The Slave Is Too Handsome - Chapter 95

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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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The slave is far too handsome!
095.
When the spires of the Imperial Palace became visible in the distance, Lucian eased his horse’s pace.
Frederick, who had been pursuing at a distance, slowed his mount as well, never dropping his guard.
Sensing a presence, Lucian drew his sword from his belt.
Was it the Imperial Guard sent to find him? The possibility of Camilo’s assassins was equally high.
As he held his breath and studied his opponent’s demeanor, a human figure appeared between the swaying trees.
Lucian called out.
“Stop hiding like a coward and come out.”
The figure that emerged from the grass was,
“…Dominic.”
Dominic, the Grand Duke of Essene. Behind him stood three attendants. At least, that was the number visible at first glance.
Eloïse’s eyes widened at the sight of the Grand Duke for the first time.
Hadn’t Lucian told her he was arrogant and high-handed? Yet the man before her cut a strikingly different figure—one bearing an exhausted, defeated air.
The Grand Duke’s face was as gaunt and haggard as Lucian’s had been during his disappearance. Whether from weariness or broken pride, his entire frame was caked in worry and despair, and his attendants looked no better.
Lucian reached the same conclusion.
‘One look and I can tell.’
During his absence, Camilo had ground the Grand Duke down mercilessly. It was transparent. With Aden held hostage, there was little the Grand Duke could have done.
For a moment, seeing the Grand Duke in such a pitiful state brought even a grim satisfaction—a far cry from the days when Lucian had served under him in the mercenary corps.
Brick would never let him hear the end of this moment.
It was Lucian who broke the tense standoff first.
“Drop your weapons. All of them.”
“…….”
The Grand Duke stood motionless as stone, making no move to speak or act. Lucian, studying him intently, discerned that the Grand Duke harbored no will to fight.
“Are you waiting to negotiate with me? If so, put down your weapons first.”
“…….”
“Now!”
Lucian’s voice rose sharply, and the Grand Duke immediately hurled his sword far away.
The Grand Duke turned back and gestured to his attendants. They drew their quivers and swords and threw them to the ground, then kicked them aside to demonstrate they meant no trouble.
Lucian dismounted from his horse with ease.
As Eloïse moved to dismount as well to stop him, Frederick held her back.
“Miss, you must remain here. Stay calm.”
With that instruction, Frederick dismounted, leaving Eloïse on the horse. His cloak billowed as he approached Lucian.
Eloïse held her breath, watching the two figures. Her grip on the reins tightened involuntarily.
“Did you call me too soft?”
Lucian stood inches from the Grand Duke’s face, his expression glacial, his tone biting.
“It’s not softness—it’s mercy. And you’ve just been given another chance because of it.”
“…….”
“So then, what’s your answer to my proposal?”
The Grand Duke’s lips trembled as he stood there. Lucian found his hesitation exasperating.
“You conspired with Camilo to kill me. Let’s finish it that way.”
Before the words had fully left his lips, the Grand Duke dropped to his knees. His attendants’ eyes widened in shock.
“I was shortsighted, Your Majesty. Please forgive my unworthiness.”
“…….”
“I shall stand by your side.”
It was not an answer Lucian welcomed.
As Lucian shook his head, the Grand Duke pressed his forehead into the mud-soaked ground.
Camilo would surely kill both him and Aden. If death was inevitable either way, such humiliation meant nothing.
“Y-Your Grace!”
The Grand Duke’s attendant called out in alarm. They were not the only ones shocked.
Eloïse, watching from a distance, was equally stunned.
“If you would show mercy one more time, I swear that the Essene Grand Duchy shall pledge its loyalty solely to His Majesty of the Great Empire.”
“…….”
“So spare my Aden, I beg you! Please, I implore you!”
The moment Aden’s name was spoken, Lucian’s jaw clenched.
Just as Lucian knew the Grand Duke well, the Grand Duke knew him too. The Grand Duke was gambling everything on Lucian’s weakness for children.
“Please, just Aden…….”
Thoughts of his son darkened the Grand Duke’s vision. He clutched at Lucian’s legs, his voice breaking.
Lucian looked down at the Crown of his head for a long moment, then his gaze shifted to Frederick.
“Watch over the lady for me.”
“You needn’t worry.”
“What?”
Eloïse startled, but Frederick merely helped her dismount and positioned himself between her and the unfolding scene, offering no further explanation.
“Miss, you must stay right behind me!”
Lucian tapped the Grand Duke’s knee, half-dazed as he was. The Grand Duke’s head snapped up.
“Here comes your chance to prove your sincerity.”
“……Pardon?”
The Grand Duke followed Lucian’s gaze and turned, only to see assassins emerging from the undergrowth, standing at various points around them.
“Persistent bastards.”
Lucian let out a humorless laugh and began counting the assassins while bracing for combat.
Once the count exceeded ten, the Grand Duke hastily scrambled to his feet and retrieved a weapon.
‘Still, we have six on our side.’
The instant that thought crossed Lucian’s mind, a death cry rang out. One of the Grand Duke’s attendants, who had gone to retrieve the discarded weapons, took a blade through the chest and collapsed.
“Be careful!”
The Grand Duke, now alert, desperately parried an arrow hurtling toward them, his voice sharp with warning.
A brutal fight erupted.
Lucian, the Grand Duke, and Frederick swung their blades without mercy. With each strike, broken bodies piled higher on the muddy ground.
“…….”
Something felt wrong. No matter how many he cut down, no matter how many corpses accumulated on the ground, the number of assassins didn’t seem to diminish.
Pressed into a corner, Lucian forced himself to think rationally.
The priority now was to save Eloïse.
‘If I can secure an escape route…….’
Lucian fended off the endless barrage of assassins while scanning for an exit path.
The sharp spires of the Imperial Palace caught his eye. If he could just get Eloïse back to the palace, at least she would survive.
With that resolve, Lucian prepared to make himself the bait when,
“Your Majesty!”
A familiar voice rang out clear and bright, and the assassins surrounding him fell one after another.
“Ha, haha.”
Imperial Guard knights appeared in his vision one by one. As they began dispatching the remaining assassins, Lucian cried out,
“Take the rest alive! That’s an order!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
A resonant chorus of affirmation pierced the air, followed by a flustered figure stepping into view.
“Your Majesty!”
It was Lucian’s Aide. His face flushed with emotion as he hurried toward his sovereign, and his sovereign likewise rushed toward him. A touching reunion, or so it seemed.
Or so one might have thought.
“……Your Majesty?”
Lucian passed right by his Aide.
Turning, the Aide saw his sovereign rushing instead toward someone cloaked in a billowing cloak.
“Eloïse, are you hurt?”
Lucian reached her in a heartbeat, his eyes sweeping over her with such intensity that only when he’d visually confirmed she bore no wounds did his rigid expression finally ease.
“You, more than me…….”
Her gaze traced the marks of sword strikes across his frame.
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing my—!”
The Aide inserted himself between the bickering pair once more.
“Your Majesty!”
To redirect the conversation, Lucian offered his Aide a greeting for their reunion.
“It’s been too long.”
“Oh, yes, too long…… You have no idea how I’ve been beside myself with worry that something might have happened to you! I regretted sending you off countless times!”
“Why would I die? It’s someone else who needs to.”
There was an edge to his words that made the Aide flinch. In the time they’d been apart, his sovereign’s aura had shifted subtly, unmistakably.
As Lucian was issuing instructions to his Aide, the Captain of Imperial Guard approached with a grim expression.
“Your Majesty.”
“Is the situation contained?”
“Yes, it is. However…….”
At the Captain’s uncomfortable expression, Lucian glanced around.
“What? Why…….”
Every assassin who should have been captured alive was dead.
“We attempted to take them alive as ordered, but the moment we began capturing them, they all took their own lives. They appear to have been trained to practice self-termination as a failsafe.”
“…….”
“I apologize, Your Majesty.”
Lucian urgently searched for the horse carrying the young assassin.
Fortunately, the child was merely unconscious—still breathing. Perhaps being so young, the boy lacked the resolve to take his own life like the others.
Ruthless employers indeed.
Lucian’s rage toward Camilo surged anew. It was time to return that fury.
‘I wonder, does even you have an escape left, Camilo?’

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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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