Chapter 21: Who is She?!
"hh— hic... hh..."
Her breathing kept breaking, like she couldn’t pull in enough air.
"Hello, miss. Are you okay?"
I smiled. Genuine-looking. Completely fake.
"hng... hic..."
She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to muffle the sound.
Do I look like a monster or something?
"Hey. Hey. Stop crying, tell me what happened."
"...sniff... hic..."
Her shoulders trembled. Quiet sobs barely breaking the silence of the forest.
I stood there.
This was not in any of my plans. I had never been a babysitter and had absolutely no intention of becoming one.
Even though she looked like an adult, her crying face was something else entirely.
Like a child who had no idea what was happening.
Then I noticed it.
And she was sitting in a forest where sane people didn’t go, crying her eyes out, with dried blood in her hair and an injured leg she clearly couldn’t put weight on.
I opened my inventory and pulled out a mana potion and a healing potion. The items materialized from the air in front of me.
She didn’t even blink at that.
Too out of it to question it. Or too used to it. Either way.
I tried to hand them over.
She kept crying.
"...Why is it so hard to deal with a crying person," I muttered under my breath.
I turned toward her.
Okay. Different approach.
"Hey..."
I stopped mid-sentence.
Wait.
I have the system.
"System," I whispered.
[....]
"Show me her profile."
[1 PS.]
"Scammers."
I looked at her.
She was still crying.
Her shoulders shook with every uneven breath.
"Fine."
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Tessira Vale
Title: Spirit Sorceress
Potential: SSS Rank
Age: 18
Skills: High-Rank Spirit formula/High-Rank Wind Spirit Bond
State: Suffering from memory loss
I stared at the screen.
SSS Rank.
The novel’s reader-friendly ranking scale went from F all the way to SSS.
SSS was the kind of rating that usually came with destiny, plot armor, or a tragic backstory.
Equal to Aria. But Above almost everyone I had read about in this novel.
And she was sitting in a forest where even animals refused to linger, crying, with dried blood tangled in her hair and one leg hanging uselessly beneath her.
Memory loss.
So she didn’t know who she was. Didn’t know how she got here. Didn’t know anything.
That explains the crying, I thought.
I closed the status window and crouched down in front of her.
[Tsk. Can’t even handle a girl, how will you survive?]
Huh!
"Hey."
She was listening.
A little. It would do.
I took the healing potion and moved closer.
She looked up at me with wet eyes, confused.
I clicked my tongue and crouched down in front of her.
"Open your mouth."
She didn’t respond.
Just kept staring at me.
I sighed.
Then pinched her nose shut.
Her eyes widened.
A second later, her mouth opened on instinct.
I didn’t waste the chance.
I tipped the potion into her mouth.
She froze completely.
Stopped crying.
"...mm..."
She swallowed automatically.
When I pulled the bottle away, she just sat there staring at me, wide-eyed and speechless.
Well. That worked.
Turns out I was capable of handling a crying child.
Truly a remarkable achievement for a grown adult.
I held out the mana potion and the remaining healing potion.
"Drink these too."
She took them quietly and drank without argument.
Her leg was already looking better. Color had returned, and the swelling was going down. Whatever damage had been done was repairing itself surprisingly fast.
"Good."
I looked at her calmly.
"Do you remember anything about yourself?"
A long pause.
Then she shook her head slowly.
And then quietly, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask she looked up at me.
"...Who are you?"
Her voice was small. Careful. Like she’d been holding the question for a while and had finally run out of reasons not to ask it.
I looked at her for a moment.
"Someone who found you," I said. "That’s enough for now."
She considered that. Then nodded once.
I glanced toward the mansion.
"Can you walk?"
Silence.
"...Okay. You’re coming with me then."
I sat down on the ground next to her.
"Piggyback."
She pulled back slightly.
"You won’t fall."
She looked at me. Then in the forest. Then back at me.
"...Promise?"
"Promise."
She thought about it for another thirty seconds genuinely deliberating, like this was a contract with real terms, then gave one small nod.
Is this what having a lost puppy feels like?
Getting her back to the mansion was its own kind of adventure.
The guards at the gate stared. Not subtly. The kind of staring that had opinions in it.
I ignored them.
Inside, I found the head maid and gave her simple instructions: bath, clean clothes, nothing complicated. She asked no questions and got it done.
I went back to my room.
Tessira, apparently, had other ideas.
She followed me like a koala that had decided I belonged to her now. Every time I moved, she was already behind me. Every time I turned around, there she was. Completely unwilling to let me out of her sight.
At one point I stopped walking entirely, just to test it.
She stopped too. Half a step behind me. Waiting.
Yeah.
I sat at the desk and opened my diary.
Plot points. Upcoming events. Characters I needed to remember.
I flipped through the pages until I hit the section on heroines.
Spirit Sorceress. SSS rank potential. High-Rank Wind Spirit Bond.
I looked toward the door.
Different names. Everything else identical.
I closed the diary.
Of all the forests. Of all the mornings.
She wasn’t leaving my room.
After a bit of negotiation she agreed to take the guest room next door.
That lasted approximately two hours.
She didn’t speak much. Just head movements. Yes and no. The occasional sound that might have been a word if you were generous about it.
I sighed.
Today I had a lot.
I fell asleep faster than usual.
The next morning my body felt like it had been filled with concrete overnight.
I tried to move.
But I couldn’t. I looked sideways.
There she was.
Tessira Vale. SSS rank Spirit Sorceress. Potential that exceeded almost every character in the novel.
Curled up next to me, gripping my arm like it was the only solid thing in the world. Dead asleep. Completely unbothered.
I stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
She’s going to be so embarrassed when she gets her memory back.
I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
[Achievement Unlocked: First Sin]
[You received 1000 Ink.]
I blinked at the notification.
"...What?"
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