The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 128

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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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Episode 128

“Wait, may I take a look at this?”

Before the Former Empress could even give permission, the alchemist began examining the herbs and notes in the basket with a face full of curiosity.

Regardless, the Former Empress didn’t have the luxury to pay attention to the alchemist.

The Former Empress, furious to the tips of her hair, struck Nicole across the cheek.

-Smack!

“You damned thing, I trusted you, how could you betray me and stab me in the back like this!”

“…Ha, hahaha!”

“You’re, laughing?”

“Hahaha! Ahahaha!”

Whether the Former Empress stepped back in surprise or not, Nicole just burst into mad laughter while kneeling.

For the laughter of someone who had given up everything, it overflowed with too much madness to be resignation or despair.

Then, her eyes glaring at the Former Empress were filled with fierce killing intent.

“Stab you in the back? Betrayal? Are those words that should come from your mouth?”

“What, what?”

“That’s right. I am an alchemist. To be precise, I was an alchemist’s daughter.”

No one could stop Nicole as she staggered to her feet. Everyone was overwhelmed by the aura emanating from her body.

But through that atmosphere came a calm voice cutting in.

“An alchemist’s daughter? Who are you talking about? There shouldn’t be any alchemist I don’t know.”

“Is that so? Then do you also know the name Dalia?”

“Dalia? If it’s Dalia…”

A strange glint appeared on the alchemist’s face as he fell into thought.

“The one who became the Countess of Racal?”

The first person to react to that name was the Former Empress.

“Countess of Racal? Don’t tell me, the one who was the Former Emperor’s mistress…!”

“That’s right. Count and Countess Racal, who did nothing wrong but died under false accusations of treason! I am their daughter. My real name is Asphodel Racal!”

Watching Nicole cry out desperately, no one could hide their shock.

The daughter of Count and Countess Racal. The daughter of traitors… No, more than that.

“Wrongfully…? False accusations?”

Confusion spread across the faces of the maids and Imperial Guards who knew nothing of the truth.

The Former Empress snapped to attention, realizing her mistake. The court physician, attendants, maids, and Imperial Guards – there weren’t just one or two people present.

If she wasn’t careful, word would spread in an instant. The Former Empress hurriedly raised her voice.

“What nonsense are you spouting!”

“Nonsense? You know better than anyone that this isn’t nonsense.”

“How dare you…”

“The letters my mother sent to the Former Emperor. Didn’t you give them to me after keeping them to use as leverage against the Former Emperor?”

“That’s right. I gave them… to you?”

“Hahaha, hahahaha!”

Watching Nicole burst into mad laughter, the Empress fell into confusion.

‘I personally handed those letters to Nicole?’

She had no such memory. Besides, unless she had gone mad, why would she have given those important letters to Nicole?

Moreover, she thought the Former Emperor had taken those letters, which is why she had given up hope…

“It’s a puppet mind control potion.”

At those words, Nicole flinched and looked at the alchemist.

That reaction said it all. The alchemist’s words were correct.

“That, that mad thing dared to do something to me! You! Explain in detail! What exactly is this puppet potion?”

“There was once a rumor among alchemists that Dalia was researching such a potion. It was quite an interesting drug, so there were more than a few alchemists who offered to help complete it together. …I was one of them.”

“You… made that potion together with Mother?”

At Nicole’s question, the alchemist waved his hand.

“For a time, yes, for a time. But that potion involved tampering with the brain, so there were too many variables, and cases of test subjects going berserk weren’t uncommon. Eventually I quit halfway through, and I thought Dalia would fail too…”

The alchemist, who had been flipping through Nicole’s experimental records, looked at her with a strange expression.

“You, by any chance, don’t know the exact recipe?”

“…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It clearly looks like experiments to find the exact recipe… Yes, I understand. You inherited Dalia’s recipe notebook. Without any effort to develop from there, you just tried to use your mother’s recipe as is… and lost it before you could even memorize the recipe?”

The alchemist looked at Nicole with pitying eyes, like a teacher looking at a poor student.

Those words were correct. Nicole had treasured the recipe notebook she received from her mother, her only keepsake, like her life, but that was all.

Until she learned that the Emperor had fabricated the rebellion, her parents had been criminals to Nicole. Traitors.

So she vowed not to live like her parents and devoted herself to training and volunteer work at the temple. After completely curing Cayen’s body, she had planned to completely burn that recipe notebook too.

If her parents had truly been traitors, Nicole would have gladly done so.

But hadn’t her parents met such an unjust death!

“…That’s right. You’re correct. There’s only one of Mother’s recipes that I remember. The very poison that was fed to the Former Empress to fabricate my parents’ treason!”

“Ha! How arrogantly you babble. The moment you fed me something like a mind control drug, you became a real traitor! Guards, immediately take this woman…”

“Do you know why I remember that poison’s recipe?”

Nicole grinned wickedly as she looked at Cayen lying motionless on the bed like a corpse.

The Former Empress noticed that gaze too. She widened her eyes in shock.

“You, don’t tell me!”

“Hahaha! That’s right, it’s only me. I’m the only one who can restore the Emperor. Not treating the Emperor until now was also my own will!”

Nicole turned to the alchemist with a face full of laughter.

“You don’t know what poison the Former Emperor used on the Former Empress, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Aren’t you a fellow alchemist! How can you not know!”

“Didn’t I tell you earlier? Even fellow alchemists can’t create an antidote without knowing the recipe. However.”

The alchemist looked at the basket of herbs and Nicole’s experimental notes in turn, then spoke again.

“I think I could make a neutralizing agent, if not a complete antidote for the mind control potion.”

“Mind control potion? …Wait, hold on. Why would you use that on the Emperor? Don’t tell me, not only I but the Emperor also took the mind control potion?”

“Didn’t I tell you earlier that His Majesty the Emperor had taken medicine made by an alchemist within the past year? In my opinion, that was this drug.”

The Former Empress’s head whipped around to Nicole.

With everything already exposed, what more was there to hide? Nicole said with a smile.

“That’s correct. I asked him to make me Empress.”

“You, you, fox-like thing!”

The Former Empress struck Nicole’s cheek once more, and Nicole burst into laughter even with her hair disheveled from being hit hard.

She looked like a madwoman.

The Former Empress stepped back with a disgusted face and asked the alchemist as if this wasn’t the time for this.

“If we use that neutralizing agent? Then could the Emperor become healthy?”

“At least the coughing up blood would stop, and the headaches would be alleviated, but… that’s all.”

Emphasizing that it was neutralization, not treatment, the alchemist added another word.

“Actually, I don’t know the exact recipe either, so there might be side effects.”

“For example?”

“Well. With these herbs… probably auditory or visual hallucinations?”

The Former Empress pondered, but soon nodded.

“Anyway, it would be better than now. Please do your best.”

“Understood. Then the payment…”

“I’ll give you double, no, triple the promised money.”

The alchemist nodded as if satisfied with that.

“I’ll begin preparing the medicine right away. Please provide me with a room.”

“That’s not difficult.”

The Former Empress had a maid provide the alchemist with a room.

Then the Empress looked down at Nicole with terrifying eyes.

“And the Empress… take her to the Empress’s Palace for now. Lock her in the bedroom there and watch her thoroughly so she can’t do anything or meet anyone!”

“Yes, Former Empress.”

Perhaps it was because the fact that Nicole was truly an alchemist had been revealed.

The Imperial Guards now dragged Nicole outside without any hesitation.

The Former Empress couldn’t spare any thought for what rumors might spread among the people who witnessed this scene. She had urgent matters to attend to.

“You, come see me for a moment.”

“Yes, Former Empress.”

The Maid Manager instructed the other maids to thoroughly silence everyone who had been in the room, then followed the Former Empress into her bedroom.

The Former Empress was pacing around the room, biting her thumbnail as if deep in thought.

Seeing her extremely unstable appearance, the Maid Manager asked cautiously.

“Former Empress. Are you worried about His Majesty the Emperor?”

“No, it’s not that… Don’t you remember by any chance?”

“Pardon?”

The Former Empress’s Maid Manager was a loyal confidant who had stayed by her side from the moment the Former Empress became Empress.

Therefore, the Empress had her carry out many secretive tasks, and one of them was.

“The task I assigned you when the Countess of Racal was giving birth!”

“The Countess of Racal… Ah!”

The Maid Manager covered her mouth with her hand as the memory finally came back to her.

“Back then, you suspected that the Countess of Racal might have given birth to His Majesty’s illegitimate child…”

“That’s right. Didn’t I have you thoroughly monitor whether temple people might be summoned in case an oracle was delivered!”

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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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