TSSAH 05

Chapter 05

I know it.

This is exactly the feeling when a blade is pressed to your neck.

*Gulp.*

Killian Nox and I were a good ten paces apart.

Yet, a sense of crisis, as if the sharp tip of a blade were pressing against the soft flesh under my chin, ran down my spine.

“Stop.”

Damn it.

I gritted my teeth and slowly turned around.

And once again, I met Killian Nox’s eyes.

From the day my entire family died, for 13 years in Wickers, my survival instinct that had protected me now identified the man before me as the apex predator.

My blood ran cold, and in an instant, all my senses sharpened.

The gentle sway of the hair falling across Killian Nox’s forehead seemed to move in slow motion.

*Tap, tap.*

The sound of the man carelessly unbuttoning his blood-stained shirt struck my eardrums like thunder.

His long, firmly shaped legs moved, and as the tips of his shoes turned towards me, the taut air was palpable against my skin.

“I… would…”

I forced my voice out and bowed my head respectfully.

“Would you like anything else, sir?”

Fortunately, my voice came out steady and calm.

A piercing gaze seemed to strike my crown for a moment, then Killian Nox commanded in a languid tone.

“Put in the bath oil.”

What a pain in the ass, honestly!

If I had my way, I’d run out of this bathroom, no, out of this mansion right now, but—

“Yes, understood.”

Keeping my head bowed to avoid meeting his eyes again, I quietly walked over to the bathtub.

‘He didn’t suspect me, did he…?’

If Killian Nox had been suspicious of me, I would have ended up like that spy the moment I stepped into the bathroom.

In other words, there was still hope.

‘I can live!’

But my brief glimpse of hope faded as I stared blankly at the dozens of bottles of bath oil.

How was I supposed to know what kind of bath oil Killian Nox liked?

The information hardest to gather during my time in Wickers was about Killian Nox.

No matter how much I shook down spies and informants, the only answer that came back was ‘he has no interest in anything, and likes nothing’.

‘Huh, that’s…?’

As I racked my brain and chewed on my lips, a bottle with a familiar shape caught my eye.

It was a pale green oil, extracted from the Geltus plant, typically used for medicinal purposes like treating muscle pain.

It was the best thing for getting rid of the stubborn smell of blood that soaked into the body, and I used it often myself.

It wasn’t usually used as a bath additive, yet here it was.

I poured the Geltus oil generously into the bathtub, stirred the water roughly with the large wooden ladle placed beside it, and the milky-white Geltus oil quickly mixed in.

Fortunately, Killian Nox was no longer paying any attention to me.

He seemed focused only on undressing, and only the occasional rustle of fabric against fabric echoed in the bathroom.

Just then, a new person abruptly entered the bathroom.

“Hmm? You’re still here?”

It was Dupont Clansher, the one who had ordered me to prepare the water.

He glanced between me and Killian Nox, then waved his hand dismissively.

“You’re done here, so get out.”

Hey!

Thanks a lot, Dupont!

“Yes, sir.”

I quickly bowed towards Killian and bolted out of the bathroom.

Having barely escaped to my room, I leaned my back against the door and slid down to sit on the floor.

I didn’t even have the energy to make it to the bed.

“Crazy…”

A moan-like sound escaped through my fingers covering my mouth.

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

“I almost… died.”

So this is what it feels like to have your head inside a beast’s jaws and pull it back out.

I kept wiping my face with my hands and let out another deep sigh.

“…I’m alive.”

For some reason, Killian Nox’s decadent eyes and smooth skin tone lingered in my mind like a dirty little red book.

But in this situation where I’d nearly just died, such things were quickly forgotten.

Behind the small-built action squad member scurrying out as if his tail was on fire, Killian’s gaze clung on tenaciously.

But only for a moment.

Tearing the blood-soaked, irritatingly clinging clothes from his body like wet paper with his fingertips, he walked towards the bathtub, cracking his neck from side to side.

Every time he stretched his long legs and moved languidly, the muscles flowing across his entire body writhed and seethed.

There are two types of people in the world.

Those who look bigger with clothes on, and those who look bigger with clothes off.

Killian Nox, the Duke and boss of Dupont, was absolutely the latter.

For Killian, clothes were a kind of camouflage.

Because when he undid the buttons, he revealed his true nature like a beast released from its leash.

Even Dupont, who had been born into the Clansher family, vassals to Nox for generations, and had lived as his close aide, would occasionally flinch in surprise—Killian without clothes was ferocious and dangerous.

His flawlessly constructed body moved with the perfect interlocking precision of a complex machine.

And Dupont knew well the superhuman strength that body possessed.

Crushing a person like a ripe tomato, as he had just done, was as easy for Killian as lifting an empty teacup.

“Dupont.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Killian, who had been lying in the massive bathtub with his long eyelashes closed, casting shadows beneath his eyes, quietly opened his mouth.

“How many times is this now?”

*Flinch.*

Dupont’s body stiffened.

“It was the third… time.”

Recently, spies had been continuously discovered within the organization.

The intelligence department had done its best to filter them out, but three had ultimately been caught directly by the boss’s own eyes.

The one ordered to identify their origins and patch the security holes was Grayer Nox, the head of the intelligence department.

Yet he continued to fail.

Dupont bowed his head, thinking, ‘So today is finally the day Grayer Nox dies.’

The fact that he was blood-related to the Duke didn’t matter.

Under the name of Nox, everyone simply submitted at Killian’s feet.

“……”

But no matter how long he waited, the order condemning Grayer Nox’s end did not come.

*Splash.*

Along with the sound of trickling water, Killian languidly swept his hair back.

He looked more like a bewitching work of art, so different from the man who had just torn a spy apart with his bare hands.

Dupont realized that Grayer Nox had already vanished without a trace from Killian’s mind.

‘I thought he wouldn’t show any more leniency.’

While inwardly tilting his head in curiosity, Dupont stopped trying to fathom Killian’s intentions.

Even he, who had grown up like a brother, could never truly understand his mind.

At times like this, the wisest course was to simply think ‘He must have his reasons’ and wait for orders.

“What about the one I told you to look into?”

“Ah, you mean Helena Morton?”

“Yes.”

Killian’s half-lidded golden eyes, holding the steam, glowed opaquely.

“That woman is no ordinary person.”

Dupont shook his head and replied.

“Who would have thought a survivor of the Morton family was hiding in Wickers.”

It was about a year ago. An unprecedented incident occurred in Wickers, which had been eyeing Nox’s position with greedy intent.

The protagonist of the incident was Helena, who had made a name for herself as the adjutant to Viscount Edward Wickers.

An orphan who started as a street pickpocket for Wickers, she had vertically broken through the complex and dense ladder of the organization.

Just as she was making a name for herself as an assassin, she gathered information acquired during missions and established an intelligence unit within Wickers.

It took exactly three years for her to lead this newly formed intelligence unit, completely disrupting Nox’s information department, and establish herself as a new power within Wickers.

In particular, Edward Wickers cherished and kept her so close that rumors spread of a relationship between heir and right-hand man that went beyond mere formality.

Then, a year ago, that very Helena suddenly killed Count Benedict Wickers and disappeared.

“I even heard she was about to be granted a surname.”

Wickers had a unique tradition: upon receiving the organization’s recognition, one would be bestowed with the head family’s surname, ‘Wickers’.

It was a solid mark of power, and at the same time, a sign that touching that person would make you the target of Wickers’s infamous ‘Bloody Revenge’.

“She’s hidden so eerily well that we can’t find her. Perhaps… this may be beyond my capability, Your Grace.”

Dupont sighed, pressing his deeply furrowed brow.

Helena of Wickers was frustratingly capable.

Many in Nox, especially Grayer Nox who had been thoroughly defeated in the spy war, ground their teeth at just the mention of her name.

When word spread that she had suddenly killed Benedict Wickers and fled, Grayer Nox’s household reportedly held celebratory banquets for days on end.

The logic was that, now hunted by the Wickers wolves, Helena was already a dead woman.

But that was all.

Until the urgent news arrived at Nox’s intelligence department.

[Edward Wickers is searching for ‘Helena Morton’.]

The surname Morton held a special meaning for the Nox ducal family.

“She’s a woman who sharpened her blade for 13 years for the sake of avenging her family, isn’t she? When the Morton family tragedy occurred, Helena Morton was only 10 years old. Meaning she had been moving for revenge since that tender age…”

Honestly, it was terrifying.

What kind of eyes would a human being with that much venom in them have?

But.

“Find her.”

One word.

“Find Helena Morton and bring her before me.”