The Status Effect Count - Chapter 27

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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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Status Abnormality Earl 027
Anne pressed herself against the spring’s wall, sliding along it finger by finger. If she could just feel her way to the exit without being seen.
Anne turned away from the sound and moved slowly forward.
But the murky mist settling around her and the noise echoing from all directions seemed to grow closer with each breath.
‘Wait—where am I?’
Anne heard a sound cutting through the fog with unmistakable clarity.
Roooarrr—
The violent rush of falling water was the sound of the cascade that connected the first and second levels.
‘I’ve gone the wrong way!’
She’d ended up at the very center of the waterfall, completely opposite from the entrance to the second floor.
“Is someone there?”
A voice called from directly below her.
Anne gasped and ducked behind a pile of rocks near the waterfall.
Did he see me? Could he have?
Anne pressed a hand to her thundering heart.
Now that his voice had drawn this close and clear, Anne could recognize him without question. There was no mistaking who this was.
“I am Natan Preneta. And you are?”
I’m finished.
Anne squeezed her eyes shut.
The figure standing beneath the misty waterfall was unmistakably her employer—the man who had been lying in bed only moments ago.
Anne grabbed her head behind the rock, holding her breath.
He was asleep just now!
No matter how much I pushed for him to leave his bedroom, he wouldn’t take a single step outside—so how is he already here…!
[Successfully invited ‘Natan Preneta’!]
You!
* * *
When Natan opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a place he had never seen before.
“…Where is this?”
Trees ringed him in a perfect circle, their canopy blotting out the sky.
Despite the deep night, the space glowed with an eerie brightness—a soft luminescence streaming from the waterfall at the center of the spring.
The landscape had no sense of reality to it.
Natan had been in the mansion’s bedroom just moments before.
Unable to move even a finger, he had dismissed all his attendants and lay buried in bed within the darkness of his room, deaf to their insistent pleas.
He thought he might sleep like that forever. Yet somehow, he had opened his eyes here instead.
“I must be dreaming,” he muttered vaguely.
Natan spoke the words half to himself.
But the warm water soaking his knees and the texture of stone beneath his feet felt far too vivid to be a dream.
Splash!
A loud splash erupted from somewhere. Natan turned reflexively toward the sound.
“Who’s there?”
There was no answer.
That was definitely the sound of something falling into water.
Natan moved forward slowly, searching the surroundings, tracking for any sign of presence.
“Is anyone there?”
He reached reflexively for his waist, then realized that what his hand found had an unfamiliar texture.
“?”
Only then did Natan look down at himself.
He wasn’t wearing a sword, nor was he in indoor clothes.
A soft, heavy cloth bathrobe of some kind had been wrapped around his body.
And worse, a strange towel was stacked on his head like a tower.
‘What in the world is happening?’
He’d woken in this bizarre place out of nowhere. And he was dressed in these strange clothes.
Natan turned in all directions, searching for the source of the sound from before.
But he found no answers, only the endless sound of rushing water—roooarrr.
It was an utterly strange space.
Flowers and trees of completely different varieties and climates grew together in harmony.
The water welling up from the spring was piping hot, and a subtle herbal fragrance filled the entire space.
‘I can’t get out.’
Natan turned away from the water’s edge and walked straight ahead, toward the outside.
But when he pushed through the thick mist, he found himself back at the water’s edge once more.
As if enchanted by something unseen.
‘Did I incur the grudge of something inhuman?’
Natan crossed his arms.
Though the continent had been unified under a single empire, such vast lands teemed with countless superstitions.
Statues of gods whose identities remained unclear were scattered everywhere, and during the wars, Natan had demolished them without hesitation.
Shattering sacred statues that all revered was a powerful provocation—and excellent for sowing fear among his enemies.
He paid no mind even when his audacious knights fretted about such desecrations.
‘Had any of them actually been real?’
Musing on this, he let out a soft laugh and shook his head.
“That makes no sense.”
Surely it was the work of hired mages—that much was obvious.
To expend magic on this scale merely to kill him was monumentally inefficient.
Yet mages were eccentric by nature. Such wasteful schemes would hardly surprise him.
In that moment, a sound like thunder cracked across the sky.
“Stop!”
A sharp, resonant voice shook the forest itself.
It was a strange voice, unlike any he had heard before—the kind that made one’s skin crawl.
“You must bathe here!”
“?”
Even for an eccentric, this was surprisingly clumsy.
Natan clicked his tongue and barely suppressed a smirk before responding with careful courtesy.
“And who might you be? What reason have you for bringing me to this place?”
He scanned his surroundings rapidly, but found only mist undulating around him, with no hint of another presence.
Natan instinctively reached toward his waist before remembering he wore nothing but a robe, and clicked his tongue again.
Not a blade to his name. Every muscle in his body went taut with tension. He composed his face into an expression of ease and spoke in a measured tone.
“Show yourself, I beg you. I wish to face you properly and speak as civilized people do.”
* * *
Sweat trickled down the back of Anne’s neck.
All of this was because of that blasted effect.
[
The hot spring is perfect for easing the fatigue of travel! Let us confirm the efficacy of the hot spring.]
[Remain in the hot spring for 10 minutes or more (Complete)
Enjoy snacks while bathing in the hot spring (Complete)
Invite a friend to the hot spring (1/1)]
[You have completed the Hot Spring Quest!!
The title “I’m a Beginner Hot Spring Enthusiast” has been granted.]
Fine. I understand.
Anne whispered softly and pushed the tray away.
If she made even the slightest sound because of that noisy contraption, the count below would surely spot her as he scanned the surroundings with that terrifying gaze.
‘As if I’d known he’d come so suddenly!’
Had Anne realized that the Invitation Ticket—for which she’d spent five Gold—would work so swiftly and without requiring the other party’s consent, she would never have used it.
‘And what is he wearing, anyway……’
The count who had appeared suddenly from within the mist was dressed entirely unlike his usual self.
A fluffy terrycloth robe embroidered with roses across the chest, and his long hair wound up in a towel—an unmistakably peculiar sight.
Every time she looked at him, she struggled to maintain her composure and nearly burst out laughing.
‘It suits him well, no—stop it!’
Anne quickly shook her head with vigor.
Stay calm.
If the count discovered that Anne and this tray were responsible for bringing him here, it would be catastrophic.
She could all too easily imagine him fixing her with those piercing eyes—
‘An untrustworthy maid, as I suspected.’
—and drawing his sword to come at her.
‘Best to stay quiet as a dormouse and slip away.’
Fortunately, the spring had a two-tiered structure, and the two of them were separated on different levels with a waterfall between them.
Thanks to the waterfall’s height, the upper level was not easily visible from below.
‘And the stairs up are on the opposite side,’
which meant that if she remained still, the count would have no reason to discover her.
As expected, Natan paced about the spring without finding Anne, his eyes searching the mist.
A wicked thought suddenly took wing in Anne’s mind as she watched his restless movements.
‘It would be fine to just slip away, but it seems a shame to waste this.’
To invite him, it would cost another five Gold. Wouldn’t it be better to just throw him in the spring right now and scrub him down? What if there were another way?
If only Anne could do it without being discovered, if only she could make the Count bathe in this spring!
Then something caught her eye.
‘That statue!’
It was a statue in the form of a girl that had been there since she first cleaned the spring.
With eyes closed and hands pressed demurely together, the statue seemed poised to take flight—charming and adorable, yet radiating something mysteriously otherworldly.
‘The sculptor must have actually believed in fairies.’
Cleaning it had been a chore, scraping moss from its crevices.
Anne’s eyes gleamed as she glanced back and forth between the fairy statue and the Count.
‘If I play this right…?’
Besides, this hot spring had very peculiar functions indeed.
A tray suddenly popped into view, as if to encourage her.
[As a bonus effect of the title “I’m a Beginner Hot Spring Enthusiast,” all party members receive one hundred percent of the hot spring’s benefits.]
[Party member Count Freneta receives the bonus effect.
Effect: Physical recovery upon using the hot spring, immunity to Status Abnormalities (poison)]
She couldn’t afford to let this opportunity slip away.
Anne’s mind raced frantically.

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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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