The Nymph Wants to be Plundered - Chapter 53

Excellent.

Having devised his own malicious scheme, Asar hurried to his room and wrote a letter. Although he normally found writing ceremonial greetings tedious, he put in considerable effort, rewriting it ten times before completing a letter that satisfied him.

Even if his grandfather were to intercept and read this letter first, there would be nothing incriminating. His true intentions would take much longer to realize, and he would not discuss this matter with anyone. He wouldn’t even mutter it with his lips before the speechless statue in the cathedral!

For him, a somewhat anxious yet pleasant period of waiting had begun.
***

The water in the bath within the Hall of Glory looked slightly cloudy, unlike usual. This was because it had been heated to a moderate temperature, just enough not to scald the skin.

Ironically, Cassis, the actual owner of this bath, was the type who would unhesitatingly plunge into cold winter water without batting an eye. So in weather like this, it went without saying. Then why was the water heated?

Bubble, bubble…

Small bubbles rose as if about to break through the cloudy water.

“Come out now.”

“Puhaaa…!”

The moment the words left Cassis, who had been staring intently at the water, someone’s head shot up above the surface.

From a small, round face with tightly closed eyelids, transparent droplets fell incessantly. It was Evelyn who had been completely submerged down to the last strand of hair in the bath water that only Cassis used within the Hall of Glory. He teased her as he observed her reddened face.

“You can’t hold your breath for even a few seconds.”

“I’ve hardly ever played diving games before.”

“Come here.”

He called to Evelyn habitually, but for some reason, she kept only her head floating, carefully concealing her body beneath the surface.

Cassis, impeccably dressed from head to toe, and Evelyn, without even a pin in her hair and completely naked. In a way, it was only natural that she couldn’t calmly walk out of the water.

Having asked the troublesome question, he finally burst into mischievous laughter.

“Haha, Evelyn. Are you still shy about standing before me?”

“……”

“Even though you’ll be in my arms in this same state when night falls?”

“I don’t know.”

Evelyn, responding rather petulantly, tried to submerge her drenched head back below the surface. However, from that point on, things didn’t go as planned. Though invisible to her eyes, glowing yellow spirits approached and appropriately lifted her submerged shoulders. This was, of course, Cassis’s intention and wicked scheme.

“Ah, aaah…!”

One trying to submerge, the other preventing it. The consequences of the collision were evident.

The bath water rippled outward from the center, revealing her modest upper chest. There, as if bitten by vicious insects, quite large red marks were dotted here and there. These were the marks left by Cassis just the night before.

A faint shadow of worry drifted into Cassis’s eyes as he smiled briefly. No matter how well he fed her or replenished her energy, her body showed no signs of gaining weight from its emaciated state. Especially when her back—thinner than a tree weathered by winter—turned to lie against him, it often stirred a pointless sense of guilt.

Why was Evelyn so thin? Was his care insufficient?

Now, she ate the same food as the king of the Great Jupiter Empire—far better than what she had in that small rural village. There was no question which situation was more favorable. So, blaming the food was out of the question.

But knowing the reason her body struggled only made it harder to decide what to do next.

Evelyn often needed him to carry her due to the slow withering of her tree, yet the fatigue from excessive intercourse couldn’t be restored even with energy replenishment. So, no matter what, it was a problem. What in the world was he supposed to do?

For now, he decided to focus on the small task at hand.

“You’ve bathed long enough. Come out now, or you’ll catch a cold.”

“…Alright.”

The words “catch a cold” slipped easily from Cassis’s lips, though he would have hesitated before.

That was Evelyn’s current state—neither a perfect nymph nor a perfect human, but stuck awkwardly in between. She bore a nymph’s weaknesses while distinctly retaining human traits, such as recovering stamina quite well from nutritious food, unrelated to energy absorption.

Still, in a way, that was fortunate.

The orange jasmine tree that had held her had ultimately been deemed unsalvageable. Though he had expected it from the start, the disappointment was profound. Cassis proposed to the Senate that they keep it a secret for now. The Senate seemed to assume that, since he was with Evelyn daily, the faint remnants of her essence would sustain her life.