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Anomaly
「This venison is from a deer that I personally hunted. It’s fresh and delicious, so I definitely want you to give it a taste」
At the dinner table.
In front of the sauteed venison that was the main course, duke Dragunaut spoke in a seemingly good mood.
Just like he said, an insanely savory aroma drifted to me from the steamy venison, and I was convinced that it would be very delicious even when I haven’t tried it yet.
Ciel, Suzume, and even the young members of the 『Scythe of the Grim Reaper』who were invited to this dinner are all looking at the food with sparkling eyes.
In addition to the venison, the table was filled with all kinds of different food as well.
Lamb stews made from sheep that were raised in the Duke’s territory, alcohol-steamed mussels from mussels that came from the north sea, a pot of boiled seasonal vegetables and trout that were caught from lake Toya, red melons with walnut sauce and so on.
The breads were as white as gemstones probably because they were made of only high-quality wheat.
Even the ordinary-looking soup had an overwhelming amount of vegetable flavor seeping out. I don’t think I would ever get sick of it no matter how many cups I have.
They served splendid food at the banquet after the award ceremony at the royal palace as well, but since their food was too fancy, it didn’t really suit my taste.
In that regard, while the food of the duke’s residence is luxurious, I could tell that they have considered what commoners like to eat.
They probably originally wanted to serve the appetizers, the soups, the fish and meat, and then the desserts in that order, but they probably didn’t do that because they didn’t want to make us nervous.
Eat whatever suits your taste- this thoughtfulness of theirs is well appreciated. Speaking of that, I can feel the duke’s attentive care from the way he had the vegetarian dishes lined up in front of Lunamaria.
He wasn’t the head of the senior vassals of the Canaria kingdom for no reason.
Thus, the meal started with expectation and admiration in my mind.
Like everyone else, I will enjoy these superb dishes happily.
Ohh, this stew and bread really go well together. And this melon with walnut sauce is way too good. When I took a look at Suzume who was next to me, she seemed to agree with me as well from the way her head was nodding as she swallowed her food.
After the plates were emptied, Suzume looked at them with a look of sadness on her face. Even though they told us to feel free to ask for more, it’s probably hard for Suzume to open her mouth to ask the maids because of the way she is.
Since I understand how she feels, I raised my hand to ask for more food for her instead. But at that moment,
The shrill sound of tableware breaking echoed in the dining room.
When I looked at the direction the sound came from, I saw that Claudia had collapsed on the floor and she was holding onto her chest in pain.
The shattered pieces of the white plate and the mussels that were on her plate scattered everywhere near her.
「Clau?!」
Astrid, who was seated next to Claudia, rushed to her sister’s side in a hurry. It wasn’t just her, their father and their maids who were on standby also did the same thing.
「……S-sorry..M-my hands kind of…slipped…Aghhh?!」
With a distressed voice, Claudia’s slim body convulsed greatly.
It wasn’t just once. Two times, three times, four times…Claudia covered her mouth as best as she could, but her sharp groans did not stop leaking out of the gaps between her fingers.
When Astrid saw that, she looked like she was going to pick up her little sister in her arms with a pale look on her face. She probably decided to carry Claudia back to her room.
But right before Claudia’s older sister’s hand was about to touch her,
「……Uuu……Uuuuuuuaa!!」
Claudia’s body bent in a く shape as she made those sounds that sounded like they were forced out of her lips.
That’s probably her desperately trying to endure the pain that was attacking her body.
…However, her resistance crumbled in vain as her voice of agony soon turned into deafening screams.
「……Uahhh, AHHHHH! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts it hurtsssssss!!」
「Clau, Claudia! Please hang in there!」
「AHhhhhh……Ahhh  AHHH AHHH AHHhh!!」
She screamed like her throat was going to be destroyed.
Is she really the tomboy princess who I talked to at the stables?
How much pain does a person have to feel to scream like that?
Astrid gave a short instruction to one of the maids. The maid that received her orders then ran out of the dining room.
「Father, this place is…」
「Yeah」
Astrid spoke to her father with a heavy expression on her face after she looked at us and the members of the 『Scythe of the Grim Reaper』.
The duke also realized what her older daughter wanted to say to him as he nodded in response with a stern look.
「Dear guests, I’m sorry for startling you. This is something like an attack that Clau gets. She had been doing better lately and even got some of her appetite back, but…it looks like she got a little too excited today」
Duke Dragunaut then told us to return to our rooms. They will bring us food later in our rooms, he said.
Of course, we didn’t say no. There’s no way we would want to continue eating after we see Claudia like that.
Besides, we could tell that the duke wanted to clear everyone out of the area.
Even if I were to overstep my boundaries and ask to stay, I won’t be of any use since I’m not a doctor or a priest. I may have a trump card, but I don’t know if it’s usable yet.
As the maids cleaned up the pieces of the shattered plate on the floor, we quickly left the dining room.
Claudia’s piercing cries chased after us as we left.
◆◆◆
「Master, I have something I’d like to report」
When I returned to my room, Lunamaria opened her mouth with a serious look on her face.
Ciel and Suzume are each in their own rooms. Lunamaria probably decided that she didn’t want the other two to hear this.
From that alone, I understood that what she wanted to talk about was nothing good.
「What is it?」
「At noon, Lady Astrid came to ask me something. She asked if it was possible to clear out the poison of Tanasia grass with the jiraiaooks fruits」
「Tanasia grass…Ah, the raw material for the sleep-death medicine, Tanasia」
Tanasia is the name of a well known medicinal herb…or rather, the name of a poisonous grass.
The medicine acts like a painkiller on the outside, but what it actually does is it kills the person’s ability to sense pain itself. It’s a poisonous medicine made to let people die gently.
Since it lets someone die without any pain and suffering as if they died in their sleep, it’s called the “sleep-death” medicine.
Duke Dragunaut and Claudia are probably going to give her Tanasia to suppress her pain.
To put it clearly, that’s the same thing as making a person eat their own limbs to survive when they’re about to starve to death.
If I heard about this before the dinner, I probably wouldn’t be able to hold back my anger.
However, after I heard that young girl’s screams earlier, I couldn’t really blame Astrid and her father for doing that.
「So, what did you tell her?」
「I told lady Astrid that “since I don’t have a complete grasp on the jiraiaooks’ effects, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think that it could completely remove the Tanasia grass’s poison.” 」
Even though she said she wasn’t sure, Lunamaria is quite confident in what she said from her knowledge as an elf and a sage.
Whether or not the poison could be completely cured is only a part of the whole.
The jiraiaooks fruits would definitely buy her some time. However, Claudia’s actual time limit would not change.
The duke and Astrid are probably thinking of doing something about the curse before her time is up.
I’m not going to say what they’re doing is wrong.
But when I see the pain that Claudia was going through just now, I can’t help thinking that the time that the jiraiaooks can buy for her isn’t going to matter at all.
That’s how stunning the scene earlier was. To think that the same girl who was playing with Clau Soras fearlessly could cry out like that…
Just how much pain was she feeling? I bit my lip without knowing the answer.
「…A curse, huh? I would have studied about curses more if I knew something like this would happen. Oh yeah, did you notice anything strange as a spirit user?」
「Unforunately, I didn’t notice anything concrete. However, there was just one thing I was curious about」
「Something got you curious? What’s that?」
「Yes. Right before lady Claudia collapsed, I felt a strange pressure with my ears」
「A pressure…with your ears? Like a weird sound?」
「I couldn’t tell exactly what it was but…Hmm, master, do you know what a dog whistle is?」
「Ahh, that’s an item that tamers use, right?」
A dog whistle is a whistle that makes sounds that only dogs and wolves can hear. Extremely skilled tamers can use that whistle to freely control packs of wolves or something.
I heard that dragon riders also use a similar item called a dragon whistle that lets them give instructions to their dragons and to call them back from a distance.
It seems to be a secret of the dragon riders so they did not tell me about it in detail.
Anyways, Lunamaria said that the feeling she remembers from the dinner felt very close to hearing a dog whistle from nearby.
「But I don’t know if it had anything to do with Lady Claudia’s abnormality. If it did, it’s weird that no one else suffered from it…」
「Yeah. But it’s too early to say that it was unrelated. Ciel is the one with the best hearing out of all of us, so let’s go ask her if she heard anything」
「Understood. Then I’ll go call Ciel right awa-」
「Ah, no, wait a second」
I stopped Lunamaria when she was about to leave the room.
As this elf looked at me in wonder, I waved my hand and beckoned her over.
After she obediently came up to me even though she was becoming increasingly confused, I firmly put my hands on her slim shoulders.
「U-um, master, may I do something for you?」
「This is an experiment」
「An experiment…?」
「Yeah. I actually wanted to test this with Miroslav after I’m back at Ishka…but it doesn’t seem like we have that much time」
The experiment I’m talking about is of course the one to inject my soul into someone else’s body.
I wanted Miroslav to be the first test subject not only because I thought about what could happen if the experiment fails, but also because that girl is a human.
Claudia, the person I must not eat, but donate some of my soul to, is a human.
Even if I could successfully pull it off with Lunamaria who is an elf, the result might be different with a human. It’s the same logic with Ciel who is a beastkin and Suzume who is a kijin.
That’s why I’ll test it with Miroslav first, I thought, but I can’t say for sure that I’ll have time to do that in the current situation. Before I do it on Claudia, I want to be able to get an approximate idea of how it’ll work even if I can’t get a full grasp of it.
I expected that Lunamaria would resist since I just told her I wanted to experiment on her out of nowhere, but surprisingly, this elf with blonde hair did not resist.
She relaxed and looked right at me. I could see my somewhat confused expression being reflected in her emerald eyes from up close.
「What do you want me to do?」
「…Just the same thing as usual」
Lunamaria gently closed her eyes in response to my voice.
I eliminated the confusion in my heart and put my lips on hers.