I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 18

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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 18
Luci found herself swept up in a vague uneasiness.
“No, surely not.”
The male lead and Avatar of Dragon wouldn’t die or be injured over a mere monster met at some Gate City.
In the original story, Edward had never even been wounded by trivial monsters.
Yet the anxiety she’d pushed down suddenly reared its head.
‘…But the situation itself has already diverged from the source material.’
The moment she’d inserted herself to survive, following the original story was already impossible.
But what if some variable had emerged because of that?
“I really didn’t want to go out.”
Maybe just to the inn door to check?
She’d slept and woken hungry, and besides, she needed to assess the situation anyway….
With that thought, she dashed toward the inn’s front door and was just about to reach for the firmly closed handle when—
“…No such command was ever given!”
Someone’s confident shout carried all the way to Luci’s ears.
* * *
That is to say, yesterday, the moment Edward had stepped out after leaving Luci behind.
“This way, Your Grace!”
Following the innkeeper’s guidance, Edward walked without hesitation, though he was in a state of rare distraction.
To others, however, he showed no sign of distraction whatsoever.
If anything, his gaze looked sharp enough to kill—cutting, dangerous.
“Y-yes, I’ll show you at once!”
The innkeeper was inwardly moved by Edward’s sharp appearance.
‘His Grace is so earnest about the monster!’
With that thought, the innkeeper hurried forward on his short legs, eager to guide Edward to the monster all the faster.
Edward followed with a few long strides, then slowly raised his hand.
And he kept touching his lips.
Those lips that had just touched Luci’s.
……
He truly had not anticipated feeling like this.
That heat that had rushed to him the moment their lips met, that sensation of fire wrapping around his body—
He’d smiled with apparent ease when their eyes met, but in truth….
‘Surprising.’
He hadn’t known kissing felt like this.
Which made sense, naturally.
Edward knew women only in theory; he’d never actually done anything like that before.
Everyone else believed he’d been intimate with Sefina, but that was far from the truth.
The rumors stemmed largely from Sefina subtly embellishing what had and hadn’t happened between them.
Edward paid it no mind, saw no need to correct her—
‘It wasn’t important anyway.’
An Avatar of Dragon was judged by how well he defeated monsters, not by his prowess in dalliance.
What people gossiped about regarding experience he’d never had was utterly beneath his concern.
So Edward had let it all be.
Even when Sefina spread tales of how wonderful their intimacy was.
‘Exaggeration is exaggeration, nothing more.’
That’s what he’d thought.
But now he realized there was one thing—and only one thing—that Sefina had said that might actually be true.
“…The feeling.”
The feeling was… good.
It was the first time he’d touched a woman that way, and it hadn’t repulsed him.
Unlike with Sefina—where bare skin against bare skin made him want to recoil immediately, made him feel soiled—this felt nothing like that.
Rather, he’d wanted to stay closer.
In part, his proposal had come from wondering if he could actually attempt a proper Purification, and if not, then discard the idea entirely.
“Yes! Let’s do it!”
The moment that tiny thing had cried out with such force, he’d let out a hollow laugh.
Needlessly intense, and oddly trivial because of it.
On one hand, he’d felt irritated wondering just who she’d kissed first to seem so practiced.
But the instant their lips had collided outright….
Irresistible heat had surged through him.
His body, heated as Draconic Power transformed into Purification Power flowing between them, was vividly alive.
That she wasn’t alone in her reaction was plain from the woman’s eyes.
Those dark, startled eyes, wide as she noticed him without sensing his approach, growing hazy and unfocused—the sight of it made something twist in him.
‘…Unsatisfying.’
The feeling that this wasn’t enough gnawed at him.
As if he’d gone hungry for so long, he wanted to wet those slightly chapped lips with saliva and make them soft.
To soak them thoroughly in his own moisture, soften them, then bite down gently.
To part that small mouth and push his tongue deep inside, playing with the heat of her.
Then naturally drift lower, pressing his teeth against that throat where blue veins lay bare and visible….
The moment the image surfaced—her tender neck in his mouth, those obsidian eyes widening in shock—
Something shifted.
Edward stiffened, coming to an abrupt halt.
“…….”
He looked down at the lower half of his body in silence.
“What is this.”
He nearly laughed at the absurdity.
His heart and loins burned hot, yet his mind had turned cold as if doused with ice water.
‘Over something this trivial?’
The kiss with that small woman had felt good, it was true enough….
‘But we’re supposed to be hunting Monsters right now.’
Losing control this thoroughly was deeply unwelcome.
The reason he despised runaway states wasn’t it—wasn’t it because he hated being unable to govern himself?
‘This is unacceptable, no matter what.’
A sharp breath.
After a moment of consideration, he raised his fist, aiming lower—
“Your Grace?”
The innkeeper, her expression bewildered, pointed frantically.
“Over there, over there!”
And in that same instant….
Shriek!
Monsters erupted from the forest bordering Gate City.
Edward abandoned both the action and the thought in one smooth motion.
Then drove his heel into the earth, launching toward the creatures.
* * *
“What should we do with the Monster Corpse?”
“It’s toxic. Have it brought to the Temple.”
“The Temple in this area….”
“Must I handle that too?”
“No, of course not!”
The extermination itself proved simple enough, concluded in moments.
Even before dawn broke, Tepe and Gorgo had arrived to join the fray.
In place of the Duke who had spread his wings and departed, the two of them lured the Temple soldiers away, creating distance enough.
Then, once they judged the gap sufficient, they tore open a Transportation Scroll to reach Edward directly on the battlefield.
Upon seeing Edward engaged in combat, they plunged immediately into the fight.
With the Avatar of Dragon who hunted Monsters and his two most trusted lieutenants now in the fray, cleanup became merely a matter of time.
Especially since Edward moved far faster than usual.
Those ignorant of why he rushed so—what he’d left behind in the inn—were too busy fawning over the victor once the battle ended.
Chiefly, the local nobility of Gate City.
“My goodness. Your Grace, you truly are extraordinary.”
“Monsters don’t emerge often here, so none of us know how to fight them properly….”
“Now that it’s come to this, we’d like to show you proper hospitality.”
When Edward, visibly irritated, turned toward the inn, they surged after him in a mob, crowding the inn’s courtyard.
“Please, hear us out. Our Gate City has a truly renowned chef….”
They were desperate to network with their hero by any means.
Edward, worn thin by their persistence, curved the corner of his mouth upward while still spattered with Monster blood.
“You mean to settle this with mere words and food?”
“…….”
“If you want to thank me, use money or land. We have a Silver Mine.”
“Ha, haha. Surely the hero j-jokes….”
“Does it sound like a jest?”
“…….”
“No, actually, on second thought I’d rather not. I’ve got plenty of those already. And managing them is a nuisance.”
The nobles’ reactions to his words were entirely predictable.
About half of them wore the look of those who wished he would simply leave them be, while the other half gazed at him with undisguised adoration, desperate to cling to his every word and extract whatever favor they could.
It was a scene he’d grown thoroughly familiar with—nothing new about it at all.
“…Your Grace. There is something new I must report to you.”
And as always happened, the troublesome matter was not the monsters themselves but something far more exasperating.
Tepe and Gorgo exchanged glances of bewilderment, their eyes settling on Edward.
Edward turned his attention to the soldiers who had rushed before him, visibly tense and ill at ease.
They were the garrison troops who kept watch over Gate City and its surroundings.
“So what happened.”
……
“I ordered them to evacuate westward, but they evacuated eastward instead.”
He had clearly instructed them to evacuate the residents to the Silver Mine to the west.
But since he hadn’t explained the reason for sending them there, the soldiers had made their own judgment and sent them east instead.
Specifically, to the largest academy in Gate City.
The soldiers were still casting furtive glances at Edward, gauging his reaction.
It was then that a figure who had been standing in the corner with a disgruntled expression throughout the nobles’ fawning stepped forward.
Count Moro, the lord of Gate City itself.
“I truly apologize, Your Grace. But from the outset, your orders were….”
The count straightened his chest with resolve, his eyes hardening with determination.
“…orders I could not obey!”

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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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