TGDWDS 24

Chapter 24

The small carriage carried Anais and the Grand Duke.

The carriage rattled with every movement as it headed straight toward the entrance of the Imperial Palace.

Throughout the journey, the Grand Duke remained silent.

It was an oddly chilly silence.

Anais glanced at him, but couldn’t find anything particularly unusual.

Even without saying a word, whenever her gaze fell upon him, he gave her a faint smile.

“……”

Eventually, the carriage came to a stop.

Looking through the window, Anais saw a different entrance from the one they had used when entering.

Imperial servants and a few court officials were coming and going through a small passageway.

After passing through the gate, a familiar black carriage was waiting for them outside the palace.

Anais and the Grand Duke climbed aboard.

Only after sitting inside the quiet carriage did Anais feel the tension gradually drain from her body.

But that lasted only a moment.

The carriage carrying the two of them soon set off at a brisk pace.

They traveled in silence for quite some time.

Then Anais looked at the Grand Duke, who was still saying nothing.

After hesitating for a moment, she called him by the unfamiliar name.

“……Diego.”

His red eyes immediately turned toward Anais.

Unlike his vivid eyes, his face looked strangely pale.

He also appeared sharper than usual.

“There is somewhere I need to stop for a moment. Could you wait just a little?”

At the same time, the carriage came to a halt.

Anais had no choice but to nod.

There was such a coldness in his expression that she felt as though she wouldn’t be able to get any explanation from him.

The Grand Duke turned away coldly and got out of the carriage alone.

Before the carriage door closed, he briefly said,

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Diego.”

Anais called after his seemingly unsteady steps.

“Are you all right?”

The Grand Duke answered as though it were obvious.

“Of course. It will only take a moment. I’ll be back shortly.”

“……Be careful.”

The Grand Duke was so pale that he looked as though he might collapse at any moment.

Anais felt a strange uneasiness in her chest.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him until the carriage door closed and she watched him disappear into one of the buildings.

Several people passed by outside the carriage window.

Yet the only thing Anais could see clearly was the place where the Grand Duke had disappeared.

Then she suddenly realized where her eyes had been fixed.

She bit her lip and turned her head toward the opposite window.

“……Get a grip.”

He was ultimately the man who would kill her.

She had to escape from him if she wanted to survive.

She couldn’t allow herself to give her heart so easily to the kindness he showed her.

Just like the family who had abandoned her, he wouldn’t be any different.

“A friendly contractual relationship. Nothing more.”

That was the best relationship she could have with him.

Not friends.

Not acquaintances.

Not family.

Just partners bound together by a contract.

Anais firmly gathered up her constantly wavering heart.

Her murky violet eyes reflected the passersby moving past the carriage window.

There was no trace of the street where the Grand Duke had walked, the building he had entered, or the place where he had disappeared.

There were only people freely going about their lives, each heading along their own path.

And somewhere among them was the future Anais wanted.

A life in which she could safely leave the Grand Duchy, abandon the name Orelsian, and live however she pleased on her own.

Anais reminded herself once again that it lay in the direction opposite from the Grand Duke.

On a street slightly removed from the bustling central district stood a small coffeehouse.

Beneath it was a space that no one was allowed to enter.

Diego strode inside without hesitation.

As he descended the underground stairs, the coat and cravat he had roughly torn off slipped from his hands and fell.

Thud. Thud.

Even the upper portion of his tightly fastened shirt was pulled open.

Diego repeatedly drank from the bottles brought by the shopkeeper.

Beneath his disheveled black hair, his blood-red eyes gleamed dangerously, filled with murderous intent.

The bespectacled shopkeeper watching him asked,

“How much did you consume?”

“I took the usual amount. That crazy Emperor must have poured in an excessive amount of the berserker agent.”

“……I-I’ll bring you some more medicine.”

The shopkeeper’s face went pale as he disappeared into a maze connected to one side of the basement.

The space beneath the stairs looked more like a laboratory.

Books and papers were scattered everywhere, along with bottles of reagents and unidentified liquids.

A short while later, the shopkeeper returned through the maze carrying a heavy pouch.

Several medicine bottles rattled inside it.

“Still, it hasn’t progressed any further than before. I think you took the medicine before the berserk state began, so we were able to slow your mana flow in time.”

“Damn it. I need to maintain this until we reach the Grand Duchy.”

The shopkeeper examined Diego’s condition, which had become more stable than before, and spoke.

“At this rate, it should be possible.”

“Hah. All this because I received just one blessing from the High Priest. Damn it.”

Diego immediately understood the reason.

His brows furrowed deeply.

Grinding his teeth, he irritably pushed back his fallen hair.

The High Priest’s blessing was an extremely pure stabilizer that suppressed raging mana blood and madness.

It was also essential for members of the imperial family who could awaken as Transcendents.

That was why it was on an entirely different level from the low-quality berserk sedatives manufactured by the Emperor.

The Emperor had never wanted Diego to live peacefully or remain healthy.

What the old man wanted was precisely the opposite.

“An amount of berserk stimulant far greater than usual. You could have died.”

The shopkeeper spoke as though he found it astonishing that Diego had endured this much.

“You need to keep taking the delay medicine at intervals, and the moment you arrive in the north, you must take the sedative manufactured by the Imperial Palace.”

Diego snatched the pouch of medicine from the shopkeeper.

Still frowning, he steadied his rough breathing.

“As you know, the longer the berserk state is delayed, the more violent it can become. You must take the sedative quickly and in a safe place.”

Diego gave a slight nod.

Once his breathing stabilized, his hands moved quickly.

He fastened the buttons of his shirt, then put his cravat and coat back on one by one.

His mana, which had been raging like madness, had finally calmed enough for him to endure.

He placed the medicine inside his coat.

As he calmly erased every trace that a berserk episode had been approaching, the shopkeeper cautiously asked,

“……Is the Grand Duchess all right?”

The food served to Diego by the Imperial family always contained berserk stimulants.

It was possible that something had been added to the Grand Duchess’s food as well.

To prepare for such a possibility, Diego had brought an antidote potion for Anais to drink.

The shopkeeper looked at Diego, hoping that nothing had happened.

Diego merely lifted his chin and gave another slight nod.

“That’s a relief.”

The shopkeeper nodded in relief.

Diego checked his condition once more before finally moving.

He stopped on the stairs, one step away from reaching the surface, as though he had suddenly remembered something.

“What about the thing I asked you to obtain?”

“Ah. I’ve prepared it. Just a moment.”

The brown-haired shopkeeper hurried deeper into the basement.

A moment later, something rolled up was placed in the palm of Diego’s hand.

The shopkeeper added an explanation.

“The coordinates are already set, and it’s top-grade, so you’ll experience fewer side effects. Some people who aren’t compatible occasionally get motion sickness, so I’ve prepared medicine for that as well.”

At the mention of people being incompatible, Diego furrowed his brows.

“Is it dangerous?”

The shopkeeper answered reassuringly.

“Any Imperial citizen who can use artifacts should be able to use this without any problems.”

Diego’s expression softened somewhat.

Artifacts that allowed people to use magic conveniently were items anyone could use.

Diego put the item he had received into his coat and began walking again.

When he finally reached the surface, he looked as neat and composed as he had when he first arrived.

A few tables and chairs, along with a pastry display case in one corner.

That was all there was to the small coffeehouse.

Diego blended into it naturally, as though he had been an ordinary customer there all along.

The shopkeeper also returned to his usual place behind the counter.

It was still morning and there were no customers yet, but it was better to remain cautious just in case.

Then—

Thud. Thud.

Without hesitation, Diego’s hurried footsteps stopped beside the counter.

The shopkeeper was startled.

He had expected the Grand Duke to leave immediately after finishing his business, but instead, he had approached him.

The shopkeeper nervously adjusted his glasses.

“……?”

While the brown-haired, curly-haired shopkeeper blinked his similarly colored eyes—

Diego raised one straight finger and pointed toward a particular item in the display beside the counter.

“This. Wrap one of these for me.”