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Chapter 69
“If only I hadn’t gone to the duke’s mansion that day…”
“Even if you hadn’t, you would’ve been dragged in one way or another.”
Peter, sprawled on the floor like he was one with it, threw out a half-hearted remark.
“Sir Isis, you’re not seriously thinking you’re sitting here just because you had bad luck, are you?”
“……”
Judging by Isis’s expression, he wasn’t completely oblivious to how things were playing out.
Peter felt relieved—at least his cellmate wasn’t just a hot-tempered fool.
On the day of the incident, Isis had stormed into the duke’s mansion, red-eyed and snorting through his nose.
If he remembered correctly, Patrick had demanded compensation, saying that since Letricia had unilaterally broken off the engagement, it was their side that had suffered losses.
Having received Patrick’s letter, Isis had completely lost his temper and, shouting about how they were the ones owed compensation, barged into the duke’s chambers.
By then, Duke Godwin had taken an antidote that neutralized some of the poison that had spread through his body.
But unlike the diluted version Patrick had poured into the well, the duke had ingested nearly undiluted tetrad extract. No matter how much antidote he drank, there was a limit to how much recovery was possible.
Still, he had no trouble conversing—until Isis, shouting at him in anger, unknowingly pushed him into an early death.
“I really didn’t do anything!”
“I know. Aside from provoking your father’s temper, you didn’t do anything.”
“You—you—!”
“But that might’ve been what triggered it.”
Peter rolled over, ignoring Isis’s furious outburst to “speak plainly” instead of twisting words.
On a whim, Peter tried drawing up his mana, but the restraints blocked him, leaving his power fizzling out like a campfire in the rain.
“If only I could get out, maybe I could try something…”
He already knew who the real culprit was. Patrick Godwin—his oh-so-lovely half-brother.
“With those venomous eyes, I knew you’d cause trouble.”
The very first thing Duke Godwin did when he regained a bit of strength was to kick Patrick out of the mansion.
As Letricia had predicted long ago, Duke Godwin was more humiliated by the fact that Patrick had had an affair with Lorazne than by anything else.
And since Peter had discreetly hinted at what the duke had consumed, Patrick was lucky to have gotten away with mere banishment.
Living with Lorazne after being thrown out, Patrick had come rushing back the moment he heard the duke was preparing to pass on the title to Peter.
Yet, instead of causing an uproar as expected, he had backed down quietly… which now seemed strange.
Because the very next day, Duke Godwin had suddenly passed away.
“Sir Isis, you know what?”
“I don’t know. How am I supposed to when you keep leaving out the subject and object? You think I’m a mind reader?”
“What do you think happens if someone drinks undiluted tetrad extract?”
The sudden riddle earned Peter a withering glare from Isis, who looked him up and down like he was some kind of freak.
“Well, wasn’t this epidemic also said to be caused by tetrad? If you drank that stuff undiluted, you’d probably be in agonizing pain.”
“Close, but a bit more extreme. You’d die. In about a day and a half.”
“What?”
Isis shot to his feet.
“You’re telling me they gave us something that dangerous as payment? Father and I stored that stuff in our warehouse and lived around it? Are you kidding me right now?”
“It is dangerous, yes, but it’s also a rare spice. Calm down and sit.”
Of course, Isis didn’t listen. He kicked at the iron bars like a madman.
“If you drank undiluted tetrad right now, Sir Isis, I’d be burying a corpse this evening.”
“Do you even remember what you said a second ago? You said it takes a day and a half!”
“That’s if you just drink it. But if your blood pressure spikes, the poison spreads twice as fast.”
“Wait… so you’re saying… damn it! You’re saying what killed Duke Godwin was the extract itself? And I made it worse by riling him up and speeding the poison through his system?”
Frustrated, Isis kicked the bars once more before collapsing onto the floor with a thud.
“Completely played, huh. So what do we do now?”
“Why are you asking me? Her Majesty the Empress Dowager should know.”
“Ugh! Why are they doing this to me! Damn it!”
As Isis ranted and tore at his hair, he suddenly spotted someone descending the dungeon stairs. He scrambled forward on his knees, clutching the bars.
“Father…? Father! How did you get in here?”
The man slipping down secretly behind a guard was none other than Count Esta.
His haggard face spoke of the torment he was enduring. He jerked his chin toward the guard holding the purse of coins.
“I can’t stay long. Are you injured?”
“I’m fine. But you look worse, Father. All this suffering—because of that Letricia girl.”
Peter, crouched in the corner watching father and son reunite, suddenly brightened.
Because behind Count Esta stood someone familiar, hidden from view until now.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Nero—my servant who abandoned me and ran.”
“I didn’t abandon you. I only went into hiding to deliver news to His Grace the Grand Duke.”
“You told him? About this situation?”
“Yes. I couldn’t think of anyone else who could help you, young master.”
“…Hah. I just paid off one debt, and now I’ve piled up another.”
Peter habitually reached to fiddle with his glasses, only to remember he didn’t have them anymore, and lowered his hand.
“What happened to your glasses?”
“Patrick took them. Guess he fancied them. Anyway, never mind that—hand it over.”
Peter stuck his palm out through the bars, wiggling his fingers.
“I don’t like this place. Time to get out. Well? Didn’t you bring my teleportation scroll? I hid one under the drawer in my room. Couldn’t find it?”
“I did find it.”
“Then hurry and give it to me.”
Still with his hand out, Peter stretched his neck and loosened his shoulders.
“So, how are things outside?”
“Not good. The Empress Dowager is trying to link this whole affair to the North. And Young Master Patrick has already completed preparations to inherit the dukedom.”
“…Wow. I expected the first part, but the second? That’s a shock. I really can’t stay here, then.”
Peter looked between his empty hand and Nero.
“Why aren’t you giving it to me?”
“The teleportation scroll… was sent north as well.”
“…Huh?”
Peter collapsed back onto the floor, utterly deflated.
“I thought it best to send it so that His Grace could reach the capital quickly after receiving the news.”
For Nero, who didn’t know the emperor himself was secretly providing Kylian with information, it was a perfectly logical choice.
But for Peter, it was a thunderbolt from the blue.
“Then what about me? How do I get out?”
Nero turned his head toward the wall, pretending not to hear.
“…Ha.”
As Peter sat there in stunned silence, Isis’s voice rose again.
“In the end, this is all Letricia’s fault. She’s the reason this happened! She married the Grand Duke and provoked the Empress Dowager’s wrath, dragging us into it too!”
“Isis. That isn’t what matters right now.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Of course it does! Ever since she showed up, nothing’s gone right. Just look at what happened to Mother!”
Isis, having lost even the scrap of composure he had left, shook with fury, his shoulders heaving.
“If we’d just stayed on the main road, Mother wouldn’t have died! But no—because Father wanted to pick her up from some backwater orphanage, we took the Harkers village road, and the carriage overturned! That never would’ve happened otherwise!”
“Do you want the whole prison to know your father is here? Stop yelling like a child—lower your voice.”
Peter snapped at him sharply, then suddenly fell silent.
“…You’re saying the late Countess passed through Harkers?”
“Yes. But why does that matter to you, young lord?”
“…Wow.”
Peter stared at Nero, unable to continue.
If his memory was right, the day Countess Esta’s carriage overturned was the same day Crown Prince Kendrick had his accident.
And Harkers—the place the countess supposedly traveled through—was exactly where Kendrick and Kylian had gone on an outing.
They hadn’t been there at the exact same time, but if the horses pulling the countess’s carriage had drunk water laced with stimulants…
Then the Esta family tragedy, too, might have been caused by Duke Godwin and the Empress Dowager.
Peter’s mouth hung open.
The situation was already at its worst—but now it felt like something even worse was about to be uncovered.
He prayed his grim suspicion was wrong…
Meanwhile, Nero, having completely forgotten the teleportation scroll he’d sent away, wore a stricken look.
“Nero… it seems I might have yet another debt to repay the Grand Duke and his wife…”
