I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 87

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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 87
He knew Luciana had already cast him out.
But the first person of standing Clara could think of was Luciana.
Clara’s lips trembled as she parted them, her mouth dry from tension.
“I understand your distrust. It’s only natural.”
“Clara. Calm yourself first.”
“But you must hear this story—!”
Luciana and Rozendale stared at Clara in alarm, and just as she hurried to continue, it happened.
Crash!
The ground trembled.
“What on earth—?”
“What was that?”
The guests spun around in confusion, scanning their surroundings.
As Luciana and Rozendale quickly surveyed the hall, Gorgo, who had been standing guard nearby, rushed toward them, his face drained of color.
“Ma’am!”
The moment he cried out, something came—something that should not have been heard.
Screeeech!
A cry no ordinary animal could ever produce.
The shriek of a Beast.
Crash!
Then came the sound of something massive crumbling outside.
A gasp.
A vast shadow flashed across the balcony of the hall.
It was only an instant, but everyone saw it.
It was unmistakably the tail of an enormous Beast.
“Help! Someone help!”
“A Beast! A Beast has appeared!”
The guests scattered in panic, scattering everywhere at once.
* * *
“Yowl!”
Thud.
Far below, something heavy struck the ground.
Perched at the edge of the sheer Cliff, Edward stifled a yawn.
A voice reached him then—tinged with fury.
“…Duke Teserone!”
It was the voice of Prince Erenta, who had tumbled down the Cliff face once again.
“This is cheating!”
“Is it.”
“You have wings! You can fly! So reaching there first—!”
“I didn’t deploy them.”
“…….”
“It was you who suggested comparing on pure physical strength and stamina alone.”
In truth, from the moment he arrived, Prince Erenta had attached condition after condition to the competition.
Edward had agreed to all of them without protest.
The outcome was as inevitable as fire follows spark.
The nobles gathered to watch the two of them hunt had shaken their heads at the sight of Prince Erenta slipping, then cast looks of reverence toward Edward, seated at the Cliff’s edge.
Edward, eager to flaunt those gazes before the prince, let a smirk curl his lips.
Then he fixed his gaze on the Magical Items gleaming across the prince’s chest and replied.
“I climbed up using only my body, as you specified.”
“…….”
“Any objections?”
Prince Erenta’s teeth ground audibly.
The Magical Items he wore were laden with tools useful for hunting.
Things that muffled one’s presence, things that hastened one’s speed, things that let one endure without food or sleep—
All designed to shield the royal blood from threats of assassination.
While Duke Teserone was preoccupied with scaling the Cliff, he had planned to slip on those Magical Items in secret!
Reality, however, was unforgiving.
Slip, thump.
The prince tumbled down the Cliff face once more, landing in a heap.
Tepe, hauling him up by the scruff, looked thoroughly bored.
Soon after, Tepe spoke to Edward with only the shape of his mouth.
‘Shall we head back?’
At that question, Edward glanced toward the Duke’s Castle visible in the distance.
By now, enough time had passed that they could return.
Luciana was waiting for him—
‘—or so he wouldn’t believe, of course.’
He wanted to trust that she was, in all honesty.
But after he’d done such things on the pretext of himself and Purification, when he saw Luciana radiating a chill that cut through the air, Edward could not help but understand.
That her anger ran deeper than he’d reckoned, and that it wouldn’t fade easily.
In his mind, dark beads rolled endlessly.
“Ha.”
Edward let out a bitter laugh and stroked his jaw instead of answering Tepe.
Edward actually knew the way to resolve this situation.
It was certainly not to go straight to Luciana and do something foolish, as Tepe had suggested.
‘It’s just…’
Just, if he were honest about it, he could explain.
Why he didn’t welcome the ritual of awakening.
Edward had lived a life where fists spoke faster than words, yet he knew that dialogue could resolve problems.
A man shaped by the late Duke to embody perfection in all things would hardly lack such basic sense.
Luciana, too, would accept if given reasons.
In fact, he’d tried several times.
Watching her wander about at a distance, fussing and fretting, he’d thought: she’s still his wife, so wasn’t it reasonable to share such secrets with her?
But the moment he stood before Luciana, no words would come.
Merely preparing to broach the subject made his mind roar.
Iron cages clattering as they were hurled. The screams of small mice.
The whistle of a cane cutting through air and the merciless tearing of delicate flesh by injection needles.
And the sound of other children dying beside him, exhaling their last breath—
So many sounds assailed his mind that he couldn’t find even a moment to gather his thoughts.
Another hollow laugh spilled from Edward’s lips.
“Perhaps it’s all just an excuse.”
Even without those sounds, he wouldn’t have been able to speak.
The night Luciana left the room they shared and ran away to the West Annex.
Edward had a dream for the first time in ages.
A dream of those days when he alone remained as a child in this Duke’s Castle.
“I did it. I did it…!”
“Yes, yes! After all I’ve spent on these worthless things…!”
Amid the Duke’s joyful roar as he swung his cane, Edward simply lay still and breathed.
Across from him, the last remaining child could no longer bear the pain and drew his final breath.
The feelings he’d known then returned, vivid and intact.
He wished he had died instead.
Wished he could have just…
‘You can never tell, Edward.’
In the next moment, the dying child’s mouth opened.
‘Actually, until not long ago… before you met Luciana, you sometimes wanted to die, didn’t you?’
‘…’
‘Tired of all this filth.’
‘…’
‘The reason you didn’t was because doing so would only benefit the dead Duke, isn’t that right?’
This had never happened.
The moment he thought that,
Edward realized this was not merely a memory of the past but a dream.
‘You’re truly a pathetic wretch.’
The child didn’t stop speaking.
‘Your close associates don’t know the details anyway.’
‘All they know is that the Duke and Duchess tormented you, and they don’t know your true nature.’
‘Why couldn’t you speak?’
With each word, his throat itched.
‘A story you couldn’t tell even to those retainers you’ve trusted for over a decade and turned your back to.’
‘You think you could tell her?’
Gurgle-gurgle. The words he’d swallowed clawed at his throat and shrieked.
The child lifted the corner of his mouth in mockery toward Edward.
Against the lifeless eyes and ashen face, only the lips curled upward in a grotesque sneer.
‘If she knew that, how much would she pity you?’
The words that poured forth were even harder to endure.
‘No, wait. If she felt pity, wouldn’t she stay by your side instead of leaving? What do you think?’
Edward began scratching at his itching neck.
‘Ah, instead of being pitied your whole life by your little mouse, you could keep her at your side.’
So terribly, terribly itchy….
‘How exquisite and wretched that would be?’
The moment he woke from the dream alongside those words….
He felt utterly, indescribably filthy.
That day too, he left the Training Grounds only after swinging his sword two thousand times.
Edward knew it well.
He couldn’t tell Luciana because he was afraid.
Until now he had feigned fear and reverence in his words, but it was her gaze—the one that showed she trusted and cared for him just as deeply—that he couldn’t bear to lose.
…He was afraid her actions would change.
Even knowing Luciana would be disappointed, Edward ultimately said nothing.
He wanted her to see him only as an excellent man.
Someone she could always rely on, someone trustworthy in all things.
Only as a more perfect, more admirable man.
‘True Mate treatment, then.’
…Perhaps Rozendale’s words weren’t wrong after all.
This feeling of his might be nothing more than a master’s desire to appear as a trustworthy being to the beast he raises.
Even as he mocked himself, his heart lashed back at Edward.
‘Unless he were a deviant beyond all reason, no one would do such a thing while muttering about treating her like a True Mate.’
Edward’s body still remembered Luciana’s warmth.
How beautifully she flushed when he touched her.
How pitiful and lovely she was when he caressed her sensitive spots and she trembled with excitement, her tongue parting slightly.
So the feelings he harbored for Luciana were….
Boom!
He had been lost in thought for some time.
A deafening sound echoed all the way to the Cliff where Edward sat perched.

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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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