Chapter 34

“Don’t hurt tha’ face!”

Someone shouted in a drunk tone, reflecting a strong accent. Elisha quickly gauged the situation.

They weren’t trained men. They were probably street vagrants who someone had paid off.

Elisha was wearing a coat-type dress over an outer dress over an inner dress and fastened with a string. Soon, she was in her underwear and bustier.

As Elisha continued to struggle, the men slightly lifted the sack on her face. Her eyes were still covered, so she couldn’t see. They put something on Elisha’s nose. It smelled like fresh and sour herbs with a faint smell of nutmeg in the undercurrent of the odor.

“This is paralysis incense…”

Elisha, who Jacob had trained during her previous life, knew it well. The paralysis aroma was not fatal, but it was a medicine that made the body muscles feel too tired to move. And… It took some time for it to take effect.

“Hehe, she’ll be quiet now……. Argh, fuck!”

Elisha clawed at the man with her ringed hand. The pointed black diamond scratched the man’s cheek.

Elisha pushed the man away and ran out of the alley with all her might.

“Damn it— Catch her!”

The men shouted and followed Elisha. Soon Elisha was swallowed by the crowd’s water.

“What’s this? You’re pretty.”

“Where do you work?”

Elisha stumbled down the street. She was in her underwear so the eager man thought she was flirting and advertising herself. Her whole body was covered in goosebumps.

‘No, if I am found like this…….’

The general’s wife walking amongst the commoners in her underwear… and they had just been newly married.

The couple would be the laughing stock of the entire empire.

It was a good reason for a divorce. Elisha entered another alley quickly across the street with unsteady steps. Those who had been previously intrigued by her scantily clad appearance had promptly forgotten about her.

‘You have to pull yourself together. Let’s calm down. No… Where..…. I have to find a place to hide.….’

Elisha walked instinctively towards a deserted place and covered her face with her hands.

‘Until the knights come to pick me up…….’

There was a decline in her vision. It was a temporary symptom of the paralysis scent. After about 10 minutes, when the fragrance took effect, her sight would also recover. Elisha blinked with her face covered. Lights flickered in her hazy view.

“Ah!”

Elisha felt an intense headache. Only after a moment was she able to register the sensation with pain; her senses were that dull.

‘It hurts…’

Her pain was an occasional side effect of the immobility odor. Elisha concluded.

She stopped walking. Stumbling, she grabbed at the low stone wall, sensing it through her touch.

There was a sound of laughter and conversation from a crowd of boisterous people. Elisha stood up on her legs and then leaned over the wall to hide.

It was then.

What Elisha discovered between her incomplete sight: It was someone’s bright smile. A terrible malicious smile was climbing up a wicked arc.

The mouth opened:

“Oh my! Madam. What are you doing in a place like this?”

Only after hearing the voice did Elisha know who was talking.

‘Arien!’

Lucerne’s cousin’s wife, the spouse of his second arch enemy, Marco. Elisha’s heart dropped.

“I’m lost,”

Elisha barely answered.

“In that outfit? Everyone, take a look at this. This is the general’s new bride. Thankfully, she made a surprise appearance at our meeting!”

She raised her voice, delighted.

Soon the ladies flocked. Elisha looked around. Her blurred vision began to discern her surroundings dimly. While wandering through the dark alley, Elisha had reached the garden of a small and pretty building.

The wall had been low, and the doors were wide open, so Elisha didn’t even know where she had entered from.

“She’s the new wife of the high general?”

“No way, it’s a courtesan who ran away to receive customers.”

“You’re so funny, hohoho!”

I’m finished.

Elisha’s eyes darkened.

The fact that she had almost suffered and escaped abduction and rape would not be an excuse. On the contrary, Lucerne’s enemies would destroy them for her appearing in her underwear at a ladies’ gathering.

Elisha was desperately trying to find a way out of this situation.

“Elisha.”

Elisha slowly looked up. It was the voice of an unexpected person—a heavy, mellow, and low tone.

“Lu…cerne?”

She couldn’t believe it. Indeed, he was standing in front of her.

“How could you leave in the middle of it? Were you that excited?”

Lucerne clicked his tongue. Only then did Elisha look at his attire. His clothes were sparse and sloppy. The shirt was undone and loosened up to his abs, revealing his solid stomach and strong pectoral chest muscles– his belt was untied.

“H-High General?”

Arien looked at Lucerne with trembling eyes. Lucerne ignored her and covered Elisha’s shoulder with a cloth over her shoulders, and embraced Elisha.

“I was with my wife, and she drank too much, so I think she was a little excited. Isn’t today a good day? I hope you can pretend you didn’t see this mess on a day like this day,”

he said casually.

Elisha couldn’t see well, but she could feel that all the ladies looked like they couldn’t breathe. One woman couldn’t take her eyes off Lucerne’s shirt, which had come loose.

Arien stammered and asked,

“Where in the world were you?”

Lucerne’s gaze quietly turned.

Lucerne was looking at the bushes in the dark space behind the garden.

***

“So… The bushes over there?”

Gulp—

The ladies standing next to Arien swallowed their dried-up saliva, feeling rather parched.

“There was no one in the backyard. We were supposed to have lunch together here, but a fire broke out before we even got to the hotel room,”

Lucerne whispered as he looked at Elisha.

“If you’re going to stop in the middle, you should have said no from the beginning. Did you plan on playing tag?”

Once in a while, it was known that noblemen and women who were excited at a ball ate* [t1v: had sex] together outdoors when they were bored.

The difference was that these entanglements were of the illicit affair sort, whereas the high general was devouring his legal and newlywed wife in the garden….

It’s not a flaw, but……. It was a scandal that everyone would like. The imperial aristocrats were fascinated by scandals, and everyone seemed to want to believe that this was the truth.

“Your wife doesn’t seem to be well. Are you okay?”

“It’s because I’m shy.”

“You should have said so. Didn’t you say you got lost?”

Arien bit her lips and asked. There was resentment in her voice.

“I’m fine.”

Elisha’s ears were red. She leaned on Lucerne’s hard chest.

“I was too embarrassed in the middle……. So I asked him to go to the hotel room. He said he’d reserved a room. But I was so drunk that I misunderstood the location and went down the stairs for employees.”

“That’s what I mean. Whenever I see this woman, I can barely restrain myself. So it would be better to refrain from medicine and alcohol from now on.”

“You made your wife take drugs?”

asked one of the noblewomen, a chubby woman.

Lucerne looked at her. Elisha thought Lucerne looked at her as if he was regarding a fool.

“I took it.”

“…….”

“Oh, it’s a therapeutic drug. They gave it to me on the battlefield.”

It was obvious what kind of medicine the drug was. It will be an arousal agent or hallucinogen disguised as a pain reliever. At least that’s what the noblewomen in the garden thought. Everyone shut their mouths and looked at each other.

Lucerne kissed Elisha’s temple,

“Let’s go up and continue, my little one.”

“Yes. Let’s go quickly.”

Elisha barely managed to nod. Lucerne took Elisha and walked casually into one of the hotel rooms.

Elisha couldn’t breathe until Lucerne put her on the bed.

“How did you appear…….”

“What’s engraved on the back of your neck is not a decoration. My knights immediately sent a messenger to the hotel because you had disappeared,”

explained Lucerne.

Elisha recalled the strange pain, like a headache that had plagued her.

‘Lucerne can use the glyph to find me…….’

She did not know whether her head hurt or the back of his neck hurt because of the confusion the paralysis scent caused her. Now her vision was completely restored, and Elisha was aware of her situation. Only then did her tongue move properly.

“Were you around here? How did you come and find me right away?”

“This is the hotel we’re supposed to meet.”

Elisha had run away as soon as possible and ended up where Lucerne had been waiting for her.

She was exceptionally lucky.

She didn’t know what would have happened or how she would have suffered if she had stumbled to another place.

“Thank you for your help,”

Elisha said softly. Lucerne looked at her, waiting for her to explain herself.

Elisha described what had happened to her.

She had been attacked by miscreants but had managed to flee right away, after inhaling a strange scent…….

“What did the scent smell like?”

“It smelled like sour herbs. I also smelled some nutmeg and cloves.”

Elisha knew that the smell was a paralyzing essence, but she didn’t say it in fear of raising suspicion. Being able to distinguish poison and incense was the knowledge of spies.

“It was probably the scent of paralysis,”

Lucerne asserted.

Lucerne asked Elisha if she saw the description of the men who attacked her, and Elisha replied as soon as she remembered,

“I was wearing my wedding ring. The men tore my clothes off without touching anything of value. It was probably someone else’s order. If it had been a random thief who attacked a woman, then my body would have been searched first.”

“That makes sense.”

Then Lucerne rang the bell and roughly fixed his clothes. When the hotel bellboy came, Lucerne briefly ordered a few things. The bellboy returned, carrying something on a tray.

“Drink.”

Lucerne held out the glass to Elisha. It smelled warm.