/
Karen continued to talk, whipping out papers that she was holding in her arms. She seemed to have been holding onto these documents to report at any time what had happened a year ago.
“So, Lady Evelyn seems to have broken into the kitchen and climbed down the wall.”
“Down the wall?”
“Yes, the kitchen window was open, and there were traces all over the floor. After that, I think he passed through the gate.”
Devan barely held back his laughter.
“What did you do? Did I not order you to monitor her?”
“…I was with you, Your Highness”. Karen looked down at the floor.
“What about soldiers guarding the gates? And the barrier?”
“About that… I’m not sure what happened, but the soldiers said they were away checking something that had exploded on one side of the garden, and there were signs that the barrier was pierced through.”
“Ha.”
This time, he couldn’t hold back his laughter.
Evelyn broke the barrier?
As far as he knew, the only ability she had was her divine power. But barriers were made with powerful advanced magic. It didn’t make any sense.
Karen, noticing Devan’s confusion, continued on.
“We were also confused and continued to look into it. Perhaps it was something coincidental…”
“So by coincidence, the kitchen door was unlocked, the soldiers were suddenly called away, and the barrier was broken? Does that even make sense to you?”
Karen hurriedly lowered her gaze at his anger.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
Devan relaxed his gaze and sighed.
“As soon as I fully recover, I’m going to overhaul the security system.”
Karen’s face contorted as she realized what that meant for her.
“Your Highness…”
The old butler, who had been quietly watching, put something in Devan’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“I found it while searching the garden the day she disappeared.”
“A necklace?”
Devan calmly fiddled with the pendant. It was a yellow pendant that looked just like a coin.
“Have you looked into it?”
“It looks like a kind of magical tool, but it’s not dangerous. To probe further, we would need to break the pendant, but we wanted to get permission from Your Highness first……”
A magic tool?
Devan clenched the pendant. Looking at it, it was a common pendant you could find anywhere in town. He quickly lost interest and placed it on the desk next to him.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Will you leave it as it is?” Karen was puzzled by Devan’s sudden change.
“The curse is solved and all promises were kept, so there’s no reason to continue investigating. On top of that, it was a year ago, so if anything had happened we would have heard about it by now. There’s far more pressing things than that.”
Devan’s gaze turned to the doctor again. He felt the patch covering his eyes.
“So when will my eyesight return?”
“Your Highness, if you are in a hurry, it could be done in just a few days. However, you’ve been unconscious for a year, so you must build back your strength through proper nutrition. We had barely managed to keep your body through magic…”
“Okay. Starting today, recovering my health will be my top priority.”
Devan Lantimos trained nonstop for a few days. Originally he was fast at everything, and this was possibly the most motivated he had ever been, so the training continued at a speed faster than the doctors had expected. He spent a fortune hiring two more wizards, and with the combination of their healing magic and delicious food served by his talented chef, he had restored his health to a better state than even a year prior in just a week. With that, they had begun restoring his eyesight and adjusting his eyes to light.
Finally, today was the day to remove the tiresome eyepatch.
The servants, doctors, and hired wizards gathered in Devan’s room, holding their breath. Rejecting their offers of help Devan decided to remove the eye patch with his own hands. While it was obvious that Devan would be nervous, he still maintained his poker face throughout the process.
Slowly, Devan untied the knot holding the eyepatch over his face. The removal seemed to take forever. The butler in particular was especially nervous, rubbing the sweat off his palms on his clothing.
Throwing the eye patch on the floor, Devan opened his eyes very slowly. Blinking, once, then twice. As he had trained, his eyes adapted to the moderate sunlight shining through the room without any difficulty. His eyelashes trembled.
He slowly walked towards a large window in the room. He could see the outside scenery. It was truly visible.
No one said a word, and simply stared at him. His dark black hair shining in the sunlight. With the eye patch gone, his perfect features were even more prominent. They could see his perfect eyebrows and dark eyes framed with long eyelashes.
Everyone, from the butler who had served Devan for a long time, to even the doctors and wizards who worked tirelessly for the past few days, felt an overwhelming flood of emotions.
Suddenly, Devan stopped moving. He put his hands in front of his eyes.
“…Hey.”
Everyone in the room tensed up for a moment.
Devan’s voice was mixed with anger, not hope, joy, or happiness.
He looked at those gathered standing around him with a beautiful but cold gaze. The air seemed to freeze just from the pressure.
“Is… Is there a problem?”
The doctor gathered the courage to speak. He took a step forward.
Devan held his hand in front of his eyes and clenched his fist.
“Why is it that my right side seems to see less clearly?”
“Yes?”
The doctor replied stupidly. The butler hurried over to Devan’s side.
“Your HIghness, do you mean to suggest that your right side has a problem seeing?”
“Yes.” Devan covered his left eye to look. The butler shook. Of course it wasn’t the same as when the Duke was cursed, but his sight was still not the same as before.
The doctor was in a hurry to rectify the situation.
“You haven’t seen in a long time, so it is possible that Your Highness’ eyesight may have lessened from before. In that case, you will recover naturally over time.”
“My eyesight has gotten worse.”
Devan crossed his arms and sighed.
“Wizards”
The wizards flinched at being called and hurriedly stood at attention.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“I wasn’t physically blind, but blinded as a result of the curse. Was there a chance that it could have damaged my eyesight even after the curse is removed?”
The wizards exchanged glances with each other.
The doctor looked at the wizard with a pleading face, but the wizard who took a step forward shook his head.
“While we are trained in magic, curses are a divine matter. The person best suited to answer that question would be a priest. However…”
Devan’s expression, which had crumped, seemed to loosen up a bit.
“In our uneducated opinion… I believe it would be impossible unless you had been physically injured in the meantime.”
After speaking, the wizard bowed his head deeply and went back to his group.
Devan glared at the doctor. The doctor was now trembling like a tree.
“…Your Highness!”
Suddenly, the butler made a loud noise. Everyone suddenly turned to look at Devan’s eyes.
“Your highness, your right eye…”
The butler looked at the Grand Duke straight in the eyes, ignoring proper etiquette. The butler shook as he did so.
“What happened?”
Devan strode toward the mirror hanging in the room.
This is…
Staring back at him were two eyes in different colors. The left side was restored to what it had been prior to the curse, but the right side was different. There were black figures hanging above his pupils, as if it would cover the red eye at any moment.
The curse was not fully broken. Unlike before, his right eye was covered with black figures, a fact that spread like wildfire. The wizards and doctors were in a frenzy to find the cause and solution to no avail. Devan was furious that the cause was unknown.
After all, he would have rather had a perfect solution to his curse. Even if it seemed impossible, all you needed to do was find the subject of the prophecy.
But with no cause, there was no way to find the solution.
And above all, he was slowly getting used to this state of affairs. Before he knew it, he began training again with his sword, and was performing perfectly. Of course this wasn’t surprising considering what he was able to handle even when he couldn’t see.
On the inside, he was pleased. He didn’t have to wear the tight black eye patch nor did he have to concentrate on seeing what little he could see. There was no need to memorize the sounds of the footsteps of the people around him. And above all, that eerie laughter had gone away completely.
It felt like everything had gone back to normal. Even he had to admit that he was much more comfortable now than before. Vaguely, he was anxious that he could in fact live like this for the rest of his life. In fact he was adapting just fine to his impaired eyesight, despite his own desires.
In the meantime, news that the Grand Duke had recovered consciousness had spread through the kingdom, and that his curse had been lifted.
As soon as the news spread, Killian Diego showed up again.