Chapter 9

Are You Depressed Right Now?

“Um, are you all right? Would you like to sit down and rest for a while before you leave?”

“……All right.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly as I looked at the man’s bowed head.

It wasn’t as though clients never cried during counseling.

But to suddenly burst into tears like this—and cry so miserably, at that…

“May I ask why you’re crying?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right. It’s possible not to know.”

I watched the tears falling from beneath his mask with a troubled expression.

I felt as though I’d somehow become a villain who had made an innocent person cry.

‘He’s not even making a sound.’

The man tightly clutched the handkerchief I had offered him, then awkwardly pressed it against his mask as though trying to wipe away his tears.

Of course, rubbing the outside of the mask wasn’t going to wipe away any tears.

“Excuse me.”

I took the handkerchief from his hand and gently wiped his lower face for him.

‘Is that really a human jawline?’

His jaw was sharp and cleanly defined, without a trace of excess flesh, and his reddish lips were perfectly shaped.

The face hidden beneath the mask must have been exceptionally handsome.

After allowing me to tend to him for a while, the man subtly turned his face away.

“I think I’m all right now.”

“I’m sorry. Was that uncomfortable?”

“No.”

The man answered curtly and rubbed the back of his reddened neck.

I gave an awkward smile and slowly moved away from him.

‘I might have gotten too familiar with him. I need to maintain some distance.’

Not only would excessive familiarity be unhelpful to his treatment, but there was also the possibility of emotional transference.

From now on, I intended to maintain an appropriate distance from my clients.

“If you have any worries, come see me again next time. We can even work together to find a way to overcome your moral compulsions.”

“Yes. It’s better to share your worries with someone rather than struggle with them alone.”

“I’ll come again soon.”

I stood and saw the man off to the entrance of the tent.

Come to think of it, the weather was still rather chilly, yet the man was dressed only in a light shirt without even an outer coat.

‘Is he someone who doesn’t feel the cold?’

I’d heard that knights who trained their divine power to an extreme degree developed stronger bodies and became resistant to the cold.

But surely that only applied to knights who had reached a certain level.

Just then, Betty, who had been waiting outside, poked her head into the tent.

“Did the customer leave safely?”

“Yes. You must have been bored waiting outside. Let’s have some snacks inside.”

Betty had been resting beside the brazier we’d set up next to the tent.

There weren’t many customers yet, so it was fine for now, but sooner or later, I thought I would need to arrange a separate place for Betty to rest.

…………We are going to get more customers, right?

Betty came into the tent carrying a well-roasted sweet potato in each hand.

“Miss, the sweet potatoes we put in the fire have roasted beautifully.”

Betty split open one of the perfectly cooked sweet potatoes and handed me half.

The intense sweetness spreading across my tongue brought a smile to my face.

This was what got me through winter.

‘Come to think of it, I want some dongchimi.’

The protagonists in novels always seemed to make tteokbokki or kimchi without any trouble.

At times like this, I regretted not knowing how to cook very well.

I drank the water Betty had given me and thought back to the customer who had just left.

“Betty, you know the customer who came earlier. What did you think of him?”

“The gentleman wearing the mask? He seemed like a good person. He even said hello to me before he left.”

“Do you think he’ll come again?”

The man had said he would return soon, but I wasn’t particularly convinced.

‘Most patients never come back after their first consultation.’

Perhaps because I’d seen him crying, I found myself worrying about his situation.

If I got the chance, I wanted to hear more about what he was going through.

“Don’t you think he’ll come back? Talking with you makes people feel at ease. Ah. Of course, I mean after you changed.”

“You mean after I fell into the lake and lost my memory?”

“Yes. Though sometimes, when you get stubborn, you’re exactly the same as before.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

I was fortunate to always have Betty by my side, worrying about me.

If Betty hadn’t been here, I might have felt even more helpless in this situation and given up on everything a long time ago.

Then something important suddenly occurred to me.

“Did you take the customer’s payment?”

“Ah.”

“………………Don’t tell me.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

Betty was supposed to be responsible for guiding customers and collecting their payments.

I’d put up a sign saying that customers could pay whatever amount they felt was appropriate according to their conscience.

I’d finally gotten a proper customer, and I hadn’t earned a single coin from him.

“I’m really sorry, Miss.”

“It’s all right. If he comes again, we can collect it all at once.”

I patted Betty’s shoulder as she stood there not knowing what to do.

The moment I put away the sweet potatoes and sat back down, I noticed a brown pouch lying where the man had been sitting.

I had no idea what was inside, but the pouch looked quite thick.

Thinking that the man must have left it behind, I picked it up.

Flutter.

A note attached to the pouch fell to the ground by my feet.

The consultation fee.

If this is the consultation fee, why is it so heavy?

I opened the pouch and was rendered speechless by the dazzling golden glow.

Dozens of gold coins were glittering inside.

“Miss, what’s wrong?”

“Miss?”

Betty followed my gaze into the pouch, and her mouth fell open.

It looked as though several months’ worth of our target income had been filled in all at once.

‘No matter how I think about it, this is too much.’

At this point, it was fair to call it a bribe rather than a consultation fee.

I reluctantly tore my gaze away from the gold coins and tightly cinched the pouch shut with its drawstring.

That was when I began to wonder just who the customer was who had casually paid this much money.

**

Claudio del Serpis.

As the captain of the Temple Knights, he was responsible for maintaining the Empire’s security and dealing with monsters, making him one of the most highly sought-after marriage prospects.

The Grand Duke Benhart was no less impressive in terms of appearance, but he had the disadvantage of being surrounded by ominous rumors.

After leaving the counseling tent, he removed the mask he had been wearing.

“A Happy Psychological Counseling Office, huh.”

His brown hair gradually turned silver from the tips upward.

He raised a hand and gently touched the corner of his eye, where moisture still lingered.

Even he himself couldn’t understand why he had started crying at that moment.

It was probably nothing more than a play on words.

Even though it was only a sense of duty, you’ve done such a good job all this time that everyone considers you perfect.

He had expected her to mock his lax attitude, which was why he’d brought up the concern in the first place.

It had been a calculated move to deliberately expose a weakness and observe the other person’s reaction.

Yet the woman calling herself a counselor had neither laughed at him for being imperfect nor reprimanded him morally.

But I’m supposed to do better.

When he was born, a divine oracle had been delivered for the first time in several hundred years.

The child who has been born will save the Empire from war.

To prevent turmoil, the oracle concerning him had been kept secret.

Because of that oracle, he had been subjected to brutal training from a young age.

The future hero who would one day save the Empire could not afford to be weak.

“Captain, you’ve returned? Did you catch that swindler?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

After arriving at the temple, Serpis dismissed the knight and took out the neatly folded religious newspaper from inside his coat.

The suspicious advertisement immediately caught his eye.

No matter what troubles you have, ★★★we will listen! Absolute confidentiality guaranteed by contract! Opening Event★☆★ First Consultation ☆☆☆The Door to Happiness☆☆☆Come visit anytime. ★★★ Happy ☆Psychological Counseling Office☆ Now Open.

It was such a suspicious advertisement that several reports had already been filed about it.

He couldn’t understand why anyone would pay money simply to talk about their troubles, and on top of that, there was the strange term psychological counseling office.

I thought I’d be able to figure out what kind of scam it was if I went there myself.

Perhaps she simply hadn’t revealed her true colors because it had been his first consultation.

He had deliberately left behind an excessive amount of money, so there would surely be a reaction soon.

Knock, knock.

“Captain, the Saintess has asked you to spare some time for her.”

“Tell her I’ll be there shortly.”

At the knight’s voice from outside the door, he lowered the religious newspaper.

Recently, donations to the temple had increased, so they had hired additional staff to handle the paperwork that had been piling up.

As a result, his workload had decreased, leaving him with considerably more free time.

The Saintess had noticed that he was no longer as busy and had begun coming to see him at every opportunity.

That was also why he’d gone to investigate the shop that had been reported as suspicious—partly to avoid her.

He removed his shabby clothes and changed into the formal uniform of the Knights.

When he stepped outside, he saw a familiar head of blue hair, just as he’d expected.

Elijah, the Saintess, had been waiting for him while leaning against the wall. She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled.

“Welcome, Sir Serpis! Did the undercover investigation go well?”

“Not bad.”

Serpis glanced briefly at the Saintess’s hand, covered by a white glove.

She had healed the illnesses of countless people with those small hands.

It is only natural that I should respect her.

And yet, whenever he faced the Saintess, he felt as though he couldn’t breathe.

The Saintess lightly grasped the edge of his cloak and whispered,

“Sir and I are comrades who are loved by God, so we should become closer.”

Her manner of speaking, as though she could see straight through his discomfort, and the look in her eyes that always seemed to expect something from him…

There were moments when all of it felt like yet another burden he was destined to bear.

The Saintess loved him.

Therefore, somehow, he had to love this woman as well.

Everything had to proceed according to the divine oracle bestowed upon him by the Great God at the moment of his birth.

Even beneath the suffocating pressure, he forced a faint smile.