Chapter 14

“Again…?”

Having personally prepared his own dinner in the kitchen and carried it back to his room, Lino released a long, exhausted sigh the second he saw the window thrown wide open yet again.

It was driving him absolutely, certifiably insane. Even if he meticulously closed and locked the window before going to sleep, he would inevitably wake up to find it thrown wide open again. Rigorously inspecting the room for hidden traps every single morning and night was manageable for a day or two. But after enduring this psychological warfare for an entire week with absolutely zero concrete evidence, the sheer exhaustion made even the act of closing the window feel like a massive chore, and the quality of his sleep had plummeted straight into the abyss.

Fuuuuck… the sky is turning yellow and spinning…

Of course, the actual sky outside was currently dyed a deep, vibrant crimson from the sunset. However, to Lino’s sleep-deprived, stress-addled eyes, the sky didn’t look crimson because of the sunset; it looked like a sickly, spinning yellow mess entirely due to his severe exhaustion. The dizziness was a direct result of skipping meals due to stress, or surviving on nothing but a single, shoddily slapped-together sandwich a day. Because Lino viewed food purely as fuel to silence his stomach rather than an experience of taste or quality, there was absolutely no way his haphazardly thrown-together sandwiches provided anywhere near his required daily caloric intake.

He sluggishly shoved the sandwich he had brought from the kitchen into the fridge and dumped the books he had carried from the study onto the nightstand next to the bed. Stripping off his clothes with frantic, exhausted movements, he tossed them haphazardly onto a chair and collapsed heavily onto the bed.

“What the hell is the point of this? Is he seriously just hoping to induce psychological terror…?”

If there was even a minor, tangible piece of physical damage, he could formally request a room change, or at least ask if he could permanently nail the window shut.

Desperate to avoid being labeled as overly sensitive or paranoid, he had silently endured the torment for a full week. However, he had finally reached his absolute limit. His morning wake-up time was getting progressively later. Previously, Lino always woke up naturally before his first alarm even sounded. Now, he slept straight through the initial alarms, only barely regaining consciousness when the emergency backup alarms started screaming.

Whatever Yuneria’s ultimate endgame was, deliberately inflicting a severe sleep disorder upon Lino was proving to be a highly effective, devastatingly successful attack.

Tampering with his clothes or his food was one thing, but knowing someone was actively sneaking in and out of his room through the window while he slept made it fundamentally impossible to sleep peacefully.

He genuinely would have preferred poison in his food. Living in perpetual, suffocating anxiety that Baron Haklan could suddenly appear to drag him back to the dungeon, this new, invisible threat dealt a critical, severe blow to Lino’s mental stability.

And because he had been absorbing that critical damage completely one-sidedly for a full week, a proper night’s sleep was impossible. No matter how easygoing and “whatever happens, happens” Lino’s personality usually was, his nerves were finally beginning to fray.

Furthermore.

Grrrmble—

A massive, thunderous roar echoed through the room, as his completely empty stomach aggressively filed a formal complaint. The vibration was so violent he could physically feel it against the hand resting on his abdomen.

“Dammit all…!”

Ultimately launching himself off the bed, Lino snatched a pillow, tucked it under his arm, grabbed the sandwich he had literally just shoved into the fridge, and marched straight toward the bathroom. With extreme sleep deprivation piling on top of agonizing hunger, the vulgar profanity he usually swallowed down out of habit finally exploded satisfyingly from his lips.

Stepping into the bathroom, Lino firmly locked the door from the inside. He meticulously double-checked the latch to ensure it was absolutely secure.

The sole reason Lino sought refuge in the bathroom was the bathtub. It was on an entirely different dimension compared to the cramped, pathetic shower stalls at the knight order’s dorms.

Thank God it’s not winter.

If it were winter, the constantly open window would have guaranteed a perpetual, miserable runny nose. Stepping into the bone-dry, massive bathtub, Lino placed his pillow against the slope and lay down. The tub was so absurdly large that even Lino—who far exceeded the average height and build—could stretch his legs out completely and still have plenty of room to spare.

The moment the smooth, freezing cold ceramic bit into his bare skin, his entire body erupted in goosebumps.

Fuck, I should have brought a blanket. He deeply regretted the omission the instant he lay down, but getting back up felt like an impossibly daunting chore. Whatever, if I just lie here long enough, my body heat will eventually warm the ceramic. Thinking optimistically, Lino raised his sandwich and took a massive, aggressive bite. It was a chaotic mess of scrambled eggs, a thick slice of tomato, and literally whatever leafy greens he could blindly grab in the kitchen, shoved violently between two slices of bread. Because he had aggressively squeezed a random sauce all over the inside, the bread had become soggy, making it surprisingly easy to swallow even while lying completely flat on his back.

The ingredients were pathetic, but using his intense starvation as seasoning made it taste divine. As his stomach finally settled, the heavy wave of sleep immediately began pulling him under.

It’s a bit cold, though…

He vividly remembered seeing fluffy towels stacked in the bathroom cabinet, but he lacked the microscopic sliver of energy required to stand up and grab one. And so, curling his large body into a tight, shivering ball inside the freezing bathtub, Lino completely surrendered to the crushing weight of sleep.

***