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Duke Richton was left with me.
Neither did he didn’t tell me to follow him nor did he give me any notice, but as soon as I returned to the mansion, I naturally followed him.
As they entered the office and closed the door, I felt a subtle discomfort and a feeling of defeat.
He didn’t say anything, but I knew what the Duke meant?
It’s as if I was slowly getting tamed.
“Come here.”
I moved quietly and approached the cabinet where the duke was standing. The object he pulled out from the depths of the cabinet was a glass bottle a little bigger than my little finger.
It was a little ominous, inside the glass bottle, an unknown dark red liquid fluttered.
“Come to me once a day for the next three days. You have to take this poison.”
“Poison?”
“It will take some time because the concentration is very low, but if your body fully accepts this liquid, you will be resistant to most poisons.”
Yes, Richton Ingord is a madman.
He is really a crazy man. I received the poisoned glass bottle from him with a blank face.
I’m supposed to take it regularly and it’ll make me resistant?
“Should I… should I drink this? Once a day?”
“It’s a face that is terrified at the subject of confidence that you can do anything.”
While I was organizing my head, his fingertips swept my chin lightly and moved away.
With both hands, I grabbed the glass bottle, which almost fell while I was pulling it out. I straightened my mind again before I thought of nothing. It must all be calculated behavior, showing a light appearance to me.
Remember the body of a wandering wolf that was hunted just before, Agrane. It’s like being warned that it could be mY future.
“How long should I drink it?”
“There are too few samples to give you the right answer.”
I wanted to ask if any of them were dead.
But, rather than opening my mouth, it only became heavier.
When I lifted my head, my throat was blocked by the appearance of the duke in my sight.
He didn’t threaten me or do anything shocking. The duke was just sitting in his chair, and the bluishness of the sky, which had already gone down, had only covered the office.
The Duke, who raised his chin slightly, asked with a low voice.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
I couldn’t understand.
Today’s Richton Ingord felt strangely normal for a madman.
It was a very different atmosphere from the man who had urged the killing to be a gift a few days ago.
“No, then I’ll see my master again tomorrow.”
When I tried to close the door and go back to her room.
“Susan.”
“Yes”
The Duke called me up again, with his eyes fixed on the document, his lips, which had been closed for a while, opened towards me.
“When do you think my Ingord will collapse?”
How can I know that?
Even at the time when I accidentally possessed the 『The River Where the Sun Manoeuvres』, the end of the novel was still far away.
It was in the middle of everything, and there was a constant stream of events.
However, since the main character was Prince Wilhelm, while Duke was the last villain, Richton Ingord’s final move was the same as a set procedure.
But why are you asking me that?
It was such a natural question that I almost answered “It wouldn’t last that long. You’re just an ordeal for the main character to grow up.”
While relieved that I didn’t open my mouth recklessly, anxiety arose.
Did the missing characters hear this question?
“I’m not sure, but at least not now when the master is there?”
The atmosphere in the office room is calm, overshadowing my voice. When no more words were heard, I closed the door carefully.
“Sigh.”
He doesn’t give a moment to relax. To the point where my head hurts.
***
It was only after late lunch the next day I swallowed the poison that was received from the Duke. It was a choice that I thought about over and over again.
Whatever the relationship with Duke Richton, I was now Ingord’s maid. I didn’t want it to interfere with my work in the morning as it was almost certain that if I swallowed poison, the reaction would come.
“Susan. Isn’t your complexion too pale?”
“Me? I’m not really sick.”
“You’ve been feeling sick since yesterday. I’d rather you not overdo it.”
I nodded gently at the words of her fellow maid, Reina. Unlike half-crazy employers, all employees in Ingord had a heart of silk.
I gave a rough nod and hung a well-washed bed cover on the clothesline. Thanks to the sunny weather, the laundry seemed to dry very quickly today.
‘When do you think my Ingord will collapse?’
Why did the Duke ask me that question? I couldn’t forget his voice since last night.
It was an uncomfortable and sudden question to think that it didn’t mean much. Of course, considering his unpredictable nature, he could not be regarded as just bizarre.
It’s like I was in agony alone because the thief said it was bad.
After sunset and work, I followed Berkne back into the underground bars. I thought I had gotten used to it, but it was only a day after so, breathing next to the body was a struggle.
“Yesterday, too…. Where are the bodies coming from?”
We (she and dead body) don’t know each other, and I didn’t even know his name. No matter what she was forced to do, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for hideously damaging the body.
Berkne, who was looking at the inverted skin texture of the body, opened his mouth one beat slowly.
“…..How much do you know about Ingord?”
“Because I’m ignorant of politics, all I know is that the Duke is a great man.”
“…the Grenferg Empire was a country that has been thoroughly centered on the throne since its foundation.”
It seems that similar sentences were written in the book.
“But that was also a time of great prosperity. Susan, if anyone in the Emperor’s country has a level of authority comparable to the Emperor’s…What kind of checks and threats do you think that person receives?”
With a few short sentences, it was possible to infer that the character Berkne described was Duke Richton.
“Most of these are spies, originally, even bones could not be cut through torture, but depending on the use, the limbs can be preserved as they are now.”
At least they weren’t innocent corpses, so it was a pretty friendly explanation for Ingord’s Berkne.
“Do you mean, not to feel guilty?”
“If thinking so makes you more comfortable.”
It was a vague answer, but it didn’t feel as cold as before. After hearing such a long speech about the body’s vital point, I confessed what I had been thinking since yesterday.
“I don’t think this is very efficient. If you stab a body that is already dead and cannot move, it is different from reality.”
“You want me to give you a living human being?”
“You’re making it sound horrible.”
“Today is the last day of practice. It was your goal to learn the minimum way.”
Already?
“From tomorrow?”
Berkne’s side profile looking at the blade of the dagger is sharp. The damp brown eyes on the lamp pointed at me, and soon gave me a light smile. In a form that is close to ridicule.
“I heard that His Excellency gave you a glass bottle.”
Are you reminding me, such a nasty story?
I closed my eyes and swallowed before looking at Berkne.
“Then from tomorrow, you’ll be busy taking care of yourself.”
It was unfortunately only three or four hours later that I realized the meaning of that word.
The body, which stopped shaking in the cold during the day, began to collapse in earnest in the late afternoon.
Blood came out of the vomit, and if I was a little dizzy, nosebleeding trickled down from my chin.
“Susan, you…”
How hideous it was, Reina’s eyes were red with worry when she saw me.
“Don’t worry. It’s a disease that comes down from generation to generation. I’ll be fine in a few days.”
“Did you get the sickness prematurely? I can’t do it. I will tell the maid, so go ahead and go to the doctor.”
Looking at the reflection on the glass, I couldn’t even think of the worries of the maids as fuss.
The blue complexion, the shade underneath the dark eyes, even the face of death and as if I was sentenced for a limited life. I looked like the corpse that I had harassed yesterday evening.
The inside of the blood vessels freezes and contracts tightly.
In short, I felt like I was dying while breathing.
The blood that flows through the blood vessels is pushed out, and the poison replaces it. The artery that was actually visible under the wrist was discolored to a dirty purple color.
“It’s so painful, is there any painkiller?”
Berkne’s answer to my urgent question was like a knife.
“Even if there is, it cannot work. Until all the blood in your body contains toxins, you will be in the same condition as today. It is better to pray to the sky for the effect of it.”
I wanted to visit Duke Richton and shake his collar and shout.
You can do whatever you want, but you’re trying to turn a healthy person into a living poison!
It’s like torture.
The long night was painful.
Not only did the sound of the clock’s second hand sound heavy and slow as if I was submerged, but every time I blinked, the dampness on my pillow and bed deepened.
Even the view was blurred, so all my senses became dark as if I was falling into the sea.
The exhausted body could not overcome its fatigue, but it had to wake up by the time the fever and pain became extreme.
Just as the light flashes, the mind turns on and off.
“Open your mouth.”
I felt someone’s presence in the dark bedroom, and it’s not mine. Even though there were two beds, it was a room where I lived alone.
I blinked slowly with a dreamy spirit, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark night.
“Mouth.”
My lips touched something frighteningly cold. No, was it hot?
I didn’t know what was in the person’s mind, but I opened my mouth as the other person wished. Heavy and strong air hovered just above the dry mouth.
“If you want to be free from pain, don’t leave a single drop and swallow it all.”
With a voice like a declaration, something flowed through my lips. Even in the hazy world, I tried to close my mouth with a strange feeling, but the strong power grabbed my chin and didn’t let go.
Then the terrible liquid was pushed behind the tongue and disappeared over the throat. It was a liquid that was so acrid that she coughed and felt a strong smell of blood.
I didn’t know how I endured the stinging sensation of biting my tongue. It was hard to maintain my sanity as the heart rate gradually became rough.
At some point, the weight of the bed was lighter.
It was not easy to move the stiff muscles even if I felt strange and tried to raise my body.
I’m not sure if it was just an illusion, but the pain seemed to soften little by little.
And when I opened her eyes again. All that remained in the room was the dim light of dawn shining over the window.