Chapter 7 (Part 2)
Leaving Iris’s laboratory, Leonardo let out a long sigh.
Her laboratory always carried a strong jasmine scent. While the white flowers suited Iris well, Leonardo wasn’t particularly fond of them.
‘It still feels like the jasmine scent is lingering.’
Even after stepping outside, the floral fragrance seemed to hover around him, making him feel dizzy.
The strong scent gave him a headache, and he wanted to return quickly. However, this was a space where magic usage was forbidden.
Walking briskly, again and again, a familiar building came into view.
As he opened the door to his laboratory with documents pressed to his chest, pain surged through him.
“Damn it, is it already… time?”
Checking the clock in a panic, he realized it was time for the body switch.
He hadn’t even shaken off the floral scent from his body when Leonardo collapsed to the floor.
Soon, Grace woke up in Leonardo’s body, rubbing her oddly sore backside with her hand as she looked around.
“…Where were you coming from, exactly?”
Gathering the scattered documents around her, Grace wrinkled her brow at the faint smell of jasmine.
This was a clear trace of a woman, something even the usually oblivious Grace could recognize.
‘A woman? Leonardo Fernandez has a woman?’
Grace let out a hollow laugh at the thought she had just come up with.
The fact that there was a woman was shocking enough, but the idea that they had been close enough for the scent to linger this strongly…
‘Who on earth was it? And what on earth did they do together?’
Though she told herself it didn’t concern her, Grace couldn’t help but wonder about the owner of the scent.
She was curious about how close they must have been for the smell to cling to him like this.
Above all, she wondered if the woman was beautiful…
‘What are you even thinking, Grace?’
Why was I even curious about the woman’s face? What kind of relationship did she and Leonardo even have?
‘No, what kind of relationship could we have? We’ve only slept together once.’
Finding her own thoughts shameless, Grace sat on Leonardo’s desk.
Still, she and Leonardo had rolled around together quite a bit for a long time, and they had even been surprisingly compatible.
Both Leonardo and I had enjoyed it, hadn’t we?
‘So doesn’t that mean I have every right to be curious?’
Thinking this far, Grace buried her face in the documents.
What nonsense about having the right to be curious.
They had agreed to pretend it never happened, so why was she still obsessing over it like this?
‘Get a grip, Grace Lowell.’
Wasn’t it all because of the sorcery anyway?
And while it was an unavoidable situation, they were both adults who had consensually engaged in the act.
They had also mutually agreed to pretend it never happened.
She couldn’t keep dwelling on it like this and acting so pathetic.
‘Ugh, when did I become so pitiful, Grace Lowell?’
Where had the cold, independent Grace Lowell, who lived her life without caring about anyone, gone?
Grace let out deep sighs repeatedly before finally noticing the documents Leonardo had been holding.
“…The Spirit of the Golden Day Primrose?”
Though she had never seen it before, the words gave her an inexplicable sense of unease. Grace picked up the documents and began reading them slowly.
“Is this really a spirit?”
In children’s fairy tales, spirits were often described as pure beings.
However, the pranks of the Golden Day Primrose’s spirit, as described in the documents, involved appearing in dreams in someone’s form and engaging in s*xual acts.
Pondering over the sentence, Grace clapped her hands.
“―Ah. I remember now.”
That last dream she had.
She had completely forgotten what kind of dream it was, but suddenly, it came to her vividly.
[Don’t be so tense. We’re just here to make you feel good.]
There had indeed been a presence that said those words to her.
If that presence was the spirit of the Golden Day Primrose mentioned in these documents, she now understood what that statement meant.
‘What kind of spirit is this? It’s not a spirit but a ghost.’
There was a saying in the Eastern Continent about virgin ghosts and bachelor ghosts.
There was a rumor that people who died as virgins became such ghosts, and for a while, jokes about it had been popular in the Knight Order.
‘So were we possessed by the spirit of the Golden Day Primrose?’
According to the folklore written in the documents, those who consumed the Golden Day Primrose for an extended period all went mad.
While there weren’t many cases, some remembered their dreams, and others didn’t. Either way, they all lost their sanity.
‘Because they could never experience the same pleasure they had in the dream again.’
Grace recalled how, ever since that dream, she had been thinking about it at random moments in her daily life.
In the dream, she had been bolder, more honest with her desires, and freer.
But she also vividly remembered the raw expression Leonardo had shown her in that dream.
If that was the work of the spirit…
‘They must not have any positive feelings toward humans. They just enjoy themselves, as they said.’
Wait a minute. The very idea of a flower spirit deriving pleasure from s*xual acts was strange, wasn’t it?
And among those who enjoyed the pleasure, only the “human” side ended up going mad.
As Grace followed her train of thought, a realization struck her.
‘So if I just stay away from the Golden Day Primrose from now on, everything will be fine, right?’
Flipping through a few more pages of the documents, she couldn’t find the answer to her question. Instead, she felt drowsy.
Forcing her heavy eyelids open, Grace turned another page.
‘…Huh?’
The last word she saw was “seizure.”
***
Waking up in Grace’s office, Leonardo immediately ran back to his laboratory.
Grace’s light body didn’t tire no matter how much he ran. Once again, Leonardo was reminded of how exceptional a swordswoman she was and clenched his teeth.
Every single detail of the documents he had read earlier came back to him vividly.
‘It said those who directly consumed the flower could experience seizures after a certain amount of time.’
The seizures occurred within three days of consumption, with a 5% probability. And it had been exactly three days since Leonardo himself had eaten the flower.
It was a slim chance, but if Grace were to suffer a seizure…
“Damn it! Why are the Knight Order buildings so far apart?”
If he hadn’t known about the possibility, he wouldn’t have worried. But knowing and doing nothing wasn’t an option.
When he arrived at the laboratory and flung the door open, he saw Grace lying on the desk, groaning in her sleep.
Seeing this, Leonardo opened the display case where he kept artifacts and grabbed a few items.
“Damn it! This is so heavy!”
Carrying Grace—or rather, his own body—on his back, he grunted and grabbed the handle of the rest area door.
After finally opening the door and stepping inside, he laid Grace on the bed and activated several spells.
Letting out a sigh, he then woke Grace up.
“Sir Lowell, Sir Lowell!”
After shaking her several times, her eyelashes fluttered, and Grace opened her eyes.
“…Sir Leonardo?”
“Please, stay conscious!”
As Grace shook her head at Leonardo, who was holding her shoulders and shaking her, she suddenly began gasping for air.
Clutching at her throat as if suffocating, she displayed the unmistakable symptoms of a seizure described in the documents.
Leonardo grabbed a Holy Power potion from a nearby shelf and tried pouring it into Grace’s mouth, but she kept turning her head, preventing it from going down her throat.
“Grace! Get a hold of yourself!”
When Leonardo yelled, Grace briefly made eye contact with him.
However, her eyes soon wandered in pain, and Leonardo gritted his teeth at the sight.
“Damn it, seriously!”
What a troublesome woman.
Why did the seizure have to happen right when our bodies were switched?
Why was she the one suffering the side effects of something I had done?
But there was no time for self-pity. Leonardo downed the potion himself.
Then, gripping Grace’s jaw firmly with one hand and tilting her head back with the other, he leaned in close to her partially upright body and bit her lower lip.
“Mm!”
When the pain caused her to open her mouth, Leonardo pushed his tongue inside.
Sliding his tongue past her teeth, he transferred the potion he had been holding in his mouth to hers. Their tightly sealed mouths filled with the potion.
Then, pulling back, he pinched her nose with the hand that had been gripping her jaw.
“Puh, ha!”
As her nose was pinched, Grace instinctively swallowed the potion and exhaled through her mouth.
Watching her trembling pupils, Leonardo stepped back and spoke.
“Those who directly consume the flower have a 5% chance of experiencing seizures. I didn’t think it would happen to me.”
After the potion took effect and Grace regained some clarity, she became aware of the fact that he had kissed her.
Unconsciously touching her lips, she heard Leonardo speak.
“Do you regret the kiss?”
“…What?”
Not understanding what he meant, Grace blinked.
Slowly approaching her, Leonardo lightly gripped her chin as he had done earlier. Then, leaning down, he bit her lips again.
As if nibbling, his lips brushed hers, and his hot tongue briefly grazed her.
Startled, Grace pulled back, and Leonardo smiled faintly. Then, tapping his lips with a finger, he said,
“The earlier one doesn’t count.”
It was a medical procedure, after all.
He added, stepping away from the bed.
Returning to his usual stoic expression, as though he had never smiled mischievously, Leonardo spoke to Grace.
“Sir Lowell, you should rest here for now.”
With that, Leonardo opened the door and left.
Left alone, Grace collapsed onto the bed with a dumbfounded expression.
Her heart was pounding as if it might explode from what had just happened.
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