What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 45
“There’s quite a bit of edible plants nearby. We were lucky.”
Ysaris returned without taking long. Despite being a lady raised in the palace, she skillfully gathered edible items from the forest.
Small tree fruits, edible flowers, and mushrooms.
Kazhan hid his relief at Ysaris’s return and quietly observed the food she laid out on the leaves. Most of them looked plain in color and seemed unremarkable, but he couldn’t be sure of their safety just by looking at them.
“They might be poisonous.”
“I recognize all but one. There’s nothing harmful to humans, so you can eat them without worry.”
“One?”
At Kazhan’s question, Ysaris picked up a pale apricot-colored tree fruit. It was slightly bigger than a thumb and looked ripe and tender.
“This one. I took a bite and so far, I haven’t felt any adverse effects.”
“You ate something you didn’t even recognize? Such reckless behavior!”
Kazhan, momentarily agitated, was immediately reprimanded by his weakened body. Despite the sharp pain that brought him to his senses, he scolded her and then sighed.
“I saw traces of insects nibbling on the same type of fruit. I thought that made it worth trying. I didn’t know I needed to report every detail to Your Majesty.”
“That’s not enough. Insects in the same forest… might have immunity.”
“Then what should we do?”
“Rather, I should…”
Kazhan stopped mid-sentence. While it was a sound plan for him, with his high poison resistance, to eat it first to test for safety, it was impractical in their current situation.
He wasn’t just battered and broken all over. The assailants’ swords had been poisoned, and since he was nicked during the fight, his body had been feverishly working to neutralize the poison.
There were other reasons as well.
“You can’t be suggesting that a dying patient should test it instead.”
“…”
Kazhan had nothing to say. With both arms wrecked, all he could do was chew and swallow the food Ysaris fed him.
Had he ever felt this helpless in his life?
Kazhan looked at Ysaris with blurry eyes. He wondered what she was thinking as she took care of the now pathetic tyrant with such indifference.
It was surprising enough that she hadn’t abandoned him, but he never expected her to care for him like this. Wouldn’t it be more fitting, in the extreme sense, for her to kill him now and flee, avenging her fiancé’s death?
Sympathy? A sense of duty?
Kazhan could only speculate alone; he didn’t ask. Rather than scratching where it didn’t itch, he quietly enjoyed her care.
Although her touch was dry, the fact that Ysaris was doing something for him voluntarily eased his excruciating pain.
* * *
After the meal, Ysaris went out again to gather more herbs.
The river they had followed far downstream was not the one leading to the village. It was in the opposite direction, leading to the low mountain range, a place untouched by human feet.
Because of this, even a brief search revealed rare herbs. Though she had seen them in books, she had never collected them herself, making it challenging to dig them up without damaging the roots.
Without proper tools, she used stones and branches to do the job. Her palms were scraped, and her fingertips cracked from digging at the ground.
But the pain in her hands was nothing compared to the agony in her shoulder. The hastily treated wound from removing the arrowhead and applying a quick remedy screamed with every movement.
“Phew…”
Ysaris wiped her cold sweat and gathered the herbs in her arms. If she were in the Imperial Palace, she would have been bedridden for days with such a shoulder injury. But with a patient more critical than herself, she had no choice but to push through.
Surviving such an injury was a miracle. Having decided to aid in his recovery, she had no time for complaints.
“I’m back.”
“You’re late.”
“Gathering herbs isn’t easy.”
Returning to the hideout, Ysaris sat across from Kazhan and poured the gathered herbs into her lap. She only selected a few necessary for each mixture, placing them on a flat stone and began to grind them.
“Where did you learn herbalism?”
Kazhan asked, observing her actions intently.
When he was living incognito as Cain, he and she both attended the same academy in Pyrein. As far as he knew, Ysaris had never studied herbalism, but her hands looked quite skilled at preparing the medicine.
“I studied on my own.”
“The Empress wouldn’t… have any reason to handle herbs.”
Ysaris glanced at Kazhan and then focused back on making the medicine.
“There’s no harm in learning. No matter who I use it on.”
It had been a few years since she first thought about learning herbalism.
When she was deeply involved with Cain, he had once been seriously injured. A long cut ran from his right shoulder to the opposite side of his waist.
Although the situation had been resolved safely, she had thought about it while watching the physician apply medicine to him.
‘I want to help Cain too. What if I made and applied the medicine myself?’
At the time, she couldn’t do it. She was living each day without spare time, and only after Cain died did she start studying herbalism out of lingering attachment and regret.
