The Status Effect Count - Chapter 29

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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 029
‘No, how long has it been already?’
No matter how warm the water was, she was already itching to leave.
Anne scrambled for something to say. She had to keep her master here just a little longer!
“Ahem, so how has the weather been in the Empire lately?”
“…….”
Nadan cracked one eye open slightly.
His expression suggested he couldn’t begin to fathom what the fairy was driving at—this creature who’d been spouting nothing but strange remarks.
“I came to this Manor out of necessity, but your estate is dreary beyond measure. I haven’t caught so much as a whiff of flowers.”
“……I haven’t had much time to maintain it.”
“Is that so? You’ve been living here for quite a while now, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
The Count fell silent again. His manner made it clear he had no interest in the fairy’s topic.
But if the conversation ended here, that would be a disaster.
Anne wracked her brain. A fairy—what subject might interest a fairy?
“This land has excellent soil. Whatever you planted would flourish—it’d be a shame to leave it fallow. Especially the front garden! If you’re not going to turn it into a flower bed, you could at least plant carrots or potatoes…….”
“My, fairy, you seem to know my estate quite well. As though you’d been peering inside.”
A guilty Anne’s mouth snapped shut.
Above the Count’s head, a number now hovered: 30%.
“That’s only because this place will be my refuge for a time, so I examined it carefully!”
“I don’t recall hearing that you’d be taking refuge here.”
“I don’t care if you like it or not. I’ve decided it, and that’s that!”
“I see.”
Silence threatened to descend again, and Anne felt her insides burning. She had to say something more!
Anne rushed to speak.
“So what in the world is wrong with you?”
“……Wouldn’t a fairy be able to see through anything?”
“Just because one is a fairy doesn’t mean I can know everything. I only know that something clinging to you is exceptionally vicious. Where did you manage to pick up such a dreadful thing?”
It was a question meant to stall for time, but she genuinely was curious. Where on earth had he gotten such a horrifying curse?
At her words, Nadan exhaled deeply.
“If I could determine where it came from or who cast it, I would have dealt with it long ago.”
He really did speak frightfully.
Though to be fair, attempting to kill the Empire’s hero was a serious matter.
“There must be someone you suspect. Someone you’ve wronged or who harbors a grudge against you.”
“There are far too many such people. It’s the way of it—once the hunt is finished, the strongest hunting dog is always put down first.”
He rubbed his furrowed brow as if troubled, then continued.
“Not only the master of that hound, but the other animals too will lose sleep over their fodder bowls—terrified that the hunting dog might snatch their keep. Afraid that a mongrel picked off the streets will dare to claim the inner chamber. That’s the way of all humans.”
Nobility truly was a harsh existence.
Anne was wondering whether to offer comfort when Nadan began to speak.
“In truth, I’m not someone worthy of such respect.”
The words tumbled out before he could stop them, and Nadan regretted it immediately. There had been no need to say such a thing.
“If you’re not such a person, then respectable people must have vanished from the entire Continent.”
But the fairy’s words, arriving swiftly in reply, gave Nadan pause.
Was it comfort, or mockery?
Yet it wasn’t an untrue statement either. There were precious few people on the Continent now who deserved respect.
“There is one. The Saint.”
Nadan’s words flowed forth as if some tightly sealed floodgate had burst.
It was a strange sensation—something he’d never revealed to anyone, something he’d kept locked away, slowly melting and spilling from his lips.
“Perhaps I’m being punished by God for daring to covet something beyond my station.”
A gasp.
Anne found herself drawn less to the thermometer’s gauge than to his words.
Affection beyond his station—that meant.
“Love, you mean?”
In that instant, Nadan’s lips sealed tight as though glued shut.
From his reaction, Anne was certain.
‘So he’s harboring an unrequited love for the Saint!’
Like any heroic tale, the romance was always the most entertaining part.
A betrothal to a princess, perhaps. Or some flirtation with the prettiest girl in his home village.
The heroic tales circulating about Nadan had been conspicuously devoid of such romance. In fact, some had even whispered whether the man had any taste in women at all.
But an unrequited love!
‘This is going to be so much fun.’
Her heart raced with anticipation.
There was nothing in the world quite as entertaining as someone else’s love story, and of all love stories, unrequited ones were the most delicious.
And this was an unrequited love story involving the Empire’s greatest hero, no less!
Ann forgot all about checking the cylinder and pressed Nadan for details.
“Come on, tell me already. What do you mean it’s presumptuous? What’s this about a god?”
“It is hardly a tale worth your entertainment, but…”
“Are you seriously trying to tell me you don’t know I want to hear it? This is all about your unrequited love, or rather—isn’t it to help you escape this predicament?”
At her forceful tone, Nadan looked somewhat taken aback.
The moment he parted his lips to speak, something suddenly blazed across Ann’s vision.
[Affinity Event triggered!]
An event? What event?
Before Ann could even grasp the situation, her stomach began to tickle.
Then came a sensation of her entire body being pulled in some direction, and she was sucked through into somewhere else entirely.
* * *
“Where am I?”
Ann looked around in bewilderment.
A forest with snow lying quietly on the ground.
She’d only closed her eyes for a moment against the mounting dizziness and opened them again—yet the scenery before her had transformed completely.
Ann got to her feet and surveyed her surroundings.
The hot spring was gone. The nobleman was gone. Even the chattering creature that had perched on her shoulder, constantly tilting its head, had vanished.
“Affinity! Abnormal Status! Where did they go? Why aren’t they showing up?”
Ann called out desperately, but even those trays had disappeared without a trace.
All those times she’d complained about them clinging to her—and now they were nowhere to be found!
Ann stood alone in the forest, dressed in nothing but a thin layer of cloth.
“What on earth is this?”
Ann wandered through the Snow Mountain Forest, shaking with cold.
The last thing she’d seen before arriving here was the notification that an Affinity Event had been triggered.
“This isn’t an event. Events are supposed to be really good things.”
Like an enormously grand mansion, a bountiful table, warm-faced siblings rushing out to greet her with full bellies.
As Ann imagined the good things she desired, her eyes suddenly stung.
Dropping her in the middle of this frozen forest wasn’t an event—it was the same as telling her to die!
The moment Ann began to move, something came flying at her from behind.
“Aaaah!”
Ann shrieked and collapsed to the ground.
An arrow—a sturdy-looking one—thudded into the earth with a soft thunk.
An arrow?
“There she is!”
Suddenly, a barrage of rough voices erupted from behind her.
Where the forest had been silent, the thunder of heavy footfalls now echoed.
“She was definitely here! Search!”
“If we lose her this time, we’re finished!”
‘What is this?’
Harsh, unfamiliar voices closed in from all directions. At the sound of violent footsteps tearing through the underbrush, Ann froze in place.
Whatever they were searching for, one thing was clear: they were heading straight toward her.
Alarm bells rang continuously in Ann’s mind.
‘I have to run. I have to escape.’
But where?
Suddenly transported to this strange place, and now she was supposed to run from armed pursuers?
The sound of arrows being fired in every direction in search of someone drew steadily closer.
Ann huddled down with her head bowed, trembling uncontrollably.
Rustle—
“There!”
In an instant, an eerie whistling sound pierced her ear.
Ann squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Someone’s spotted me!’
As though she were a target, arrows rained down around her—impossible to evade.
And yet…
“Huh?”
Nothing at all.
She could have sworn the arrow would hit her. It should have hurt terribly, but even after the whistling sound of the arrow ceased, Anne felt nothing at all.
“Something’s wrong?”
The arrow had definitely come flying from over there, straight toward her—
Glancing around, Anne spotted an arrow embedded in the tree trunk behind her.
There was no way an arrow could be lodged there unless it had passed through her body… yet here it was.
‘Did I dodge it in an instant? Was I actually some extraordinary martial master?’
Bewildered, Anne examined her own body.
Looking closely, she could see a sword scabbard lying on the ground beyond her hand, glinting through her form. Her body had become semi-transparent, like a water droplet clinging to a leaf.

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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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