I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 14

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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 14
Lucy’s eyes widened at the unexpected remark.
“My condition?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m completely fine….”
“You were trembling like a leaf just a moment ago.”
Lucy blinked.
Yes, she’d flinched at the sudden shock of it all, but surely not enough to warrant the word trembling.
“When did I ever tremb—”
Then it struck her.
The realization came belatedly.
“Oh. You mean just before we landed?”
Just before they’d touched down here.
When she’d been cradled in Edward’s arms, flying through the air, and her body had shuddered slightly.
‘That was just because of the cold.’
The Northern Gate lay to the north, and Lucy was still wearing the filthy, tattered clothes from the Underground Dungeon.
Wind whistled freely through the rips and tears in the fabric.
And being up in the sky like this—
The air was several times colder than it was on the ground.
‘Though it really wasn’t that bad, all things considered.’
They said dragon scales were as cold and smooth as a reptile’s hide.
But contrary to what the story described, the Duke’s embrace had been impossibly warm and comforting.
Even with his thick Armor between them, his body radiated such heat.
It was like being held by an enormous heated pad.
Because he’d wrapped his hand firmly around her head, her neck was sore, but at least the bitter wind hadn’t reached her.
To be honest, it had been so warm that by the end, she’d almost hated to let go.
So after landing, she’d planned to slowly ease herself out of his arms, savoring every moment.
But the crowd that surged forward meant too many eyes, so she’d abandoned the plan and bolted away faster than light.
At that moment, Edward had worn the expression of someone who’d just watched a bullet fire from a gun he hadn’t even pulled the trigger on.
Anyway.
‘It was really just a brief shiver.’
But Edward clearly thought otherwise.
“Your face went pale. I thought you were about to be sick.”
“It wasn’t that bad?”
“Your whole body was trembling like your bones were about to snap.”
“I’m not that fragile! Want me to prove it?”
Worried he might think her weak, she rolled up her sleeve and flexed her arm—only to reveal a pathetically thin silhouette.
Edward let out a scoff at the sight of her slender limbs and began walking ahead.
“Regardless, you can’t keep going without rest on paper-thin stamina like that.”
…….
She couldn’t argue that he had a point, yet the fact that his words bothered her so much and hurt her feelings….
‘…it’s probably because being weak has been a complex of mine ever since my life before Possession.’
That’s why she hadn’t been able to go anywhere with her sisters, why she’d been confined to the Shelter her whole life.
On the other hand, she found it somewhat unexpected.
‘Could it be… he was thinking of me?’
If he hadn’t cared about her, he probably wouldn’t have stopped to rest like this.
‘I thought he was completely terrible.’
So he was kind, but only to people who were useful to him.
‘All that flattery and appeasement is paying off….’
“I have no intention of returning to the Duke’s Estate carrying a corpse.”
Lucy, who’d been rubbing her nose smugly, suddenly frowned at his words.
So he did seem to care about people.
But that only meant his rotten personality went deeper.
“Come on, you’re really exaggerating since before. Still, I’m capable enough to work—”
“Malnourished, scrawny, weak.”
…….
“And small, too.”
Coming from someone so sturdy he could probably fall from the Rooftop and walk away unscathed, the criticism cut deeper.
She felt as though her complexes were being struck one after another.
“Still, we don’t know when the Temple might catch up to us….”
When Lucy added her protest timidly, an unexpected answer came back.
“Don’t you trust me?”
At those words, Lucy clamped her mouth shut as if she might hiccup again.
‘Is he angry?’
His voice was level, but one could never be certain.
It certainly wouldn’t do to give the impression she didn’t trust him.
“Hehe, no, of course I do! Naturally!”
Lucy smiled broadly and wrung her hands like a sycophant.
“Who else would I trust but a master so beautiful, so dependable, so magnificent?”
“Good.”
Only then did Edward smile and turn his head.
The sight of those tiny hands twisting together was almost absurdly endearing.
That small creature had clearly taken a genuine shine to him.
‘Whenever there’s a chance, she pours on the praise like that.’
If anyone else had tried such flattery, he’d have thrown them out and told them to spare the empty words.
But when this small woman fawned over him, he found it only amusing and charming.
‘She goes to such lengths just to please me.’
Perhaps it was right that he acknowledged it.
Meanwhile, while Edward turned his head, Lucy narrowed her eyes and muttered inwardly to herself.
‘He really does love flattery, doesn’t he?’
Was this what it meant to be a powerful person?
He pushed everyone’s buttons and then….
Of course, being protected by the world’s strongest gave her some reassurance, but her pride was still wounded.
‘And here he is with such a rotten personality.’
Though to make up for it, God had certainly given him his face, his body, his abilities, his wealth….
‘…basically everything.’
She glanced at Edward walking ahead, and it felt like walking toward a wall.
A warm, solid, towering wall.
‘So I really was clinging to that body.’
The realization struck her with surprising force.
It made her wonder too—how could a person be so impossibly large?
‘The Armor adds some bulk, I suppose, so that accounts for part of it…’
He’d still be massive without it. Even for a male lead, that seemed excessive….
In that instant, a scene flashed through Lucy’s mind—unexpected, or rather, not unexpected at all upon reflection.
[Edward shed his Robe, and beneath the moonlight, a massive, sculpted form was revealed.
The body looked like the careful work of a divine hand, a weapon in itself. Below the sharp shoulder blades, the muscles of his back rippled with each beat of his furious heart.
Sephina gazed at it in rapture.
Of course, the most weapon-like thing about his body was the enormous protrusion in the middle of his lower half….]
‘…I didn’t want to think about that!’
A passage from the Original Work she’d read countless times—specifically the paragraph where Sephina gazed in ecstasy upon Edward’s bare form—came flooding back.
The fact that she’d eagerly read all those 19+ Rating sections in the Shelter was hitting her now of all times!
“Here we are.”
“Oof!”
Thud.
She’d barely had time to startle.
Lucy’s nose collided with the warm Armor in front of her.
Edward, who had been walking ahead, had stopped abruptly outside his assigned room.
Tap-tap.
Soon the sound of Edward’s footsteps faded as he entered the room.
Lucy covered her face with both hands.
The flush creeping into her cheeks seemed to stem from more than just the collision with his chest.
‘I guess this is punishment for thinking such strange things.’
Of all the passages to recall, why that one?
A protrusion? Surely he couldn’t actually be equipped like that.
…Though she had to admit she was a little curious about—
‘—no, absolutely not.’
Lucy shook her head vigorously.
The very fact that she was entertaining such thoughts suggested her subconscious had finally found its footing after escaping the Temple’s pursuit, regaining its usual chatter.
Lucy was still covering her face, trying to shake the lingering afterimage from her mind, when—
Whoosh!
Her wrist was caught, and her hand fell away from her face.
“Oh….”
Her question about why he was doing this dissolved entirely in the face of the unseemly spectacle before her eyes.
“…….”
When had he taken it off?
Edward, now stripped of his Armor and dressed only in a Shirt and trousers, was gazing down at Lucy’s face with his brow furrowed.
Lucy’s eyes were riveted to Edward’s Shirt as though bewitched.
‘…Why does he have such a commanding presence?’
It was a chest that seemed to deserve a name of its own.
One might say the Shirt buttons, stretched to the point of bursting at any moment, were screaming for mercy.
‘His physique is just….’
Not a single word of Sephina’s description had been exaggerated.
She’d thought the Armor might be puffing him up somehow.
But now she understood — the Armor had been concealing a brutally imposing frame all along.
‘Why cinch it with a Harness like that?!’
The leather Harness that fixed the Armor in place happened to run beneath his chest, which only made his already substantial build jut out all the more prominently.
Even the Harness clinging precariously to him seemed to be pleading for release.
Lucy found herself deliberating quite seriously.
‘…Shouldn’t this man be the one wearing undergarments?’

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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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