Ileana told me to use the cheese-making kitchen.

The cheese-dedicated kitchen, which had existed since the mansion was bestowed by the imperial family, was a space for making cheese from milk brought every morning from a nearby farm. However, none of the current residents of the mansion enjoyed cheese.

As Ileana would invariably get an upset stomach from dairy products, they didn’t keep a separate maid for making cheese, and this space was just left unused, so she said I could use it freely.

I had been worrying about what excuse to make when asking for the kitchen or going to the apothecary street to buy medicinal ingredients, but she gave permission so easily it was almost disappointing.

It seemed that since it hadn’t been long since I’d come back from the brink of death, she was being more affectionate and careful with me, and because I was undergoing grueling etiquette lessons for the banquet, she was letting me do what I wanted just for today.

The cheese kitchen was located on the first floor, with a small, thick wooden door that led directly to the garden, and large sliding wooden windows that seemed good for ventilation.

Above all, I really liked that there was a large cast-iron pot hanging over a thick hearth.

Ileana told me I could use all the utensils they used for making cheese. There was a large, thick wooden countertop in the middle of the kitchen that seemed like it would be useful for making medicine.

“Shall we start in earnest now?”

First, I classified the medicinal ingredients according to their preparation methods. I organized and prepared them based on their characteristics – ingredients that needed to be washed and dried, those that needed to be soaked in alcohol to remove toxins, those that only needed to be dusted with a brush because their components would easily leach out, and so on.

“If the pharmacy had been intact, I could have made this more easily.”

I couldn’t help feeling regretful.

After meticulously preparing the medicinal ingredients, I laid out the cooking utensils in the kitchen.

Without my usual tools, I had to make do with the cooking utensils available in the kitchen for now.

“This… is not an easy task.”

Medicinal ingredients required various techniques to efficiently extract their medicinal properties – trimming, steaming, drying, roasting, boiling, collecting distilled water, and mixing – and there were also tools that helped perform these various techniques easily.

Occasionally, I would even have special tools custom-made when needed. But now, with nothing available, I had to come up with ideas to make do with the tools at hand.

“Still, it feels good to be making medicine after so long.”

I started extracting the medicine to give to Ian, humming and whistling as I worked.

Red blood dripped from Ian’s palm, which he had deliberately cut under the guise of an accident.

At the sight of the wound on his small hand, the servants, with pale faces, made a fuss as if something terrible had happened, clamoring, “The Crown Prince is bleeding!”, “How could such a precious body be injured…”, “I’ll call the imperial healer right away!”

Ian refused their offer to call a healer working in the imperial palace, saying he wouldn’t receive treatment unless it was from Jane. The servants gave him an irreverent look as if watching a stubborn child, but he ignored it.

More blood than expected flowed from the wound, which was larger than he had intended. Ian buried himself deep in the bed, feeling dizzy.

His eyelids grew heavy.

Fearing he might fall asleep before she arrived, he pressed firmly on the wound on his palm. The stinging pain gradually brought his foggy mind back to clarity.

‘I need to stay awake until Jane comes…’

He focused all his attention on the corridor beyond.

Unlike the servants who moved as silently as the dead, her footsteps were light, elastic, and energetic, like the heartbeat of a small animal. And they were urgent.

As her footsteps reached the door, he tightly clenched his badly mangled palm. He prepared an expression that looked as if he couldn’t bear the pain, along with a pitiful look.

The door opened, and Jane entered, her disheveled red hair flying. She panted heavily, her chest heaving after rushing here.

Seeing her face contorted with worry, Ian struggled to suppress the smile threatening to spread across his lips.

“Your Highness, I heard you were hurt! Where and how badly are you injured?”

“It’s not such a big wound.”

“Good heavens! Just look at all this blood.”

Ian’s heart tingled with affection at the sight of her face, pale with concern for him. He bit his lower lip to hold back the laughter that was threatening to escape. Her movements were careful as she examined Ian’s palm.

“How on earth…”

As she removed the gauze soaked with blood, a badly mangled wound was revealed.

“You’re this badly hurt and you didn’t even call a healer? What were you thinking?”

“I was waiting for Jane to come.”

She looked at Ian with a reproachful gaze.

“You know I don’t like strangers touching my body. Especially healers.”

Her expression softened at Ian’s words, which sounded pitiful. She sighed deeply and examined his wound.

“The wound is too large, it looks like it needs stitches.”

“Jane, you do it.”

“I’m an apothecary, you know. And still an apprentice! Treating a nobleman’s wounds is supposed to be the healers’ job!”

“No. I don’t want anyone but Jane.”

She tried to persuade Ian with a troubled face.

“I’m terrible at sewing, I can’t even button properly. Moreover, I’ve only stitched human skin a few times!”

“So you have done it before?”

“Only because there was absolutely no one else to do it… It was terribly awful.”

Some apothecaries also served as healers for commoners who couldn’t easily receive treatment, and Jane was one of them.

However, despite Jane emphasizing several times that she had only done it because the patient was in critical condition and it was an experience she never wanted to repeat, Ian didn’t budge from his stubbornness.

“If I stitch this, it will definitely leave a scar. It will create an unsightly mark.”

“It’s fine even if it leaves a scar.”

Ian actually hoped it would leave a scar. It wasn’t a thought typical of an 8-year-old child, but Ian welcomed anything Jane gave him. Even if it was a scar.

“If a healer does it, it will hurt less and be over quicker!”

“You know how well I can endure pain. But I can’t stand other people touching my body. So, Jane, please do it.”

Sighing heavily, she asked again with worry evident on her face.

“Are you really okay with this? I’m not joking, it will be a real mess!”

“It’s fine.”

Unable to change his mind, she finally began the treatment. Every time the thin needle pierced Ian’s skin, she winced and groaned with a pained expression.

“Ugh… ugh… Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It hurts…”

The deeply cut wound did sting, but it was nothing compared to the pain that frequently visited him. Still, Ian pretended it hurt more than it did. He knew her touch became more careful each time he said it hurt.

As Jane had warned, it took a long time even for such a small wound, given her inexperience. Still, she treated it carefully to avoid leaving a scar. Though unskilled, her handiwork was quite proficient for a 12-year-old girl.

“I hope it doesn’t leave a scar…”

‘I actually hope it leaves a big scar… Because it’s a wound Jane made for me. I hope it doesn’t fade for a very long time.’

Ian swallowed these words. He didn’t want her to be disappointed in him.

She carefully wrapped the wound with white bandages and added that he shouldn’t get it wet or move it for a while, and that he should definitely rest to avoid aggravating it.

“Absolute rest! Understand?”

“I will.”

As Ian nodded with a pale face, Jane ruffled his hair with her hand.

“Oh, you’re such a good boy. It must have hurt, but you didn’t even complain…”

He didn’t dislike her warm fingers messing up his hair, now damp with cold sweat, but he pushed her hand away. Ian hated being treated like a child. Especially by her.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t an adult either. She was only 12 years old, just a 4-year age difference, yet he disliked how she tried to act so grown-up in front of him.

Of course, he knew that most of her feelings towards him were similar to what one feels when seeing a weak, small animal.

Pity, sympathy, cuteness. While Ian used her sympathy whenever he needed it, he actually hated being treated like a child.

“If you don’t want to be treated that way, you shouldn’t have gotten hurt. How can you expect to be treated like an adult when you don’t even know how to take care of yourself?”

“That’s…”

Ian kept his mouth shut, imagining how she would react if he said that was the only way he could think of to meet her.

Jane, finding his behavior cute, gently poked Ian’s still chubby baby fat with her fingertip.

It was quite an irreverent act for a mere commoner to do to the Crown Prince, but the servants, already accustomed to the relationship between the two, reacted as if it were normal.

“Now that the treatment is done, tell me. How exactly did you get hurt?”

“I accidentally fell during sword training.”

“You got this kind of wound from falling? Did you fall while holding onto a blade? How can you fall in a way that creates a wound that looks deliberately cut?”

Faced with her rather sharp interrogation, Ian once again closed his mouth.