“Y-You can’t just leave like that!”

Tenes squeezed his eyes shut as he blocked Jella’s path.

“Are you really blocking my way right now?”

Jella asked, raising one eyebrow askew.

She hadn’t raised her voice, nor was she interrogating him harshly, but for some reason, Tenes felt his knees weaken.

However, fortunately for him, he had one powerful weapon to hold Jella back.

“Y-You have to pay off all your debts before you go, right?”

“Debts…?”

Jella looked at Tenes with an expression as if she had heard a very strange word.

“Y-Yes, the debts that have accumulated while you’ve been under our underground organization’s care for three years.”

“I have debts?”

“Yes, a debt of 1 million gold…”

“What?”

Jella’s mouth fell open.

Jella Irene. What on earth did this woman do?

“So, it’s impossible for you to quit on your own without paying off your debts…”

“I-I don’t remember!”

Jella suddenly threw a tantrum.

“What?”

“I said I don’t remember!”

“Huh…?”

“I don’t remember owing you any debt! So all that debt is invalid!”

“No, h-have you ever seen such a scamming villain of a woman!”

Tenes voiced his indignation and bewilderment at her tantrum.

But Jella felt wronged too.

‘1 million gold. Even if Jella Shunaibel, who was the Empress, might have managed, how can this poor fake pharmacist’s body pay that off? Besides, I’m not even the one who incurred the debt! One person uses the money, another pays it back, does this make any sense?’

If she had known this would happen, she should have pocketed a few jewels embedded in the imperial palace walls before dying and hidden them somewhere.

While Jella was fuming like this, Tenes, equally agitated, pulled out a piece of paper from his br*ast pocket.

“Here’s the promissory note, do you think your act of not remembering will work?”

“…”

Jella read the promissory note with sad eyes. Regrettably, the note was genuine.

Jella Irene, this irresponsible woman, had borrowed that huge sum and run away.

“Maybe I should just kill you all and leave…”

Crack, crack.

Jella cracked her knuckles while looking at Tenes with sinister eyes.

“Yeah, even if I pay it back, it’ll probably be used for bad things anyway. You illegal loan shark villains who are eating away at the country…”

“W-Wait a moment, Jella Irene!”

Tenes hurriedly tried to stop Jella, alarmed by her ominous gaze.

“Do you have any last words? Let’s hear them.”

“N-No, that’s not it…!”

He realized once again as he saw the gloomy murderous intent rising in Jella’s eyes.

Making this woman’s mood turn as foul as a dog’s was just as dangerous as making Niel Alpenhayer’s mood turn that way!

This woman is the real deal!

If he tried to hold her back with the excuse of paying off the debt, she would really kill them all here and leave!

“Ahaha, haha… On second thought, this debt is fake! Hahaha! Surprise! Hahahaha!”

Tenes quickly tore up the promissory note in his hand. The 1 million gold debt instantly became shreds and flew away.

“What? Surprise? I thought it was real! Are you playing a prank on a busy person?”

Jella glared at Tenes with sharp eyes and got angry.

‘…As if it was a surprise?’

Tenes swallowed hard, suppressing the urge to snap back.

“Wasn’t it funny? Hahaha! Hahaha! Hahahaha…!”

Tenes’s eyes became moist with sweat and humidity as he tried to ignore the shredded promissory note, and his mouth twitched as he forced out a “hahaha” laugh.

But sadly, Jella didn’t have the sensitivity to notice Tenes’s condition.

“Did you block my way to pull this kind of stupid stunt?”

“N-No, that’s not it, I… I came to give you medicine!”

Tenes quickly improvised an answer.

“Medicine?”

“Didn’t you beg me a few days ago to get you some cold medicine?”

“Me?”

Jella asked in a voice that seemed not to understand.

“Why would I, a pharmacist, ask you to get me medicine?”

“H-How should I know?”

Of course, Tenes knew the reason.

Jella Irene was an incompetent pharmacist who couldn’t even make proper cold medicine.

But knowing the value of life, he evaded rather than answering honestly.

“Anyway, I’m really leaving…”

Just as Jella was about to move, cutting off her words sharply.

“Cough!”

She suddenly coughed and spat out blood.

“Eek!”

Tenes screamed in surprise.

“What…?”

Jella frowned as she looked at the blood on her palm.

“Blood…?”

“Doctor…! Call a doctor right away!”

Thinking that if something happened to Jella, he might be killed by Niel, Tenes urgently called for a doctor.

***

“It’s pneumonia. It seems a simple cold wasn’t treated in time and developed into pneumonia.”

“…!”

As I lay obediently on the bed receiving the examination, my eyes widened at the doctor’s words.

I’m a pharmacist, but I couldn’t even manage a simple cold and let it progress to pneumonia?

“Moreover, your nutritional state is very poor. I’d believe it if someone told me this was a corpse.”

“Corpse? That’s too harsh to say about a living person…”

I stopped mid-reply as I suddenly realized something.

‘Wait, don’t tell me that when I possessed this body…’

An ominous thought occurred to me.

‘No way, surely I haven’t possessed the body of a pharmacist who died because she couldn’t make cold medicine.’

Why did I suddenly remember Felitz’s words about Jella Irene not being able to make even a simple antipyretic at this moment?

And why did Tenes’s words about begging for cold medicine come to mind?

‘…’

The more I thought about it, the more plausible this hypothesis seemed.

“Ha, haha…”

A hollow laugh escaped my lips.

“This is ridiculous.”

I glared at Tenes while pressing my throbbing forehead.

He flinched and immediately knelt down.

“I-I’m sorry, Big Sis!”

Judging by how he called me ‘Big Sis’ and used honorifics, he seemed to know he was at fault.

“Yes, you should be sorry.”

If Tenes had provided the cold medicine on time, Jella Irene wouldn’t have developed pneumonia.

“I-I’ll support you in every way until you recover. So please don’t be angry…”

“Forget about support, I’m leaving this place.”

“But the doctor said you should rest for two weeks…”

“How am I supposed to recover in this dump?”

“…”

Tenes fell silent at my retort.

It was understandable, as the room I was currently lying in could hardly be called a good place by any stretch of the imagination.

After rolling his eyes for a moment, Tenes suggested to me in a secretive tone.

“I’ll provide you with the best room in the underground organization.”

“I said I’m leaving, didn’t I?”

“But you don’t have a single penny, do you? Even if you leave this dump, you’ll just end up in another dump, right?”

“Ugh…”

Tenes’s words stung.

He was right. I had just learned while packing my things that Jella Irene literally didn’t have a single coin to her name!

‘Originally, I was planning to leave and find a place to stay while making a living somewhere, but…’

I couldn’t risk worsening my condition by wandering around with a sick body. This new body was precious, after all.

‘But I really hate it here. It seems Niel Alpenhayer comes and goes too.’

Even if he didn’t recognize me, I recognized him. It was clear that I’d feel disgusted every time we crossed paths.

“Hey, Tennis.”

“It’s not Tennis, it’s Tenes.”

I held up three fingers towards him and made my demands.

“One suite room at the Imperial Hotel Yetrisha branch. Cover all expenses including meals and medicine costs during my stay. Provide a healthy and legal job.”

“W-What…?”

“Didn’t you say you’d support me in every way?”

“But, well… Even the cheapest room at the Imperial Hotel Yetrisha branch costs well over 1,000 gold per night…”

“Someone almost died because of you.”

“Come on, saying you almost died over cold medicine is a bit of an exaggeration…”

He was protesting with a somewhat aggrieved voice, but he shut his mouth tight when he saw my glaring eyes.

***

Messy pink hair and golden eyes that seemed to hold a sacred light.

A man with a pure appearance, notable for his flour-white skin and long, fluttering eyelashes, sat blankly on the bed.

The toned body revealed through the unfastened black robe particularly caught the eye.

“Your Holiness, an invitation from the Empire…”

The priest who had just come to see him trailed off and pinched his nose.

“Did you drink all night again?”

True to his words, the man’s room reeked of alcohol.

There were easily over a dozen bottles rolling around on the floor, some of them broken and scattered about.

“Invitation…?”

Yupheon Arne, the Pope of the Holy Nation, turned to the priest and asked in a groggy voice.

“They say they want to invite Your Holiness to the upcoming Foundation Day celebration.”

“Ah.”

A short exclamation escaped Yupheon’s lips.

“Has it been that long already?”

He muttered, glancing out the window.

Then he smiled faintly and got up.