The man entered a dark alley. Perhaps the man thought that he had lost all eyes on him because he carried the woman the rest of the way.
The man who had been walking as if running suddenly stopped.
“…….”
The two who followed also stopped walking and exchanged glances.
The man who opened the door of a building suddenly pushed the woman inside and closed the door again. Then, as if nothing had happened, he slowly walked out of the alley.
‘So now, we have seen the kidnapping scene.’
Lavella’s eyes grew cold. Maybe she would get a clue about the case before Iska and the other guys.
“Let’s take a look inside.”
When the young lord whispered, Lavella nodded. He proposed it first, but he did not hide his discomfort.
He was worried about bringing Lavella with him, but he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the incident that was happening right in front of him. He decided to make it a priority to rescue the woman first.
The young lord, who looked inside the building, quietly opened the door, and Lavella grabbed the hem of her voluminous skirt.
‘These clothes are very cumbersome.’
It was annoying, but she had to be careful to not make a sound. Lavella grumbled and stepped inside after the young lord.
‘Hmm.’
Lavella quickly scanned the empty room. There was no woman she thought would be lying on the floor anywhere.
As expected, it was clear that someone was inside. It was the time when she quietly followed the young lord and looked inside the building with all her senses alert.
‘…Something feels strange?’
She felt a tingling sensation all over her body. It was as if paralysis was coming.
‘It’s poison!’
Perhaps the kind she was not resistant to.
‘Ugh.’
Lavella dropped to the floor as if collapsing.
* * *
TL/N: This is a flashback
“Ngh.”
The boy next to her fell over and vomited blood. Dark red blood soaked the floor.
“…….”
When Lavella looked at it without any emotion, she looked up and made eye contact with the girl next to him.
Her chin trembled, her eyes stained with pain and fear.
Lavella looked away dryly.
“Bleck.”
Another person vomited blood, and there was the sound of someone collapsing.
The smell of blood was mixed with the damp and musty smell, characteristic of a basement.
It was a long and narrow room. Five or six children of the same age as Lavella were kneeling in a row.
Of course, Lavella was included.
In front of them was a handsome man with short hair sitting on a chair and reading a newspaper calmly.
He did not even look at the children as they collapsed, vomiting blood one by one. Even though all were his children who inherited his blood.
“…Father, please help me.”
Eventually, one of the children, terrified, crawled to his knees and grabbed his leg.
It was the child who met Lavella’s eyes. The father looked at his daughter like she was a piece of trash.
As a handsome man with a soft impression, his cold-blooded personality seemed more contradictory.
“…So you want to live.”
“Save me.”
“Then become strong.”
As if to say the simplest thing in the world, the voice without humility was cold and withdrawn.
Lavella felt pain as if her intestines were twisting.
Ngh, a metallic liquid ran up her throat and leaked out between her tightly closed lips.
Lavella watched indifferently as the drops of blood fell on her lap.
It was said that a colorless and odorless poison gas filled the room. So, they were training to develop poison resistance.
“Only the strong survive.”
Even though he inhaled the same poison gas, her father was calm.
“…Ugh, ah…Father.”
Lavella’s half sister vomited blood on her father’s clean black shoes. The strength was loosened from the hand that grabbed his leg.
“Dear, you are dying because you are not strong.”
“…….”
“So, you don’t have anyone to blame. Everything is because you are weak.”
Her father’s words etched into Lavella’s mind like a spell.
It hurt as if all organs were burning. A cold sweat broke out and her eyes blurred. She struggled with skin in her teeth, but now she was at her limit.
‘Ah, is this how I die?’
She would die because she was not strong.
She wasn’t really sad, and she didn’t resent anyone.
She was dying because she was weak.
Finally, Lavella lost her mind at the thought that it seemed she lost her mind.
<flashback end>
“…Cap, Captain! Are you awake?”
“…….”
The mind that had been hazy like wandering in the fog gradually cleared up.
As she slowly opened her eyes, she saw familiar faces. Pessini looked as if he was about to cry and Argen looked anxious. Canpiden looked tense and…
Iska whose face was filled with anger.
‘I’m alive.’
Just like that day when she was a child and she thought she was dead but survived and woke up.
When I realized that it was a kind of poison that I didn’t develop resistance to, I thought I was really dying this time. I know. I’m not weak enough to die.
Lavella let out a smirk.
“…Are you laughing right now?”
Seeing her smile, Iska breathed out as if he were dumbfounded.
Lavella looked around the room. Kirah’s executives were all there to guard the bedside where she was lying.
“What happened?”
A scratchy voice came out.
Obviously, there was another presence in the building. The young lord couldn’t have struggled alone with his fallen self.
No, more than that, he may have been poisoned with her.
Come to think of it, I think I saw Iska through my blurred vision?
Maybe not.
“First, let’s check your condition. Dabel.”
“Yes.”
Dabel, who had been one step away from Iska’s call, immediately approached Lavella. His pretty face turned white.
“I’m sorry, Lavella. I should have explained to you sooner.”
Watching Dabel’s regretful expression an unexpected laugh came out over and over again.
It must have not been meaningless to develop tolerance by consuming all kinds of poison.
“…….”
However, Lavella’s smile only darkened the faces of her subordinates.
Iska clenched and unclenched his fist.
If he hadn’t found two people walking into a strange alley at that time.
If so… By now, she….
A cold sweat ran down his back.
However, the woman who was unaware of the feelings of those who were left behind, laughed.
That fact was incredible.
“We were fortunate out of misfortune. The antidote worked well. However, it would be a good idea to take a few days off and monitor your condition.”
As Dabel sighed with relief, Iska loosened his hand.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Captain.”
As Canpiden was on the verge of tears, his lush eyebrows drooped down.
‘Yes, just being safe is….’
Iska collapsed into a chair next to the bed looking exhausted.
Not long after the news that Lavella had woken up, the Lord arrived. He seemed to have forgotten about his usual position and appeared in a hurry.
“I’m so sorry for making you go through this and I’m ashamed to face you. It’s all our fault.”
The Lord politely apologized.
“What about the young lord?”
Lavella asked about the young lord’s well-being in a crawling voice. Then the Lord’s feeling of guilt deepened.
It was a poison that only affected women. But just because he hadn’t been poisoned, didn’t mean he could have dealt with the smugglers alone.
If the top of Campanya hadn’t discovered it, both would have been in big trouble.
“He is fine.”
In anger he had scolded his son for a long time for going out without an escort knight.
“I’m glad, don’t blame the young lord too much. He tried hard to help me.”
Lavella spoke slowly and smiled weakly. The pity on the Lord’s face grew even greater at her pale face.
In the midst of this, the guild members each made complicated faces due to her acting.
* * *
Everyone left the room to let Lavella, who had fallen asleep again, rest comfortably.
“Signal me if anything happens, Pessini.”
“Don’t worry, just get some sleep.”
At Argen’s request, Pessini responded by grabbing the axe.
For the time being, he was going to take turns protecting the front of her room. At Pessini’s stubbornness, he won the first watch.
“Then let’s get some rest too.”
Argen yawned and disappeared into his room. Everyone had not slept a wink until Lavella woke up.
“…Are you okay?”
Dabel carefully asked Iska when it was only the two of them.
“No, I’m not okay.”
Iska swallowed a sigh, swept his hair, and glanced at the back of his hand with a bulging vein.
The moment he saw Lavella collapse in front of his eyes, he had a strong urge to rip and kill everyone involved in this incident.
No, I was really going to do that.
If only Dabel hadn’t held him back.
With Dabel’s desperate eyes looking at him and his subtle trembling hands, he managed to gain reason.
“The curse must be getting stronger.”
Ever since he made up his mind to take the throne, his blood-lusting instinct took over once in a while. And it was getting more and more frequent.
I want to slaughter cruelly and brutally.
“No. It can’t be like that.”
Dabel shook his head in a hurry.
“It’s because you care so much about Lavella, so you’re angry.”
He would have felt the same.
Listening to Dabel’s last words, Iska raised one corner of his mouth.
“…Get some rest.”
Iska, who entered the room leaving behind the worried Dabel, collapsed.
Sweeping his face out of fatigue, he leaned his head against the door and sighed.
“You must die for me.”
He remembered Lucavi who left only those words and swung a sword at him with no expression.
Was Lucavi like this at that time? Just like how Iska was now?
Iska placed his hand on his chest where the scar remained.
“Think of it as comforting for this scar.”
Recalling Lavella’s words, he burst into laughter.
When he remembered the soft feeling of her lips slipping along the scar marks, he felt at ease little by little.
The urge that had been boiling over had calmed down as if it had never happened.
“One thing was gained.”
The slight hesitation that had been holding onto the corner of his heart disappeared, and he was convinced.
It didn’t matter whether she was Chamer’s scheme or trick.
He sincerely wanted her.
I will gain your heart somehow. I have no intention of losing or letting you go.
If he could only hold her by his side. He would make it happen by any means. Sincerely.
* * *
Iska rubbed the back of his neck as he walked down the castle hallway.
“I am sorry that the young lady was hurt, but it saved many women who were imprisoned.”
The Lord smiled awkwardly.
Of all things, the place where Lavella went was where the women who were kidnapped by using drugs were trapped.
They left the women who fainted from drugs for a while and then took them to the place where the work took place.
Lavella was hit by a new drug that filled the place so that women could not wake up.
“We will spare no effort to support the young lady to recover her health. We have been greatly indebted.”
In addition, there was evidence that there was a connection between the drug trafficking and the recent surge in disappearances within the territory.
Though the Duke of Natal did not open his heart enough to back the top of Campanya due to this incident, at least they succeeded in gaining his friendly trust.
‘…Lavella.’
It wasn’t something he could give up to gain that kind of trust. Iska hid his bitterness opened the door to Lavella’s room..
“You’re here?”
Lavella, who was reclining with a large cushion at the head of her bed, met his eyes.
“How are you feeling?”
“As you can see, I’m fine.”
Lavella smiled and shrugged. It was Iska who came to visit her as soon as he finished work.
His purple eyes scanned Lavella as if to pierce through her and ascertain the truth.
“My neck hurts, sit down.”
Iska sat on a chair next to the bed without a word.
“The Lord visited twice today, and the young lord visited more than that.”
Lavella said as if it were fun.
“I didn’t mean to, but it’s good that I made them open their hearts to me.”
Iska’s eyebrows twitched at the carefree voice.
“Aren’t you thankful to me? He’s important to you, Lord Natal.”
He was also from one of the most prominent noble families in the Empire. The amount of taxes and donations he paid made his prestige higher.
In addition, he was loyal to the Imperial Family and was always out of touch with the power struggles of the Imperial Family. So, if Iska had him in his hand, it would have been quite advantageous.
“Should I be happy?”
But he didn’t seem very happy.
When he saw Lavella’s innocent expression, an angry voice came out.
“After all, I almost never saw you again.”
There was excruciating pain in the tight voice.
“What does that matter?”
Lavella stared at Iska indifferently.
“How can you, who covets the throne, be swayed by something like that?”
“What?”
As if pathetic, Iska contorted his eyebrows, embarrassed by the blunt criticism.
“It means that you, who is trying to obtain such power, should not dwell on someone’s life.”
Someone’s life?
Iska breathed in vain at the cruel words that referred to herself carelessly.
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Neverland Translations 