The Status Effect Count - Chapter 35

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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 035
Nadan Freneta had been the kind of man since his commoner days who paid back twofold or threefold if you laid a hand on him—what in blazes possessed him to stir up something like this?
‘He must have thought the Commander wouldn’t be able to leave his quarters.’
No matter how carefully it was concealed, rumors that the Count’s condition was grave had begun to spread uncontrollably.
‘Or perhaps someone sitting in this very meeting is deliberately spreading word?’
Either way, now that things had come to this, stopping Nadan was futile.
Hayden resolved to watch closely for any suspicious individuals and fell in behind Nadan.
Bang!
The heavy door of the Imperial Palace conference room swung open with a thunderous crash.
The weighty door panel, which required all one’s strength to push back completely, struck the wall and shuddered.
The conference hall, so noisy that it could be heard from outside, fell silent in an instant.
Through the dust kicked up by the slamming door, Nadan’s black hair flew wildly—and yet, remarkably, it looked graceful.
As Nadan stepped slowly into the conference room, everyone forgot that he had just kicked open the door.
Everyone except one.
‘Commander! We’re the ones who have to fix that!’
Hayden wept inwardly. He could picture the color draining from Hugo’s face when he heard the news.
“C-Count Freneta!”
Only then did someone snap to attention and call out to Nadan.
“I see many faces I haven’t encountered in some time.”
Nadan swept his gaze slowly around the room.
With each moment his pale blue eyes fell upon them, the nobles felt as though a blade were pressed against their throats.
Those who noticed his hand resting upon his sword hilt grew even more ashen.
‘Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?’
The nobles had sent countless assassins over the months to eliminate Nadan Freneta, but to no avail.
Then one day he had suddenly requested leave, and when he truly did retreat from public view, they believed one of their own plots had finally succeeded.
“Did you… not finish the job?”
“You didn’t do it?”
“That’s not my affair. I was certain it was your doing……”
Yet Nadan Freneta, now present in the conference hall, bore the light of vitality blazing unmistakably in his face.
By any measure, he looked nothing like a man who had been in critical condition mere weeks ago, or who had been confined to a sickbed.
“What are you all whispering about so amusedly?”
“Gah!”
“Oh, it’s nothing at all!”
As Nadan drew closer, the nobles who had been huddled together murmuring turned pale and averted their gazes.
They looked like vermin that scurry away the moment a light is switched on.
‘It’s been a while. This atmosphere.’
Nadan took his seat and swept the entire hall with a cold gaze, appraising each face in turn.
In truth, he had no interest in the flustered nobles.
The ones watching him motionless from the high positions at the table—those were Nadan’s true enemies.
Duke Everett, bearing a gentle smile, opened his mouth.
“It has been a while, Count. I heard your health had not been good, and I worried greatly. I even considered sending you some rare medicines, but I fear I was far too slow……”
Listening to that voice—so cruel in its barbs, wrapped in a warm laugh—Nadan finally understood that he had truly returned to the living.
Nadan smiled faintly and tilted his chin upward.
“Haven’t you already sent me so many precious things? Thanks to you, I’m this healthy.”
“Well, that is fortuitous indeed.”
The nobles sitting around the table could only sweat profusely as the two exchanged these lethal volleys.
It seemed it would be an extraordinarily long day.
* * *
The shabby tavern in the Capital Outskirts was always teeming with people.
The tavern, packed with drunkards, hunters, and mercenaries, reeked of stale sweat and rank profanity.
Into the usual din, a piece of news erupted.
A man with wide-eyed excitement drained his beer in one gulp and slammed the mug on the table with a bang, shouting:
“I saw it, I tell you! This afternoon, Count Freneta’s carriage going into the Imperial Palace!”
“That hero, the one cursed and wasting away—didn’t they say he was dying?”
“He’s recovered! That man’s got stubborn vitality like nothing else.”
A hunter cracked open some peanuts and chimed in.
“Lies. Just yesterday, a whole carriage of medicinals was supposedly going into the Count’s estate. How does a man like that suddenly jump up and head to the Imperial Palace?”
“Well, isn’t the Saint at the Imperial Palace? Probably healed him with her Holy Power.”
“After letting him waste away to death’s door, now she shows up?”
The gamblers at the next table cut in sharply.
“Don’t you dare speak ill of the Saint. She’s not someone for the likes of you to mention.”
“Ah…… That bastard…… Never mind, forget it.”
The men around the tavern chewed on their snacks and eagerly joined in the gossip.
There were plenty of rumors swirling about the Count Nadan’s household.
“Is it true that the so-called hero isn’t even human, but a monster? I heard all the servants fled the place?”
“That’s because some burglar stirred up trouble while the servants were out. They say he cleaned out the noble house completely.”
“Quite audacious. How much do you think he made off with? Isn’t Nadan wealthy?”
“That’s ancient history. Before the Count received his title, everything had collapsed anyway. All they had were old heirlooms. Have you been to that estate? The entrance is practically empty—the place isn’t even maintained.”
“From what I’ve heard…….”
From a shadowed corner of the tavern, a slight man with his hood pulled low whispered hesitantly.
Even amid all the noise, his voice somehow caught the ear.
“Th, the Count’s mansion—something truly t, terrible happened there. They say something sticky and foul-smelling fl, flowed from a person’s b, body.”
As his stammering voice grew quieter, the tavern fell silent for just a moment before a roar of laughter erupted.
“Something foul-smelling, he says!”
“Hahaha! Nothing smells worse than my own feet!”
The men dismissed it as a joke and clinked their cups together again.
“This fellow must’ve heard some nonsense somewhere. What kind of ridiculous talk is that?”
As the raucous laughter grew louder, the man cried out indignantly.
“But th, there were black hairs in that mansion…….”
“Here we are! Complimentary service!”
At that moment, cutting off the man’s words, a massive platter banged down onto the table with a loud thud.
“Tonight’s specialty: cornbread!”
“Cornbread!”
“Anna’s cornbread? Now that’s rare.”
The raucous men quickly reached for the warm bread.
The gossip that had been flowing moments before vanished in an instant, replaced by the need to satisfy the hunger brought on by too much drink.
“Would you care for some as well, sir?”
As Anna turned with the platter, the man who had been sitting in the corner was nowhere to be found, leaving only a full beer mug and coins on the empty table.
“Oh my. Did he leave already?”
Anna glanced toward the door, but it hadn’t moved, and no bell had rung.
“Hmm.”
Having grown accustomed to strange customers, Anna was unfazed. She quickly picked up the mug and wiped down the table, turning to leave.
But as she moved between the tables, listening to the rumors drifting about, one conversation in particular unsettled her, and she found herself sitting on the edge of a table with a sigh.
No matter what they say about no news being good news.
“Ann must be doing fine…….”
* * *
Nadan returned at once and took up his duties as captain of the Imperial Palace Guard. The Crown Prince had approved it quickly.
No one could stop Nadan.
As the supposedly dying Count Nadan walked about the Capital, the rumors gradually subsided.
Of course, Nadan’s trusted men quietly silenced those who had been spreading the rumors.
And in the meantime, Ann was.
‘You’re a workaholic.’
She seemed to hear someone’s voice in her ear.
‘I know that already!’
Ann was someone who had lived a life far removed from peace, leisure, rest, or idleness.
Of course she had.
To make ends meet, she had to grab whatever work came her way, and especially when it came to money-making opportunities, she had to sniff them out faster than anyone else.
‘Trailing after the Count every day, waiting alone in his office while no one else is around—I’m sick of that.’
Unable to bear it any longer, Ann asked Hugo if she might tidy the garden in front of his office.
His face lit with genuine pleasure, though he couldn’t hide the unspoken question: “But why would you want to do that?”
Ann’s decision to take on garden work, of all things, had its reasons.
“You probably didn’t know there was something like this in the Imperial Palace.”
Ann smiled slyly, looking at the pile of small flowers she’d just gathered into a burlap sack.
In her hometown, these flowers were called Spring Gold Specks, and they were the main livelihood of children living in the mountains.
They were common white flowers that grew anywhere, tangled among weeds, but they could be used as medicinal herbs.

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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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