I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 75

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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 75
Edward ended his confinement in what felt like no time at all, and swiftly dealt with the retainers who had grown treacherous in his absence—now he appeared at the Training Ground every day, drilling the knights with renewed vigor.
“Your… Your Grace? Your health, it isn’t—”
“I’m fine.”
“Sir?”
Tephe couldn’t have known it, but the luminescence that once clung to Edward’s body had indeed diminished.
Instead, where the radiant scales had been, a murky discoloration now spread—as though his very heart had left its mark upon his skin.
Regardless, the Edward who had returned was far more terrifying than before.
The observation that discipline had grown slack wasn’t entirely wrong—the knights groaned and complained while dutifully submitting to additional training against their will.
Yet there was something in their protest, both Tephe’s and the other soldiers’, that bordered on the unfair.
‘It’s not as though the Duke weakened of his own accord. We all simply followed his lead.’
When Edward had grown soft shortly after his marriage, the soldiers had naturally relaxed in turn.
There was even a time when he’d said something absurd like “rest when you’re tired,” which had shocked them all.
But now—
With the situation reversed one hundred eighty degrees, Teseron’s knights lately complained of wanting to die.
The servants and attendants who primarily tended the Duke’s chambers walked on thin ice no less.
If anything, Tephe had simply stepped forward as their representative.
But Luciana’s reaction was ice-cold.
She too was preoccupied with serious thought.
‘Do I belong here at all?’
It wasn’t that she’d now developed guilt for sitting in the seat of the duchess in someone else’s stead.
This was something far more fundamental—a question at its root.
“Stay here. It’s dangerous.”
“Honestly, with your reflexes you’d only be a hindrance. Just sit here quietly and eat sweets while you wait.”
…Just as it had been when her sisters said such things, her confidence in herself wavered.
‘Did I truly find my purpose here?’
Her mind understood it clearly.
It was wrong to measure a person’s worth by what use they could be.
But in her previous life, after the Monster Wave had erupted, Luciana had witnessed many things.
It wasn’t always that way in the beginning.
There were those who didn’t flee, who helped the elderly and weak to safety. There were those who tended the wounded and shared what food they had.
…But as the Monster Wave dragged on, the shelters grew territorial and cruel.
People began to divide themselves by utility, offering those deemed useless as fodder to the monsters.
Such things had hypnotized Luciana’s heart.
You had to be useful.
Only then could you survive; only then could you meet your sisters again.
It wasn’t easy to shake off a belief held so fiercely for years.
Perhaps that was why.
When Edward had spoken of her being useful, she’d felt a secret joy.
‘When Purification worked too… I was happy.’
She barely understood how to wield Purification Power properly, after all—she’d only relied on that crude rule of thumb, that anyone she touched would be purified without exception.
And even that purification had stopped now.
Luciana hadn’t returned to their chambers.
That night, she’d impulsively fled to temporary quarters in the Western Annex, the domain once belonging to the duchess, and remained there since.
…And from that moment on, Edward had not come to see her.
Not once.
There was one thing she’d only come to understand now.
‘In truth—’
She’d been hoping he would console her.
That he would say she was wrong, that it wasn’t what she’d meant, that he believed in her after all.
But no such thing had come to pass in the days that followed.
‘…How foolish of me to worry.’
She was the one who’d sworn to make him a complete incarnation, fearing he might go berserk. How foolish.
When he himself didn’t even want her consciousness.
‘So why am I here?’
It was this thought that made her voice emerge rather coldly.
“…We didn’t even fight in the first place.”
Tephe, who’d been staring at her, rolled his eyes.
The reply that followed was not what Luciana had anticipated.
“Of course you didn’t fight, Miss. The Duke must have simply misspoken.”
“What did you say?”
They weren’t even her handmaids—why was she taking his side?
Luciana flinched at the unexpected remark.
“If you could simply forgive him, thinking he never learned any better, wouldn’t that suffice?”
A stunning statement had slipped out in an instant.
Never learned? Who?
“…Tephe, of all people, saying something like that?”
Rosendale and Gorgo—alongside Tephe—were hardly second to anyone in their devotion to Edward.
She’d seen him grow comfortable around her lately, true enough, but she never expected him to speak of Edward in such a disparaging tone.
Tephe muttered something about forgiveness, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Separate from my loyalty to the Duke, it’s objectively fair to say his disposition isn’t pleasant.”
……
“And when I say he never learned… of course I’m not insulting him.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I met the Duke rather late.”
Tephe ventured into an oddly tangential story.
“When he was around sixteen, I believe? Gorgo here saw him a bit earlier. And as it happens, Rosendale met him latest of all.”
He rolled his eyes as he continued.
“In any case… when I first met him, the Duke was truly flawless—textbook perfect, you might say. His manners were even better than they are now, and he was remarkably gentle, even.”
“…I have trouble imagining that.”
Tephe nodded understandingly.
“The thing is… his manner with people was textbook, quite literally.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seemed he’d learned it all from theory, not from real experience, if you take my meaning.”
Having said that much, Tephe carefully considered his next words.
Of course, he was doing all this for Edward’s sake….
‘I need to be careful.’
From here on, the matter grew delicate—he’d have to blend truth and fiction with care.
He couldn’t let Edward later resent him for rashly dredging up old stories as though he were being disparaged.
So Tephe chose his words with deliberation before continuing.
“I learned the truth only later.”
……
“The Duke’s perfection… was formed in just half a year, between his ninth and tenth birthdays.”
……
“Etiquette, astronomy, history, geography, Magic Power Control, Swordsmanship, Social Dance… countless things.”
Luciana started at hearing this for the first time.
“Why….”
“There was a rumor that circulated quietly back then.”
“What rumor?”
“That the Duke had been confined to bed until he was nine on account of health troubles. It turned out to be true.”
……
“As a result, there was much to learn and the instruction was harsh, so he scarcely got to meet many people. From his tenth year onward, he was busy hunting monsters.”
Tephe shrugged again.
“When you think about it, it’s some lack of childhood attachment relationships or whatever you’d call it—that’s why he speaks the way he does. At least in matters of social grace, my lady seems superior, so it would simply be a matter of teaching him….”
“You certainly know how to flatter a person.”
Even as she spoke curtly, Luciana understood why her heart felt so unsettled.
‘…Childhood, he said.’
The moment she heard that from Tephe, it came rushing back.
That suspicious, utterly bizarre hidden chamber she’d glimpsed in the Western Annex before.
Ever since witnessing Edward’s manner with the children, Luciana had been gnawing over that room.
So shortly after she’d gone to stay in the Western Annex, she’d tried to examine it again….
‘But it had vanished without a trace.’
As though no such mechanism had ever existed, the spot where the button beneath the vanity had been was now perfectly smooth.
Even when she’d knocked on the wall that had opened before, it yielded nothing.
If it had been hollow, there would have been a sound.
Instead, there was only a dull thud—as though she were knocking on a wall packed solid with brick.
‘It’s enough to make spirits weep.’
Had someone erased it during that brief interval when the annex was being transferred to her?
Or had she hallucinated the whole thing?
And why did the mere thought of that room leave her so anxious and ill at ease?
Why do I still think of him, even now, in this situation?
“The truth is, my lady, I know you think of the Duke as well.”
The moment that thought crossed my mind.
Tephe struck at the heart of it with his words.

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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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