As I stroked Theodore’s hair, I whispered a lie.

In reality, it hurt. He bit me with teeth as sharp as a wild animal’s, it was bound to hurt. But that’s what I said.

That it didn’t hurt.

That I was okay.

The lies flowed out effortlessly.

“I’m fine.”

“……”

As I whispered another lie and stroked Theodore’s hair, his eyelids slowly closed.

Like a large, gentle beast feeling the warmth of its master’s touch.

“Ah!”

When Theodore’s closed eyelids opened again, I let out a surprised exclamation.

They were purple.

The red blood vessels were still there, but the bright red pupils that had occupied them were already gone.

Instead, there were mysteriously shining purple pupils.

That was the original color of Theodore’s eyes, and it was evidence that his madness had subsided.

‘He should have had to drink more body fluids, right?’

In the novel, Theodore had tormented Astella from the moment they first met until she fainted at dawn. Of course, it was an adult-rated torment.

The next day, the doctor who visited the mansion clicked his tongue at Astella’s condition. She only woke up in the evening and couldn’t get up from her seat due to dizziness.

‘He only seemed to have taken a few sips, but he’s already calmed down?’

It was an unbelievable change, but it was happening right before my eyes.

“Eh, what!”

Before I knew it, Theodore’s eyelids were closing again. And his body was falling backward as if he was fainting.

When I instinctively reached out to catch the back of his neck, the heavy weight was fully transferred to my hand.

Theodore, entrusting his entire body to me, passed out.

“What is this?”

I could only mutter like that.

In the pitch-black underground dungeon, holding the unconscious Theodore in my arms, that was all I could say.

* * *

“Hey! Is there anyone there?”

I shouted as loud as I could, but the situation was the same as before. There was no response at all.

It seemed that after they put me here, they must have gone back above ground.

“Do I have to stay here without moving until tomorrow morning?”

In the novel, others had come to fetch Theodore and Astella the next morning. So I wasn’t sure if I had to wait until then as well.

“Hmm……”

Whether it was planned from the beginning or not, Ordi had given me a large piece of bread just before we arrived at the mansion, so I wasn’t hungry.

It was fortunate that I wasn’t hungry, but everything else was a problem.

After Theodore passed out and let go, blood was still gushing from my bitten arm.

In a hurry, I tore my skirt and wrapped the wound tightly, which stopped the bleeding and lessened the pain. But I didn’t know if that was enough.

Not a mad dog……but definitely a madman, so who knows?

Moreover, trying to sleep on the cold, hard floor, it was not only uncomfortable but also too cold to fall asleep.

“It doesn’t seem to be him.”

Looking at Theodore sleeping soundly on the floor, a sigh and a mutter escaped my lips.

“Wait! Isn’t he going to get hypothermia like that?”

Theodore was unconscious and couldn’t feel it, but the floor is still too cold.

His body must have fully felt this hardness and coldness.

“They’re not going to blame me later, right? Saying that I let Theodore’s be like this?”

What Ordi clearly asked me to do was to calm Theodore down. And Theodore was very calm now.

But if Ordi comes down here in the morning and finds Theodore calm but cold, he probably won’t praise me for doing a great job.

Moreover, it would be difficult for the salary, which was the reward for calming Theodore down that we negotiated, to fully become mine.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I sat down next to Theodore and carefully lifted his head. Fortunately, unlike his heavy body, Theodore’s small head was not very heavy.

As I carefully placed his head on my thigh, Theodore’s eyebrows furrowed, perhaps the process was a bit uncomfortable.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

Like soothing a child trying to wake up from sleep, I patted his chest.

Just like when Astella used to do that for me when I would wake up in the middle of the night and whine.

This worked on Theodore too.

His furrowed forehead smoothed out, and the corners of his squinting eyes relaxed.

Theodore was simply comfortably lying down on my lap, asleep again.

In his appearance, asleep like an innocent child who knows nothing, I couldn’t find the image of the male protagonist who is a wreck that I know.

Theodore just seemed like an ordinary person who is finally seeking a comfortable sleep at the end of a hard and tiring day.

“You must have been in pain…….”

The wound, when I saw the bitten mark on his lips, my lips hurt too.

His hand, bruised and bloody as if he had punched a wall, and the scratches that seemed to have been scraped somewhere, were the same.

They didn’t say this in the novel….

“Hey!”

The voice that brought me back to reality as I was lost in thought looking at Theodore was like a child’s angry shout.

Finally, I thought someone had come, so I looked up quickly at the door, but the door was still closed.

“What are you looking at! I’m right here!”

This time, I knew for sure that the voice came not from the door but from my right. But when I turned my head and looked over there, there was nothing.

“Am I hearing hallucinations…….”

“Hallucinations! Are you ignoring me now?”

At my mumbling, the angry voice yelled again. It definitely didn’t seem like a hallucination.

There couldn’t be a hallucination that gets so angry.

I wondered what on earth it was, squinting and looking closely in the direction of the voice. Only then did I see something on the floor.

“Huh?”

Thinking I saw something wrong, I blinked a few times and looked over there again. But I hadn’t seen it wrong.

There was some kind of lump there.

“Don’t tell me the voice is coming from there?”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t tell me’! Are you ignoring me now?”

My eyes widened more than when I first found Theodore.

It was certain that this angry child’s voice was coming from that lump.

Theodore’s eyes were red, and he seemed a bit out of his mind, but at least he was in human form.

But that was just a lump. Even if I look at it very positively, it was like a sack containing something.

But it speaks?

“How dare you not recognize this great demon Sugien!”

The lump bounced towards me in anger.

As it approached me, I was able to observe it more closely.

“Slime?”

Growing up in a peaceful rural village, I didn’t know the names or appearances of monsters. But my memories from my previous life told me.

Something slightly larger than my fist, shaped like a droplet falling from above, neither a liquid nor a solid, semi-transparent and showing a hint of the dungeon floor – my memory told me this strange thing was called slime.

“Impudent! How dare you call me, a high-ranking demon, by such a low-ranking monster’s name! Do you want to die!”

The slime literally bounced around on the spot in anger. But it looked more cute than scary.

This was because I knew from my previous life’s memory that a slime is just a rather insignificant and cute monster that bounces around in the mountains and fields.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I don’t know much. It’s my first time seeing a monster, no, no, a demon today.”

I tried to calm the slime down while holding back my words about it being cute.

“If you call me by such a low-ranking monster’s name again, I will not forgive you.”

“Um, then what is your race?”

I knew about slimes because they were so famous, but I didn’t have much knowledge about demons or monsters.

To begin with, such a setting did not exist in <Caro’s Doll>. There were no settings for monsters like slimes, demons, or magic.

Considering that the Caro family has been suffering from madness for generations and their eyes turn red when the madness manifests, it seemed like a world where some kind of curse or magic existed. However, since it wasn’t a book where such things were important, it wasn’t mentioned.

What’s important in <Caro’s Doll> is when, where, and in what position the male lead and female lead….

My past self. Why was your reading taste like that? I’m starting to feel embarrassed for you now.

“My name is Sugien!”

“Ah, so that’s your name. Then, what is your race?”

“…….”

Sugien remained silent.

“Ah! I’m sorry. I was rude to just ask questions. I am, in other words, a human and my name is Lenatis Gratia. What is your race, Mr. Sugien?”

“…….”

Despite the polite question, Sugien remained silent.

His, or her, or, hmm… Does a slime have a gender? Anyway, Sugien’s long silence was telling me his race.

“It’s a slime.”

As it became clear that it was a lowly slime, I naturally started to speak informally.

“No!”

“Then what are you?”

“I am a great high-ranking demon!”

“So you’re a high-ranking demon, but what is your race?”

“…….”

“Anyone can see that you’re a slime.”

“…….”

“You are a slime indeed.”

The slime sulked.