This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
T/N: Me thinks… this is the official start of the angst and possessive era of Edmund. 🤔
E/N: And emotional therapy is needed for Daphne. I want her to have a genuine friend so that she won't be so alone 😔
It was none other than a human hand. The source of the blood scent.
“Find out about the tattoo on the back of this hand.”
The severed hand was engraved with a strange tattoo.
“Yes, understood.” Johann, who had left the room, knew he couldn’t keep holding onto the hand. After transferring the tattoo to paper, he discarded the hand into an incinerator.
‘By the way, did they bring the Madam back?’
Watching the flames blaze, Johann suddenly recalled the matter.
In the dead of night, the incinerator lay still.
Twitch.
The blackened fingers of the dead hand moved.
* * *
At dawn, the mansion was quiet. Benjamin was moving busily, but his actions were incredibly cautious and quiet.
“Mr. Butler?”
Benjamin halted when he encountered a half-awake servant.
“Why the alcohol...?”
“His Excellency requested it.”The servant rubbed his eyes, looking at the tray with a bottle of alcohol.
“Go back to bed.”
“Yes, sir. Have a good night.”Too groggy to notice, the servant failed to see the cloth and bandages next to the bottle.
After sending the servant away, Benjamin headed directly to Edmund’s bedroom. Without knocking, he entered, hiding something in his arms, and went straight to the sofa.
“...Your Excellency.”
There, Edmund sat, his white shirt stained red from the wound on his right shoulder, cold sweat covering his face. Sensing someone’s presence, Edmund tried to rise, but Benjamin rushed over.
“Your Excellency, it’s me.”
At his words, Edmund relaxed.
Without delay, Benjamin unbuttoned Edmund’s shirt. Blood gushed from the wound as the shirt was pulled aside. As Benjamin hastily pressed a cloth against the wound to stop the bleeding, Edmund’s brow furrowed in excruciating pain.
Naturally, it hurt. He had been riding a horse, walking around, and attending to business for hours with this wound. Finding Edmund slumped over the sofa had been pure luck. Time had been lost while sterilizing the needle.
Looking at the wound, which had worsened since the last time he checked, Benjamin quickly poured alcohol over it. Edmund groaned softly, panting.
“Please bear with it a little longer. I’ll finish quickly.”
Edmund had been surrounded by danger ever since he attained his high status at a young age. While injuries weren’t frequent, they happened occasionally, and to keep it hidden from the outside world, Edmund always relied on Benjamin for treatment. Over time, Benjamin had become adept at treating even severe wounds.
After skillfully stitching the wound, Benjamin opened a second bottle of alcohol and poured it over the injury again. Edmund, now somewhat numb to the pain, remained silent, his expression more at ease than before.
“All done.”
Much later, after wrapping the wound in bandages, Benjamin stood up, drenched in sweat.
Edmund, utterly exhausted, panted heavily.
“The wound could get worse, so you should avoid going out for a while.”
“...Understood.”Replying in a hoarse voice, Edmund made Benjamin sigh in relief. But his relief was short-lived, as he spoke in frustration.
“You should have at least told me.”
If Benjamin hadn’t found him, things could have taken a much worse turn. While the wound wasn’t severe, leaving it untreated for hours could have led to an infection, and Edmund’s flesh might have begun to rot.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve been enduring it alone for the past five years while I wasn’t around. It was truly dangerous.”
“You found me, and I didn’t die. That’s all that matters.”
“How can you say that…” Benjamin couldn’t hide his exasperation at Edmund’s response. Sighing deeply, he began to gather the blood-soaked clothes and empty bottles.
“What I did was just first aid. I’ll discreetly bring a doctor, so please, don’t let the wound worsen.”
Benjamin was at his wit’s end with Edmund, who didn’t say a word.
“By the way… why is the Grand Mistress still using the Lady of the House’s room?”
While Edmund had been away, Benjamin had discovered something shocking. Sophia, who wasn’t the Duchess, was occupying the Lady of the House’s quarters. Even after Edmund had married Daphne, Sophia had continued to use the room.
“...That was Daphne’s decision.”
“What do you mean?”Daphne was using a room fit for a servant, while someone who wasn’t even the Lady of the House was given the Lady of the House’s chambers.
“Both decisions were hers.”
“I just want to live quietly. You want the same, don’t you?”
Edmund pressed his throbbing temples again. Pulling a cigarette from his pocket, Benjamin noticed the pile of used cigarettes. It was then Benjamin understood why Edmund hadn’t passed out earlier. He had been enduring the pain with the help of the painkillers in the cigarettes.
Edmund lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. As the smoke curled up, Benjamin swallowed the words he was about to say. Edmund, finishing the cigarette quickly, fumbled in his pocket again. Benjamin noticed the empty cigarette case on the table.
“I’ll refill it and bring it right away.”
“Alright.”After Benjamin left, Edmund simply stared at the ceiling. Then, he reached into his coat, which was thrown carelessly beside him, and pulled out a piece of paper. It was proof, given to him by Sophia, of Daphne’s affair.
The page was covered in words, filled with yearning and affection.
Edmund rose from the sofa, feeling the wound reopen as blood seeped out, but he didn’t care. He walked toward the bed. Pulling aside the curtain, he walked to someone lying there.
“...Daphne.”
It was Daphne.
Had Edmund been even slightly slower in protecting her, she would have been the one to suffer that wound. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have even survived; worse she might have died immediately.
The only reason anyone had survived was because Edmund was the one who took the injury. He stood by the bedside, simply looking down at the unconscious Daphne.
For a long time, just a long time. So long that he didn’t even notice Benjamin quietly withdrawing from the room.
* * *
“I couldn’t find out.” Vent shook his head. “It was hard to tell if there was someone inside or not. I almost got caught by a maid.”
Vent sighed heavily, complaining about the difficulty of acting.
Listening to Vent’s report, Damian nervously bit his lip.
“Why not just say that you want to meet her? The maids are starting to look at you strangely, since this is the third time you’ve sneaked by today.”
Vent grumbled that if they went one more time, they’d surely be caught.
“...No.”
Vent didn’t even ask what the problem was anymore.
“It’s your next schedule soon. Let’s move.”
As they moved to their next location, Damian’s eyes remained fixated on one spot – none other than Daphne’s room.
If only he could meet her, Damian thought he would be able to say what he needed to and clear up his feelings. But even meeting her wasn’t easy.
— — —
Damian’s next task was to report to Edmund with the documents he had handled that morning, marking this as his first time doing so.
“…It seems that many people have suffered significant losses due to the counterfeit mana stones flooding the market.”
What Damian had to report this time was quite a major incident.
Several years ago, there was an alchemist who was hailed as a genius. This alchemist announced an experiment to prove his greatness by turning ordinary stones into mana stones. However, the response from the public was cold, and the scorned alchemist vanished without a trace.
Then, a few years later, a new type of mana stone was released into the market. It was beautifully colored and had a large capacity to hold abilities, selling like hotcakes. Yet, just a few days after the mana stones appeared, exactly one month later, symptoms of seizures began to show among those who purchased and used them.
Upon investigation, it was found that the one distributing the mana stones was none other than the missing alchemist, who had left a note saying he would make them pay for mocking him, cursing them before disappearing once again. The search for the alchemist was becoming frantic, but his whereabouts remained elusive, creating rising anxiety among those who had used the mana stones he had created.
“Father?”
This incident had stirred not only the empire but the entire continent, yet Edmund seemed preoccupied with something else. ‘Surely, that couldn’t be the case. It must be a misunderstanding.’
“…If it were you, how would you resolve this issue?”
‘Perhaps it was indeed a misunderstanding.’ Edmund posed a perplexing question.
“If it were me….”
Damian began to share the thoughts he had prepared in advance.
After Damian finished his response, Edmund asked further questions regarding his answers, and as this back-and-forth continued, time slipped by quickly.
“Your Excellency.”
The sun had completely set in the evening. Benjamin entered the office and whispered something into Edmund’s ear, causing his brow to furrow. As Edmund instinctively pulled out a cigarette, Johann called out to him urgently.
“Your Excellency, oh the Young Master is here too.”
“Ah.”
Edmund’s hand, which had been searching for a light, abruptly halted.
“Let’s call it a day for now.”
Edmund stood up immediately. It was the first time he had left the office this early, leaving Johann and even Damian momentarily stunned as they stared at his retreating figure.
However, Edmund did not look back even once as he hurried off somewhere.
— — —
When Edmund opened the bedroom door, Eugene bowed his head.
“Your Excellency.”
“Where is Daphne?”
“Um… she hasn’t gotten out of bed.”
“You can leave now.”
Once Eugene exited, Edmund headed toward the bed. On the table lay a cold dinner that hadn’t been touched.
“Daphne.”
Daphne was perched on the bed, her face buried in her palms. Her dry brown hair encircled her frail body.
“…Why are you like this?”
Edmund’s approaching steps came to a halt.