Right after I left the office, I had to face an unexpected person. It was Kean, the knight of Ingord. He leaned against the wall next to the stairs and stared at me with a stiff gaze.
I tried to pass by naturally as I always did, but today, the man’s reaction was a little different from usual.
Why are you standing up here, blocking the way and checking my eyes all of a sudden?
“It looks like you opened your hands again this time. What a fool.”
Now it’s not enough for him to only stare but even start a fight. I didn’t have the energy to deal with him, mentally and physically, so I turned around and went past him.
“Huh, are you ignoring my advice now? Don’t tell me Berkne was out of his mind and didn’t tell you one thing or another? Or did you let the advice go out of one ear?”
I opened my mouth nervously.
“We’ve never talked before. You’re particularly being obnoxious.”
“That’s none of my business. You’re very harsh on someone who came here to give advice.”
“Then is that my business? If you want to vent your anger, just do it to others. Don’t follow me around.”
“What do you like about it for you to keep accepting it?”
There was no need to think deeply about ignoring Berkne’s words and accepting them. It was probably the blood of Duke Richton. When I remembered the moment I was kissing the duke, I felt my face turn pale as white as a sheet.
I strode down the stairs quickly, but Kean followed me all the way down.
“You stupid woman. What power do you think the poison has? Do you think it’s used purely to release your pain?”
The following words made me stop walking reflexively. I stopped on the stairs and looked up at Kean. What’s the point of all these? Kean opened his mouth with a pathetic and irritated face.
“Tsk, you look young, so I can’t pretend not to know. I don’t think you know anything… The Ingord poison, which is close to the undiluted solution, melts all the organs at a lethal dose. It is widely believed that the person who takes it faces a painful death in less than a day.”
It seemed that the name of the poison I swallowed was Ingord. Was it like the bee venom of the Ingord family?
“But what if it’s less than that? The story is a little, no, quite different. It doesn’t cause serious physical damage to the body, but it causes hallucinations, hearing, paralysis, and severe addiction.”
“…I’ve never experienced it before.”
“It could be. The poison in the glass bottle is diluted to a very low concentration…What I’m talking about is, of course, pure Ingord’s crystals, or in other words, His Excellency’s blood.”
It was like saying that Duke Richton’s blood itself was poison. Kean, who crumpled his forehead, endured it and gritted his teeth as if he was forced to spit it out.
“Do you want me to say something? It’s like putting a leash on your own neck, silly. Even if the poison spreads comfortably right now. What’s next? Ingord have the most addictive poison. The existence itself is like drugs. Don’t tell me you’re trying to be a shell that you can’t stay sane without Ingord?”
“Don’t exaggerate. It was only twice.”
“Oh, is that so? It was only twice? Do you think I’d be like this if those were ‘only two times’? There’s no if and only. You’ve already crossed more than half the river.”
Kean grinned, spitting out harsh words. It was as if he had spit out all the words he had kept inside and finally felt refreshed. However, there was a subtle difference in Kean’s argument. What I drank was not diluted blood, but Richton’s blood itself. If he was right, I wouldn’t be able to stand here now.
‘Is it slightly different depending on the situation?’
He slowly straightened his wrinkled thick and straight eyebrows. A well-trained firm hand tapped me on the shoulder.
“Maybe we’ll have to face each other in this land for the rest of our lives…I think you should at least tell me what kind of stupid choices you made. Don’t stare at me like that, buddy. Is there no one in Ingord as kind as I am?”
Soon, Kean, who went past me, disappeared over the passage to the back garden. Poisoning while I was stuck in this land for the rest of my life. The acrid blood that the Duke fed me. I couldn’t take my eyes off Kean’s disappearing figure for a while.
***
After all that had happened, the sun rose the next day. I got up and changed my clothes and left the bedroom. Reina, who used to clean the guest bedroom on the third floor with me, was no longer there.
The maid was ordered to clean up slowly by herself until a new maid came. At the end of the morning, as soon as I encountered Berkne, I asked a question that was hovering around my chest.
“What about Reina?”
Unlike what I asked after much consideration, he answered in a way as if it was insignificant.
“I sent her out at dawn. The house is going to be noisy for a while.”
The duke did not take back what he said. But now I know that’s not everything. Richton was a deceitful man who didn’t lie or make up words. Intentionally or not, I tried to darken my vision by informing only part of it.
I couldn’t express my dissatisfaction to my heart’s content even if I felt wronged and sick. I’m not in the same position as him.
It’s been a long time just thinking about it. A very, very long time. Suddenly, I came to my senses, and the hour hand on the table pointed to 3 a.m. I lifted herself and took out Berkne’s dagger that I hid under my pillow.
“The most perfect place to go is under the neck.”
Reviving the memory of practice, I put the blade into the pillow. It seemed like it would be a meaningless struggle, but still, it would always exist. Humans who were driven to the utmost limits often did crazy things.
My utmost limit… It was to spend a lifetime in Ingord, which was as stuffy as an oasis-less desert.
As there was a saying that ignorance is medicine, the truth that Keane revealed to me rather pushed my legs to the edge of the cliff. The faint hope was trampled desperately.
Let’s just kill him and get out of Ingord and go somewhere far away. To a place far away where no one can find me.
The door opened quietly. I thought it was a good thing I came up barefoot. Even though the sound of the door being pushed out of the office was inevitable, the sound of her steps could have been killed.
I slowly stepped inside holding the dagger to give Richton as a gift. However, the feeling of anxiety was always there. I checked and as expected, the bed was empty.
“You need to learn how to kill the sound of footsteps. It’s not all about taking off your shoes.”
Like before, I was not surprised enough for my heart to drop or scared enough for my hands to shake. Maybe it’s because I had put everything down.
“It’s also important not to leave a trail. Looking at the mess from one to ten, Berkne didn’t really tell you.”
He sat in a quiet blind spot at the end of the window, next to the long shadowed bookshelf. I could see poisoned glass bottles, silver plates, and gold chocolate neatly placed on the table.
As if he had been there since the beginning, Richton, sitting on a chair and leaning his back, was like a body of darkness.
“How did you know?”
“Because I’m always watching.”
“Why?”
Richton stood up instead of answering and walked towards me. The overbearing height entered the space with moonlight coming from outside the window. There was no emotion in the gaze toward me. I asked him again.
“Why?”
It was such a natural step and natural movement. As Richton approached like a flowing stream, he tried to take the dagger, and the anger he was holding back burst out. I pushed him in the chest and held the dagger stronger.
“Why aren’t you answering me? What do you want from me? How amazing are you playing with me like this?! Are you having fun using me in your play?”
“Having…fun?”
He grabbed my wrist with a dry voice as if trying to snap it. Richton opened my trembling fingers one by one. As if to prove my helplessness, with slow movement and an expression of emptiness.
“I don’t know what fun is. Does it mean the same thing that interests you? Then it would be right to say no. You’re not exactly an exciting person to me. Wouldn’t I know if it was a demon who drove me to the end of hell?”
“Demon?”
Richton, who took the dagger and threw it on the bed, walked to the ornamented table. A brilliant decorative sword came with a relentless touch. When he came back, he put the sword in my empty hand.
“Do you want to run away from me like that? If you cut off your own two feet, I’ll allow you to crawl out of here.”
I looked at him feeling devastated. I was so dumbfounded that I laughed out loud.
No, let’s think positively.
It’s a golden opportunity to give that lunatic my two legs and run away. I straightened the sword that Richton gave me and threw it at my two feet.
“Ha.”
A sigh of laughter was scattered. There was no pain. My body never tilted. I had a question, but something was definitely cut. It was, not my legs, but his palm.
“The weak…are not even allowed to end their life.”
The man’s blood was black. Like the ashes of a blazing fire in hell. Blood flowing down the blade fell on the carpet. The strong burnt smell shook. His grip took the sword away from me. A sharp blade dug deeper into his large palm.
“Keep going.”
He wiped the bloody sword against his shirt. The act of wiping it for only twice or thrice did not erase its ugly afterimage.
“I wonder how many times you’re going to try.”
A voice that was pulled from the depths of the throat chewed out roughly. A hand that became a chunk of meat gave me a sword again. Even after soaking hot blood once, the dark energy he left me was cold enough to chill.
Richton was angry with me. For the first time since I came to Ingord, I learned that he could be emotional. I learned for the first time that mockery and ridicule were not all he had.
But what’s the use of them now?
I tightened my grip on the sword. It would probably slip if I didn’t do that. I felt like giving up because of fear. When I was about to swing the sword again.
“Oh, yeah. I guess I know now. Do you think you can go back when you die?”
There was an illusion that blood was concentrated on both eyes and ears. At first, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. But that was only for a while. I raised my head. With his eyes fixed on the sword, he spoke as if he were reciting a poem.
“I suppose that’s why you’re protesting in front of me. To return to your peaceful world.”