I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 52

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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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Episode 52
A silence fell like water spilling across marble, overwhelming the air all at once.
Several servants gasped and shrank back, while the Dowager Duchess’s face flushed red and then purple.
‘Oh my….’
Luciana, too, had gone somewhere else entirely for different reasons.
She was fighting the urge to applaud at Edward’s dazzling and utterly scandalous reproach, instead busying herself with imaginary popcorn.
‘My… wife?’
Those words echoing in her head were simply too much.
Wife, wife, wife….
It had been the same when that low baritone called her casually with “honey.”
But hearing Edward refer to her as “my wife” was equally devastating.
Her ears kept flushing crimson, and she swallowed hard.
‘I mean, it’s true enough that you become a wife when you marry….’
The thought that acting like a married couple in public was only natural, and that such terms of endearment were expected—it all scattered like dust.
Squeeze.
The moment she unknowingly gripped Edward’s hand.
Edward’s lips curved upward slowly, and he interlaced his fingers with hers.
Then the tip of his long, firm fingers traced across her palm.
‘I must be losing my mind….’
She bit her lower lip hard against the ticklish sensation.
‘Hmm?’
A faint ripple—something like a pulse—flowed through their joined hands.
Something she’d never felt before.
It moved gently along with Edward’s smile.
‘Is it possible….’
They’d said that sometimes a Purifier could read the wavelengths of a Divine Being’s emotions or Berserk state.
‘But this….’
Normally only a Divine Being’s True Mate, or Purifiers very close to being a True Mate, could do such a thing….
Snap.
Luciana hadn’t even finished the thought.
A sharp grinding sound shattered the silence.
“You….”
It came from the Dowager Duchess, her eyes blazing red as she glared at Edward.
The sheer menace in her tone made Luciana glance nervously at him.
‘Is this okay?’
The Dowager Duchess was still his mother, after all.
They seemed to be at terrible odds, but if things went this far, people would talk badly about him….
Yet she had no time to think it through.
“While we’re at it… bring it.”
“…Pardon?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
With those words, Edward made a light gesture toward the Steward standing in the corner.
“Ah, yes!”
The Steward, who had been watching nervously, understood and hurriedly produced a Seal from his garments, handing it to Edward.
Edward placed it casually into Luciana’s hands.
A Seal carved with a simple image of the Western Annex.
…Anyone could see it was a Seal given to the administrator of this residence.
‘This can’t….’
Surely not?
As if to confirm Luciana’s suspicion, the moment the Dowager Duchess saw the Seal pass into her hands, she let out a shrill scream.
“No! Your Grace…!”
Only then did it truly sink in.
That she had just been handed something akin to a land deed.
Since she hadn’t anticipated this far, Luciana’s expression grew slightly bewildered.
Edward, meeting her gaze, spoke with a clean, simple smile.
“A bit late, but it’s all yours.”
“…Truly?”
‘You didn’t actually mean it?’
She’d thought he’d said it only to wound the Dowager Duchess?
But Edward answered without hesitation.
“Yes. The building and all the jewels that come with it—everything.”
“Really? Truly?”
After asking several times over, Edward tilted his head slightly and whispered near her ear.
“You didn’t read the contract?”
“Of course I read it!”
“It should’ve been written there. All of this is yours.”
Was there such a clause?
‘Of course… there was a clause about the Duke covering all costs related to Purification.’
Could this building and the jewels be included in that as well?
While she stood bewildered, Edward cupped her cheek gently and let loose a radiant smile.
“Does the dowry please you, little mouse?”
“Good heavens.”
Luciana’s hands clasped together of their own accord.
“Are you joking? Of course it does!”
There was no helping her response.
The jewels she’d scarcely noticed before now seemed infinitely reassuring, knowing they would become her own.
Money was always good, after all. And the more of it, the better.
“How remarkable, Your Grace—not only is your face beautiful, but your heart is gentle as well?”
“I’m glad my little mouse is pleased.”
“You mustn’t take it back later!”
Luciana laughed brightly and clung to Edward’s arm, while Edward looked down at her with evident satisfaction—and in that moment.
“Ha.”
The Dowager Duchess’s voice sliced through the air again, as though her anger had crossed some final threshold.
“Mice.”
…….
“It brings back old memories.”
The Dowager Duchess’s eyes, now bereft of reason, glistened with fury.
“My son was so fond of mice, you know.”
…….
“Do you remember, my son?”
‘What is this?’
As bloodshot eyes bore down on him, Luciana felt an inexplicable chill run through her.
Bang!
“Gack!”
The Guard standing beside the Dowager Duchess flew backward and smashed into the wall.
It was the result of Edward, his face cold and unbothered, throwing a punch.
“What—”
The Dowager Duchess, whose eyes had glittered moments before, went deathly pale as reason returned.
The other guards and servants standing behind her shared the same reaction.
“How could—”
The Dowager Duchess’s protest died the instant her gaze met Edward’s eyes.
As though her throat had been seized.
In truth, Edward’s fingers twitched as though he wished to throttle her.
‘How dare she.’
How dare she dredge up that time.
“So those were precious to you, were they?”
The man’s cold voice echoed in his memory as though spoken just now.
So did the shattering of glass and the cries of the mice as they were carried away.
“Ungrateful wretch.”
He’d been beaten so savagely for biting at her hand in desperation that his bones broke, and then he’d starved for days, clinging to the edge of death.
Yet it was neither the fractured bones nor the hunger that had shattered Edward’s heart.
Squeak. Squeak.
The cries that haunted him like phantom echoes.
The small, warm presences that never returned, no matter how many times he looked back to the place where the cage had been.
Those small lives that had always gazed at him with dark, watching eyes.
“Your Grace?”
Those eyes overlapped now with Luciana’s eyes.
Just as the mice had then looked at him with concern, climbed into his palm and nuzzled against him to offer comfort—
Luciana’s dark eyes now held that same worry, gazing at him with the same tenderness.
“Why do you look like that?”
The hand he’d been holding flinched.
The Dowager Duchess’s eyes, fixed on their clasped hands, made him sick.
‘Do you remember,’ she seemed to say.
Thump.
Edward released Luciana’s hand without thinking and stared hard at the Dowager Duchess.
Her intention in dredging up that old matter was transparent.
Just as he’d failed to protect those mice, so too would Luciana….
A low growl escaped him.
Cold fury spread across his otherwise composed face.
He moved forward without hesitation.
Edward crossed the distance toward the Dowager Duchess without pause.
He was no longer a helpless child.
That boy who had clung to the fingernail-thin mercy granted by the previous Duke and the Dowager Duchess, eking out his survival—he had died long ago, on the day Edward was introduced as a Divine Being.
So she should not dare lay a hand on what was his. Yet here she was, threatening him.
‘Before she tries anything like that again.’
He should nip this in the bud now.
He’d left the matter of the past in the past, and because she was too insignificant to warrant the effort, he’d simply let her be.
But things had changed now.
Now that he knew—living or dead, she would only ever be a threat to Luciana, never a help.
‘That’s right.’
Dispose of her.
The decision came swift and merciless.
“…Wait, Your Grace?”
As Edward continued forward without stopping, the Dowager Duchess’s voice pitched higher in alarm.
His hand extended without hesitation.
Toward her throat.
The Dowager Duchess felt gooseflesh prickling down her spine.
‘This madman.’
He really meant to do it, right here and now….
It was the moment the Dowager Duchess instinctively wrapped her hands around her own neck and stumbled backward.
“…Darling!”
A voice pitched higher than usual shattered the heavy silence.
The next instant, small hands splat against his back, clinging to him from behind.
Luciana, latched onto Edward’s back like a cicada, slapped at his armor still sticky with monster blood and cried out.
“Since you already gave me the building and the jewels… won’t you help me pick them out together?”

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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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