Resetting Lady - Chapter 218

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“I called you here because I was hoping you could help me out a bit.”

Dulan silently stared at Prince Guiz.

“I’d like you to prepare some medicine for me. Since you were such a promising talent at Albern Monastery, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Your Majesty’s… medicine, you mean?”

“No, not for me.”

Prince Guiz grinned wickedly.

“I have a pet that I’m raising, but it’s really not to my liking… It doesn’t obey properly, and the way it keeps baring its teeth is truly unpleasant. The problem is it’s a rare specimen, so if I accidentally kill it, there might be trouble.”

“Your, Your Majesty has many… respected doctors by your side.”

“I can’t entrust this to other doctors. Those fellows have loose tongues, so if problems arise, they’ll definitely go running to His Majesty to tattle.”

“…Your Majesty, this doesn’t seem like… something I should be doing.”

Guiz set down his cup and clasped his hands together.

Surely he doesn’t really think I’m talking about an animal after hearing this.

“I’d like you to create a colorless, odorless medicine. It would be even better if it’s tasteless too. Karen mentioned that you’re quite skilled at mixing medicine into meals. Isn’t that right?”

“…I only handle minor… medicines. I’m not good with… poisons.”

Dulan was trying to deflect, clearly not wanting to get involved if possible. But once he entered Guiz’s room, that became impossible. He didn’t seem to understand that yet. Having entered here, Dulan had no choice but to listen to Guiz’s words.

Karen had said that Dulan would heal Guiz’s body, but Guiz didn’t believe that. By his side were countless doctors with far more experience and knowledge than that young man. No matter how outstanding a talent he might be, to entrust his body to someone Karen had chosen? Why would he do such a crazy thing?

“I’m severely lacking in useful subordinates.”

“…Your Majesty.”

“I’d like you to become a strength by my side. After all, aren’t we deeply connected through Karen?”

That said, he had no intention of discarding the interesting toys that had rolled into his hands. Though doctor and priest were professions Guiz disliked, the moment he saw Dulan’s face, he instinctively knew he could play with this man.

The longing contained in those eyes. The heat beneath that corpse-like skin.

Though hidden by black priestly robes, an emaciated body, and clumsy speech, it was clearly visible to Guiz’s eyes. Such men caused problems in unexpected situations. When they were enemies, it became troublesome, but if you skillfully manipulated their inherent inferiority complex, they were useful. People who wanted much but could have nothing.

“If you handle this well, I won’t let you feel shortchanged.”

“…It’s late at night, Your Majesty. I… I should return now.”

He could eliminate both of them at once, or… it might be good to create one more decent subordinate. Guiz smiled as he looked at Dulan, but Dulan’s expression remained unchanged. It was a face difficult to read. When he looked at Karen, desire would drip obviously from his eyes.

“How about this? If you help with this task, I’d like to recommend you as subdeacon of the Great Cathedral.”

“…Your jest goes… too far, Your Majesty.”

Dulan’s voice was becoming precisely steady without trembling instead.

Guiz rested his chin on his hand and spoke. He found this sort of thing amusing. How other people’s lives wavered with a single moment’s choice, and picking and taking what he needed from among them. It could be called a ruler’s nature. Shall I try throwing this out there?

“Karen is currently carrying my child. Wouldn’t subdeacon be an appropriate rank to match?”

“…”

Dulan’s expression hardened stiffly.

Seeing that face, Guiz knew his assumption was correct.

‘That bastard isn’t the father.’

Karen wouldn’t drag her lover into a dangerous place. What she had brought was merely a relative. Karen said he would help her, but in Guiz’s view, that was a mistake. Dulan was looking at Karen with eyes that saw more than just a relative.

But if he cut things off here, the pathetic man’s resentment would turn toward Guiz rather than Karen. Then he needed to redirect things.

“It might not be mine though. I’m not certain either. It’s definitely not her first time, after all.”

“What…”

“I confirmed it.”

Guiz smiled. He hadn’t lied about anything. Dulan’s eyes couldn’t leave Prince Guiz’s cup.

“No matter how much I cherish her, I can’t elevate her child to royalty. Isn’t that right? But I should provide her with a husband… Since Karen chose you, I want to give you rights befitting that.”

So we should become family, shouldn’t we? His smile resembled a snake’s.

* * *

Dulan returned to the room he had been given. For a while, his stomach churned with nausea that was hard to settle. It was because alcohol didn’t agree with his body.

“…Ugh.”

Prince Guiz had demanded that Dulan come under his command.

The medicine he wanted prepared was definitely poison. If he got entangled wrongly, it was obvious only his neck would fly. But he wasn’t in a position to refuse either. And it wasn’t scary. Karen would revive. He would revive too. But the problem lay elsewhere.

“Pregnant, he said.”

Dulan had to think about why he was here. Why had Karen designated him as her husband? And why was she by Prince Guiz’s side? She had said there was a man she wanted to introduce to the lord. But why? Prince Guiz’s child? Or another man’s child?

“Just when did she get pregnant?”

Dulan had been watching Karen for no short period of time. For several months, she didn’t seem to be having a passionate romance with anyone. One day she suddenly disappeared, then appeared claiming to be Prince Guiz’s mistress. Then had Karen conspired with Prince Guiz and been hiding in the Great Cathedral for a while?

“It might not be my child.”

Just how many men had she been with?

She’s only seventeen, that couldn’t be. Perhaps after leaving home and struggling, she suffered terrible treatment. To get pregnant during that time, and moreover to have rolled around so much she doesn’t know who the father is – something’s strange. At seventeen, she should definitely be an innocent virgin.

“…No, she’s not seventeen.”

Karen Hyer is not seventeen years old. Dulan reminded himself. Didn’t he know better than anyone that she wasn’t a woman of that age? He didn’t know how long she had lived. She was certainly a woman worn down from knowing men all too well. If life continued repeating every year, a life of indulging in desires recklessly would be more plausible. She would have changed partners as she pleased.

Even so, there was no problem. No, there should be no problem. He thought that someone who repeated life could become corrupted. It wasn’t an unexpected occurrence. He tried to think that way. But…

Dulan was bothered that she had tried to escape from her fate.

Sleep didn’t come easily. He felt a strange anger toward Karen Hyer, who had wandered among countless men and only now called for him. The task Prince Guiz wanted to entrust to him was obvious. Creating medicine to kill Prince Louis.

‘What exactly was Karen’s reason for calling me?’

No matter how much he thought about why she had done that, he couldn’t understand. The last time he met her was when they were children. It didn’t seem like she would have suddenly developed feelings of affection for him. It was the Karen who had thrown a vase at his face until the very end.

Karen’s reason for recommending Dulan as her potential husband wasn’t because she thought he would help her. Of course, it wasn’t out of affection for Dulan either. There was only one reason she had chosen him.

“To take revenge on me.”

Dulan already knew about Prince Guiz’s strange sexual habits. Catherine had confided countless dirty stories to Dulan that she hadn’t told her daughter.

So Dulan could easily understand what Prince Guiz was demanding of him, and he knew what would happen to Karen. Prince Guiz would use him and furthermore would be thinking about how to deal with Karen as well.

If lucky, a concubine. If unlucky, the execution block.

Dulan also had nowhere to flee. Dulan recited a prayer.

“Lord, show me the path I should take.”

There was no answer. However, Dulan knew what he had to do. Even if it was a path God didn’t want, it didn’t matter. Dulan prepared to make the medicine. He wasn’t afraid.

He had already made sufficient preparations in the past. The process wasn’t important. What mattered was the result.

The result that the end would not come.

* * *

The banquet was over.

Karen collapsed onto the bed with a thud. The accessories adorning her body weighed about half her body weight, making it exhausting just to stand. She tried to take them off, but putting them on had been complicated and the method for removing them was difficult too.

She should have had an assistant maid, but there was no one around Karen. This wasn’t normal. Even at a noble family’s manor – no, even at her own house – they would definitely assign at least one maid to a guest. That was necessary to change clothes.

In the royal palace, even more people should be attending to her. But only silence lingered in the room. Even without the master’s explicit orders, it was normal for maids to follow along. Karen sighed.

“Prince Guiz really isn’t popular at all.”

Though it was uncomfortable, Karen didn’t want to ask Guiz to call for a maid, so she tried to undress by herself for a while before giving up and lying down on the bed.

She thought she should remove her makeup, but going out to find someone would also be an ordeal. For the prince’s mistress to have to ask maids for wash water in the palace.

‘Well, I’d be hesitant to come here too if I were them.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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