NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 149.1
King of Hessen. Orleans Philippe Hessen II’s countenance was somber.
There was only one reason he was so depressed. His youngest daughter.
‘What am I going to do about this…’
He hadn’t slept well in days, and his eyes were bleak.
Everything was his fault.
His daughter, Yurina Hessen, had been sick since birth.
At first, he thought she was just congenitally weak. She grew slower than her peers and would often fall ill.
But he believed that after a few days of illness, she would recover and be healthy when she was older.
But he was wrong.
He still remembers. The day his daughter, whose eyes never bothered him, suddenly started having seizures.
Red spots appeared all over her body, and she fainted immediately. As he watched her suffer from a high fever for days on end, he prayed fervently.
Please save this child. Please let him fulfill the last wish of his beloved Queen, who has already passed away.
But the universe was even more cruel.
The daughter barely survived. Yet it was not a life.
From then on, she had to spend almost her entire life lying in bed, waiting for the day she would die. As he watched her face grow thinner and paler, he felt his insides shrinking.
And finally, when she lost her sight.
— ‘Father, Father, where are you? Are you there? Dad?’And then he broke down. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be in this world, so he thought.
She took his hand and consoled him, saying that she was happy to be his daughter.
He burst into silent tears and admitted it all.
Whatever it takes, no matter what, he’ll save her, by any means necessary, at any cost. He wanted to live to see her happy while he was still alive.
No matter what the consequences might be.
“I was wrong, I should have accepted my fate… I let my greed get you into this mess.”He took his daughter’s skinny hand, which was still lying on the bed like a doll.
If only he hadn’t been so greedy, if only he hadn’t gotten so desperate that he hadn’t lost his sense of judgment and called a suspicious person into the palace…
At least things wouldn’t have turned out this way.
Perhaps he was being complacent. Things couldn’t get any worse from here, so it didn’t matter what he did.
Until he met the sorcerer.
— ‘Do this, and everything will be fine.’The robe-clad sorcerer was unrecognizable.
No one could tell if it was a man or a woman, or even how old it was because of the strange voice.
Yet he wasn’t interested in the sorcerer.
He was so focused on whether the sorcerer could cure his daughter that he ignored the blue powder he took out of his purse and sprinkled on her.
After completing the ritual, the sorcerer smiled meaningfully and said
— ‘Your daughter’s future will soon be much brighter.’He didn’t know what it meant at the time, but only now did he realize the full implications of his words.
Because shortly after he disappeared, not long after, his daughter did indeed almost die.
Even though my daughter’s life had been in danger many times before, something was different that day.
She was constantly coughing up black blood, gagging like she was about to die, and when she finally regained consciousness, she was waving her hands in the air and babbling nonsense.
— ‘Uh, Da, Dad? That’s weird. I can’t see your eyes, they were fine until yesterday…’ — ‘What? Yurina, Yurina!’ — ‘Mother, please call my mother. I’m sure she’s in her room. We had dinner together a few days ago. Mother… blurgh!’Sometimes she didn’t even recognize him.
At other times, she would ask for a hug because she was scared or cold, but when he took her hand, she would scream and have a seizure.
Each day was a living hell.
And then one day, she was quiet.
She fell into a deep sleep. As he watched her, unable to open her eyes and breathing shallowly, as if she were dead, he wept without words.
His regrets choked him, why was he so anxious, why had he done so many things, why had he invited strangers into his life?
Even in moments like this, he wanted his daughter to live.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
I knew in these moments that it was better to die in peace than to let her suffer like this. But my heart refused to accept it.
Only if I hear her at least one more time, only if I am ready, would I let her go.
From then on, the king began to think urgently. Now he didn’t even want his daughter to be cured.
If only she could open her eyes, even if only so that he could have a moment to talk to her, he would ask for nothing more.
But he couldn’t afford to call on just anyone like before.
In secret, he searched for someone skilled, and along the way, he heard a rumor.
“They say there’s a famous healer in Beloa right now.” “In Beloa?”The king questioned the herald who brought the news.
“Isn’t this just a rumor?” “There are more than a few people who have been treated and cured by this healer, so I don’t think they’re making it up.” “And you’re sure of its identity?” “I believe it was one of yours, given that the healer set up a clinic below the top of Averine.”The King pondered.
‘Averine.’
Come to think of it, it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d heard that Averine wanted to meet him.
The reason was obvious. He wanted to get a piece of Beloa’s business like any other merchant.
Maybe this was all just Averine’s way of trying to get him on board.
Perhaps Averine was trying to coax him into meeting with the right physician, now that he’s locked himself out.
But he’s not exactly in a position to find that one right now. Besides, it seems to be quite good, actually…
The King agonized for a moment, then made his decision.
“Bring them in.”