The moment Ceres lost consciousness.
"We finally met!"
"Why go through all this trouble because of them?!"
"Why collapse again and break my heart?"
Chaos erupted once more.
Alios, Hames, Viol—
As the three simultaneously rushed towards Ceres, Sibylius, who was supporting him, thought.
'What kind of madness is this?'
It was absurd, yet she also felt a sliver of admiration.
'To make these three fall for him at the same time!'
Power, status, social reputation—all three lacked nothing, and each had a temperamental side.
Yet he made them act as if they'd give their liver and gallbladder for him.
'Is it really thanks to his pretty face? At this point, it's practically a superpower. In the far East, don't they call this sort of thing gyeonggukjisaek—beauty that could topple nations?'
Considering the nation almost collapsed just now due to the fight between Viol and Alios, gyeonggukjisaek seemed fitting.
'...I owe him a debt.'
Even though Ceres himself was the cause, Ceres was also the one who stopped it.
If he hadn't come out saying he could handle it, the fight would likely still be ongoing.
'As Ceres said, they wouldn't listen to me. If I failed and tried to stop them by force, wouldn't I have ended up fighting alongside them? And if, by chance, one of them accidentally killed the other......'
Just imagining what would happen afterward was terrifying.
She felt unintentionally indebted to Ceres.
"Everyone, please step back."
Sibylius, while still looking at Ceres with some disapproval, tried to help him.
"Crowding around an unconscious patient and calling out to him won't help at all."
Calming the three, she repeated what she had said earlier.
"From now on, I will investigate how to treat this person, so everyone, please wait here without interfering."
"Can't I go in with you to check?"
Alios, hearing this for the first time, protested.
She insisted on following, arguing that she hadn't seen Ceres in a long time and was worried.
It was Viol who stopped her.
"Are you a doctor? What use would it be for you to go in?"
"Urk!"
"Lower your eyes. I'm holding back the urge to kill you thanks to Ceres."
"That's my line!"
The two glared at each other, radiating hostility like beasts, but they couldn't actually attack.
They couldn't bring themselves to disobey what Ceres had said earlier.
Watching the two bluff without being able to fight, Hames sighed.
"Go on inside. I'll keep watch here."
"Understood."
Sibylius entrusted the situation to Hames and quickly returned inside the house.
"This time, for sure."
Laying Ceres back onto the bed, she activated various magical instruments.
Performing a detailed examination using magic takes quite some time.
After waiting for over ten minutes, Sibylius suddenly felt hungry.
'It's still far from mealtime, is it because of that scent?'
The fragrance emanating from Ceres seemed stronger now that they were alone in the small room.
It was a pleasant scent, but for some reason, it kept stimulating her appetite, so Sibylius pinched her nose shut.
'This won't do. I need to get something to eat.'
Leaving the magic to run automatically, Sibylius headed to the kitchen.
'Meat would be good. Maybe sausages made in pig intestines.'
There were rumors in the capital that she, being a half-demon, ate people, but that was nonsense.
Even pure demons weren't restricted to only eating humans.
While they were monsters that devoured people, it was merely a means to absorb the power contained within flesh to become stronger.
Most lived by eating ordinary food, and Sibylius was no different.
Having cooked some ordinary sausages, she placed them on a plate and took out a bottle of wine to drink.
However, as she continued her meal.
"Why is this happening?"
She discovered that no matter how much she ate, her hunger didn't subside.
It was a strange emptiness, like eating snow that never filled her stomach.
'N-no, surely not!'
Startled, Sibylius rushed back to where Ceres was.
As soon as she was enveloped by the scent emanating from there, she felt her hunger slightly abate, and certainty dawned.
'Crazy! What is he putting on his body?!'
There was no mistake. The strange phenomenon was caused by the scent coming from Ceres's body.
'No wonder I found it strangely appealing and delicious.'
Did he spray on some perfume enchanted with strange magic? Sibylius wondered, frowning.
'A perfume with magic powerful enough to affect me? Could such a thing exist?'
Even if it did, where would he have obtained something so potent that he could wear it every day?
Recalling Viol's comment that the same scent emanated from him daily, Sibylius then remembered Hames's words as well.
That the scent came naturally from his bare skin, even without perfume.
The words she had dismissed as delusion suddenly struck her with force.
'Is it true?'
Having spoken with the awakened Ceres and gotten a slight sense of the kind of person he was, a sliver of doubt entered her mind.
He was such a strange human, maybe he really could smell like flowers.
She moved closer to take a better sniff.
A sweet, yet clear fragrance.
It wasn't cloying or heavy, but a calm yet intense scent.
'Just as Emperor Viol said, it resembles a dignified floral scent.'
That such a fragrance could emanate naturally from his bare body was unbelievable.
'Is he really human?'
Wanting to smell it more deeply, Sibylius leaned down towards Ceres, bringing her face close.
Then, as if possessed, she reached out to undo the front of his shirt, intending to check if the scent truly came from his bare skin, and at that exact moment—
Her eyes met Ceres's, who had just regained consciousness.
As soon as I came to, I was face-to-face with Sibylius again.
But her actions were extremely odd.
She was in the middle of undoing the front of my shirt and leaning her face towards me.
"What are you doing?"
As I asked sternly, she immediately backed away.
"...I was checking your condition."
"Why do you need to undress me for that?"
You can do it with magic without needing to remove clothes, and in fact, you're using magic to examine me right now.
When I pointed this out, Sibylius cleared her throat.
"Ahem! Please hear me out. Separate from the health check, I was trying to identify a strange smell coming from your body."
"What smell?"
"It smells like flowers. What is this?"
I don't know either!
This scent was originally from Ceres's body.
In the original novel, whenever a scene featuring Ceres meeting the male leads appeared, it was described that a scent came from her body.
There was no explanation why, but maybe it's because she's a romance fantasy protagonist, so she naturally smells nice.
"I don't know the reason either, but I just have this scent. But why?"
"No reason, it just caught my attention."
Sibylius tried to end the topic, trailing off as if it were nothing.
Her behavior struck me as even more suspicious.
Come to think of it, didn't the original Sibylius make a particular mention of Ceres's scent in the novel?
"You know this is sexual harassment, right?"
The thought that this woman might also be developing feelings crossed my mind, so I warned her.
"You definitely promised me. That you wouldn't fall in love with me."
"I was merely trying to investigate because it was strange!" she insisted, trying to change the subject, forcefully denying any misconception.
"I find this strange misunderstanding unpleasant. Let's drop the subject. More importantly, I want to know about your condition."
She narrowed her eyes, observing me.
"You seem much more comfortable speaking. Have you improved?"
"It's better than before."
It still hurts, but not severely.
It feels like something blocked has been cleared.
Did shouting loudly before I passed out actually have a positive effect?
"Hmm, could it be that the mana forced a larger pathway due to the strain of moving during a mana overload?"
As I described my condition, Sibylius immediately understood what was happening.
"In a way, you could say it acted closer to its original purpose."
"Original purpose?"
"Look at this."
She dismissed the magic circle around my body and instead conjured complex text that looked like a report.
"These are the results of examining your body. Can you understand it?"
No, not at all.
I could read the letters of this world immediately after transmigrating, but I couldn't understand this.
I could read it, but it was filled with difficult technical terms I didn't understand.
"Simply put, a highly efficient mana training method is currently operating within you."
Seeing my blank expression, Sibylius explained as if looking at an idiot.
"Mana that has been compressed to exert greater power. You are circulating this condensed mana throughout your body, increasing your mana training efficiency several times over."
"Hey, wait a minute."
I was bewildered.
Being told I had a terminal illness would have been easier to understand. This was too random.
"Why is something so incredible operating inside my body?"
"That's what I'd like to ask you."
Sibylius looked me up and down and asked.
"You handle mana in a very peculiar way. You forgo all the benefits mana provides and instead use it to resist something inside your body."
"I did that to restore my health."
"To protect yourself from some kind of pressure affecting you?"
I nodded, but my eyes widened at her next words.
"That method is wrong."
"What?"
"Even if you protect your insides with mana, the pressure itself doesn't disappear. It might seem fine for now, but eventually, the mana itself will just end up being suppressed as well."
What is she talking about?
I used the method from the original novel, but the very person who created it was telling me it was wrong. I was flustered.
"...Then how would you do it?"
"If it were me, even protecting with mana, I would have done it in a way that the effects naturally cancel each other out. At the cost of forfeiting the body-strengthening effects, of course."
Damn it!
Hearing her explanation, I realized my mistake.
The original novel's description of "protecting with mana" wasn't just about crudely stuffing mana into the body for protection.
The real method was closer to mixing dangerous chemicals to neutralize them!
What I did was, metaphorically, like foolishly trying to resist poison by only increasing physical stamina.
"Do you understand? Because you used the wrong method, an unintended effect occurred."
Sibylius explained.
The pressure itself didn't disappear, so the mana protecting the body was suppressed along with it.
In the process, however, the mana transformed, becoming higher quality and purer, as if I had mastered a top-tier mana cultivation technique.
"The aura wielded by Sword Masters is extremely compressed mana. So, some warriors had this thought: wouldn't training with somewhat compressed mana from the start be more effective?"
"So, how did that turn out?"
"Most became cripples or barely recovered."
"Why? It sounds like a healthy exercise."
"You, being a man, might not understand, but exercising excessively doesn't automatically make you stronger."
No, I think I get it.
Just working out randomly without a systematic method doesn't guarantee strength.
You could easily damage your body, which is why there are trainers to provide guidance.
If regular exercise is like this, then exercises involving circulating energy within the body must be even more severe!
In Wuxia terms, it's like Qi Deviation.
"So, reckless training damaged them from the inside out."
"Exactly. You should have ended up like that too, but the mysterious force pressuring you automatically healed you, so it only ended up like this."
Sibylius pointed at me, still in pain but able to talk.
"Then how do I fix this?"
"You felt a bit better when you pushed yourself just now, didn't you? Perhaps pushing yourself in the worst situation acted as a form of training."
"Are you telling me to train in this broken body, which is worse than before?"
"What's happening now is the result of a flawed training method being applied, so you need to correct the side effects with different training."
Seeing my reluctant expression, Sibylius said.
"It's not all bad. I guarantee it. If you succeed, you won't just heal your body; only the benefits of the high-efficiency training method will remain, and you'll become much stronger."