Chapter 40

“Don’t move.”

“It tickles…….”

Selena’s shrinking whine shook Kalcion’s fingertips, which were being careful. However, they soon returned back to their original speed.

Kalcion, carefully finishing with Selena’s toes as though it’s some carved precious material, straightened his back.

“Thank you……”

She flashed a small smile while looking down at her toes, which were clean and smooth again.

“It’s my responsibility since you’ve been injured in this line of work. There’s nothing to thank me for.”

She giggled at his blunt reply, which lightened her mood.

She looked down at her body, straightening her back.

Now that her wounds were treated, her whole form was in tatters. Some places were bandaged, and the smell of medicine buzzed in her nose instead of the usual scent of perfume.

She gave a deflating laugh as she thought she looked ridiculous.

“This makes it seem like I’m a seriously injured patient.”

“You could have been seriously injured.”

“I know. I came very close to being dead, huh. Hahaha.”

She gave a half-hearted laugh. She almost couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, you did.”

Kalcion’s agreement sent shivers down her spine.

She wouldn’t deny, she really could’ve lost her life out there.

She felt cold chills run through her body again. The tremor returned.

Kalcion sat still beside her even though the treatment was over. When she realized that it was because of her, she leaned sideways, feeling weak. She snuggled up to hug Kalcion’s waist.

“!”

At Selena’s actions, Kalcion flinched and hardened. He was sure he even heard the sound of his heart falling to the floor. However, he couldn’t find anything that at least resembled a heart when his eyes fell at the bottom of the sofa.

Her shoulders were shivering for a while as her face was buried in his chest.

Kalcion pondered over whether his gesture would be right or not for a moment.

Soon, one of his hands wrapped around her shoulder, trying to ease her fear.

He could force her fear to dissipate by ‘ordering it’. If that didn’t work, he could ‘pull it’ out of sight.

He could understand her fears, but there was no reason for him to do something about it. It was up to one if they wanted to overcome their fear.

But Selena wasn’t capable of doing that.

It was simply impossible as he had no place to draw out a sermon upon ‘ordering it’ in a hundred words.

She was nothing in his life, but he thought upon what would happen if he did what was commonly called ‘consolation’. Perhaps, it would help to an extent.

The consolation Kalcion ever gave was to his knights, who would challenge him in a fight and break down a hundred times, but it wasn’t a disgrace. Should he say, “it’s not a shame to almost be assassinated and to be afraid”? No, Selena was not particularly ashamed.

As Kalcion looked at Selena’s thin shoulders and back, his worries increased.

She had wiped off the water and worn dry clothes. It was a little chilly inside, but there was warmth by the fireplace. But would it ever calm down her tension?

Kalcion hesitated before rubbing Selena’s back and shoulders. If he gave her warmth like this, it would stop at some point.

Her body was trembling like a frail wet puppy. It instinctively made him feel sorry.

Her tremors gradually subsided, perhaps because of Kalcion’s warm body.

Fear-induced tremors would disappear after a good night’s sleep, so he didn’t have to worry much about leaving her alone. More importantly, Kalcion was relieved of her shoulders easing up.

Feeling nervous, Selena hesitated first before pulling herself away from him. Her cheeks and forehead were sweaty since she was sticking her face tightly to his chest.

“…….I feel better now. Thank you.”

“…….That’s a relief.”

Kalcion couldn’t take off his slightly wet clothes as his chest had become damp.

“You mean, I could die like this?”

“I didn’t exactly foresee this situation. No, in fact, I never thought they’d approach in this way again.”

“So, why aren’t you surprised at all?”

Kalcion had run fast, but he wasn’t surprised. Just like how one wouldn’t be too surprised when they would rush to find an umbrella due to a sudden downpour.

“Because an attempted assassination itself has become a routine.”

“A routine?”

She couldn’t believe his simple words. It was as if he said “an attempted assassination is like drinking a cup of tea every morning”. As Kalcion was exasperated when she asked, he thought for a moment and corrected himself.

“Not all the time, but sometimes.”

“You’re saying it happened not only once? If that’s the case, it must’ve happened to the point where you don’t get surprised anymore, correct?”

“Right. How does coping without panic sound? However, what I didn’t expect was that he would go straight after you, not me.”

Kalcion was surprised at that part.

It was a relief that his room was close to the bathhouse as if it was far away, he would only have found her body.

A soldier, who was on guard, also came running after noticing the disturbance in the bathhouse. Even by the time that soldier had acted, it was highly likely that he would not have been able to get in and save Selena at the right time.

Only then did the displeasure, which he had forgotten for a while, crept up in him.

How dare they, again.

The same thing was almost repeated again. A blazing wick appeared in his eyes.

“So, how many times have you been through this, Duke?”

It was the second time that the person next to him had been targeted, but there were countless times when the Duke himself was targeted. Looking up at the ceiling, he fumbled through his memories.

“Hmm……. how many times? It’s pointless to count them now.”

“Wow, I wonder how you’ve lived like this.”

She sighed, faking a sniffle.

“No, it was an accident today. It happened inside the Northern Territories, and I didn’t expect you to get directly targeted, so the escort was negligent. You’ll be fine from now on. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“You mean there is someone who’s really trying to kill you whether or not you have an escort. How can you not worry when you know that?”

“It is possible to roughly infer the suspect’s intentions just by looking at the situation. If you know that, you can thoroughly be prepared. Then, wouldn’t that be a relief?”

“……..Can you infer?”

Selena asked suspiciously, and Kalcion nodded confidently.

Usually, assassinations targeting Kalcion were either elaborate or radical since they knew they would be failures.

However, they fail without even being able to see the shadow of Kalcion. If one wanted to assassinate, they’d have to permeate the target’s personal space as quietly as possible, but Kalcion doesn’t spend much time alone nor does he accept a friendly greet to meet someone alone.

Although an assassination was not easy by nature, in the case of Kalcion, the difficulties were endless many times more than others.

The radical approach was more of a terror than an assassination. Since there was no winning rate in the one-on-one approach anyway, it was like pouring arrows from afar or installing an explosive in a carriage.

However, this method caught the tail easily. In fact, he was attacked twice. In both times, he was able to find the criminal, which led to the destruction of both families. Since then, there had been no approach in the same manner, whether it had failed or not.

The attempt to assassinate within his territory itself was not much different from just sending an assassin to die. So, Kalcion never paid much attention to those attacks except when he was in the capital. This was the reason he decided to take the route to the capital that traveled within his marked territory.

Still, an incident took place within the boundaries. And not with Kalcion, but with Selena.

To think they would choose to kill Selena without using any weapon or poison by drowning her. It was unimaginable, even to Kalcion. Nobody in the world could drown Kalcion with their bare hands.

Selena pretended to ease up now that all the knights were mobilized for security and all the residents of the village were robbed of their peace.

“You can tell by the way he tried to kill, the timing of his appearance, etc. I’m sure it’ll help us catch and interrogate him accurately. By any chance, can you let me know of what happened?”

Selena gathered her eyebrows and focused her mind. It wasn’t hard to recall since it didn’t happen much long ago.

“While all the maids went away to get the tools for my bath, the light suddenly went out and a person popped out of the darkness. I thought it would be over if I got out of the tub, and when I did……..”

The person gripped a handful of her hair. She summarized the rest to him.

“That was one great move.”

Selena turned her head in confusion at his compliment. But, she didn’t beat the assailant, did she?

“Not using a weapon would have covered it up as an accident or suicide. Drowning was the only answer to the situation, and it was a good judgement that you got out of the bathtub.”

Only then could she nod her head at the explanation that followed.

“Even if you’d died, one could have been sure it wasn’t a suicide.”

“A-ha……..”

A murder decorated as a suicide.

Irelle, Kalcion’s ex-fiancée, came to her mind. Kalcion firmly believed that her death was due to murder, but the case was forced to an end after announcing it as a suicide.

“Maybe he was hired by the same person for Irelle?”

Kalcion’s eyes flashed. He seemed to have recalled the same thing.

“That’s highly possible.”

“If we catch an assassin, it will give us a clue to find the suspect.”

Selena’s eyes shone just as Kalcion’s did.

“By any chance, have you heard his voice?”