I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 7

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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 7
“That’s fair enough.”
Tephe let out a low groan and glanced sideways at Edward.
In truth, the Teseron Dukedom was not entirely ignorant of the Temple’s machinations.
Rather, the blatant way they’d been pushing Sepina lately struck them as suspicious, so they’d launched their own investigation.
Edward’s observation about Sepina’s inconsistent power levels had only added fuel to their doubts.
“Recently, the Temple has taken to referring to Sepina quite openly as ‘the Duke’s,’ as the Duke’s possession.”
“They speak as though the companion the Dukedom hasn’t yet found will turn out to be Sepina.”
Tephe received Gorgo’s words with a troubled expression.
After all, it was impossible to predict with certainty which Avatar would manifest a companion.
If it were, there would be no Avatars who died young from failing to find one.
‘Yet they were far too confident. That’s what seemed off.’
So after conducting their own inquiry,
the Dukedom had come to suspect the Temple was conducting some kind of experiment.
“Looking back now… it was probably an experiment to grant Sepina a power similar to that of a companion.”
And so they had drawn close to the truth.
Lucia was indeed a being meant to lend power to Sepina.
Gorgo continued calmly.
“And if the Temple spoke of Sepina, whom they regard so highly, as though she were the Duke’s possession,”
“…….”
“then there’s no need to speak of what they did with the other experimental subjects.”
If Edward pressed them about their experiments, the Temple would undoubtedly come forward with shameless justifications.
‘They’d claim it was all done for the Duke’s sake.’
Moreover, they would likely have called the experimental subjects his property as well, just as they did with Sepina.
Tephe could have bet his last unfinished roasted pork on it.
‘And the Duke would have gone one step further.’
Edward was exactly the sort of man who, when the Temple played that hand, would respond with ‘Mine, you say? Then I’ll take them,’ and seize them without a second thought.
So that’s why he decided ‘Temple experimental subject = mine’ and brought her along!
Only then did Tephe let out a long sigh, finally grasping the situation.
Gorgo had traced the logic backward, arriving at the conclusion that the woman was a Temple experimental subject.
“…Most decisively, though.”
Gorgo’s gaze shifted to the woman’s wrist.
Tephe, following suit, flinched at the sight of Lucia’s wrist.
Round scars as if drained of blood remained there, along with marks from shackles.
And on top of that, the arms were covered with injection marks.
“Those marks….”
“Traces of experimentation.”
Edward answered in a somewhat twisted manner, his gaze fixed downward upon the woman cradled in his arms.
‘Amusing woman.’
When she’d spoken to him earlier, her tone had been quite brazen and self-assured….
‘But she couldn’t control her expression.’
For even as she spoke with such glib assurance, the desperation in her face had been plain to see.
Her eyes had shone so brightly with fear as she looked at him, yet gleaming as though they’d found a lifeline.
The meager grip of her forearm and shoulder, tightening as though afraid he’d slip away.
That desperation pleased him considerably.
Others would call him callous for thinking such a thing.
Edward didn’t deny that his nature was indeed flawed.
Moreover, he’d always found that those carrying want and desperation were far easier to manage.
So this woman, too, wouldn’t be difficult to handle.
Having her life in his debt, she wouldn’t dare flee or attempt escape.
Edward removed his gloves.
Then he wound the sleeping woman’s hair around the tip of his bare finger.
At the mere touch of her hair, the acrid miasma subsided and his mind grew clear.
It was a Purification force that felt somehow familiar as well.
Given this reaction… perhaps the source of the Purification he’d been receiving through Sepina lately had been this woman all along.
He smiled with satisfaction as he arrived at this plausible deduction.
“An experimental subject capable of Purification—how fortunate.”
He was beginning to find the Temple’s creeping influence irksome.
The Temple and an Avatar of the dragon shared a symbiotic bond, yet between them, they’d engaged in a delicate tug-of-war over who would hold dominance.
Sepina, too, had a habit of overstepping her bounds.
Edward was not so foolish as to miss the hunger gleaming in her eyes.
Perhaps the revulsion he sensed in her Purification stemmed from the viscous emotion Sepina had failed to conceal—something sticky clinging to her power like tar.
‘But with this woman at my side.’
There was no need to endure such things or fret over losing control.
With Sepina here in the Capital, he need not remain—he could return to his neglected lands and rest there a while.
The more Edward considered it, the better his mood became.
‘A mouse that tumbled from nowhere, but the timing is exquisite.’
The image of her face—defenseless, shocked at the sight of him—drifted pleasantly through his mind.
And she’d fainted, no less.
‘Seems she’s quite smitten.’
That dazed, entranced expression was familiar to Edward—women often wore it when they saw his face.
At any other time, he would have found such a look tedious, unremarkable.
But the vacant expression on her face had stirred something closer to deep satisfaction.
A woman already desperate now falling for him made things so much simpler.
‘So that’s why….’
His heart was racing pleasantly.
As he stroked her hair with the satisfied languor of a great beast, Tephe shifted cautiously in his seat across from him.
“So… what do you intend to do?”
“Take her with us.”
“To your lands? Are you certain that’s wise?”
“What wouldn’t be wise about it?”
“But—”
Tephe glanced nervously toward the carriage window.
Dong, dong, dong—
Even now, the Temple’s emergency bells rang loudly outside.
The torchlight wielded by Temple soldiers flickered and danced across the carriage window.
“From how desperately they’re searching, she must be quite the valuable Experimental Subject.”
Gorgo added his own observation calmly.
“Tephe’s concern has merit. We may be pursued.”
……
“And even if you do take her… honestly, I doubt she’ll last long.”
It was a harsh assessment, but the evidence was plain to see.
The girl was filthy, malnourished, and so frail she looked as though a single touch might topple her.
Those who performed Purification needed to be robust above all else.
Purification itself demanded considerable stamina.
Tephe ventured carefully forward.
“Honestly, that woman looks like she needs Purification herself, not like she could purify Miasma for anyone—”
At this, Edward’s already crooked smile twisted deeper still.
“Who said anything about keeping her forever?”
“Then you mean to discard her later…?”
Edward curved those lips—beautiful enough to blind a man—with deliberate cruelty.
“There’s no need to make that disgusted face.”
……
“She’s not some naive Experimental Subject, after all.”
“She isn’t?”
“She tried to seduce me first.”
Edward’s memory drifted back to the image of her small tongue moving with practiced ease across her lips.
“Sir, that one’s a fake!”
“The Temple insists that Sepina is the true Companion, but actually….”
Though she’d merely spelled out facts he’d already deduced.
Such a nimble, elegant tongue for so small a creature.
His fingertip drifted absently to her closed lips.
“She knew something and made her offer first—that was all.”
……
“How daring of this little mouse.”
“Mouse, sir?”
‘Isn’t the Duke’s favorite animal a mouse?’
‘Is the Duke offering such praise?’
As Tephe and Gorgo exchanged bewildered glances, Edward’s lip curved upward.
“In any case, we should make use of her as long as we can.”
“…For instance, only until you find your true Companion?”
Edward smiled enigmatically at Tephe’s question.
“Yes, until then.”
……
“I’ll keep her only as long as her Purification lasts, then discard her.”
After saying this, he gently grasped the ends of the woman’s hair.
Hair so split and brittle it resembled the matted fur of a starving mouse—yet she was the woman he held.
Edward savored the texture beneath his fingertips and thought to himself.
‘She’s smitten with me. Feed her well enough and she’ll follow me like a shadow.’
…That thought didn’t last long before it shattered.
* * *
Flutter.
The very next day.
Edward was stretching after stepping down from the carriage when a piece of paper came fluttering into view.
His eyes shifted immediately to the one who’d held it out.
“What is this?”
The woman holding the paper trembled at her fingertips yet spoke with unmistakable resolve.
“A Contract!”

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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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