Chapter 10.1

Chapter 10 part 1

Come to think of it… I haven’t confirmed it yet.

She turned to Helkin after she stopped giving Kaillus the medicine. Just when Helkin came back to his senses, Alice held out the vial to him with leftover medicine.

“Helkin, drink the leftovers.”

“Yes? What are you talking about all of a sudden?” Helkin made a bewildered face.

“I didn’t check it yesterday because I was with Maris. I don’t know if this is really a nutritional supplement or poison. You may have been making poison then call it a nutritional supplement, right?”

Maris was waiting outside of the room today, so she had to make sure that Helkin wasn’t really tinkering with it. Looking at Alice with a bewildered face, Helkin immediately received the crystal bottle and poured the remaining medicine into his mouth at once.

He even said with a sad face, “… You hold my weakness, how can you betray me?”

“Yes, I’m glad you know. I hope you don’t do anything stupid in the future.”

“… I will keep that in mind.”

“Then I will go first. Have a good night, Duke.”

Not forgetting to say goodbye to Kaillus, Alice smiled at the astringent Helkin and left the room.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

“She is a very strange woman.”

Helkin shook his head and shivered as Alice left.

Talking to a man lying down like a corpse. 

He thought she wasn’t a normal person from the moment she threatened him, but she was a really strange woman. Was she a noble Young Lady? 

Helkin was about to leave the room with the thought that she was an unpredictable and unfamiliar woman, if only the door hadn’t opened. Wondering if Alice had returned as he shrugged his shoulders, Helkin looked at the butler’s face and breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s you, Butler.”

“I was looking for you, Doctor.”

The butler raised the corners of his lips as he watched Helkin patting his chest with a surprised expression. He was wondering if he had already left work since he wasn’t in his office, so he wandered around the mansion for a long time looking for him. But it turned out, a servant told him that the Doctor had gone to the Duke’s bedroom.

Going to the Duke with his own two feet – it really made things easier. 

“Were you looking for me? Are you feeling ill somewhere?” Helkin tilted his head and asked.

“No, I wasn’t looking for you for something like that.

“Then why are you….”

The butler turned and locked the bedroom door instead of answering him. Then he said towards the direction of the bed and not Helkin, “Little Madam completely left, Your Excellency.”

“What are you….”

At that moment Helkin looked at the butler as if he had finally gone crazy of talking to the Duke, he felt a presence coming from the bed.

Slip. 

Why is a sound…. Helkin felt goosebumps at the sound behind him and slowly turned his head. Then he saw the Duke, who had been lying like a dead person, rising from the bed. Helkin gaped open his mouth in surprise when he saw Kaillus moving.

“How can this be…!”

It was a sleeping poison from which he can never wake up, and from which he couldn’t even open his eyes and move like that.

He blinked his eyes to see if he was only seeing things, but the Duke was really moving. It also seemed like he was walking towards him.

“Aaaack, don’t come! Don’t come near me!”

He took a step back and shouted at Kaillus as approached him with his eyes wide open – with a ghastly white face as if he had seen a ghost. But Helkin couldn’t step back anymore as his feet got twisted and he collapsed on the floor.

“How can this… how on earth can this happen…!”

Helkin trembled and saw the Duke’s feet standing right in front of him.

“You are so scared when I haven’t done anything to you yet…. Since I have nothing to say to this crazy man, I have to kill you right away.” A cold, low voice echoed above Helkin’s head.

“Here’s your sword, Your Excellency.”

The butler held out Kaillus’ sword from who-knows-where as if he was waiting. Helkin felt the cold metal pressing against his neck as Kaillus gripped the sword. The sharp blade of the sword was on his neck – like his life would be taken away in an instant by decapitation.

It was then that Helkin came back to his senses. He slowly lifted his head as he swallowed his saliva. Helkin took a deep breath due to an instinctive fear as soon as he met Kaillus’ black eyes.

Kaillus raised the corners of his mouth as he looked into Helkin’s eyes, as if his reason had returned. It was a charming smile, but Helkin felt as if the grim reaper was smiling.

“S-spare my life, Your Excellency….”

“Spare you? Save you after you made a poison to kill me?”

“Th-that….”

“Don’t even think of denying it. Because I heard you b*st*rd saying, with my own ears, that I will never wake up.”

The conversation he had with Alice flashed through Helkin’s mind. He didn’t even know how on earth the Duke regained consciousness, but the Duke was listening to everything.

Helkin said in a trembling voice, “I-it was an order from the O-Old M-Madam. She only ordered for me to make a poison, but I didn’t even know who she was using the poison to from the beginning. How could I have dared to kill you, Your Excellency?”

“You wouldn’t have made the poison if you knew?”

“O-of course.

Helkin shook his head as the sword moved away slightly.