I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 120

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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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Chapter 120
Luciana’s eyes widened as she looked past Edward’s shoulder.
“The Duke of Teseron! Where is he?”
“Wait—if you keep this up—!”
“Please, just calm down for a moment—!”
Beyond the drawn curtains of the terrace, the shadows of people mingled visibly, their voices rising in a low murmur.
And that voice from just moments ago—
“…Sepina?”
The moment Luciana murmured the name, Edward’s brow furrowed as well.
“Remarkable how quickly she changes her tune.”
Just when she declared she wouldn’t attend the banquet because she had important duties as a Saint—
and now here she was, rushing about searching for him in the Banquet Hall with such urgency. It was hardly surprising anymore.
What would unfold next was predictable.
‘She’ll corner me and make a scene, no question.’
Edward shook his head at the exhausting spectacle he could already envision.
“Should I slip away?”
“You’re going to fly out?”
“It’s not an unreasonable option.”
Edward gazed upward at the sky brightened by bursting fireworks as he considered it.
‘It’s rather bright.’
What if the next explosion scattered sparks toward Luciana?
He was still surveying the empty air, his brow slightly creased, when—
Bang!
The terrace door flew open and someone stepped inside.
Naturally, it was Sepina, thoroughly agitated.
“Dear me.”
Edward lazily brushed his hand across Luciana’s shoulder.
Then he slipped the cloak he’d draped over her slightly downward, sliding his fingers beneath the seam of her shoulder—
so that anyone who saw would think they’d been engaged in something rather more intimate moments before.
“…!”
Luciana’s face flushed scarlet, and even Sepina flinched at the gesture.
Edward’s lips curved upward coldly, while the sound of Sepina grinding her teeth rang out sharply.
Then, slowly, she spoke.
“There you are.”
“I’m surprised. I thought jealousy would’ve made you abandon this by now.”
“…I didn’t come here because of some petty emotion like jealousy!”
Though, if she was honest—it was partly true.
But there was something far more important.
A reason urgent enough that she’d fled an unfinished experiment and had to confront Edward.
Sepina recalled the man who’d clung to her legs.
The Second Prince of Erenta, who’d scrambled along the ground like a beggar, clutching her feet.
* * *
“You’re really saying you’re a prince of Erenta? Then why do you look like this…?”
That day, at the Gate, the ragged man who’d grabbed hold of Sepina insisted he was the Second Prince of Erenta and began thrashing about frantically.
“That cursed bastard Edward le Teseron tortured me until I ended up like this!”
“But your body seems unharmed…”
“Here—I have proof of my royal status!”
The prince cried out and thrust a pendant at her, but the crest carved upon it was something Sepina found difficult to recognize.
She was a Saint, not a princess.
Since Erenta was neither a great power nor a major kingdom—just a small realm tucked into a corner to the north—studying its insignia hadn’t been necessary, and so her ignorance was hardly surprising.
‘Is he mocking me, or what?’
Sepina withdrew her foot with a doubtful expression.
The Second Prince of Erenta gritted his teeth.
“As I’ve told you, the Duke of Teseron harbors a grave secret!”
“Then what exactly is this secret?”
“…I-I cannot speak of it in a place like this!”
The moment those words left the prince’s lips—
‘This beggar is all talk and no substance, isn’t he?’
Sepina decided to abandon him and leave.
But then—
“Look there. What’s a beggar doing asking for alms?”
There happened to be many eyes upon the Gate, watching.
“Oh, surely the Saint will take her in and care for her well.”
“Though she seemed upset just a moment ago.”
“Surely the Saint would never be so harsh?”
They couldn’t draw close enough to hear the full conversation, but from a distance they watched and showed their reverence for the Saint.
“Sigh.”
Sepina exhaled deeply and rearranged her expression into one of sympathy.
‘Yes, I must bear with this.’
Her role came back to her, belatedly.
As long as she was still performing as a Saint, she couldn’t ignore those gazes and simply walk away.
Right after she reluctantly led the Second Prince away.
The Second Prince kept glancing about as if afflicted by some paranoid suspicion.
Though she’d cleared the area of all people as he’d requested, his manner suggested he worried whether someone might still be hiding nearby.
‘He said he would speak, so what is he doing?’
Sepina was beginning to feel distinctly irritated by his apparent lack of trust in her.
“Actually….”
“Actually what?”
“Actually, she’s a fake.”
Sepina, who had been coiled tight with tension, felt her mind go flat at those words.
‘What? That’s something I already know.’
The moment she heard the word “fake,” she grasped what the Second Prince was driving at.
‘He’s surely about to say the Duchess Consort is fake.’
But the fact that the Duchess Consort of Teseron was a fabrication and an experimental subject of the Temple — that much Sepina herself knew far better.
That was partly why she was angrier.
“That’s already a known fact.”
‘A waste of time.’
Sepina was about to dismiss the Second Prince when—
“What?! Then you’re not even wronged by it?”
“Of course I’m wronged. The Duchess Consort’s seat is—”
“Isn’t the Saint famous for clinging to that Edward fellow on their wedding day!”
“…Clinging, you say. The years when the Duke of Teseron courted me—”
“How is wasting your time on such a fake not aggravating to you?!”
More grating than the offensive words “clinging” and “wasting” was something else that caught her ear.
“…A fake, you said?”
“Yes! That man is a fake!”
“…….”
“Edward le Teseron is a false Divine Incarnation!”
Truth be told, the Second Prince had only learned this fact not long ago himself.
His contemptuous attitude toward Edward stemmed from the way his aunt, the Duchess Consort, habitually regarded him with thinly veiled disdain.
Moreover, the Second Prince remembered a slip of the tongue the Duchess Consort had made while drunk with her family.
“That vile, utterly vile thing—”
“Pardon? Aunt. Vile thing, did you say?”
“Edward. That man never inherited even a drop of my noble blood, and yet he dares—”
After she said this, the Duchess Consort seemed to realize her mistake and fell silent, but the Second Prince had managed a reasonably logical deduction.
‘So the Duke brought some lowborn bastard from somewhere and had him registered as Aunt’s son?’
Once he understood that, Edward became deeply hateful to him as well.
‘How dare such a wretch masquerade as nobility?’
A filthy illegitimate child, born no doubt of some common mistress.
It was for this reason the Second Prince had harbored a quiet contempt for Edward.
…And then, not long ago.
When the Monster Attack Incident occurred and he was taken in for questioning.
News arrived for the Second Prince, who had been trembling in terror of foreign punishment.
The Duchess Consort, confined to the Prison, had stopped eating and speaking, staring only at the wall.
The moment he heard that news….
“Heavens! What humiliation must she have endured!”
“With my dear aunt in such a state, I cannot possibly remain hidden away!”
“At the very least, they must let me see her face! You heartless fiends!”
The Prince protested vehemently and threw himself into a fit.
If the Duchess Consort’s health deteriorated further, Teseron might be unable to put her on trial and would have to release her; and if that happened, he would have to request his own release alongside hers.
When the Second Prince of Erenta kept pressing the matter, Teseron reluctantly granted him a visit.
But the Duchess Consort he actually met was….
“Aunt? Is that you?”
…….
She had become an old woman, stripped of any trace of her former self.
‘This is my aunt?’
A withered crone, robbed of every shred of dignity?
The Second Prince belatedly recoiled, trying to flee, but….
The moment the Duchess Consort saw him, her eyes cleared.
Quick as a flash!
She seized his hand.
“…!”
And pretending joy at meeting her nephew, she wrote letters across his palm.
Letters that exposed Edward’s true identity.
“…and that’s how I ended up in the Prison itself, going in and coming back out. Impressive, wouldn’t you say? My abilities are remarkable, aren’t they?”
…….
“That’s how I found out! That he’s a fake!”
The Second Prince boasted shamelessly.
Sepina blinked with an expressionless face for some time.
Just as even the tactless Second Prince began to sense something amiss and fell silent, Sepina’s eyes gleamed as she asked:
“…What proof do you have?”
“W-well, the proof is… ah!”
In that instant, the flustered prince’s eyes also lit up.
“I have it!”

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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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