The Unfilial Heir Who Tries to Kill Me Tempts Me - Chapter 41

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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 41.

I had indigestion.
Me. Indigestion. After eating.
I had never suffered from poor digestion.
Neither as a writer hungry for the next meal, nor as Charlotte — if my stomach demanded food, it got food, but I’d never gotten indigestion from eating. This was unprecedented.
A historical first.
After Fabian left, Kaius had calmly resumed his meal, but I’d spent the whole time forcing food down as if I were chewing gravel or sand — I could hardly tell which.
I hadn’t even managed to eat my favorite lamb.
“Oh, what a waste of my beautiful lamb….”
This was all Kaius and Fabian’s fault.
How could they both have such infuriating temperaments?
Though I suppose I wrote them this way!
Unfilial wretches, the both of them!
“Ughhh.”
I clutched my bloated stomach and shuffled slowly through the garden. If I lay down in bed like this, I’d be groaning at dawn and vomiting everything back up — I was certain of it.
I couldn’t waste all that food. I’d digest every bit of it.
Come on, stomach. You can do this.
“Setting Fabian aside — what was Kaius even thinking?”
Honestly.
Now that I thought about it, it was almost funny.
Since when had he been so protective of me?
True, I was grateful he hadn’t handed me over to Fabian without a fight. But the fact that he’d engaged in such a vicious standoff over unnecessary fact-checking was another matter entirely.
“…They’re not actually going to let their relationship fall apart over this, are they?”
The two of them were supposed to work in close cooperation within a year to face the Final Boss. If they fractured now, it would be a catastrophe. The Final Boss was no joke.
“Surely not….”
“What are you doing there?”
“Mother!”
I nearly fell off the ledge!
“…Your Grace?”
What was he doing here?
Kaius tilted his head toward the upper floor. His office was lit.
“I saw a white shape moving beneath the window and thought the Grand Duchy had finally acquired a ghost. Seemed worth investigating.”
He looked me up and down.
“Turns out it’s not a ghost — more like a walking corpse.”
Had that dinner really happened, or was it a hallucination?
Had I been dreaming?
Facing Kaius again, I felt that familiar urge to punch him — he was insufferably smug as always.
“I’m having some trouble with my stomach, so I was taking a walk before bed.”
“You? Having stomach trouble?”
This is your fault.
“The dinner was so tense that, remarkably enough, I ended up with indigestion. But unlike what you’re worried about, I’m not a ghost, so if you’ll excuse me… urrgh.”
Oh no, it’s coming up.
I lurched toward the corner and retched. All the food I’d forced down came pouring back out.
As I watched what I’d eaten come back up, I felt tears welling in my throat.
All that good food.
Wasted.
A shadow approached from behind and gathered up my hastily pinned hair, then patted my back soothingly.
“You certainly have neither shame nor pride, that much is evident.”
“What are you — urrgh.”
“Dear me.”
It wasn’t until I’d vomited everything back up that the nausea finally stopped. Kaius offered me a handkerchief. I took it without protest and wiped my mouth.
“My lamb….”
“Are you truly upset about the food right now?”
“You wouldn’t understand, Your Grace. You eat nothing but delicious things every day.”
“Should I apologize?”
“Never mind.”
I decided then and there that I would earn a fortune with Black Steel Stone and buy myself something truly delicious with my own money.
I would never forget the sorrow of this night.
Kaius stared at me so intently I felt pinned, then asked a question.
“Did you take your medicine?”
“I was planning to before bed.”
“You’re quite skilled at making remedies for others, yet you insist on building your own body up unnecessarily.”
I wished he’d pick one—either concern or reproach—and stick with it.
I tried to return the handkerchief I’d used to wipe my mouth, but he refused with a grimace.
“Keep it.”
“That’s rather cruel of you.”
“Call it a gift.”
I tucked the handkerchief into my pocket and turned to him with a question. “There’s something I’m curious about. Why did you do that earlier?”
“Do what?”
“During dinner. You kept protecting me the whole time. You even went so far as to use that formal address—Miss Charlotte Schmidt.”
“You asked me first not to hand over your personal information.”
“That was literally just asking you not to expose me. I never asked you to provoke His Highness the Crown Prince into a fight.”
“That looked like a fight to you?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Ah, you see through me.”
“Do I look like a fool to you?”
Why didn’t he deny it?
Kaius stood motionless, watching me intently. He seemed to be thinking about something, but whether it was the darkness around us or the subtle play of expression across his face, I couldn’t read his intent.
After a long pause, he answered.
“I was irritated.”
“I’m sorry?”
Why would you be irritated, you?
Fabian should be the one irritated.
“Why would Your Highness be irritated?”
“Indeed, why.”
……?
“Why was I irritated, I wonder….”
What on earth was he saying?
Kaius murmured to himself, his expression lost in deep thought.
I was flabbergasted. He spoke and then didn’t even know his own reason?
What kind of man says something like that?
“Well, in any case, since the Crown Prince has given up on you, isn’t that all for the best?”
Except it isn’t—if you two drift apart like this, it’s bad. The fate of the world hinges on your victory or defeat against the Final Boss, after all.
“Is there something else you mean to say?”
“No. In any case, if you get the chance, do reconcile with His Highness the Crown Prince.”
“Well….”
Kaius began to laugh softly, then suddenly stopped mid-word and tilted his head. “But why should you concern yourself with that?”
“Because it’s only natural.”
“Natural?”
“I’m just a meddlesome sort.”
Let me brush past this gracefully.
Kaius’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Don’t tell me you still have feelings for the Crown Prince….”
“I told you no!”
How many times do I have to say it’s incest?
“Then your preference must be for me.”
Here we go again.
This severely narcissistic patient.
“That’s not it either.”
“Fine, whatever.”
He wasn’t listening, even to reason.
“In any case, it’s not your concern.”
“Understood, for now….”
It felt incomplete, but intervening further between them seemed odd, so reluctantly I conceded.
“You should go inside now. My retainers are far more timid than I am, and in your current state, you’d be mistaken for a ghost.”
He appraised me from head to toe as he spoke.

There was no mirror, but I could guess well enough what I must look like.
“Do you need help walking?”
“I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself.”
Kaius moved ahead first.
I glared at him from behind for a long moment before following.

***

The next morning, Fabian departed the Lucifenia Territory early.
By the time I woke, the carriage bearing the Imperial Capital’s seal had already vanished, so I stopped trying to imagine just how furious he must have been on his return to the Capital.
There was too much to do to spend the day nursing my wounds over this unexpected clash between two wayward sons.
I was still the Grand Duchy’s mage, and I had work that needed doing.
“They’ve arrived, they’ve arrived!”
“Your voice is rather loud for this early in the morning.”
Hm.
What a nuisance.
You could at least separate the study into another room.
“The reply has come, the reply!”
Ignoring Kaius’s reproach entirely, I rushed to his desk and waved the letter about gleefully.
Kaius’s weary gaze shifted to the seal pressed into the parchment.
“It’s a reply from Vulcan House!”

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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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