I Proposed to My Childhood Friend After Regressing - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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After Regression, I Proposed to My Childhood Friend
Chapter 40
Then much of it made sense.
That he’d chosen to increase wounds and spare unnecessary force rather than suppress the enemy in the textbook way, and that he’d made active use of the room’s furnishings.
‘He said he wouldn’t need attendants for a while, so naturally this is how it should be!’
Innocent servants could die in the crossfire if they were attending him during all this.
‘……Surely Claude didn’t do the same thing?’
Claude was supposed to be in his quarters for a while, too…….
‘No, surely not. He’s surrounded by security personnel.’
Claude aside, she hoped His Highness hadn’t committed such a reckless and foolish act.
‘I don’t want to entrust myself and the empire’s future to a stupid superior who doesn’t hesitate at things like this.’
Beatrice’s caustic words stemmed from the fact that Claude was hardly different from the assassins in his position.
Her gaze followed Claude, who looked paler than before.
He began dispatching the staggering assassins one by one, his expression calm and composed.
—Crash!
“Gack! Cough, cough!”
“One.”
Claude murmured in a low voice. Then he swung his arm and struck another attacker.
—Thud!
“Two.”
And…….
“Three.”
The assassins collapsed on the floor, trembling and spitting blood.
From how they moved despite not bearing wounds severe enough to incapacitate them, the poison seemed remarkably potent.
‘……I think I learned about this type of poison when studying maidservant duties with Kaya.’
Contact or inhalation types—the kind that cause internal injuries or affect the nerves.
Beatrice began mentally cataloging the names and properties of poisons she’d studied diligently.
She could see Claude’s breathing growing ragged as he silently surveyed the fallen assassins.
“Cough!”
“Claude!”
He wiped blood trickling from his lips with the back of his hand and shook his head.
Then, his voice far tighter than usual, he cautioned her.
“Don’t move. Don’t speak. My jacket is enchanted, but if you make a sound…….”
—Clang!
“……you might become a target too.”
It happened far faster than his brief warning suggested.
Beatrice’s eyes widened as she watched an assassin drop from the ceiling, and Claude block him with his sword.
The sound of metal grinding against metal erupted right before her eyes.
“Seems his companions’ condition was off, so he moved to the ceiling…….”
“…….”
“He thought I wouldn’t consider movements from above. Wrong assumption.”
Claude put more weight into his upper body and forced his opponent back hard.
“Ugh…….”
The assassin trembled, searching for another approach, but it was futile.
Whatever wound the assassin had sustained, his ankle—now tattered—could no longer bear his weight.
“Four.”
As Claude finished counting, the assassin finally collapsed.
The room fell silent as metal hit the floor.
Only Claude’s ragged breathing and faint groans remained.
As he struggled to steady his irregular breathing, Beatrice urgently seized his forearm.
She needed to assess his condition.
“Hey, Claude, you…….”
His body heat was far higher than she’d expected, and just as she began calling to him urgently——
“Sorry. Getting heavy.”
With a brief apology, his body collapsed against her.
She instinctively caught him, supporting his weight as she called his name with a grave expression.
“Claude. What poison did you use.”
“…….”
“Hey, you idiot, don’t apologize—tell me what it is first!”
Everywhere he touched was dangerously hot.
She pushed his sweat-dampened hair back with her hand, quickly assessing his color as her breathing grew urgent.
‘What causes rapid fever spikes and blood coughing while numbing the nerves.’
Belladonna… no, belladonna affects the nervous system but doesn’t cause hemoptysis.
‘Henbane, hemlock, digitalis, wolfsbane…….’
As Beatrice rapidly recalled poison classifications, a sound from moments before returned to her mind.
‘That burning sound!’
Yes, there had been a faint sound of something burning.
‘Tenebriscia.’
Yes, poison extracted from Tenebriscia acts this way, or so she’d been taught.
“……Water. Right, Tenebriscia causes increasingly severe dehydration.”
With effort, Beatrice pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and grabbed the kettle near the side table.
Then, to avoid new contamination, she opened the kettle’s lid and immersed the handkerchief inside, drawing it back out.
At the sight of his hot, moist breath against her neck, Beatrice clenched her teeth hard.
—Smack!
She struck his back firmly, anger filling the blow, tears pricking unbidden at her eyes as she muttered.
“You’d better survive. I’m actually going to kill you.”
He’d warned her so harshly not to take dangerous risks, raging and fussing about it—and now this.
“This is infuriating. You take every dangerous risk yourself while…….”
She placed the water-soaked handkerchief in his mouth, and her gaze fell on the ring she’d been wearing.
The ring was stained a deeper red than ever before, as if warning of his danger.
“……I didn’t want to confirm its effects like this.”
Supporting Claude, Beatrice began moving slowly. No matter how one might call it dragging, carrying a limp adult male was no simple task.
Barely swallowing her quickened breath, she stepped into the corridor and drew in a deep breath before crying out loudly.
“Help me! Someone! Someone’s been hurt!”
* * *
“You’d better survive. I’m actually going to kill you.”
In his fading consciousness, Claude heard Beatrice’s voice and laughed soundlessly.
He couldn’t know if his lips had actually curled, but laughter came anyway.
The absurdity of saving someone only to threaten death—it was funny.
But…….
‘When I wake, I should tell her to kill me all she wants.’
Had their positions been reversed, he would have been furious too.
Of course, he had orchestrated the attack.
He’d made sure the panicked attacker would target him instead of Crowell.
In preparation for contingencies, he’d decided to coat the poison on every entrance—doors and windows alike—and throughout his quarters.
But he hadn’t lied to Beatrice.
He’d prepared for various scenarios, but he’d truly never expected the attacker to take such a risk.
‘This kind of reckless, violent action isn’t the princess’s nature. Which means the situation reaching this point confirms my suspicions.’
From the moment Claude had first planned to save the Downer Marquessate, he’d suspected one force in particular. The Order.
The Kalbaron Order was the prime example of a group that had reaped significant hidden benefits when the princess rose to power.
The princess had placed the Order’s faith front and center to secure her legitimacy and to exclude what was commonly called “External Forces”—magic.
‘As Traditionalists, it was a natural choice, so I thought little of it then.’
But as he’d prepared for the “Cursed Downer Marquessate” crisis, memories from before the Regression that he’d never considered suddenly resurfaced.
The Kalbaron Order had declared it would conduct Purification Work and Sanctification on the Dark Mountain Range to dilute the Marquessate’s curse.
So Claude had decided to weave the Downer Marquessate into one vast net.
‘Your Highness. Have you decided on a disposition for Baloya Crawford?’
‘Mm? Not yet. Father is quite troubled by it himself.’
‘Then, what if we sent Baloya to a prayer center of the Kalbaron Order.’
‘Baloya? Why?’
‘By sending her to a prayer center, we can learn much.’
Whether the princess would reach for the Marquessate through her, how the Order would move, and whose side Grand Duke Alec truly favored.
And the moment he confirmed the gates had closed earlier than in his previous life, Claude knew something had been caught in his net.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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