I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 45

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 45.
Her tone was hard to believe.
Good work, Jeniss!
Say it isn’t so, right now. And wake me up. I want to wake up.
I flailed about.
“Our young lady says to hold her close like this. I suppose I should lie down instead.”
The more I moved, the more my intentions were twisted into something entirely different.
I couldn’t speak, and my body wouldn’t obey.
Please, I wished someone could read what was really in my heart.
“Of course. Children grow through the warmth of people’s bodies, after all.”
“I see. How remarkable, Cooker.”
Jeniss, don’t get swept up in that strange logic.
I overcome my loneliness not by seeking warmth from others, but by thinking of revenge!
Yet against my wishes, Jeniss fell completely for Cooker’s reasoning.
“I should let the young lady know I’m here beside her.”
Jeniss and Cooker squabbled over who would hold my hand. Once Cooker repositioned himself, he gripped my hand firmly while patting my belly with his other.
His awkward, clumsy touch drummed steadily against my stomach. There was something oddly comforting in that gesture.
“Diana, your aunt is here. You’re not alone. I’ll stay beside you until you wake, so sleep well.”
This isn’t right at all.
“I’m here too, young lady.”
Jeniss chimed in, unwilling to be left out.
“I-I’m here as well.”
Robert spoke too.
“I can’t even leave the house and you just lie there? How tedious. I’ll be right here waiting, so hurry up and wake so we can play.”
“You charlatan!”
Cooker called out to Rum Darks in a low voice. That single, short utterance carried every curse imaginable.
“What did I do?”
Rum Darks’ teasing provocation of Cooker drifted through the room.
And how is the child supposed to sleep with all this commotion around her anyway.
No one noticed that I was conscious. My body still felt impossibly heavy, I couldn’t speak, and there was nothing I could do.
I had no choice but to surrender to sleep.
But I had the nagging feeling I was forgetting something terribly important. What was it?
“Even our young lady throws tantrums sometimes, it seems.”
“No matter how mature she tries to act, she’s still a child after all.”
My body truly did want sleep, and through my dimming consciousness came tender voices.
It’s not a tantrum. And I’m not a little child.
I sank into sleep, voicing my protests only in my mind.
And I awoke with a tremendous revelation.
***
“The sorcerer!”
My eyes snapped open.
What I’d been forgetting came back to me. I bolted upright.
“Young lady! Are you all right? Are you dizzy, nauseous, or in pain anywhere?”
Jeniss rushed over with a dripping wet cloth. Water marks traced her path across the floor.
“Jeniss! The sorcerer!”
“Young lady, are you sure you’re not hurt?”
Jeniss and I stared at each other, each saying what we needed to say.
I was eager to speak, but I could imagine how frightened Jeniss must have been seeing me collapse. I had been terrified when Casion fell.
First, I needed to calm Jeniss.
“Jeniss, I’m fine!”
“Young lady, a sorcerer?”
Our words overlapped again.
“Heh.”
Laughter escaped me. Jeniss narrowed her eyes, staring at me. No wonder she looked confused—here I was, jumping up and talking about finding a sorcerer.
“Jeniss, let me speak first.”
I set the order so our words wouldn’t tangle again. I’d speak, then you. Jeniss nodded.
“I’m not hurt. Thanks to all of you and your devoted care, I’m fine.”
“How did you know we were looking after you?”
Jeniss’ eyes went wide.
I’d heard the commotion around me when I regained consciousness earlier, but even without that, I could have guessed.
“Jeniss, that thing in your hand—it’s not a cold compress for my head, is it?”
“No, miss. It’s a towel to wash your face. You’re quite dirty, you know. You collapsed without bathing for two days.”
Well, whether it goes on my head or washes my face, care is care either way.
My expectations fell short, but that’s fine.
“With a towel dripping wet like that?”
But the thought of Jeniss wiping my face with that soaked cloth made me shudder.
The bed would be soaked through.
“Oh my! I was in such a rush when you woke that I brought the towel as is. Let me hurry and put it away. But are you truly all right, miss?”
Jeniss asked as she ran toward the basin.
“As you see.”
In other words, I was fine.
“But miss, what is a magician?”
Jeniss, having set the towel in the basin, looked me over and spoke.
Knock, knock.
At that moment, a knock and footsteps sounded from beyond the door.
“It must be Robert. His timing is perfect.”
Robert—what brought him here?
I nodded lightly, and Jeniss scurried to open the door. As it swung wide, the sharp scent of medicine wafted through the room.
“Miss? Are you all right, miss!”
Robert crossed the room as though charging forward. He walked with such urgency that I worried the medicine in his cup might spill.
Robert’s gaze fixed on my forehead—he was desperate to check for fever—but with the medicine tray in his hands, he could only hover helplessly, torn between the two.
All this fuss over one collapse. To prove I was truly fine, I hauled myself out of bed.
Jeniss and Robert watched my every movement with hawk-like intensity.
If I stumbled even once, they’d keep me bedridden for days.
I set my feet on the floor slowly and pushed myself upright. But in that instant—of all times!—the room began to spin.
I dropped back onto the bed with a heavy thud.
“Miss!”
Jeniss and Robert cried out in unison.
“Robert, set down the medicine tray and examine me. Tell me what you find.”
With a brilliant physician right before me, I felt no fear of illness. Robert handed the tray to Jeniss and knelt down in front of me.
“You should sit in a chair instead.”
Even at my words, Robert remained on his knees, gazing up at me with earnest eyes. I could see the worry pooling in them.
“Where does it hurt and how, miss? May I take your temperature?”
I nodded, and Robert rubbed his palms against his thighs before gently placing his hand on my forehead.
“No fever, miss. Where does it hurt and how?”
As he examined me, Robert’s manner grew composed.
“When my feet touched the ground, I felt suspended in air. And my head was spinning, and I felt nauseous even though I haven’t eaten anything.”
Robert gazed into the distance and muttered to himself at length. He was likely matching my symptoms with the medicinal ingredients he knew.
Soon after, Robert sprang to his feet.
“I’ll prepare the medicine at once.”
Robert rushed from the room before I could even finish speaking. As he hurried out, a loud crash suggested he’d struck something.
“Usually he moves like a tortoise, but when it comes to you, miss, he’s quick as lightning. By the way, miss, those symptoms you described—they’re exactly like the seasickness you had when you traveled by ship before.”
“Ship? Seasickness?”
Jeniss laid me back on the bed and replied, “Yes.”
At her words, the memory returned.
When I was ten, I’d followed Father on an inspection of the Domain and traveled across the sea to a distant Territory, where I nearly died of seasickness.
“You suffered terribly back then because there was no medicine. Thank goodness Robert is here now.”
“You’re right. What luck that Robert is here. I won’t have to worry when we travel by ship again—wait!”
As we spoke, a brilliant idea struck me. So sharp and thrilling it banished my headache entirely!
“Jeniss! Call Robert back!”
I tried to rise from the bed in my excitement, but dizziness sent me grabbing for the headboard. Eyes squeezed shut, I gave Jeniss the order.
***
I’d meant to sit at my desk to capture this gleaming idea, but failed.
Jeniss insisted I eat a proper meal first.
In the end, I yielded to her pressure and sat at the dining table instead of my desk.
“This is… breakfast?”
Faced with the array of food before me, my tongue nearly fell out.
There were dishes of those bizarre sea creatures—the kind that supposedly spring back to life if eaten by a fallen cow—plus an entire roasted chicken, which was far too much for breakfast, and a row of mysterious plant roots arranged in a line.
“Yes, miss. Your physician—or rather, Dallas—says your collapse was due to malnutrition. I agree. Your face has grown so thin that I must ensure you eat properly, like a growing child should.”
Everything Jeniss said was wrong from start to finish.
First, I’m not suffering from malnutrition. Self-diagnosis may not be the most reliable, but I’m certain it’s accumulated exhaustion, not malnutrition.
Besides, even without this excessive diet, the food in Irenber is already abundant in nutrition.
And my cheeks aren’t hollow.
‘Did I lose weight in just one day?’
I glanced down at my arms and hands just to be sure. My arms and hands, still retaining their baby fat, remained plump as ever. My cheeks should be no different.
And finally, they say a child should eat plenty, but this diet is hardly what a child would eat!
By any measure, this morning’s meal is something only aging villains dreaming of immortality would consume.
“Miss, the food is getting cold. Please eat while it’s hot.”
Jeniss personally plated the food and handed it to me.
“Robert pestered the cook all day yesterday, apparently.”
“Robert did?”
“Yes, I’ve never seen Robert speak with such conviction before. He kept saying to make sure your meals are well prepared from now on, and the cook actually listened despite his temperament. It must have been quite a shock to Cooker, seeing you collapse like that.”
Cooker had worked as Irenber’s chef for a very long time.
He’d come to the kitchen as a young assistant and risen to become Irenber’s head chef, displaying remarkable dedication and passion along the way.
And his culinary skill was equally outstanding. Moreover, like all truly talented chefs, Cooker’s pride was incomparable.
Unless one was a direct member of the Irenber family, commenting on his food was forbidden.
If anyone not of direct Irenber blood dared criticize Cooker’s cooking, they were out.
There had been an incident where Bella complained after eating his food that it wasn’t sweet enough, prompting Cooker to declare he would never make dessert for her again.
True to his word, whenever Bella visited afterward, Cooker simply didn’t serve dessert.
So Cooker actually listened silently to Robert and prepared a spread like this?
It was surprising that Robert had said anything at all, and even more surprising that Cooker had changed his ways.
“Your personal physician has been locked in the laboratory trying to identify your condition, Miss.”
“Robert is in the laboratory?”
It was as astonishing as hearing that a chicken had walked into a lion’s den.
Medicine was not a field that transformed overnight or constantly produced breakthroughs.
And the medical knowledge used in daily life was limited in scope.
Most physicians, once they reached a certain level of competence, neglected their studies.
Robert was a good doctor, but an ordinary one nonetheless. That’s why it was the constantly researching and experimenting Robert who truly shone.
But Robert shut himself away in a laboratory? I’d never heard such a thing since being born in Irenber.
“Cho also stayed by your side until you woke. His subordinates came to fetch him several times, but he just got angry and sent them away.”
Cho was the sort who always said time is money. That such a man spent an entire day at my side was remarkable.
“I’ve caused everyone so much trouble.”
A wave of guilt washed over me.
“How could you say such a thing!”
Jeniss jumped to her feet.
“It’s my failure for not attending to you properly, Miss. We’ve all reflected on it. You’re so clever and capable on your own that we keep forgetting—forgetting that you’re still so young, still growing. We apologize for that.”
Jeniss’s eyes glistened with tears. My throat tightened too, so I quickly picked up my spoon.
Jeniss had shredded the tender chicken leg meat and placed it on my spoon.
“You must eat plenty. Chew it well.”
Really, such devoted care left me at a loss for words.
Suddenly, I felt a profound gratitude. So many people around me cared for me so deeply.
In the past, blind to this, I had clung to the false affection of Count Kolcos and Dayson.
‘If only I’d paid attention to those around me.’
Then I might have distinguished between true love and false.
‘I wouldn’t have ended up on the execution platform.’
So I would cherish this. Truly cherish it.
I chewed the chicken leg meat Jeniss had shredded with renewed appreciation.
The meal stretched on for quite some time.
There was a great deal of food, and a spirited debate ensued between me, insisting I wouldn’t eat strange herbal roots, and Jeniss, determined to make me eat them regardless.
In the end, I relented to Jeniss’s argument that I should at least taste the food Cooker had gone to such lengths to prepare.
Most of the herbal roots were bitter, leaving behind a strange sweetness at the finish—and with that, the meal was cleared.
Next came dessert: a tart made with preserved peaches.
While I don’t usually care for sweets, I can’t resist a good tart!
Seeing my eyes light up, Jeniss smiled warmly.
“Miss, what were you trying to say earlier? About the mage?”
I Bought the Villains with Money (Serial Publication)
Author | Lee In-hye
Publisher | Kim Ju-hyung
Publishing House | JP Media Co., Ltd. – Tiramisu
Marketing | Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 11th Floor, Ace Techno Tower 8th Building, 11 Gurodong-ro Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul. Room 1101
Email │ [email protected]
Homepage │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1
© Inhye Lee 2021
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. pursuant to a contract with the copyright holder,
and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher and author.
Violation of this restriction shall subject the offender to criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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