'How amusing,' Aecilia thought. She couldn't help but feel amused by the fact that, after struggling all day to understand why he was trying to gather information on two different individuals—Lin Diego and Dr. Etrinia—suddenly, it became clear that they were part of a major plan already set into action by the man known as Marquess Avendial Croceaus.
After the last night's aphrodisiac event, where she herself wanted to exact revenge on the royal family for their meddling, she never expected that the Marquess had already laid all the groundwork—collecting money, assembling an army, hoarding weapons, and targeting one of the duke families—just because of what Prince Orion had done.
She couldn't help but fall in love with this man all over again, thinking about how dangerous he was and how competent he was to orchestrate this plan, even going so far as to uncover the secret child of the Ravan family and the doctors who treated that child's mother, creating a pathway to destroy the Ravans.
Once the Marquess destroys the Ravan family, not only will the Arinphiam Empire lose 30% of its ammunition supplies, but Prince Orion, who is supported by the Ravan family, will lose his biggest ally.
As she pieced together all the information, an electric shock coursed through her body. She couldn't fathom how smart and cunning this man was, always remaining ten steps ahead of everyone, causing her to mumble, "You are really dangerous, Marquess."
"Huh?" Avendial's narrowed gaze relaxed as he stared blankly at Aecilia for a moment, his eyebrows twitching as he blinked, trying to make sense of everything happening to him today.
After seeing the smirk on Aecilia's face, he was certain she thought he was planning all of this against the royal family.
'Wasn't I a villain?' Avendial, who had gone through situations where nothing ever went right, couldn't understand why his luck was behaving so oddly now.
He couldn't digest the fact that everything he hadn't planned was also falling into line, as if luck was on his side—like putting a golf ball in front of him while waiting for him to strike it, rather than him having to search for other golf balls, which were automatically arriving in front of him.
Naturally, never once in his past life had things been this easy. Wouldn't he be doing ten times more hard work just to search for people around him?
Initially, he had thought to manipulate Aria, to get her to help him discern the abilities of awakeners, understanding what types of abilities they possessed and how to recruit them.
However, how could he have known that by saving a poor man from an accident and bringing him to the hospital, he would acquire his first awakened pawn and eliminate a future hassle?
Let alone the fact that he had confirmed his theoretical experimentation of awakening someone through his blood; he also gained another potential individual for awakening in the form of the police chief of Sector 18.
'What was that?' Leo couldn't understand why, just now, he felt as if his heart were placed in front of some predator's breath.
"What is your name?" Aecilia inquired, pulling out her phone, clearly intending to check his details to confirm he was not a spy sent to deceive her and gain access to Croceaus territory without her permission.
After all, she had already accepted Croceaus territory as her own home once she had decided to marry Marquess Avendial. As a mistress, it was her responsibility to manage her household duties when her husband was busy with work (*her own perspective).
"Leo, chat with Countess Sertsul. I will come in a moment," Avendial, aware that after the awakening, an individual could not utilize their awakened abilities for 24 hours since they needed to accumulate Synergy, which was exhausted during their awakening, decided to leave Leo in the hallway without fear of him attacking Aecilia, to address some other tasks outside.
He noticed Matthew preparing to leave.
"Yes, sir." It seemed Leo had accepted his position as the bodyguard, as he slightly bowed while watching Avendial move toward the hospital entrance.
"Leo, mother's name, Anjali—a woman who was beaten daily by her drunkard husband. She lost one eye and one ear due to continuous beatings and developed lung cancer from working in a glass factory. She has a worthless son who can do nothing except manual labor and leech off his weak mother...." Aecilia's demeanor suddenly changed, her eyes slowly turning cold.
The golden eyes that had seemed composed moments ago transformed into an icy chill, filled with malicious intent as she locked her gaze at Leo.
'!'
'Wh-what?' Leo stood there as if the whole world had isolated itself except for him and a woman who was telling everything about his life in the shortest way possible while looking at him with a gaze that appeared threatening.
He wasn't able to understand what was happening here.
But somehow, he felt a slight bit of anger rising within him due to the tone and mocking gaze he was seeing for the first time in his life.
Though he had always seen people's eyes looking at him with mockery, this time it was different. It was as if she regarded him as a mere insect, a pebble, looked down upon by someone laughing at his very existence.