If You Are Suited for the Villain's Secretary - Chapter 67

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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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If the Villain’s Secretary Suits Me
Chapter 67
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An unfamiliar ceiling… or rather, one I’d seen before.
Blinking several times, I retraced my memories.
After losing consciousness in the cabin, I think I came to once in the carriage. Though I was barely lucid from the sudden fever that had spiked.
‘I’ve already told him almost everything I know, haven’t I? I was so desperate I practically grabbed Aden by the collar.’
Where was Aden, who had brought me to the Safe House?
I stopped as I tried to sit up.
‘What is this?’
What on earth was this crimson stain splattered across my pajamas…?
That’s when someone approached urgently, before I could even register that the door had opened.
“Iliana!”
His usual unhurried and composed demeanor had vanished entirely.
Aden bent forward to meet my eyes, studying my complexion.
“Are you conscious? How does your body feel—is breathing difficult?”
His voice was rough, as if he’d swallowed thousands of grains of sand.
I answered awkwardly.
“I… I think I’m fine.”
“You can tell me the truth.”
“No, I really am—”
“Do you know how many times I’ve watched you collapse after saying you were fine?”
“Once.”
“Three times, counting today.”
“…Oh, was it…? Anyway, I’m really okay.”
I suddenly understood the feelings of the boy who cried wolf. But this time, I truly was fine.
Only my head throbbed slightly from where it had struck the floor.
‘If anything, that fever earlier was strange. Even accounting for the stress.’
The poison I drank was supposed to be slow-acting.
Thinking of the poison dampened my spirits, but I forced myself to speak cheerfully.
“But what is this red stuff on my clothes?”
Aden, who had been studying me with a deeply troubled expression, took several breaths before speaking.
“It’s your blood.”
“What?!”
“An hour ago. You were coughing up blood.”
I immediately understood why Aden had been asking if I was all right.
“Was what I drank not a slow-acting poison after all? Then… am I already—”
“No. Your suspicion was correct.”
Aden cut me off firmly.
He continued, explaining the mechanism of the poison that Sherwood had confirmed through a quick examination.
“The poison won’t actually begin to take effect for another 68 hours.”
“…Then why did I cough up blood?”
Aden, kneeling on one knee, fixed me with an unreadable gaze.
After a moment, he spoke quietly.
“It’s a delicate question, but I’d appreciate an honest answer. For what it’s worth, whatever you tell me will be fine. I promise there won’t be any problems.”
Unusually hesitant, he asked with genuine concern.
“Do you perhaps have a chronic condition you haven’t mentioned until now?”
So that’s what he was getting at.
Then again, he was someone suffering from mana backflow himself.
It made sense to connect it with an underlying illness. So I answered him with equal seriousness.
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I’ve never coughed up blood once in my entire life.”
“…That’s a relief.”
What could be the reason?
Pondering it, I asked.
“Could it have been a mixture of delayed-effect poison and ordinary poison?”
“That’s the most likely hypothesis at the moment. We won’t know for certain until the detailed blood test results come back.”
“So you gave me the Delphinea flower antidote?”
In any case, my condition wasn’t bad now, so it was worth asking.
Since Sherwood couldn’t have developed an antidote in such a short time, it seemed he’d given me an existing one—a casual question born of that assumption.
But Aden hesitated.
“Director?”
“…Yes.”
Then he changed the subject.
“This conversation has gone on rather long. Let’s rest.”
“No, wait just a moment….”
I still have so many more questions!
My hand moved faster than my thoughts. I grabbed Aden’s arm as he was rising to his feet.
“I still have a lot I want to ask you. What happened to Norbert? Did you capture him?”
Aden turned slowly back toward me.
He seemed intent on persuading me.
Something along the lines of how such matters could wait, and I should focus on recovery for now.
“Oh! What about the documents? You hid them well, right? The Paladin Commander even asked me about those documents….”
But the moment I mentioned the documents, tension seized Aden’s jaw.
Only then could I see him clearly. His already pallid complexion had turned ashen.
His hair, usually as neat as if carved from a woodblock, lay disheveled, and his chest rose and fell irregularly.
Aden’s body slowly lowered. Sitting across from me again, this time he couldn’t meet my eyes.
“Iliana.”
As he called my name with visible strain, I noticed blood spattered across Aden’s shirt.
Was it the same back at the Cabin?
‘Those hollow eyes when he came to save me… now I know where I’ve seen them before.’
It was when I faced Randolph Maurel. Thinking back on it now, it was the moment his mana had begun to backflow.
Just as with Randolph, I called out to him back at the Cabin too.
I hadn’t intended it deliberately. I hadn’t even thought to redirect his attention. On the verge of losing consciousness, I could barely see anything at all.
It was simply that Aden looked so tormented. So I spoke to him. That was all.
‘Did my voice calm him down, allowing his mana backflow to subside? If so, that’s a relief, but…’
Somehow, the Aden before me now looked equally tormented.
Yet I felt no fear this time either. I simply waited quietly for what he would say next.
“The confidential documents you were trying to protect… they weren’t worth protecting.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Because they don’t exist.”
Aden’s voice trembled as he said there had never been any such thing from the beginning.
“It was bait. Given Kaileb Crimson’s tendency to obsess over documents, I thought if I leaked information about La Mare’s confidential files, he would focus his attention on them—a bluff designed to exploit that opening and extract Crimson’s information in return.”
“…”
“I thought it had succeeded. Until you went through all this.”
Aden’s throat bobbed deeply.
“I failed. In the end, I took responsibility for nothing, and my arrogance and misjudgment resulted only in hurting you. …So please resent me. You should have to…”
Aden faltered as he tore open his own heart with his words.
“Yes, I do resent you a bit.”
I took his hand.
“If I’d known beforehand, I could have found so many more ways to irritate Norbert.”
Aden stared at his hand in disbelief.
His gaze rose. When our eyes finally met, I smiled softly at him.
“That’s all I resent, nothing else. …You came to save me, after all.”
Aden, who had been staring at me blankly, barely managed to open his mouth.
“…It was naturally something I had to do. It’s not something you should grant me absolution for.”
“If Norbert had been kidnapped, would Kaileb Crimson have come to save him? That wouldn’t be a given.”
With Aden at a loss for words, I dropped my teasing tone and spoke earnestly.
“Unexpected things happen to everyone. You may carry a sense of moral responsibility, but please don’t torment yourself over it.”
“…”
“I believed you would come. …I trusted you, Director. Don’t make that trust meaningless. You understand, don’t you?”
Having said only that, I tried to release his hand.
But Aden gripped my hand firmly. Whether done unconsciously, he hesitated, but then merely loosened his grip slightly without letting go. Very carefully, he cradled my hand with his other palm as well.
His warm breath fell softly and intermittently against our touching skin.
“…Yes.”
His answer, tinged with something tender and faintly desperate, made my ears grow warm for some reason.
Still holding my hand as though it were something precious, Aden asked.
“What can I do for you, Iliana?”
Aden was utterly serious. There was even a hint of resolve in his expression.
As if I truly meant that I would listen to whatever he said.
After a moment’s thought, I opened my mouth.
“Just a glass of water, please.”
Aden let out a hollow laugh.
It had been so long since I saw a smile cross his face.
“I’ll bring it for you. But that’s not what I meant.”
“I’m serious. I thought the story might take a while to tell.”
Yet that smile faded just as quickly.
“Send me on a dispatch. To Plibie County Estate, where Odette Crimson is.”

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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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