The Nymph Wants to be Plundered - Chapter 88

“Evelyn….”

“It’s fine. This will fall off soon. I saw in the mirror that it’s barely attached at the top, almost ready to fall off. Even without picking at it. Hmm… like a cherry on top of a cake? Something like that.”

Though she made the comparison casually, it sounded strangely different to Cassis.

Cherry? What? As his gaze scrutinized her face as if devouring it, Evelyn belatedly realized her mistake. With a man she had been intimate with countless times looming right in front of her, referring to her lips as cherries—wasn’t that too obvious a ploy?

“Uh… that is….”

Her lips, which indeed resembled cherries even without their usual redness, trembled repeatedly in apparent embarrassment. Cassis soon suppressed the sinister smile that had formed at the corners of his mouth and said brightly:

“I don’t touch patients.”

“I’m fully recovered.”

“Hardly so.”

Both were correct in their own way. In Evelyn’s opinion, she was completely healed, but from Cassis’s perspective, she wasn’t. In the current situation, although she no longer needed to be confined to bed, he prevented her from moving around freely. Claiming that long baths would be harmful to her body, he wiped her down with a damp cloth, and even fed her. Literally holding a spoon and fork, feeding her by hand.

Despite her repeated refusals, insisting that her arms were perfectly fine, his stubbornness was so unyielding that he continued this practice even through this morning. Even when her lips failed to receive the food properly, causing it to drip down, he never once complained.

Silently staring at Evelyn, or more precisely, at the lips said to resemble cherries, he moved his body.

“Ah, I see. You haven’t had your dessert yet.”

“What? Since today is a busy day, we can skip it, can’t we?”

“No. Wait here.”

‘Sigh…’

Evelyn, in a rare display, slightly glared at the tray he was bringing over. In the past, when her diet consisted only of bread, soup, and a small portion of stiff vegetables not even moistened with oil, she would have welcomed dessert. But not these days.

It was called dessert, but it was practically a second full meal in itself.

He couldn’t understand why he was acting this way. Hadn’t he said it himself? Since she had become a nymph, her appetite and physical condition would be quite different from when she was human. So even if she ate less, she should be fine as long as she received his care, but when she ended up eating everything he provided, the amount was almost the size of a wedding cake.

Even before he could lift the silver lid, her complaints came pouring out.

“You always serve portions that are too large….”

“Ah, it’s fruit pie. I ordered it because raspberries are in season these days.”

Until now, Cassis had been bringing hearty pies filled with ground meat and nutritious onions, calling them dessert. He had forcefully pushed into her mouth an amount that could serve as a late-night meal when hungry, but today was different!

“The raspberries I ate back then were the most delicious.”

Not missing her offhand comment, he asked

“Evelyn, do you remember the entire day when you came here with me?”

“What…? Yes. Even now, it was my first time setting foot in another country, and everything was fascinating.”

After saying this, Evelyn felt an inexplicable regret welling up in her chest. She should not have ignored the yellowish, hazy spores that had flown toward her as if trying to stop her from rushing to the sacred site. Perhaps it had been an intentional warning… It felt like a price to pay for her needless actions.

Seeing sadness gradually seeping into her eyes, he quietly said:

“You might be the type who enjoys traveling.”

“Me…? Even though I’ve lived in the countryside ever since I was entrusted to the village chief?”

“Some things are hard to gauge until you experience them. Evelyn, I said I would hold a festival you could participate in after sending off the Boundary Guards when the Aika Festival ends.”

“Yes.”

Though she answered, that memory had grown dimmer than the night they traveled to Jupiter. To be honest, she wasn’t even sure if such a promise had been made, but since he spoke so seriously, she could only nod.

Cassis put down the lid and, while cutting a large piece of the pie with a knife, said:

“Let’s not only hold the festival but also arrange a brief trip outside the castle sometime soon. However, our stay will be limited to three or four days at most.”

For a nymph to wander far from her life source was extremely dangerous. Therefore, she couldn’t travel for long or go very far anyway. Not unless the tree housing her life miraculously transformed into something else.

Surprised by the unexpected words, Evelyn instinctively clasped her hands together in delight.

“My goodness, for that long?”

“If it’s too difficult for you, we can make it shorter.”

“No, that’s wonderful. I was planning to go on a picnic with Ruba, so this works out perfectly. It would be really fun if the three of us went together.”

That Ruba, putting ideas into Evelyn’s head again? A pathetic unicorn who couldn’t even share a handful of vital energy with her.