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~Chapter 18~
But it wasn’t something that would cause fatal harm to the body.
Elodie watched with a displeased expression as the maid brewed the tea.
And then it happened.
The maid opened the lid of a small box.
Elodie’s eyes widened as a sharp, pungent scent hit her like a wave.
“Herbs from the Kingdom of Velma!”
She froze in shock as the maid sprinkled the powdered herb into the teacup and placed it before Aizen.
“Angdae! (No!)”
Seeing Aizen casually lift the cup to his lips, Elodie jumped to her feet.
Crash—!!!
Too late, she realized what she’d done—but by then she’d already fallen hard to the floor.
Clutching her aching nose, she looked like she was about to cry.
Right. She was under a curse that prevented her from walking on two feet unless she was holding on to something…
“Sigh.”
The duke made a sound of disbelief.
A clinking noise followed as the teacup was set back down on the desk.
‘Good.’
It hadn’t been her intention, but at least she’d managed to stop him from drinking that dangerous tea—at the cost of her dignity.
“You really are someone I can’t take my eyes off for even a moment.”
Elodie suddenly felt her body being lifted into the air.
At that moment, a drop of red blood dripped from her nose.
‘Ah, blood.’
When Elodie instinctively tried to tilt her head back, Aizen gripped her head firmly to stop her.
“If it runs into your throat, it’ll be a problem.”
“……”
“Just let it flow.”
Then he pressed the back of her head gently forward and, without hesitation, wiped away the blood with his sleeve.
Elodie was startled to see the expensive fabric being stained red.
“Your clothe, it get wet! (Your clothes are getting dirty!)”
“I don’t have a handkerchief.”
Well… that made sense.
He didn’t seem like the type to carry such things around.
But she hadn’t expected him to just ruin his own clothes to wipe away her blood.
“Blood no dirty? (Isn’t blood dirty?)”
“It happens every day. Hardly worth noticing.”
Elodie’s pupils trembled.
Why would getting blood on his clothes be something that happened every day?
Whatever the reason, she was sure it was something gruesome—and tried not to ask or even think about it.
“So, why did you say I shouldn’t drink it?”
Gulp.
As Aizen asked the question while pressing her nose to stop the bleeding, Elodie stiffened and answered briskly.
“Yes! If you drink that, you can’t feel anythin’ anymore! (Yes! If you drink that, you won’t be able to feel anything!)”
It was a neurotoxin.
“Mixing Sindora tea leaves with Velma Kingdom herbs was said to enhance the awakening effect—it became a fad for a while.”
That would happen five years from now.
It did have an effect.
And since the herbs were thought to be good for the body, many people drank it without hesitation.
But when those two ingredients happened to mix in one particular ratio…
“The nerves became paralyzed.”
That was six months after the trend began.
Dozens of nobles lost their sense of touch—so much that they couldn’t even feel pain when putting their hands into fire.
“It was especially devastating for knights, whose senses and bodies were their greatest weapons.”
People like the Duke of Valkyrisen.
Elodie didn’t know whether the tea here was mixed in that exact dangerous ratio.
But if by terrible luck it was, then she had no choice but to stop him—no matter what it took.
“You said you can’t feel anything?”
“If drink one, okay. But mix two, big trouble. I saw it! (If you drink one type it’s fine, but mix two and it’s bad. I saw it!)”
That part was true.
Though what she saw was a memory of a future royal palace, not the present.
“I’ve mixed them often and never had that happen.”
“Not always. Must mix right ratio. (It depends on the ratio.)”
“…You mean it becomes poison depending on the ratio?”
His brows furrowed immediately.
How dare such a thing exist within Valkyrisen—his tone seemed to imply.
His sharp gaze turned to the maid who had brewed the tea.
She turned pale as she fell to her knees, shaking her head frantically.
“I-I didn’t know anything about it!”
“Stand up.”
“It’s true! I just heard it’s a popular method in the capital these days, to help people stay awake, so I followed what others were doing! I swear I didn’t know—”
“I said, stand up.”
The maid stood with a face blotched with tears and snot.
Aizen looked into her trembling eyes for a moment.
Then, as if having made a decision, he spoke flatly.
“You’re not lying.”
Could he really tell just by looking into her eyes?
Elodie found that fascinating and whispered softly to the old man’s ear:
“No trend now. Person say that, lie. (It’s not popular now. The person who said that lied.)”
No one at this time would think to mix those two ingredients.
That wouldn’t happen for another five years—since the Velma herb had only recently been developed as a new strain.
Aizen looked down at Elodie with an unreadable expression, then asked the still-trembling maid:
“Who told you that?”
“Count Hamilton, sir.”
She blurted it out quickly, desperate not to take the blame alone.
“And who supplied me with those Velma herbs?”
He turned to his aide, who replied after a short pause.
“…Count Hamilton.”
“I see.”
Aizen gave a simple command.
“Bring him here.”
“We’ll play doctor some other time.”
As soon as her nosebleed stopped, Elodie was kicked out of Aizen’s office.
Tch.
It was only natural.
No sane person would let a five-year-old sit in on an interrogation.
“But I have to see this.”
There was no way Count Hamilton had suggested that new tea blend out of goodwill toward the duke.
If that were the case, he would’ve come in person instead of whispering about it through a maid.
“And he even lied about it being a popular trend.”
He had to have known the mixture was toxic—and deliberately approached the duke’s maid to harm him.
Then… was he the mastermind?
“The one behind the assassination of the Duke of Valkyrisen five years later?”
Perhaps he’d paralyzed the duke’s nerves with neurotoxin first, then killed him while he was defenseless, leaving no trace behind.
“The duke’s leg is already injured. If his nerves went numb too, that would’ve been fatal. Maybe that’s what they exploited.”
One way or another, she needed to confirm whether he was the real culprit.
Elodie glanced around to make sure no one was watching—and with a pop, transformed into a field mouse.
“The underground dungeon should be this way.”
The old man finally looked up from his papers and removed the spectacles resting on his nose.
With a lazy wave of his hand, the piercing screams echoing through the dungeon came to an abrupt halt.
“Haah—haah! Your… Your Grace, please, spare me!”
“I’ve committed a grave sin! If you let me live, I’ll do whatever you command!”
Freed for a brief moment from his pain, Count Hamilton gasped and begged for his life.
He groveled across the floor pathetically, but when Aizen didn’t even glance his way, rage filled his eyes and he spat out his curses in a hoarse, furious voice.
“You’ve always stood in my way, ruining everything I built, you damned crippled fiend! Go to hell, you devil! May your whole bloodline be cursed!”
Aizen treated the familiar curses as little more than background noise and turned to his aide for a report.
“So, what did you find out?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The eagle beastman, Eagles—Aizen’s aide—answered respectfully, ignoring the dungeon’s lingering screams.
“As the young lady said, it is a neurotoxin.”
