I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 97

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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 97
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“Ungrateful wretch…!”
Clang!
The sound of her rattling the iron bars, teeth grinding, dragged Edward from memory back into the present.
When he turned, the Dowager Duchess stood before him, her hair disheveled, fury pouring from her eyes.
“I crafted you with such care, and now you turn against me… and your father!”
But Edward only sneered.
“Strange, isn’t it? When Father passed, you seemed quite pleased about it.”
“…What?”
At her gasp, Edward shrugged.
“I thought it might have been discovered, honestly. We disguised it as a carriage accident, but it was all so sudden.”
……
“Yet when you received word, you didn’t bother investigating the accident properly at all.”
The Dowager Duchess’s expression twisted strangely as she recalled those days.
“That was….”
“If anything, you rushed through the funeral as though it were the best news imaginable.”
Edward laughed, as though it were obvious.
“I understand, though. You thought your moment had finally come.”
……
“You could barely contain your excitement at the thought of installing me as a puppet Duke and seizing control of the household.”
Since her true intentions had been precisely that, the Dowager Duchess bit down on her lip.
The Duke had been an excellent partner, but she’d grown weary of sharing power with him.
“So I find it rather offensive that you’d play the wounded party now, as if I were the villain.”
Edward’s words, dripping with contempt, cut into her skin like an awl.
Yet the Dowager Duchess could not yield.
If she retreated now, there would be no second chance.
“…Either way, you’re the one who committed murder!”
“Hmm.”
“This is a crime we cannot overlook! How dare something as base as you—!”
“No.”
Edward answered calmly.
“Isn’t it rather greedy to expect that even after all those crimes, I’d simply live on quietly and grow old?”
He genuinely believed that.
Besides, it was the moment the Duke revealed yet another ambition that Edward—who had played the dutiful son all this time—resolved to become a son of fire.
When he began establishing numerous orphanages in Teseron and renovating his laboratories.
When he showed signs of offering the lives of countless children as sacrifice to create a new Avatar.
One result from such horrific experiments was more than enough.
‘…Or is it?’
As that thought crossed his mind, Luciana came back to him.
The Temple’s experimental subject who had fallen into his arms one day.
That skeletal frame, the tattered rags, the matted hair, the injection needle marks dense along both wrists….
She had surely endured experiments much like his own.
Remembering Luciana as she’d been then, murderous intent welled up in him unbidden.
‘Where is there even left to touch on such a small body.’
Yet another thought came to him simultaneously.
‘…Perhaps there was more to it.’
When he’d impulsively taken Luciana in, it may not have been only because she could purify Corruption—there may have been another reason, one he himself hadn’t fully recognized.
For instance, the realization that he too understood what she had endured.
A sense of kinship he felt toward another experimental subject who had suffered the same fate.
The wavelength he so often sensed from her seemed to prove exactly that.
That they were beings who had walked the same path of suffering to reach this point.
And so it made sense that, like True Mates and their Avatars, they could perceive each other’s resonance.
But now even that….
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Whatever emotion had started it, whatever feelings he’d passed through to arrive here, whether they were bound by fate or not.
The only thing that mattered was this single thought: he wanted to go to her side and lie down again.
‘She must be lonely.’
He remembered earlier, when he’d drawn warm water into the bath to wash her, and had climbed in alongside her.
“Mmm….”
“…….”
Luciana, whom Edward thought was asleep, nestled the back of her head against his chest, seeking his warmth.
He held her for a while, washed her carefully, dressed her in soft pajamas, and covered her with a thick blanket before stepping away—yet even that felt insufficient.
He found himself thinking that sleeping Luciana would feel neglected if he didn’t return to embrace her at once.
“I will expose this truth to the world!”
The Dowager Duchess cried out, her eyes bloodshot with fury.
Edward let out a hollow laugh and replied.
“Do as you please. Though I doubt anyone will listen to the words of a criminal who dared summon a monster and tried to slaughter my territory.”
“This…!”
“At least be grateful my wife survived. Otherwise, I would have executed you on the spot.”
His words dripped with killing intent. The Dowager Duchess clenched her teeth before answering.
“…Did you think there would be no cost? Remember—you still have many enemies.”
“None of that matters. There is only one Avatar in the Empire, and they cannot be replaced.”
At those words, the Dowager Duchess’s eyes gleamed.
“Ah! Now I see it clearly—you murdered my husband to prevent this very thing!”
Edward’s expression turned incredulous, but the Dowager Duchess, having seized on this point, refused to let it go.
“Once a new Avatar emerged, your value would vanish! That’s why you killed my husband to stop it!”
Her bloodshot eyes flashing, the Dowager Duchess began to laugh hysterically.
“Ha! You’re just like everyone else! Do you truly believe you’re the Dragon Avatar? You’re nothing but a false serpent—you always have been, and always will be!”
“…….”
“I will never go alone. In court, I will testify about your murder… Gack!”
The next instant.
Something pierced the Dowager Duchess’s neck.
‘What is this….’
As she felt her neck stiffen, her eyes rolled wildly—
“That won’t do, Dowager Duchess.”
“…….”
“If the Duke goes to prison, whom shall I study?”
The man who had been hanging limp and unconscious in Edward’s hand had somehow awakened and now stood grinning, syringe in hand, facing the Dowager Duchess.
The man from the Temple who had proposed revenge to her.
Gemini.
“You won’t die. Your lifespan will shorten a bit, and you’ll lose the ability to speak, but you’ll live.”
“……!”
“Oh. You’ll lose consciousness too. Let’s see—in 3, 2….”
Thud.
The Dowager Duchess collapsed where she stood.
Gemini shook his bound wrists and shrugged.
Then he felt a piercing stare.
“Ah, well, as for when I woke up—truthfully, I’ve been awake this whole time, looking for a chance to escape… but I always keep a syringe or two hidden on me….”
“You were planning to use it on me, weren’t you.”
“Well, that said… I did think it wouldn’t work.”
Gemini, answering calmly, rolled his eyes nervously.
“To be honest, the fact that you’re a false Avatar is actually quite fascinating to me from a research perspective… Ow! Ow! Don’t kill me! I absolutely will not tell anyone!”
“Obviously.”
When Edward released Gemini’s throat, Gemini shook his head frantically.
“Cough, cough! Anyway, I’m satisfied knowing the Duchess is safe.”
“Don’t you dare invoke Luciana.”
“Ah, you actually did well in murdering the previous Duke.”
And he spoke with genuine sincerity in his expression.
“A researcher who doesn’t love his experimental subject deserves to die.”
Edward’s brow narrowed as Gemini slowly scratched his chin.
“Though we met under these circumstances, I never hoped for the Duchess’s death or went out of my way to cause this.”
“Get to the point.”
“…I’ll soon become a non-person at the Temple anyway. I failed, and on top of that, I’ve been captured by you and my identity exposed. If I return to the Temple now, it’ll be public execution or life imprisonment.”
Though they’d said he could do whatever was necessary to retrieve his experimental subject, this involved an ancient ritual forbidden even by the Temple itself.
The Pope would clearly draw a line with Gemini and abandon him to save the Temple.
‘They’ll blame it all on a mad scientist’s aberration that happened to appear.’
And just as surely, they would use him as a tool to condemn Teseron’s incompetence—for having failed to stop even a single mad scholar who emerged from nowhere.
“But I do know the value of my own life. I have mountains of research still left undone.”
“Even in Teseron, you won’t escape public execution.”
“Even if you kill me, another one like me will just come anyway. Besides, word of this has already reached the Temple—whether it’s Sepina or the Pope himself, they’ll react to it.”
And hoping desperately that this would work, I watched Edward’s expression.
“So I have a proposal for the Duke. More precisely, a trade of sorts.”
“…….”
“Will you hear me out?”
At those whispered words, the torchlight in the corridor flickered.
* * *
At that very moment.
Just as Gemini had anticipated, the Pope was erasing all trace of Gemini from the Temple and grinding his teeth in fury.
“Damn it, that mad bastard….”
He’d always been a headache—someone prone to rash actions.
But he had one saving grace: ability. That’s why I sent him.
‘I never thought he’d cause a catastrophe like this.’
At most, I figured he’d attempt to poison the Duke.
But a free hand didn’t mean free to do this!
Of course, Gemini wasn’t the only one giving the Pope a headache.
“That’s not the point, Father!”
Sepina, who had been pouring out her fury the entire time at the Pope’s side, cried out, trembling with rage.
“This won’t work. We can’t do it this way.”
“What are you trying to say, Sepina?”
“…We should hire a professional assassin and send them to Teseron instead!”

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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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