Faced with this question, none of the three spoke immediately. Instead, Mr. Bernhardt's smiling expression gradually turned serious. After waiting a few seconds, he smiled again and nodded.
"Of course I was joking."
Marquis Morrison stared at him wide-eyed. Shade noticed that he had even stopped breathing.
"Joking? Wait, was that statement a joke?"
"It wasn't a joke."
"Then what was the joke?"
Mr. Bernhardt blinked thoughtfully, then gestured for Shade to explain.
So Shade spoke.
"Your heart really did have a problem just now. You can think of it as a curse inflicted by a powerful relic. I used Thaumaturgy to temporarily sustain your life, and after bringing you here, before we could try to trace the source of the curse in reverse, the curse disappeared on its own."
"For ordinary humans, that kind of heart problem would permanently weaken the heart. But for us, once the curse is gone, the heart can recover."
Mr. Albert, who had dissected similar corpses, said:
"The chest pain you felt after waking up wasn't from the surgery. It was because your heart is still recovering. Actually, if you hadn't been so frightened by what we said, you should have noticed it yourself."
Though the three of them had joined forces to play that "joke," Mr. Albert was the only one who remained completely serious.
"So you really didn't replace my heart?"
The Marquis covered his chest and asked again. All three nodded together.
"Absolutely not."
He looked at them suspiciously, clearly not believing them very much, then finally lowered his head to look at his chest.
"What are these stitches?"
"To confirm the condition of your heart. After all, we've never encountered a Bloodkin having a heart attack before."
Mr. Albert, who had performed the operation, continued to explain:
"Your servants found