I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 6

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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 6
“…I’m sorry?”
What was he talking about?
I stumbled over my words, unable to follow the thread of the conversation.
Edward began walking briskly without a word.
Wait?
‘That’s it?’
I had just revealed something profoundly important.
That Saint Sepina was a fraud, and that the Temple was falsely presenting her as a Companion.
‘And he’s just… tolerating it?’
For Edward, who had been coerced into all manner of things with Sepina, this should have been shocking.
‘Why doesn’t he look surprised?’
Edward’s reaction was strikingly unmoved.
Given the noble character he’d displayed just moments before, I half-expected him to burn the Temple down for deceiving him.
‘To be honest… I was almost hoping for that.’
That hope had evaporated in an instant, leaving only cold air.
Sensing something was wrong, Lucy’s eyes darted after him.
“Wait, Your Grace?”
“…….”
“We didn’t finish our conversation….”
I gently tried to steer us back.
“Don’t you want to leave this place?”
“What? No, I do want to leave!”
“If you do what I ask, you can leave right now.”
That… was true.
“I’m in an incredibly generous mood right now.”
‘That does… seem to be the case?’
Though I was still confused, compared to the temper he’d shown the guards just before, Edward’s current demeanor was almost benevolent.
“Besides, I’m in good spirits.”
“Ah….”
“You still won’t?”
That’s not what I meant to say….
As I looked away hesitantly with that thought, a soft laugh escaped from within the Armor.
“Then it’s decided.”
Edward shrugged as if to say I should seize the opportunity while it was offered, and resumed walking.
‘Did I….’
just survive?
“Ugh.”
The moment that thought crossed my mind, all tension drained away and my stomach lurched violently.
My strength, which I’d been holding onto by sheer willpower, had reached its absolute limit.
‘I’m going to pass out.’
Yet I still had something I needed to ask.
“Wait, please wait. I, I…!”
‘You’re not going to kill me, right?!’
I needed to be certain of that much.
He could get tired of carrying me and just abandon me somewhere.
‘At least let me have some guarantee about… my life.’
That’s what I wanted to ask for.
“Sigh.”
Edward let out an exasperated sigh….
Click.
Before he abruptly removed his Helmet.
Slide.
Platinum hair caught the moonlight, gleaming with an almost intoxicating radiance.
Long eyelashes blinked, and tears—or perhaps just the light—glistened at their tips.
Features that seemed to insist he was a prince, not a duke. A refined nose, elegant jawline.
And between them, lips of vivid crimson curved into a bewitching smile.
“Still?”
“…….”
“You won’t come?”
Don’t I look lovely right now?
Lucy’s mouth fell open at the naked desire written across his face.
‘This one’s definitely the male lead….’
But if anything mattered more in this moment.
“Then will you….”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
You’re mine now.
The instant she heard those words.
‘I’m alive.’
Snap.
The thread of tension and exhaustion that had tormented her all this time finally snapped.
* * *
“A big yawn.”
Inside the sleek, expensive carriage parked before the Grand Temple.
“How much longer now?”
“He should be arriving soon.”
Tepe pulled out his pocket watch and stretched.
“His Purification sessions keep getting shorter as time goes on.”
At those words, Gorgo—seated across from him—opened his mouth.
“…That’s not a good sign.”
“I know, but what can we do if the Duke himself dislikes it?”
Both men fell silent, worry settling over them.
As the Duke’s closest confidants and bodyguards, they shared deep concern about his recent condition.
‘This is serious.’
‘You can see his control over the Rampage slipping further every day.’
It was largely because of this that the Duke had begun insisting on Armor that covered even his face.
When the Dragon Scales surfaced on his skin as a prelude to uncontrolled Rampage, anyone who saw it would startle in fright.
‘They used to hail him as the Avatar of the Divine Dragon.’
Now they looked at him as though he were a monster.
‘He doesn’t seem bothered by it, so it feels wrong to be angry on his behalf.’
The Duke himself paid no mind to being treated like a monster.
Still, the reason he insisted on covering his face was to prevent unnecessary evacuation delays caused by those who recoiled in horror at the sight of him.
Otherwise it would only hinder the fighting.
His attendants were furious regardless.
‘And yet these wretches live because of the Duke, with not a shred of gratitude.’
Tepe thrust out his lower lip in irritation.
Gorgo, by contrast, expressed his concern with greater gravity.
“If the attack cycles grow any shorter… we won’t be able to restrain the Duke either.”
“I know, Gorgo.”
“When that time comes, we’ll offer our lives if we must….”
“Let’s not talk about such grim things.”
Tepe spoke up lightly, as if trying to shift the mood.
“Well. It’s a one-in-a-thousand chance, but if Sepina truly awakens as a Companion as the Temple claims, then even this….”
Bang!
The next moment.
Without warning, the carriage door swung open.
Only one person could approach undetected by those skilled knights and open the door with such ease.
“Welcome back, Duke—”
But if that Duke’s arms cradled a limp woman?
“—your Grace! What on earth is this?”
Tepe jumped like a cat confronted by a cucumber.
Had their lord finally lost his composure and committed murder?
It was Gorgo’s words that brought Tepe back to reason.
“Surely this is the woman who caused the Duke some offense?”
Looking closer, the woman was alive.
‘Caused offense, he says.’
That sounded plausible enough.
Tepe grimaced and straightened his posture.
“What is it this time? Another woman who threw herself at the Duke trying to touch his hand? Or his lips?”
Monster or not, Edward was still Edward.
Natural beauty, a towering frame. And the title of Duke of Teseron, the station of an Avatar of the Divine Dragon.
Fanatics drawn to him knew no distinction of gender or age — they swarmed without end.
There were even those who drooled at the sight of scales rising across his skin, calling it exotic.
‘As if they had any shame in the matter.’
Among them, those with sufficient initiative threw themselves bodily at Edward or made pretenses of flirtation when they thought he wasn’t watching.
If the woman in the Duke’s arms was that sort of woman….
“Did you bring her to administer punishment yourself, sir?”
Edward did not answer Tepe’s question, climbing into the carriage with measured calm.
“I have sins enough to account for.”
He had been startled when the woman lost consciousness, but Edward quickly regained his composure.
She had likely fainted because her heart could not bear the sudden revelation of his face.
He had reached this conclusion having witnessed a considerable number of people collapse in worship at the sight of his features.
“Yes, well, of course the Duke is guilty of existing in the eyes of certain perverts, but….”
“Still, what exactly has happened?”
Gorgo posed the question with genuine seriousness.
Tepe too continued to glance sideways at the woman.
Bedraggled and slight as an acorn, she looked impossibly small.
Among all those who had ever hurled themselves at the Duke, she appeared uniquely frail and insubstantial.
‘Wait a moment.’
Yet the Duke showed no sign of displeasure, and had carried off the woman who attacked him?
‘And brought her back alive?’
The man who could not abide even a Purification ceremony with Lucy?
That was when the thought belatedly struck him.
“It appears this one belongs to me.”
“…I beg your pardon?!”
“So I brought her along.”
At this unexpected declaration, Tepe’s eyes went wide.
His gaze darted from the scrawny, filthy woman to the Duke and back again, repeating the cycle.
When men and women spoke in such terms, it usually meant….
“…Don’t tell me this frail creature went mad for the Duke, threw herself at him, and he couldn’t stop her for fear a single flick would snap her in two. So he ended up going all the way with her….”
“Just what are you going on about?”
“Nothing, sir? Duke, sir? Surely you didn’t bring her because you meant to take responsibility….”
Tepe was still spinning out the threads of his own speculation.
Gorgo, who had been observing the woman with a measured gaze, opened his mouth.
“When you say she is yours, do you mean she was given to you, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Then the woman is a Temple subject of experiment?”
……!
At those words, Tepe’s spine went rigid.
To any outsider it would seem non-sequitur, but Gorgo had always been taciturn in the way that allowed him to skip past preliminaries and arrive directly at the heart of things.
‘And for all that, the man is almost always right.’
From the fact that the Duke did not deny it, Gorgo’s words seemed to ring true.
Tepe fixed Gorgo with a look demanding explanation.
Gorgo duly opened his mouth again.
“We’ve always known the Temple was conducting experiments of some kind.”

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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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