Chapter 143

"…"

"And every time it happened, Kael would go absolutely rigid and turn white as a sheet. Oh, that was deeply satisfying. Kael, of all people, making a face like that! Ha ha ha ha!"

Hugging my belly as though I were truly pregnant, I laughed and laughed.

After a moment, Emily — who had been listening quietly — furrowed her brow just slightly.

"Why would you be feeling foetal movement, miss?"

"…Hmm?"

"You haven't been pregnant before."

I blinked slowly, my eyes wide.

"What. Did I just say something strange again?"

"Enormously."

"Oh — am I haunted? What is happening to me? Is this a side effect of the digestive tonic?"

"…"

"No, wait. Could this be a sort of phantom pregnancy? Because my belly has puffed out to the size of a pregnant woman's, perhaps some part of me has involuntarily become a pregnant woman."

"Ah. If that's…