Chapter 13
“What are you mumbling about?”
“Oh, um, nothing.”
What am I doing, analyzing his face at a time like this?
Hansel scolded herself internally, feeling ridiculous.
She quickly turned her head away, her eyes landing on the tightly closed bathroom door.
“You didn’t even touch the door, but it opened on its own. The lamps lit up, the water started boiling, and the bath salts flew into the tub by themselves…”
As he carried Hansel into the bathroom, the door swung open on its own.
He hadn’t recited any incantation or even snapped his fingers.
The water in the tub heated itself, and steam filled the entire space.
Hansel had never heard of such an advanced level of magic before.
Normally, magic required a spell circle to act as a blueprint and a verbal incantation as the activation switch.
The mechanism of magic was like a finely tuned machine.
Through the complex calculations of the spell circle, the raw power of mana was refined step by step to manifest the caster’s intention.
The level of a mage was often measured by how much they could simplify their spell circle, reduce the length of their incantations, and therefore speed up the activation of their magic.
But to cast magic without so much as a word or gesture? That transcended the abilities of even the most talented mages.
It was beyond extraordinary—it was otherworldly.
He asked nonchalantly,
“You’re amazed by magic while carrying around an artifact made by mages?”
“Well… I don’t know how I got it. I can’t remember anything, remember?”
“True. You did say that.”
Even if she couldn’t use magic herself, Hansel was still from a mage’s bloodline.
Her curiosity momentarily overcame her fear and tension, and she blurted out,
“How can you use magic like that? What does it take to cast it like this?”
He placed her down on the bathroom floor and answered plainly, “I just can. That’s how I was made.”
He could activate magic as easily as breathing, without an incantation or even a flick of his finger.
And not just one spell—he could perform several simultaneously.
To Hansel, who lacked even a speck of magical talent, such abilities were beyond a dream.
“So, you’re a mage, right? Since you can use magic…”
“I was. Not anymore.”
His cryptic response made Hansel tilt her head in confusion.
If he wasn’t a mage, then what was he? Was his past tense phrasing connected to his reputation for massacring mages who entered his territory?
Hansel wanted to press further, but before she could, he cut her off, preempting her questions.
“You seem to have plenty of energy. Should I make suck me even more?”
“I-I’ll bathe! Right now!”
Hansel hurriedly retreated but froze in her tracks, suddenly aware of her appearance.
After all the chaos in the forest, her long platinum hair was a disheveled mess, as if a cat had batted it around.
The front of her dress was torn, leaving her pale, ample chest exposed, sticky with the remnants of his earlier climax.
Never in her life had she been in such a sorry state.
In fact, she had never imagined it was even possible to look this bad.
Her cheeks flared with heat, and she felt like steam might burst from her scalp.
Hansel quickly turned her head away to avoid his gaze.
“I’ll bathe, so can you leave the room?”
Instead of answering, the door opened, and a chair floated into the bathroom.
It settled next to the tub, and he sat on it casually.
Hansel stared at him, dumbfounded, her jaw dropping.
“Just bathe.”
“Are you planning to watch me the whole time? I may be your captive, but I still have a right to privacy. It’s not like I can just—”
“You don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who you are either.”
He leaned lazily against the back of the chair.
“You know things I don’t. If I don’t watch, who knows what you might do next.”
“W-What does that even mean…”
Hansel furrowed her brow for a moment, piecing together his words in the context of the situation.
“So, what you’re saying is… since you don’t know my identity, you can’t predict what suspicious things I might do. And because I don’t remember who I am or what I’m capable of, I might accidentally cause some incident. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
Hansel silently praised her past self for devouring so many books.
The more she spoke with him, the more certain she was.
His vocabulary and sentence structure were oddly, no, significantly clumsy.
The Witch of the Gingerbread House was said to have lived alone in the northern forest for a very long time.
It was clear that his prolonged isolation had severely dulled his communication skills.
“So, even if I promise to just bathe quietly, you won’t believe me, will you?”
“No.”
Hansel’s shoulders sagged.
Although she had managed to buy herself a day’s reprieve, he was still a man who could decide to kill her at any moment.
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