(Risking My Life) Proposing to Miss Hazel - Chapter 35
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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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Chapter 35
“Whaaaat?!”
Axel? Fell? How did that happen?
Felix seemed to anticipate the questions that would follow, answering smoothly without being asked.
“This morning Axel disappeared while collecting taxes. We thought he’d be back soon, but he didn’t show up even in the afternoon.”
Axel’s voice, shouting angrily as he chased after Baron, echoed in my ears.
I pretended to know nothing and kept my mouth shut, listening intently to Felix’s words.
“So around 2 o’clock? 3 o’clock? Around then, Axel’s friends started searching everywhere for that guy.”
“Oh… and then?”
That would be around the time Baron came looking for me…
“They combed through the village like they were hunting for lice but couldn’t find him, so they finally went up the mountain with the herb gatherers, and found Axel fallen into a pit dug to catch wild animals.”
“That pit is wide and deep.”
“Exactly.”
“Anyone with eyes wouldn’t easily fall in there. Unless they were a complete idiot…”
“Right.”
Felix shrugged with an expression that said he was dying of amusement.
Feeling slightly deflated, I sighed and shook my head.
“I thought something terrible had happened when you said he fell.”
“That was an exaggeration to startle you. Anyway, Axel was carried unconscious to Cromwell Castle. They say his life isn’t in danger. Unfortunately.”
“Good heavens…”
That is a big deal.
It seemed like Baron was somehow involved, but I couldn’t carelessly add my thoughts.
If I wasn’t careful, I might end up imprisoned in Cromwell Castle’s dungeon for attempted murder of the lord’s son.
‘He disappeared.’
‘He was nowhere to be seen.’
Baron’s cold voice came to mind, making me shiver.
Where did he disappear to and become invisible? What exactly happened between those two? Did they play hide and seek?
For Axel to just coincidentally fall into a pit, the timing was too perfect…
Suddenly, what Felix had said to me the day he first met Baron flashed through my mind.
‘You know the assassin Nocturne? That assassin is that guy.’
…
…
No way, an assassin would be crossing the line.
More importantly, if Baron were really an assassin, this incident probably wouldn’t have ended as just an attempt. That’s my gut feeling, separate from how I’ve been viewing Baron positively lately.
“Anyway, the villagers are all celebrating together, saying he got punished for raising taxes.”
Felix’s voice, which had been chattering excitedly, drooped at the mention of ‘taxes.’
The villagers probably felt the same way.
Apart from feeling satisfied that Axel got his comeuppance, they’d be feeling hopeless about next month’s taxes.
“So that rumor was true. What are they all planning to do? Do they have any solutions?”
“Everyone says they have enough to last a couple months. They’ve made it clear that this tax increase is temporary, so they’re going to trust that for now.”
“Felix, you know this. Once taxes go up, they never come back down.”
Why are you being so naively frustrating?
Felix seemed to understand my implication as his eyebrows drooped diagonally.
His large hand gently patted my head. As if telling me to be at ease.
“Hazel, don’t worry about anything. I have it all planned out.”
“Felix, even if we can somehow manage, there will be many people who can’t last three months. What should we do?”
It might be called meddling, but I couldn’t turn away from the village’s collective hardship.
Because back in those young days, the entire village raised us siblings.
Felix nodded calmly as if he understood my heart.
“Don’t worry about that either. Just trust me.”
“Felix…”
“It’s about time you started trusting me a little. Did you already forget about selling all that purification water?”
Felix’s golden eyes sparkled excessively despite it being night.
“You’re not going to tell me what the plan is, are you?”
“Right, good little sisters are supposed to trust their big brothers unconditionally.”
“Oh my…”
I’m doomed.
“Anyway, don’t think complicated thoughts and just eat the chicken I’m grilling for you. Carson raised the meat prices to commemorate the tax increase, so this is a very expensive one.”
***
“Ow ow ow, it hurts, I said it hurts. Can’t you be gentler?”
Cromwell Castle, Axel’s bedroom.
Axel’s exaggerated screams echoed under the splendid crystal lighting.
Count Cromwell’s physician clicked his tongue and scolded Axel.
“Young master, please bear with it. I need to tie it firmly so your arm will be properly fixed.”
“Ah, but it hurts!”
“Of course it hurts when you’re injured.”
The old man looked at the young master with pitying eyes and ruthlessly tied the knot tight.
“Argh!”
Hearing the scream like a beast being slaughtered, Axel’s friends trembled along with him. The physician let out a deep sigh.
“Goodness, our young master won’t mature until he has a son just like himself. Why did you go into an animal trap?”
Axel protested as if wronged.
“How was I supposed to know! When I came to, I was stuck in a hole.”
The physician shook his head disapprovingly. Axel’s friends added defensively.
“Sir, we weren’t hurt while playing around.”
“That’s right, we were quietly collecting taxes. Axel went out alone and got hurt.”
“I don’t care, explain it to the lord when he comes. With a broken right arm and what looks like several cracked ribs, you’ll need to lie still for two weeks.”
The physician wrapped bandages tightly around Axel’s entire upper body and left coldly.
Axel’s friends approached his side cautiously.
“Axel, are you okay?”
“Do I look okay? I can’t even breathe deeply. It hurts like hell.”
“But do you really not remember anything?”
“You did go to that devil’s child’s house, right?”
At his friends’ questions, Axel furrowed his brow deeply.
He went. He remembered going to Hazel’s house.
He remembered everything – the carefully prepared rose being rejected, hearing the word ‘no’ a full thirteen times, and that mysterious black figure interfering between him and Hazel.
Axel disheveled his hair with his good hand and screamed unsightly.
“Aaaaah!”
Despite doing things he’d never done before to win that lowly thing’s heart, all he got were contemptuous looks and rejections that pierced his chest like bullets.
Axel rolled his sharp eyes and asked his friends.
“Who was it that told me if I want to win a woman’s heart, I should start with flowers and speak sweetly?”
His friends’ faces contorted with injustice.
“It was the lord.”
“But he meant for your fiancée, not the devil’s child.”
“Ugh, I don’t know. It’s ruined. If you guys had done your job properly last time, this wouldn’t have been ruined now.”
Even with Axel’s guilt-ridden resentment and blame-shifting, his friends had no choice but to grovel before him.
In reality, they were friends in name only – their position was closer to lackeys.
“Sorry, Axel. We couldn’t help it either.”
“Right. When we came to our senses, we were already collapsed on the ground.”
A month ago.
Axel had his friends steal the tax money Hazel was supposed to pay, then planned to comfort the now-penniless girl and offer her tax relief.
He thought he could show off his generous side that way, and even get a date in exchange for the tax reduction.
Unfortunately, that plan went awry from the very beginning.
“Damn it. If I had called Hazel to Cromwell Castle back then, fed her delicious food, bought her clothes, shown her a house to live in, and even showed her the completely remodeled shop, she would have fallen for it.”
The friends listening to Axel’s complaints exchanged bewildered glances.
The Mysterious Man asked cautiously.
“Axel, you don’t actually like the demon’s child for real, do you? You’re just planning to toy with her until marriage, right?”
Axel’s eyes widened as he jumped up.
“Why, why, why would I like someone like her?!”
He shouted angrily, then clutched his ribs and collapsed back onto the bed.
After a pained groan, a question that had been circling his mind all day slipped out carelessly.
“But why does she hate me?”
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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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