The Status Effect Count - Chapter 10

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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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Abnormal Status: Count 010
This bed was absurdly wide. No matter how far she stretched her arm, it fell short of reaching the Count’s body.
Anne pushed herself further through the curtain gap.
Her hand, extended toward the glittering Count, was nearly within reach.
‘Just a little more, just a little more…!’
Snap.
Before her hand could make contact, a powerful grip seized her wrist.
“Ugh!”
“Who are you?”
Anne bit down hard, cutting off the cry before it could escape.
The Count’s eyes had opened, and they fixed on her with a razor-sharp intensity.
Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
“I—this is—that is—”
Her captured hand was yanked violently. Anne lost her footing and was pulled past the curtain into the darkness beyond.
Through the gloom, a pair of ice-blue eyes gleamed with cutting clarity.
Caught in that gaze, she felt neither the pain of his grip nor fear—only a strange paralysis.
“You…”
His face, so gentle in sleep, had transformed in an instant into something savage. Like a predator opening its eyes after a long drowse.
The Count spoke, his voice dropping to something cold and lethal.
“The maid from before. I’m certain I warned you then. Never come again.”
“I—”
“If this is the second time, then this isn’t an accident—it’s intentional. Who sent you? Who gave you these orders?”
The Count’s voice took on a low, dangerous rumble as he leaned closer.
“I… I didn’t—”
“Did you hear rumors that my body had weakened? That you thought a single assassin could claim my life? Whoever sent you must have a remarkable sense of judgment.”
An assassin?
Anne’s face drained of all color.
She’d expected a scolding at worst, not this misunderstanding. Her captive hand trembled violently.
If they took her to the Security Force as a would-be murderer, what then?
A cheerful chime rang out, obscenely bright in the darkness.
[Target for Strategy selected.]
[Nadan Preneta (Abnormal Status)
Preneta House’s newest Count.
The continent’s strongest swordsman and hero of the Continental War.
Yet rumors in the Capital speak poorly of him…
A man who seems fragile and lonesome, beautiful in a precarious way.]
What is this now?
The light that had clung to the Count’s body faded, and a tray materialized above his face.
‘What good does this do me?’
When the Count already suspected her! What use was this?
No, wait. Anne’s eyes went wide.
* * *
Nadan Preneta had many enemies.
A hero of the continent who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
A commoner by birth who had accumulated such honors in war that the Emperor himself had granted him the noble name of “Preneta.”
Many feared this beast that had charged upward from the depths like a predator in relentless pursuit, but no fewer schemed to bring him crashing down.
The reason Nadan had survived intact was simple: he had cut down every enemy that came at him and climbed to the summit without hesitation.
He didn’t trust people easily, and he could read the signs of deception in a man’s bearing with unsettling precision.
It was the acute sensitivity of one who had clawed his way up from the gutter.
“Count, you’re mistaken.”
Nadan’s brow furrowed.
The maid who had invaded his chamber was still pale with fear, yet she forced an awkward smile.
The gap between those two states tugged at something in him, though not with sympathy.
He released her wrist, but his interrogation continued relentlessly.
“Mistaken?”
“I was sent by the head chambermaid Belence to attend to you more closely. I would never dare harm you, my lord.”
“I ordered everyone kept away from me.”
“The head chambermaid prioritizes your health above all else.”
“Above my own wishes?”
One of Nadan’s eyebrows arched in a sharp angle.
The maid replied in a tone that somehow reminded him of a fastidious head servant.
“Since you’ve been unconscious all this time, we had no choice but to do our best in difficult circumstances.”
Unconscious, she said.
Nadan Preneta’s memories were fragmented at best — losing consciousness amid dizziness and pain, then struggling back to awareness, again and again.
He reluctantly admitted that it was only natural for Belence to have disregarded his orders and tended to him anyway.
Then, suddenly, he realized something.
‘But my body feels good now.’
He felt refreshed, as though he’d just woken from a deep, restorative sleep.
His body still felt tight somehow, yet his mind was clear and sharp in a way he couldn’t remember in ages.
‘That’s strange.’
The maid, her eyes wide, flinched when their gazes met, her small shoulders trembling.
“Wait.”
Nadan Preneta reached out, as if he’d noticed something. The maid squeezed her eyes shut.
He lifted a single strand of hair clinging to her cheek and murmured.
“Are you Netherin?”
“I’m Temple-born!”
Temple-born.
She didn’t even know her own origins? That only added to his suspicion.
“So a maid of unknown origin comes willingly to my chambers — a place everyone avoids — not once but twice, driven by unwavering loyalty. Is that what you’re telling me?”
The servants of Preneta House, like most people, feared him. They wouldn’t dare approach his vicinity.
‘But this woman…’
Even now, though she couldn’t hide her deathly pallor, there was no sign of her trying to flee.
This woman harbored some very strange intention.
“If you’re a Temple orphan, you’d be poor, and cheap to train as an assassin and use for menial work.”
“I don’t do bad things! The Priest didn’t raise me that way. I don’t hurt people or anything like that.”
“Every pickpocket in the Alleyway says the same thing.”
“I’m not a pickpocket — I’m a loyal maid, I’m telling you!”
“I’ve never seen you before. Where does this loyalty of yours come from?”
The maid answered quickly to Nadan Preneta’s suspicious tone, as if she’d been waiting for the question.
“From money!”
“Ha…”
“Who else would I follow but the one who pays? I came to care for your illness, and I’ll get a bonus on top of that!”
It was an answer so brazen it left him speechless.
Nadan Preneta let out an exasperated breath and asked again.
“…You expect to receive a bonus?”
“Yes! For treating you!”
“And how exactly would you treat my illness?”
No one knew where Nadan Preneta’s illness originated, whether it was a sickness at all, a curse, or magic.
Even his capable physician couldn’t cure it, yet this maid he’d just met was confident she could.
But what the maid produced in response to his question was something he never could have anticipated.
“With this.”
A cloth tumbled from the maid’s pocket. She brandished it eagerly, and it was nothing but a cloth.
Before Nadan Preneta could say anything, the cloth came down with a soft thwap, covering his face.
“Wait—”
Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub.
“Your face is covered in all sorts of filth, sir. I know it hurts, but please bear with it! This is the only way to get it off!”
And then she began scrubbing his face vigorously with that cloth.
“I should have sprayed the cleanser first, I guess.”
He thought he heard her murmur something like that.
‘What is she going to spray on someone’s face?’
Nadan Preneta tried to react to the relentless scrubbing, but he suddenly stopped.
Crust, crust.
Whatever had been hardened and caked onto his cheeks began to flake away like fragments of eggshell.
As the crusted matter fell away, a sudden rush of fresh air pressed through the exposed skin.
‘…That’s refreshing.’
A wave of comfort washed over him, so soothing that the sting of the scrubbing faded into the distance.
Only then did Nadan Preneta realize that his entire body had been uncomfortable — save for that one small patch where the crust had just fallen away.
* * *
He seemed pleased.
The man who’d been sharp-edged just moments before had his guard drop in an instant.
Peeking through a gap in the towel, he seemed to have his eyes closed, savoring the touch of her hands.
‘He must have been uncomfortable all this time.’
It made sense. Anne realized only now that an invisible, thin film had been coating his cheeks.
That was the reason.
[Abnormal Status Resolution Method (1)
[Nadan Preneta (Abnormal Status):
Something seems to be clinging to the Count’s body. Remove the contamination attached to his body. Achieve 100 Combo (0/100)]

Contamination?
In that instant, the Count’s skin slowly shifted to a pale green. Some areas were darker, while others were fainter.
Before Anne could properly understand what the message meant, she found herself reaching for the towel without thinking.
Then she scrubbed his cheeks hard. Fine cracks appeared across the contamination.
‘Ah, it’s coming off!’
The thin green film-like substance peeled away, pushed by the towel. Where the film had broken, his natural skin tone returned.
So she had to remove all of it.

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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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