I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 85

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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 85
* * *
“You can do it, can’t you?”
“Ah, n-no….”
“When the moment comes, you don’t get to say you can’t! You have to do it!”
“But such shameless audacity….”
“And yet I’ve lived this way all my life.”
“…I’m terribly sorry!”
“Then stop apologizing and get your heads in the game!”
Meanwhile, across the way.
Luciana was enthusiastically clenching her fists, shaking the children’s hands with vigorous energy.
They were none other than….
“Th-thank you so much for calling us, but….”
“I never expected you’d actually invite us. I didn’t even know you were a duchess….”
The flower-selling child she and Edward had met at the market.
And the other children from the orphanage where that child lived.
“We promised to perform in a chorus once we found sponsors!”
She remembered it clearly—when the flower-selling child had handed her the promotional material that day.
When she later looked into it, the facility turned out to be a place for children who had lost their parents to monsters.
Luciana, who had already been considering sponsoring those children, had seized on the mention of a possible performance or competition at the banquet and arranged for them to perform, making the necessary preparations in advance.
‘I’ll need to give them quite a generous sum under the guise of performance fees.’
With that thought in mind, she had drilled them diligently throughout the preparation period.
Yet the children, carefully groomed by the Duke’s Household servants, seemed deeply anxious.
‘They look like they’re about to be sick at any moment.’
The Orphanage Director, who had brought the children, approached Luciana with a worried expression.
She too looked as though she might lose her nerve.
“We’ve practiced as you instructed, but… what if our children bring shame upon the Duke’s Household….”
“Goodness, even you? That’s when you adopt the mindset of ‘Would it be all right for those of us, raised in such refinement, to visit such a humble place?’ ”
“…But it’s humble people coming to a place of refinement.”
“That can’t be right. According to this promotional material, the children at your facility are the most capable and excellent children on the entire continent?”
Luciana casually waved the crumpled promotional material.
The flower-selling child who had given it to her looked almost ready to cry.
Luciana merely shook her head as if it were nothing.
“Don’t be so nervous. This is a form of the Duke’s Household’s charitable work, after all. And we promised to provide performance fees. Isn’t that right, Rozendale?”
At the question, Rozendale nodded.
Even as he did, he leaned in close to Luciana and whispered something only she could hear.
“I shall need to give the sum you mentioned some thought… but I will ensure the budget is set appropriately.”
“Oh, come now. Must the Duke’s Household quibble over such an amount? In the end, it’s just one orphanage.”
“The thing is….”
Rozendale seemed to hesitate before speaking.
“The late duke was rather excessive in his establishment of orphanages, and as it is, the current duke is in the process of consolidating several facilities.”
“Consolidating them?”
“There were too many cases where they existed in name only to collect subsidies, or engaged in human trafficking of the children.”
…….
“Accordingly, when Tesseron disburses budgets to orphanages, we now scrutinize them far more carefully. My apologies. Once we verify that an orphanage is indeed legitimate, we disperse the funds immediately….”
“Well, there’s no help for it then. I’ll just dip into my personal fortune.”
Luciana answered coolly and nodded.
“In any case, Director, you’ve had them practicing every day, you said?”
“Yes. Ever since we received the performance proposal….”
“That’s more than enough.”
“But still….”
Seeing the Director still wavering, Luciana shrugged.
“Well, this won’t do.”
“That’s… that’s certainly true, I suppose…?”
“If you do well, I was planning to double the performance fees.”
The Director’s eyes went wide in an instant.
……!
“And I was going to have the leftover food from the banquet wrapped up for the children, and provide separate education funds as well….”
Truth be told, she’d planned to do all that regardless of whether they performed.
At Luciana’s words, not only the Director but even the children who had been nervously sniffling underwent an immediate change in demeanor.
“Please, just leave it to us!”
“Whoever gives us food and money is the best!”
Watching the children come alive with renewed enthusiasm, Luciana clapped her hands in approval.
“That’s right. Now that we’ve had our cry, let’s get to work!”
And she turned toward the last child, the one who’d been tense all this while.
It was the child who had sung before Luciana and Edward.
“Um… well….”
The child hesitated in front of Luciana, wringing his hands together.
“That song you sang earlier….”
“It’s all right. By the way, tonight’s banquet feast features a roasted turkey.”
The child’s eyes went wide at those words.
Luciana added with a brighter tone.
“The nobles with picky appetites barely touched anything anyway. Once you sing, it’s all yours.”
“Wow!”
The children who’d overheard the conversation stepped onto the stage with spirited confidence, as if fear had never crossed their minds.
The child holding Luciana’s hand whispered eagerly in her ear.
“Could you… give us enough for more than ten nights?”
“Of course! I’ll have them roast more and make sure you have enough for over twenty nights.”
“…Thank you so much!”
“You’re that happy about it?”
“Yes! Then my mother will come back from the Capital where she went to work.”
…….
“If I don’t have to go looking for food, she can stay with me.”
The child’s mother had almost certainly gone to the Capital for work and fallen victim to a monster.
‘That’s probably why the child is here at the facility.’
Struck by the painful familiarity of it all, Luciana gently stroked the child’s hair.
‘The children at the shelter were like this too.’
Children whose parents had been volunteers would spend every night waiting for them to return.
Waiting alongside Luciana, who had sent her sisters away.
But there was one difference.
Unlike the shelter children or herself, this child at least knew the fate of their mother.
…Though it amounted to the same thing—there was no coming back.
Luciana smiled bitterly and whispered.
“All right then, shall we go?”
“…Yes!”
As Luciana sent off the last child, the stage lighting changed.
“Next, we have a charity performance: a chorus from the orphanage facilities within Tesseron….”
The guests who had been waiting for the next performance welcomed the children with generous hearts.
“My, how adorable.”
“Children from an orphanage, you say. The Duchess is more thoughtful than I expected.”
Through the murmuring voices of the guests, a song like that of a nervous lark filled the hall.
* * *
…And so the performance stretched on far longer than anticipated.
Because the hunters who had departed were taking quite a while to return, the children continued singing through several encores even after the main performance.
The saving grace was that, having adapted to the atmosphere, they were even composing improvisations and performing with genuine joy.
Rozendale, who had been watching the stage from the corner, approached Luciana as the encores dragged on.
“Should I have refreshments prepared? It seems we’ll need more time.”
“You’re right. I didn’t expect the hunt to take this long.”
“We can use Warp to reach the Lark Habitat, and the Duke shouldn’t have trouble catching birds, but… Prince Erenta is likely the problem.”
Rozendale answered briefly, his eyes growing more thoughtful.
“I never imagined the Duke would actually participate in the hunt in the first place.”
It had surprised even Rozendale that Edward would take such an active interest in the hunting competition—an unusually social activity for a banquet.
Of course, he had expected Prince Erenta to provoke or antagonize Edward, and to attempt to sabotage the banquet in some way.
After all, thanks to the invitation from the Duchess, people eager to tear Edward apart had flocked to the banquet along with them.
But Edward had simply gathered them all together and led them out on the hunt.
‘Thanks to that, the banquet’s progressing much more smoothly.’
As Rozendale found himself quietly impressed by Edward’s newly developed social grace, Luciana shrugged in agreement with him.
“Still, it worked out well. About half the guests went off with the Duke….”
“Madam.”
A calm voice reached Luciana just as she was about to brush the matter aside.
Rozendale closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and continued.
“I know this comes out of nowhere, but… I’ve been wanting to apologize properly.”
Luciana fell silent for a beat, caught off guard.
“Apologize for what? If it’s about last time, I’ve already…”
“I was wondering if perhaps my careless words caused you and Edward to quarrel.”

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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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