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~Chapter 19~
“Ha.”
“There was no precedent for this at all, and the effect would shift drastically with the tiniest change in ratio, so the physicians struggled with it… but in the end, they figured it out.”
“Useless parasites like that had to do something to justify themselves.”
It was a tea he’d been drinking quite often lately.
At some point, it started to feel like he couldn’t work without it.
He’d come to rely on this tea—one that could become a poison.
If, when drinking it had become just another part of his daily routine, Count Hamilton had ordered the maid to combine the ingredients in just the right ratio…
Since it was something the duke always drank, and there had never been any problems before, it would have been nearly impossible to trace the cause of his nerve paralysis, or even find the culprit.
Even if it were discovered, it would be long after the fact.
By the time anything could be done, it would already be too late.
He’d spent most of his life on the battlefield.
He knew better than anyone how dangerous a single moment of carelessness could be, how that instant could mean the difference between life and death.
“That was a close call.”
Yeah, it was a close call.
If he hadn’t brought the little Ratson girl along to “play doctor,” as she put it…
“I can’t begin to imagine how she figured it out.”
“Maybe, as a bloodline of the Ratson family, she received some sort of divine revelation?”
“Hmph.”
As if that were possible.
If the gods really intervened in human affairs to that degree, the entire Ratson family never would have been cursed in the first place.
‘Still, there’s no other explanation.’
The little girl had spent two years in Bluewood, not even knowing she was a beastman, so there was no way she could’ve crossed paths with Count Hamilton.
Aizen looked back at the count, who was still writhing and screaming in agony.
It was the first time their gazes actually met.
“Does it hurt?”
Just those few words.
At that, Count Hamilton lit up as if he’d been offered a lifeline.
He answered yes, yes, blood pouring from his mouth as he opened it.
It hurts so much, Your Grace. Please forgive me.
“A mortal enemy, are you.”
Aizen gave a faint laugh.
“I really have let you get away with a lot, haven’t I?”
In his hand was a document detailing the Hamilton family’s history and past actions.
He double-checked it, in case he’d missed anything, but as expected—
The previous Count Hamilton and his wife had kidnapped beastman children abandoned at the borders of Animallnolia and ran an illegal slave ring.
They sold the children into slavery, used them as test subjects.
They committed inhuman acts as if it were nothing.
To them, beastmen weren’t fellow humans, but valuable commodities to be bought and sold.
Even after the peace treaty was signed, people like them kept popping up, and so it became Aizen’s job to eliminate them.
He wiped out their operation and freed the children they’d imprisoned. He tried to rescue as many of those sold off as he could.
He thought that was the end of it.
But the count and his wife had a son.
He was fourteen at the time—so not really a child, but a fairly grown boy.
He’d tried to kill Aizen, so Aizen crushed and punished him thoroughly, until the boy begged for his life.
So Aizen took him in.
He’d been complicit in his parents’ abuse of beastmen and had a rotten character, but since he wasn’t yet an adult, Aizen took responsibility for him, watching over him until he could stand on his own.
He’d lost his parents and his fortune, all that was left was the family name, so Aizen kept him close and supervised him.
For a while, he seemed obedient and docile.
“And this is how you repay me?”
“Your Grace, please, please…”
“You’re twenty-four now, I hear.”
You’ve grown.
“You’re old enough to take responsibility for your actions.”
Muttering that, Aizen stood and turned away completely.
“Your Grace!!!”
“If you say it hurts, then I’ll make sure it doesn’t. Maybe the neurotoxin you tried to feed me will be just the remedy you need.”
“Are you all right, sir?”
“What’s there not to be all right about? It was just a minor issue.”
Aizen waved Eagles off with a lazy flick of his hand, as if swatting away a fly.
“I won’t even remember that boy’s face once I turn my back.”
With that, he leaned on his cane and limped away.
Elodie was practicing her steps when the Duke of Valkyrisen picked her up again.
“Did you manage thirty steps this time?”
It was forty!
Didn’t he know how much difference ten steps made?
Didn’t he know how different life could be just ten steps further on?
But when she was in Aizen’s arms, and the scenery flashed by so quickly, she found herself unable to protest.
Elodie was struck by the fleeting nature of life.
“I came because I had something to say.”
“Y-yes, what is it…?”
“The doctor is apparently very talented.”
At those words, Elodie’s half-closed black eyes snapped open.
She immediately understood why he’d come.
“So, doctor, how did you know this old man was eating something bad for him?”
Those golden eyes, bright and piercing, were fixed on Elodie.
Eyes that had seen countless battlefields and years upon years of experience.
They seemed to see through everything.
How did I know?
‘Ah, I really did act too knowledgeable!’
Cold sweat began to bead on her skin.
Elodie recalled the conversation she’d overheard in the dungeon.
Should I pretend it was a divine revelation?
‘No, that’s no good. The duke can see through lies.’
A clumsy lie would be worse than saying nothing at all.
He might think the whole “playing doctor” thing was just a child’s nonsense, but at least for now, she had to convince him properly.
She couldn’t let herself become the target of the Duke of Valkyrisen’s suspicions.
Her head spun with worry, but she forced herself to speak up.
“I ead a lodda bad fook too. (I ate a lot of bad food too.)”
“Hm?”
“I was so hungry I had to eat whatever I could find, and I got sick a lot. (I was so hungry, I ate whatever, and got sick many times.)”
Sometimes her stomach hurt so badly and she was so dizzy, she wondered if she might die.
Maybe she’d just been lucky to survive.
“But I never ead rat poison. (But I never ate rat poison.)”
“Rat poison.”
“Yes. Peopoo leaf it out so rats eat it and die. (Yes, people leave it out for rats to eat and die.)”
“…”
“So I len. You godda be careful with food, any food. (So I learned. You have to be careful with anything you eat.)”
She hadn’t meant to, but as she spoke, her chest tightened.
Trying to stick to the truth to cover up her knowledge, she’d dredged up memories she’d tried to forget.
She remembered an old house mouse who’d looked after her before she met Sera.
Taught her how to survive, how to avoid people—how to find food.
Ironically, that mouse died after eating poison.
He only lived two years, not even making it that far.
Her thick, golden eyelashes drooped, heavy with remembered sorrow.
Even after she’d come back in time, she tried not to think about that mouse.
She knew she’d only regret it—if she’d come back just a little sooner, maybe she could have stopped it.
‘Enough. It’s over now.’
She tried to shake off the memory.
At the very least, she didn’t want to watch someone die in front of her from eating the wrong thing.
Never again.
Even if it was a life most people wouldn’t care about.
“I don’t wand you to eat thad kind of stuff, okay? (I don’t want you to eat things like that, Your Grace.)”
Aizen looked down at her in silence.
What was he thinking?
She wanted to know, but the old man’s expression, worn smooth by the years, was impossible to read.
Even just standing in his presence was overwhelming, and the silence was crushing.
Was he, at this very moment, labeling her a dangerous element?
Did her excuse not convince him at all?
Was he now so resolved not to even bother asking for an explanation?
‘What should I say…’
