The Northern Grand Duke and the Cat Are Not So Different

Chapter 13

Recently, the Duke had suffered the indignity of being suddenly caught and forcibly groomed, but…

Still, the time spent with his aide during patrol was the most enjoyable part of the Duke’s day. Even though it was the same patrol route every day, just having the time to meet the aide in between made his steps a little lighter.

But…

Why wasn’t he showing up suddenly?

Usually, the aide would arrive at their usual meeting place before the Duke during his patrol and wait for him.

The Duke, with his keen senses, could detect the aide’s presence from a distance as he approached. The Duke quite enjoyed the time spent approaching, fully aware of the aide waiting for him.

But today, even as he neared the meeting point, he couldn’t sense the aide who should have been waiting. He thought it strange from that moment, and indeed, the aide hadn’t arrived at the meeting place even by the time the Duke got there.

Thinking that perhaps something had come up to delay him, the Duke waited about 10 minutes, tapping his tail on the ground, but there was no sign of the aide. This was a time when he should have been enjoying the aide’s attentive care.

‘Not content with grabbing my nape and soaking me in water, even messing up my carefully groomed fur… Now you’re disrupting my routine?’

The Duke became very displeased.

Routines are meant to be kept, and once something is included in a routine, it must happen at that time. The Duke had to meet his aide at this time he had set aside to spend with him.

So there was no choice.

If the aide wouldn’t come, he would have to go find the aide himself.

It absolutely wasn’t because he was worried that something might have happened to the aide who had been coughing all day. Even though he had sent him home earlier than usual because he didn’t want to see him looking even more feeble than usual…

This was purely the Duke trying to maintain his routine because the insolent aide had broken their appointment. It had no other meaning.

Thinking this, the Duke trudged towards the aide’s house.

Though it wasn’t for a good reason, it wasn’t difficult to visit the aide’s house, which he had been to once before.

Reinke was a neighborhood where everyone had known each other for generations, considering each other’s homes as their own, and generally lacking in security awareness. Therefore, like other houses, the aide’s house was also unlocked.

The Duke had no hesitation about entering a house within his territory, especially when the door wasn’t even locked. The cat, over 1m in body length, stood up and opened the door with its front paws.

As the door swung open,

The indoor temperature felt much lower than expected.

‘This guy who’s so sensitive to cold isn’t even using the heating. What is he doing?’

No wonder he’s always so feeble. Remembering how the aide always bundled up tightly, complaining of cold even though spring had long since arrived, the Duke entered the house without hiding his displeasure.

Though there were several lingering scents, there was only one presence and smell detectable inside the house.

‘Come to think of it, didn’t he say all his family members had gone as part of a delegation?’

That meant his weak aide had to stay alone until the delegation returned. Thinking he had made the right decision to come, the Duke headed towards where he could smell the aide.

The aide was lying on his bed in his room.

Unable to even take off his coat, the aide hadn’t had the presence of mind to get under the covers, instead lying sprawled on top of the blanket. Yet, as if he was still cold, he had tried to pull the edge of the blanket over himself.

The Duke, despite his large size, gracefully climbed onto the aide’s bed.

Wheezing and barely breathing, the aide looked truly unwell up close.

The Duke circled around the aide once, pondering what to do.

‘Right. First, I should check his temperature.’

The Duke approached the aide and pressed his nose, sensitive to temperature, against the aide’s thin neck. He could clearly feel a body temperature so high it was more akin to a cat’s than a normal human’s.

The Duke didn’t know much about humans, but from experience, he knew a few things for certain.

First, a human’s body temperature being too high or too low indicates a dangerous state.

And second… humans die easily. Much, much more easily than one might think.

The Duke looked at the aide’s face, recalling the countless deaths he had witnessed growing up in Reinke and surviving through the particularly harsh winters of recent years.

‘The aide and death, huh.’

The aide was frowning in pain and wheezing.

If he were to never see this pale face again, like so many others…

The Duke’s gaze fell on the aide’s light-colored eyelashes, clumped together as if from tears. Seeing this pitiful and disheveled state, the Duke licked the blotchy area around the eyes clean with his tongue.

If this aide were to die.

It would be quite different from the numerous ‘human deaths’ the Duke had experienced so far.

‘Because this one is a member of my group.’

This human had come to occupy a rather large piece of the Duke’s territory and daily life. He was the one the Duke spent the longest time with each day, and also the most enjoyable time.

If he disappeared, the Duke’s territory and daily life would lose a major component and become incomplete.

‘I can’t leave him like this.’

The Duke examined his own body. He was in his preferred full cat form.

Living as a human was much more troublesome than living as a cat in many ways. Nevertheless, the Duke spent time in human form because he knew that a human Duke was necessary to protect his territory.

Therefore, outside of the times when the human Duke’s form was needed, the Duke always remained in his comfortable cat form.

‘But now…’

There wasn’t much he could do with cat paws when faced with an aide burning up with fever.

The Duke glanced at the unconscious aide and immediately changed into human form. Although he was naked due to not having any clothes, it wasn’t a problem worth worrying about.

The Duke pondered what to do next.

‘What should be done when a human has a fever?’

Searching through information primarily composed of olfactory and auditory memories, the Duke quickly found the answer. The groans of fever-stricken humans, along with the pungent smell of medicine and the sound of wiping sweat-drenched skin with a wet cloth, remained in the Duke’s mind.

Humans gave medicine to feverish humans and wiped their bodies with wet cloths.

‘Then I should follow that order.’

Finding medicine wasn’t difficult. The herbs used for fever reduction in Reinke had a strong smell that was noticeable no matter where they were kept.

Opening the cabinet where the medicinal smell was coming from, he found fever-reducing pills wrapped in paper. The Duke took a couple and returned to the aide’s side, who was still unconscious and breathing laboriously.

And then the Duke realized he was facing a type of problem he had never encountered in his life.

The Duke looked down at the pills in his hand.

‘How… do I make him take these?’

To begin with, the Duke, born with a robust constitution, rarely had to take medicine himself. Naturally, he had no experience giving medicine to someone, let alone an unconscious person.

Well…

Wouldn’t anything put in the mouth somehow work out?

After some deliberation, the Duke cupped the aide’s chin with one hand and used his thumb to pull down the lower lip. The inside of the mouth felt very hot to the touch of his thumb.

The Duke took the medicine with his other hand and placed it deep into the slightly opened mouth.

However, just putting the medicine in the mouth and waiting didn’t make the unconscious aide swallow it promptly.

The tail in the Duke’s mind lost its strength and drooped down.

The Duke, at a loss, fell into thought again.

‘Come to think of it…’

It seemed people were given water along with pills when they had difficulty swallowing them.

The Duke immediately brought a glass of water. However, making an unconscious person drink water was just as problematic as making them take pills.

The Duke, who had always skillfully accomplished whatever was necessary and showed no interest in anything else, felt the emotion of ‘being at a loss’ for the first time in a long while. No matter how he looked at it, the aide was not in a state to drink water just by having a glass held to his lips.

‘Nursing a sick human is a series of troublesome tasks.’

It seemed it would be much easier and quicker to slaughter a group of ogres instead.

The Duke, with an exceptionally serious face, pondered deeply and finally came up with a way to make the aide swallow water without spilling it.

The Duke brought the glass to his own mouth and took a sip of water. Then he lowered his head and sealed the aide’s mouth with his own.

He gently let the water in his mouth flow into the hot mouth. The aide groaned as if choking, then swallowed everything in his mouth at once.

The Duke was very pleased to have achieved his goal.

Feeling as if his tail would be standing straight up if he had it out, the Duke began to gain confidence in ‘nursing’.

The Duke prepared a basin of water and a wet cloth for the next treatment he remembered, and smoothly removed the aide’s layered clothes. After removing even the innermost clothes soaked with cold sweat, the Duke immediately began wiping the aide’s body with the wet cloth.

It wasn’t much different from grooming, so for the Duke, who spent a lot of time grooming each day, it was as easy as eating cold meat.

Indeed, it seemed the Duke had a talent for nursing as well.

‘I’ll be able to take good care of him if he falls ill again.’

The Duke, feeling proud, thought it wouldn’t be bad to actually groom the aide in his arms once he was back to normal, as he wiped the aide’s warm body with the lukewarm wet cloth.

By the time the full moon had risen high and then tilted slightly, the aide’s body finally regained a normal human temperature, and his labored breathing also became comfortable.

‘This should be enough to prevent him from dying alone from illness.’

The Duke looked at him with satisfaction and stretched his body.

It was well past the time when the Duke should have gone to sleep according to his routine.

‘I should head back and get some sleep now.’

As he was about to change back into cat form to return,

“Mmm…”

The aide stirred, moving his body.