I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 127

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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 127
Soon Luciana’s finger pressed firmly against Edward’s chest, as if she were poking him for emphasis.
“That’s what I’m saying. It’s not a tragedy that will shatter the world, nor something you can never recover from!”
“…Luciana.”
“You’re the only Test Subject? I was a Test Subject too! Are you the only one who suffered? I suffered as well!”
……
“Everyone carries their own tragic story—that’s just how life is!”
Of course, being confined for a lifetime as a Test Subject, being tortured—these were hardly ordinary sorrows.
But Luciana refused to dwell on it.
More precisely, she wouldn’t allow that past to dictate every choice in her future.
“I wanted to show you that the Capital isn’t only filled with terrible things!”
……
“I was confined as a Test Subject my entire life, so I wanted to keep others from becoming Test Subjects! I wanted the past to help us move forward, not consume the present!”
She knew what that kind of experience was like.
No one—not even the Duchess—should have to suffer through such a thing.
So before coming here, she had managed to ask Rosendal a favor: to keep watch and ensure that the number of Test Subjects in the Temple Underground wasn’t increasing.
Rosendal had said it would be difficult to monitor perfectly and there might be gaps, but she didn’t mind.
If that was the best she could do, it was enough.
She wanted to prevent the tragedy from repeating itself.
“I thought you felt the same way.”
……
“That’s why I thought you told me to bury the bad memories of the past beneath the good memories of the present!”
Luciana’s spirited outburst faltered as she drew a breath, then continued.
“But you were hiding it all along!”
……
“You could have just been honest about it!”
“Luciana.”
Each time Edward struggled to open his mouth, Luciana shot back as if her words weren’t finished.
“What does it matter! What difference does it make that you were a Test Subject!”
Edward closed his mouth each time and waited for her to continue.
Rather than feel anger at her dismissal of what he’d endured…
It was strangely comforting instead.
If anyone else had said it, he would have thought it was mockery.
But this was Luciana.
A person who had been a Test Subject just as he had.
…The only person who could truly understand him.
Luciana drew a hot breath, as if trying to calm herself for a moment.
Then she slowly opened her mouth again.
“There’s a lot I’m angry about—like how that psychopath scientist knew things I didn’t, for instance.”
What followed was a painfully honest admission.
“But what angers me most is myself.”
……
“I never knew, and I kept calling you perfect, saying you were flawless…”
I thought you were simply born that way—perfect from the start.
That you grew up wanting for nothing, blessed with abundance.
I spoke of your perfection constantly, thoughtlessly.
Even though I sensed you hadn’t had a truly happy childhood.
Even though I saw the old, crumbling nursery in the Duchess’s Annex—now long gone—and felt anxious and worried in my heart.
Why didn’t I trust my own instinct?
Why didn’t I ask you properly back then?
“How foolish my words must have sounded to you.”
……
“How much…”
Her voice grew quiet, and Luciana looked up at Edward with tears glistening in her eyes.
“How much it must have hurt.”
The moment those words left her, pain bloomed in her own chest.
Though she had boldly declared that this wasn’t an unbearable ordeal, not a tragedy that couldn’t be overcome…
‘Such words couldn’t possibly cover something so grave.’
Luciana knew it too.
Since coming to the Capital and the memories of being experimented on had returned in full, sometimes even hearing the word “experiment” would make her fingertips curl inward.
Sometimes, unlike before, she’d catch herself hesitating when she looked at Gemini.
And when Gemini spoke of it, she learned that the experiment to create a Divine Incarnation was even more agonizing than the extraction of Life Force itself.
‘That he’d survived at all was nothing short of a miracle.’
Yet after enduring such horrors, he’d carried it all without complaint, as though it were nothing.
“I think I’ve been misunderstanding you.”
“Luciana.”
“You’re kinder than I gave you credit for. If someone had flattered me like that—empty words that weren’t even true—I’d have snapped at them to cut it out. How could I presume to speak of things I don’t understand?”
In truth, Edward was inclined toward such harshness with others, just not with Luciana.
Luciana sniffled, fighting back the tears that kept threatening to spill over.
“And what makes me even angrier is—”
…….
“—that I’m angry at myself, and that only makes me angrier.”
…….
“You’re the one who kept things hidden. Always. It’s you who owes me an explanation, who needs to justify yourself to me.”
Yet she found herself understanding him deeply nonetheless.
She empathized with the suffering he’d endured, and reproached herself for speaking carelessly without knowing what he’d been through.
She dwelled on the cruelties that had befallen him, unrelenting and cruel beyond measure.
She kept thinking, kept imagining, how much that small child must have suffered, how much pain he must have borne.
And then she wanted to hold him, to protect him, to keep him safe.
Because he mattered that much to her.
“I hate that.”
Luciana whispered, swallowing her tears.
Edward remained motionless, listening.
“Why is it that every time, I end up worrying about you, thinking about you—”
…….
“—when I should be angrier, and I can’t be?”
With that, Luciana drew in a deep breath.
“This is what I came to say.”
…….
“If you want to end things, then end them. I won’t be your only weakness anymore. Now that you have others, what use am I—”
She was pulling away, her words sharp as a blade, when—
“I’m sorry.”
Edward murmured softly, drawing her back to him so she wouldn’t leave.
A flinch.
In the moment the man who’d been pushing her away all this time pulled her into his arms instead—
Luciana’s shoulders trembled involuntarily.
Feeling it, Edward’s chest rose and fell in a deep breath.
“You’re right.”
…….
“It’s I who should apologize.”
…….
“To you—”
Edward opened his mouth and did what he’d wanted to do for days but had forced himself to restrain.
He held Luciana close, keeping her confined in his embrace.
He checked whether there were any other injuries, and simply held her, as though this moment would never end.
“I’m sorry for making you feel that way.”
Even knowing that he could hurt her, he wanted to do this.
Even as guilt mingled with a sweet, intoxicating satisfaction, Edward forced the words out.
“I wish I were the perfect man you seem to think I am.”
…….
“If that’s what you want, I wish I could be that for you.”
Luciana made a wet sound through her nose and muttered under her breath.
“I never said anything like that.”
“I know.”
…….
“But I wanted to be anyway.”
Speaking slowly, Edward carefully stroked her back.
“I want to be someone you can lean on without a single worry, someone you can trust completely.”
…….
“So I thought it best to forget my own flaws ever existed.”
“…….”
“That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
His hand, which had been rubbing his back, soon moved to his side.
Over a wound of his own making, now hidden beneath his clothes.
“And in exchange, I got this.”
At the weight of regret in his voice, Luciana found herself opening her mouth before she could help it.
“…What are you saying?”
Some things needed to be challenged.
“Is it your fault that you went berserk?”
“…….”
“As you said, when you lose someone right before your eyes….”
Luciana was turning over whether she ought to feel some small measure of remorse for throwing herself at Sepina so recklessly, when—
“It’s not just anyone.”
“…….”
“The most precious person to me.”
“…….”
“The person I love most.”
At Edward’s correction, Luciana’s shoulders trembled anew.
She steadied her breathing, then slowly spoke the words he had corrected her with.
“If you lose, right before your eyes, the most p-precious person. The one you love.”
“…….”
“Anyone would lose their mind. It’s only natural.”
Though she answered calmly, Edward pressed his nose against her shoulder and shook his head.
“No.”
“…….”
“If I had told you from the beginning that I was imperfect, unstable—that without you I’d be nothing but a bomb waiting to detonate—”
“No, I mean, you’re not quite that broken, are you….”
“You wouldn’t have done it.”
“…….”
“You wouldn’t have thrown yourself recklessly in front of Sepina, leaving my side. You would have stayed with me.”

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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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