The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 81

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The World Thinks I’m Terminally Ill Episode 081

I watched that obvious act for a moment, then—

“You caused some trouble. Spill it quickly.”

“Ow, ow ow!”

I grabbed Erban’s jaw and shook it.

Erban pouted his lips like he was sulking.

“Master is so mean. Erban got hurt.”

“I told you not to speak in third person.”

“I really asked with a pure heart.”

“These days all purity has frozen to death.”

When I didn’t fall for it at all, Erban stopped using his pretty boy charm—honestly, he’s more on the beautiful side than handsome, so I guess it’s beauty charm—and glanced around nervously.

“Of course there was a tiny bit of self-interest involved.”

“Confess while I’m being nice. Did you get caught raiding the kitchen at 3 AM again?”

“Ahem! Raiding, you say. Please say I respectfully escorted it to my stomach.”

“Let’s not even go there.”

When I clicked my tongue, Erban made an aggrieved expression.

“It’s true! Master looks really pale right now.”

He brought me a hand mirror, and while Erban wasn’t making a huge fuss, my complexion was definitely bad.

I’ve been feeling chills frequently lately, so I pulled my shawl closer and muttered.

“I guess my condition isn’t great.”

“Isn’t the heating not working here?”

“Stop talking nonsense. So what’s the problem?”

He rolled his eyes around, then confessed in a voice as small as an ant’s.

“Well, it’s about that invitation.”

“The masquerade ball?”

“Yeah, that was actually obtained by conning… I mean, respectfully deceiving the organizer from the last ball. But that guy’s tastes are so picky that I had to set up a pretty intense concept.”

I asked with distaste.

“What kind of taste?”

“A young widow who lost her husband? He said it’s even better if she has a child.”

“Crazy bastard.”

“I think so too.”

“So you cross-dressed? And that worked?”

“I’m pretty cute, you know.”

Then he looked in the hand mirror he was holding and said ‘Oh my, Miss Erban is truly beautiful’ while acting cute, and I seriously almost hit him.

“Just from height and build, you’d feel different from ordinary women. Weren’t you already caught?”

“Absolutely not.”

“How are you so confident?”

Shadow magic can temporarily change body shape too. Of course I approached with female proportions. It was an anonymous meeting place, so my face wasn’t exposed, so don’t worry.”

“What about your voice?”

“What do you take me for? Of course I modulated it. When I was captured by those sorcerers, those perverted bastards made me cross-dress for missions whenever they got the chance. I’m an authority in this field, I’ll have you know.”

I didn’t really want to know this kind of behind-the-scenes story.

It was a moment when I understood why Erban had massacred the sorcerer group that had kept him captive.

“That organizer guy seemed ordinary when we investigated him.”

“Yeah. I dug deeper like Master said, and he’s very ordinary. Though his tastes aren’t ordinary.”

As if remembering the taste for widows with children, Erban added “Ugh!”

“He’s apparently been one of the major patrons mainly supporting theater troupe actors for a long time, but there was no connection to the influential families Master told me about.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“Though, maybe he’s suspicious because he’s too ordinary?”

“He’s likely just a front representative. There’s probably something more behind the ball.”

I tapped the invitation.

The location of the masquerade ball written on the invitation was the Beatrice Duchy in the west.

“How coincidental that it’s in the west.”

Befitting the place most affected by the House of Angels incident, it was a ball for child support purposes, as if mocking the fallen saint.

Perhaps for that reason, the invitation stated that children could accompany participants.

‘Actually, children brought to places like this aren’t really children who need support, but participants’ dolls.’

Used to show off like ‘I’m supporting such a talented and pretty child.’

Well, the west always held all sorts of strange balls frequently, so it wasn’t particularly unusual.

“But that guy kept talking about some play this and actor that, and I couldn’t understand any of it. I think I fumbled too much because he seemed suspicious about why I wanted to come to a western ball.”

Moreover, befitting the west, it was a ball that required artistic cultural knowledge.

It would be difficult to continue using Erban, who had no knowledge of such refined things, as a stand-in.

‘To get clues, I’d need to blend naturally into the group, but it would be hard for Erban to infiltrate among art world people who won’t even associate with you if you lack culture.’

It was something only someone with high-level insight and knowledge could do. And right now in Lunein, there’s only one person who has that.

I weighed the risks and benefits before reaching a conclusion.

“It’s fine. I can go myself. To follow the setting, I just need to act like a widow with a child, right?”

“Ah, that’s the problem, Master.”

Erban added with a sheepish laugh.

“That pervert kept hitting on me so disgustingly and suspiciously that somehow…”

“Somehow?”

“I promised to show him the child.”

I immediately smacked Erban’s back.

“You crazy bastard! Where are you going to bring a non-existent child from! And you want to take a young child to infiltrate a place where there might be dark mages? Are you insane?!”

“Ow ow, ow!”

It seems I inherited Bella’s back-smacking technique.

I held my throbbing head.

Though Erban had caused trouble, it would be a shame to just skip the ball.

‘Can’t be helped. I have no choice but to devise a solution.’

It was uncertain whether we could get another proper invitation, and the fact that the location was specifically the west bothered me.

So the method I chose was—

“Kai, please, just this once. Please?”

[No way!]

Asking Kaiseus to transform into a young child.

Taking a real young child who knows nothing to a dangerous place… that really wouldn’t be right.

‘Why, there are many oral traditions of dragons transforming into humans and infiltrating human society.’

What was it called, polymorph?

There were actually records of the Lizard Demon Kaiseus (the 1st) hiding in the human camp using polymorph during the Thousand-Year War.

That’s why northerners are more exclusionary toward outsiders than other places. You never know where a dragon’s incarnation might be.

[Why should I transform into human form?]

“Why don’t you want to?”

[I’ll look weak!]

What a very baby dragon-like reason.

I coaxed and cajoled the huffing Kaiseus.

“I’ll give you a basket of apples when it’s over.”

[…Full?]

“Full.”

[Mmm… Give me two!]

“I’ll give you three.”

[Good! Deal!]

Kaiseus proudly sold his pride for three baskets of apples.

“Then I’ll bring an inconspicuous child, so can you transform to look like that?”

[That won’t work.]

“Why again?”

[Because I can only transform into the human form I’ve already manifested once.]

When I unconsciously muttered ‘What kind of dragon has so many restrictions,’ Kaiseus shouted back!

[Originally I could transform differently! But to do that, I’d have to return to the White Forest. I can’t do it because I need to settle the karma I’ve accumulated in the mortal world in this form.]

“So to summarize, you can’t return to the White Forest right now because you’re not fully mature.”

[That’s right.]

I asked just in case.

“It’s not an adult form, is it?”

[…No.]

“Then how old is our Kai?”

Kaiseus blushed.

After fidgeting for a while, he shyly held up seven fingers.

[Seven years old…]

“You really were just a baby.”

[Hey! I said I’m not!]

After that, I had to spend quite a while soothing the sulking Kaiseus.

You might think I should just not tease him in the first place, but how could anyone not tease him after seeing that? That’s impossible for any human.

‘The remaining problem is how to explain this to Shubel.’

Since we had to travel all the way to the West, I needed to explain things to my husband who had separation anxiety.

However, while the ball infiltration was one thing, the problem was how to explain the child that Kaiseus had transformed into.

“For now, I’ll have no choice but to say I recruited a child I know well.”

According to the ball’s scheduled date, the timeline was quite tight.

We had to depart in just an hour.

There was the time it took for Erban to obtain and bring back the invitation, plus we needed an alibi to establish the background of the character I would be playing.

Rather than going directly to the West, we planned to go to a city in another region first to disguise ourselves before moving, in case we were discovered and pursued, which made a more leisurely schedule even more necessary.

I sent word to Shubel asking if we could meet now to explain these circumstances.

But.

“He said not to approach?”

“Yes, Bella. The young master gave direct orders. He said he would return late at night and asked that you retire to bed first.”

Word came back that Shubel, who had gone to re-examine the abandoned mine near the train route that had been problematic before, had entered the place alone and then sent everyone away.

I felt an ominous feeling.

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