The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 5

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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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Chapter 5.

My voice, sharp as a honed blade, dropped between the narrow, shadowed walls of the alley.
“What are you looking at?”
The man below flinched, one eyebrow shooting up sharply.
With everything but his eyes covered, I couldn’t read his full expression—but bewilderment radiated from his gaze.
Sweat beaded in my palm, gripping the tree branch, seeping into my glove.
A thought occurred to me.
What if he was one of the Guild thugs the rogue had sent after me?
What if he’d tracked me down to keep me from escaping?
But then.
…….
The man staring up at me let out a short, hollow laugh, then turned and slipped deeper into the alley.
What?
……What was that?
I sat motionless in the tree, eyes tracking his retreating form.
‘So he wasn’t one of the Guild’s men after all?’
Then again.
If he really were one of them, he wouldn’t have revealed himself so brazenly in plain sight.
‘The way they left that potion at the Ducal Manor without a sound—they clearly don’t want to be seen.’
God, I’d startled myself for nothing.
I exhaled in relief and slid down the tree trunk, boots scraping against bark.
‘I need to hurry up, buy what I came for, and get back.’
The last thing I wanted was for my escort knights to face discipline or a tongue-lashing because of me.
Even if I was playing the Mad Princess, I hadn’t intended to cause this much trouble.
But today couldn’t be helped. If I didn’t make a hemostatic agent, people could get seriously hurt…
I quickened my pace down the alley.
Fortunately, my memory was sharp.
Before leaving the Ducal Manor, I’d tricked Celine into describing the locations of every nearby shop by pretending to ask about a jewelry store.
The child had explained it all so precisely, as if unrolling a map before me.
‘What a clever thing she is.’
I’d have to pick up a gift for her on the way back.
Ding.
Recalling Celine’s directions, I pushed open the door of the Herb Shop, its frame painted a faded green.
Wow.
The moment I stepped inside, every cell in my body sang out in joy.
That bitter-sweet, aromatic scent hit the back of my nose—the same one that had always filled my little cottage in the Southern Region.
‘Ah, I missed this.’
This. This was it.
The walls were lined edge to edge with glass bottles and wooden drawers.
Each held leaves, roots, petals, and powders in different colors, and bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling like garlands.
Small scales, mortars, metal tweezers, sealed boxes to keep the scent from fading.
I could easily have spent a whole day just wandering through this place.
‘I had no idea a gem of a shop like this existed in the Duchy.’
I pulled out the list I’d prepared beforehand and made my way to the counter.
“Do you have the herbs on this list?”
The shopkeeper, who’d been sorting through newly arrived herb pouches, took the paper and examined it.
His fingertips were stained green and his hands were rough, cracked from years of handling herbs—the hands of someone who knew this trade intimately. He looked over the list and made a low humming sound.
“Most of these I’ll have, but let me search for the Crobein. Give me a moment.”
“Of course! Please look carefully! I really need it!”
“Right then.”
The shopkeeper smiled warmly and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
The instant he was gone, I began casually peering at the herb pouches stacked beside the counter.
From the way they were arranged, they looked freshly arrived—he’d been in the middle of sorting them when I came in.
That’s when it happened.
Creak.
Someone descended the second-floor stairs. I glanced up, half-expecting to see the shopkeeper returning, and froze.
‘Huh…?’
A navy blue hood, a black mask hiding more than half of his face beneath it, and dark eyes.
It was the same man who’d stared at me intently from beneath the tree in the alley just moments ago.
I glanced back and forth between him and the second floor stairs.
‘Ah, so he wasn’t chasing me after all—he’s just another customer who came to the Herb Shop?’
Come to think of it, how startling it must have been to see a woman climbing a tree on the way to buy herbs.
That was when I finally understood why the man had been staring at me so blankly.
Embarrassed for no particular reason, I glanced away before our eyes could meet.
Then he walked toward the counter and reached for one of the herb pouches the shopkeeper had been organizing moments before.
The instant his large hand plucked a single crimson leaf from inside the pouch.
‘Wait.’
He shouldn’t be touching it like that!
I rushed forward and slapped the back of his large hand hard. Smack!
“Hey! You’ll go blind if you touch that carelessly!”
……
The leaf fell from his fingertips and settled back into the pouch. Then, slowly, his gaze turned toward me.
He looked at me with the bewilderment of someone who had no idea what had just happened to him, tilting his head slightly.
“……Go blind?”
“Yes, this hasn’t been processed yet, so it still has toxins in it.”
Then the man asked,
“Do you know much about this herb?”
“Of course I do—.”
I was about to answer confidently when I suddenly looked up at him and spoke.
“But when did we meet? Why do you keep speaking informally to me?”
The man regarded me with a dry gaze before replying.
“You were the one who started speaking informally.”
“Oh.”
He was right.
I’d been so immersed in the Mad Princess Concept lately that without realizing it, I’d simply…….
I cleared my throat awkwardly and quickly softened my voice to something more measured and refined.
“My apologies. It’s become a habit.”
“Speaking informally?”
“Well, something like that.”
……
When I brushed it off vaguely, the man didn’t press further. To change the subject, I spoke again about the herb.
“This is Redokt. The crimson leaves are so vibrant and eye-catching that people don’t even suspect anything before they touch it, right? But beautiful things always have poison in them, and this is no exception.”
For the first time in a while, I was in my element talking about herbs, and I chattered away with enthusiasm.
The man didn’t interrupt my explanation. Instead, he asked quietly, as if genuinely interested.
“So it’s a Toxic Herb rather than a medicinal herb?”
When I switched to formal speech, the man naturally did the same.
“Well, it’s rather ambiguous, actually.”
I pointed to the Redokt leaves.
“Officially, it is classified as a medicinal herb. But that’s only after it’s been processed.”
Typically, Redokt is sold in its processed state. It was extremely rare for unprocessed crimson leaves like these to circulate on the market.
“Once you process it, the toxins disappear, but the pain-relief potency drops to one-tenth. After that, it becomes nothing more than an expensive painkiller for aristocratic migraines.”
……
A peculiar light flickered across the man’s dark eyes as he listened to me. It seemed this was quite a fascinating topic for him.
“Most people don’t know what toxins are present in those unprocessed crimson leaves. So if I had to categorize it, I’d call it a Toxic Herb. Of course, there exist blending methods that can eliminate the toxins while maintaining the strong pain-relief effects, but…….”
Just as I reached that point, something more urgent suddenly occurred to me.
“Oh! Wait a moment! That’s not the important part!”
I pulled a handkerchief from beneath my cloak and quickly grabbed the man’s wrist. I felt his hand, hardened with calluses, tense up in surprise.
“Just a moment—.”
Ignoring his voice trying to stop me, I began carefully wiping his palm with the handkerchief.
“There’s invisible powder on the leaves, you see? Rinsing with water would be best, but since this is urgent…….”
……
Whether he was anxious because I was wiping away the toxins, the man remained silent for a while.
After meticulously cleaning between his fingers and the lines of his palm, I lifted my head and smiled brightly.
“All done!”
Hehe, I looked at the man’s dark eyes as I spoke. Truthfully, aside from his large frame, his eyes were all I could see.
“But to be safe, don’t rub your eyes with your hands or put anything in your mouth for a while, understood? Got it? Yes, yes!”
And I added a warning not to carelessly touch things in an herb shop like this one.
The man had been listening quietly to my stream of chatter, and now he answered in his measured voice.
“……I’ll remember.”
“Well, there’s not much to remember, really.”
I let out a soft laugh.
Just then, the shop owner who had come down from the second floor returned to the counter and spoke.
“I’ve brought the item you were looking for, customer!”
“Oh, you have?”
I rushed over to the counter.
The shop owner set down several small bundles and said, “There’s only a tiny amount of Crobein left in stock. How much would you like?”
“All of it!”
I answered quickly, afraid someone else might snatch it first.
I had completely forgotten about the man standing behind me and the handkerchief I’d left in his palm.

The shop door opened with a clear bell, and a small woman with her face wrapped tightly in a scarf rushed out like the wind, cradling a pouch of herbs precious to her chest.
The door closed, and the shop fell silent once more.
Then a man who had been standing in the corner of the second-floor stairwell approached silently behind Barkan.
His aide, Roan Mayer.
Roan pushed his glasses up and asked Barkan, “Do you know her? You were talking for quite a while—and you even held her hand so warmly.”
Barkan replied curtly.
“……First time seeing her.”
Or was it the second?
Once in a tree, and once here.
When she’d skillfully climbed the tree and clung to the slender branches, giggling—she’d looked every bit the madwoman.
But just now was different.
She’d recognized the Redokt, and she’d even known about the toxic dust on its surface.
‘A pharmacist, perhaps.’
Barkan looked down at the handkerchief on the woman’s palm that she’d left behind, then folded it and slipped it into the inner pocket of his tunic.
“She seemed to know a great deal about toxic herbs.”
“Toxic herbs? You mean that woman who just left?”
“Yes.”
Interest flickered in Roan’s eyes as they turned toward the shop’s closed door.
“From her clothes, she looked like a commoner.”
Roan spoke as if puzzled.
In fact, in the Castillo Empire, to receive any education about herbs or toxic herbs required either access to a specialized institution or the procurement of prohibitively expensive reference materials.
For someone of common birth, it was nearly impossible.
Even across the entire empire, those who could perfectly understand and handle toxic herbs were extraordinarily rare. Which was why, for the Ducal House Knight Order and Barkan—always exposed to beast venom attacks—such a talent was more desperately needed than anything.
“From the way Your Highness speaks, she seems to possess quite useful knowledge…… Shall I follow her?”
“No.”
Barkan answered firmly.
“This is more important right now.”
He then held out the pouch containing the Redokt—the very herb the woman had lectured him not to touch—to the shop owner.
“Is this all of it?”
At Barkan’s question, the shop owner bowed his head.
“Yes, Your Highness. The Redokt we have in stock is only this. I’ve been keeping it set aside, thinking you might come looking for it today.”
“Give me all of it.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Redokt. Barkan too knew well what kind of plant it was, and what toxins an unrefined leaf possessed.
Yet the reason he sought it out despite the risk was simple: there was no painkilver to match it.
Especially for knights writhing in agony from variant beast venom, it was vital to endure the toxicity of unrefined Redokt while gaining its full analgesic effect.
Before Barkan left the shop with the herbs, the shop owner spoke.
“Should we procure more of those herbs you mentioned, I’ll contact you at once! Travel safely, Your Highness.”
“Do that.”
“Yes!”
As Barkan exited the Herb Shop and mounted his horse, he tossed the pouch of Redokt to Roan, who stood beside him.
“Give this to Silier. Tell him to use it on the knights immediately.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”
Silier was a physician of the Ducal House, stationed at the Settlement established for Beast suppression and tasked with treating the wounded knights. Roan Mayer accepted the pouch carefully and asked.
“Where will you go? Back to the Settlement?”
Barkan held the reins, his gaze lingering for a moment on the tree at the mouth of the Alley where the woman had clung just moments before.
After a brief silence, he turned the horse’s head and spoke.
“……To the Ducal Manor.”

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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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