bangs aside.

“Tsk.”

Clicking my tongue, I closed the curtains properly.

Then I pulled the Veil Bandages.

As I did, my height gradually increased, and my hair began to turn white.

I transformed from Hanun back to Vikarmern.

As Vikarmern, I pulled a chair and sat next to Seron.

Then I stroked Seron’s forehead once.

It was still well-maintained and smooth.

Seron’s expression relaxed a bit, perhaps feeling the warmth.

At the same time, her eyes began to open faintly.

Seron blinked.

Soon, when her eyes met mine, they gradually widened.

“Prince!?”

Seron exclaimed in shock.

She tried to get up but winced in pain from the earlier impact.

I watched Seron quietly and leaned back in the chair.

“Seron Parmia.”

When I called her name, Seron’s shoulders flinched.

She widened her eyes as if wondering how I knew her name.

“I heard about you from an acquaintance. They said you’ve become emaciated and aren’t in good condition lately.”

Seron’s shoulders flinched again.

She mumbled and moved her lips.

“And they said you seem to be looking for me.”

She lowered her head deeply.

Seron’s ears turned bright red.

Watching her, I asked Seron a question.

“Why were you looking for me? I don’t think we have any particular connection.”

At that moment, Seron flinched again.

She clasped her hands and trembled slightly.

Seron lifted her trembling face.

Her eyes quivered pitifully.

Seeing this, I wondered why she looked so hurt by my words.

“…Yes, I thought you wouldn’t remember.”

Seron said with a slightly sad smile.

Seeing that smile, my eyes slowly opened wide.

I had vaguely thought that Seron was just infatuated with my face.

But that wasn’t the case.

‘…….Was there a connection between Vikarmern and Seron that I didn’t know about?’

Vikarmern Niflheim, a third-rate villain.

Seron Parmia, an unfortunate soul.

Both were minor characters in the Blazing Butterfly arc.

Naturally, there wasn’t much information about them.

Like any game, not every extra character can have a fully fleshed-out backstory.

So, they both just appeared as passing characters.

But now, an unknown relationship between these extras was revealed.

I had been living as Hanon until now.

Therefore, I hadn’t considered how Vikarmern’s relationships were connected.

And in that unconsidered part, an unexpected mistake occurred.

‘But.’

it seemed Seron didn’t even know my name.

Could this be considered a connection?

“…Sorry, I don’t have a good memory. Could you explain if something happened?”

At least if we didn’t know each other’s names, the relationship wasn’t deep.

So, there was a way to get out of this somehow.

When I asked Seron, she lowered her head shyly, as if recalling an old memory.

“It was the day of a party hosted by a noble lady.”

Nobles often held parties for socializing.

At that time, it was Seron’s first time attending a social party.

Her debut in the social scene.

For this, Seron dressed up very prettily.

She prepared a gift for the lady hosting the party and properly learned the party etiquette.

But Seron was unfortunate.

On the day she arrived at the party venue, a carriage accident occurred on the bridge her carriage had to cross, causing a delay.

The bridge was a single path, and she had to wait in the carriage for a long time.

After the accident was finally resolved and she crossed the bridge to enter the estate where the party was held, it started to rain heavily.

The torrential rain didn’t stop, and the ground turned to mud.

Soon, the carriage wheels got stuck in the mud while passing through a construction area and couldn’t move forward.

In the end, Seron had to get out of the carriage and walk through the muddy path with an umbrella held by her maid.

No matter how hard she tried to use the umbrella, the rain seeped in.

Her beautifully worn shoes were ruined by the mud, and the hem of her dress was stained with mud and rainwater.

She looked nothing like a lady invited to a party.

With such a pitiful appearance, Seron arrived at the party venue, holding back her tears.

But the party was almost over by then.

The maid tried to clean Seron’s dress and shoes, but she couldn’t enter the party hall in such a state.

So, Seron sat on the terrace of the party hall, holding the wet gift box.

As soon as Seron arrived at the party venue, the rain miraculously stopped.

She had no luck.

None at all.

She had begged her father for a new dress, got her makeup done, and personally chose a gift for her first social debut, but nothing went right.

She was always like this.

A series of subtly unlucky events that were too trivial to complain about to others.

If she were outright unlucky, she could at least express her grievances, but only these ambiguous misfortunes happened frequently.

While Seron was sitting there, sulking, someone approached her.

“Hello.”

Between the clouds that had cleared, the moonlight shone beautifully on white hair.

“Isn’t the moonlight pretty?”

It was there that she met her prince for the first time.