Chapter 2

For a moment, Kassia’s eyelids fluttered like a whirlwind as she panicked.

What on earth was going on?

Just as she struggled to understand the situation, she noticed something else.

Something warm pressed against her side.

…Something very warm pressed against her side.

She had a bad feeling about this, so she quickly lifted her head and looked in that direction.

And there she saw a living creature pressed far too closely against her.

…A half-naked man?

“Eek!”

Terrified, she wriggled away until she was pressed against the very edge of the bed.

I’m crazy! I’ve completely lost my mind!

It seemed she had become a slave to alcohol and spent a passionate night with someone.

After all, she was lying in the same bed as a man she had never met before.

“…”

His exposed upper body was already enough to make him look sensual, and his muscles were beautifully defined…

Is this really the time to think about that?!

Kassia wiped away her drool and clenched her fists.

Then, wondering if this was all real, she banged her head against the pitch-black bedpost.

Ow!

It hurt.

Her bones were practically ringing, so damn it, this was reality.

What made things even worse was that this was only her first misfortune.

They said good luck came alone, but bad luck came in pairs, like lovers.

And her second misfortune was…

…His hair is black!

The sleeping man’s hair was pitch-black.

Thinking she might have seen it wrong, Kassia squeezed her eyes shut twice before opening them again.

Perhaps, if she wished hard enough, a miracle would happen and his hair color would change…

Of course not!

He’s royalty…!

This man was so dangerously handsome that even his straight collarbones were irresistible.

He was famous enough that even ordinary villagers knew about him, thanks to the articles Osram wrote about him so often.

There were many ways to describe this man.

The Emperor’s one and only younger brother.

A brutal war hero.

The only person standing above me is the Emperor. Everyone else crawls at my feet.

His title was Grand Duke, which made even such arrogant words understandable.

Calix Alexevich Verbena Penminid.

Kassia had never met him before…

But those reasons alone weren’t why she was so horrified to see him.

This is all because of that bastard Osram and his articles!

Of course, the attempt had failed.

Afterward, the Grand Duke had reportedly declared with a cold, hateful expression:

“I will wipe out the Talpiot family for creating such a filthy potion!”

And the heir to the Talpiot family was none other than Kassia herself.

So, what were her options in this situation?

One: Run away first and ask questions later.

Two: She needed to keep her head attached to her body if she wanted to explain herself. So, run away!

Three: Whatever happened, just run!

…Out of a hundred possible choices, waiting for this man to wake up wasn’t one of them.

“Let’s get out of here!”

Uuuugh.

Something stirred in a dark room where not a single ray of sunlight could enter.

It was a caterpillar crawling lazily toward the window.

“I miss the sunlight.”

The caterpillar spoke like a human.

Ah!

Looking more closely, the caterpillar was actually Kassia.

Using the windowsill for support, she managed to raise half her body and gently lifted the apricot-colored curtain.

Then she wrapped the curtain around her face for cover before carefully rolling her eyes around.

As expected, nothing had changed today.

The streets were still filled with knights.

“Damn it!”

Every single knight wore silver armor.

That was the kind of armor they wore when going to war, and seeing it made Kassia extremely uneasy.

Her hands and feet were trembling, but if that had been the only problem, she could have handled it.

Unfortunately, there was something else bothering her.

That stupid crest.

She licked her dry lips and repeatedly ran her tongue over them nervously as she stared at the knights’ breastplates.

The crest engraved on them was painfully familiar.

Every citizen of the Empire knew it, even newborn babies.

It showed two black snakes crossing over each other and coiling around a sword.

It belonged to Calix Alexevich Verbena Penminid, the Grand Duke himself.

Which meant that the people wearing those crests were members of his knights.

They were commonly known as the Black Snakes.

They were the knights who fought alongside the Grand Duke, the Empire’s war hero.

I know who you are. I know, okay?

But was this a battlefield?

Why were they standing there, giving off such a threatening aura?

Even though they stood perfectly still like dolls, the knights’ presence was so intimidating that customers who had come to buy herbs and potions all fled.

“Ugh.”

At this rate, the potion makers would lose their livelihoods.

Kassia leaned against the wall, sank to the floor, and grabbed her hair in frustration.

This frightening scene had been going on for five days.

In other words, it had been six days since she had fled from the bedroom of the half-naked man, Grand Duke Penminid.

Why six days?

After telling herself to run first and think later, she had returned home.

Then one day passed.

Just one day.

That day had been peaceful.

So she had let her guard down.

The Grand Duke doesn’t know I’m the woman who ran away.

But then…

“So that was a trap.”

Kassia grabbed her hair again.

The day after she had let her guard down, those damned knights stormed into Talpiot Street.

They didn’t threaten anyone or shout orders.

They simply arrived in a group and stood there silently, just like that.

“It’s been five whole days!”

In other words, she had been voluntarily imprisoning herself for five days.

She hadn’t dared to leave the house in case the Grand Duke came looking for her.

She had been trapped inside for five whole days.

“How unbelievably petty can someone be?”

He was acting like a typical villain.

And the person this villain was pressuring with his damn knights, sending a warning to come to him of her own free will…

“…It’s definitely me.”

She wasn’t so full of herself that she had reached this conclusion out of pure arrogance.

Kassia ran her fingers through her bright red hair.

There were only two people in the Empire with hair this color.

Hair the color of a blazing sunset.

Herself and her mother, both direct descendants of the Talpiot family.

You stupid woman!

She scolded herself and pulled at her hair as if she wanted to make herself bald.

She had known.

She had known all along.

“How could I be so sure the Grand Duke wouldn’t recognize me?”

How could he not recognize her?

Unless he had developed the eyesight of an old man at the age of twenty-seven.

And on top of that…

The woman he had spent the night with was a direct descendant of the very Talpiot family he had sworn to wipe out.

Of course he would be angry.

Of course he would be annoyed.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he would become.

With the villain already furious, wasting any more time would be foolish.

“Time to change the plan.”

She couldn’t hide forever.

Her mother, the head of the family, had gone on a romantic trip with her lover and had stopped contacting her.

Who knew when she would return?

They said everyone had to look after their own survival.

“Hehehe.”

Kassia let out a sinister laugh as she raised a bottle high in the air.

Clink.

The long, transparent potion bottle glimmered even in the darkness.

She was confident in this potion. She had spent twenty-three years of her life as a potion maker perfecting it.

Nothing could be better for negotiating with Grand Duke Penminid.

She had even prepared a bribe for him.

“Now, shall we storm the villain’s lair?”

Crawling along the floor, she gathered the potion bottles, picked up a box, and left the room.

After she left, the apricot-colored curtains fluttered, allowing sunlight to pour into the room and reveal what was inside.

A huge cauldron.

Books scattered everywhere.

Potion bottles of various sizes.

Herbs and what appeared to be bones from various creatures lay scattered around the room.

Boom!

She had finally arrived.

At the home of a villain—a truly terrible villain.

Kassia stared at the iron gate, whose upper edge was lined with sharp spikes.

Is it just my imagination, or do those things look like metal spikes meant to pierce my neck?

She swallowed nervously and took another step toward the entrance of the Grand Duke’s residence.

Argh, I’m shaking all over.

The closer she got, the more goosebumps spread across her arms.

She wanted to run away, but she had already come this far. She couldn’t turn back now.

Steeling herself, she stopped in front of a knight wearing silver armor.

“I’ve come to see Grand Duke Penminid.”

As if he had been waiting for her, the knight looked her up and down before swinging open the iron gate.

“Please enter.”

Enter?

Is security at the Grand Duke’s residence really this careless?

They should have investigated her more thoroughly!

They should have asked why she had come, what was inside the box she was carrying, and all sorts of other questions.

Kassia hesitated, hoping to buy herself some time, but the knight’s sharp gaze made her hurry forward.

I’m going in. I’m going in.

The more nervous she became, the more she talked to herself. It was one of her habits.

The moment she took a step forward, she heard a creaking sound behind her.

The gate was closing.

Then came a loud clunk.

The heavy iron gate shut completely, making her whole body flinch.

It felt as if the gate were announcing:

You will never leave this place alive.

But…

“Phew.”

If you’ve already drawn your sword, you might as well cut something—even if it’s just a rotten radish.

Gripping the box handle tightly, Kassia marched forward bravely.

After walking just five steps along the neat path, she was a little surprised.

The garden was beautiful, hardly what she had expected from a villain’s lair.

Various summer flowers swayed gently together in colorful patches.

“…Surely he doesn’t grow these flowers to use as cutting practice?”

According to rumors, the Grand Duke’s hobby was cutting off people’s heads as easily as cutting grass.

Some even said he used the severed heads as fertilizer for his garden.

Swallowing again, she felt her neck to make sure it was still safely attached.

Wasn’t this a horrible form of torture?

She couldn’t relax for even a moment because she was constantly worried about her life.

If this had been the Grand Duke’s intention, then he had certainly achieved his goal.

“Evil lunatic!”

Unfortunately, she was still cursing when—

“Thank you for visiting the Grand Duke’s residence.”

A voice suddenly interrupted her, making Kassia scream.

“Ahhh!”

“My goodness. Lady Talpiot, you certainly know how to express your joy at visiting the Grand Duke’s residence.”

Are you kidding me?

What do you mean, express my joy?

That I might have my head chopped off at any moment?

His tone was polite, yet something about his words felt strangely unsettling.

Frowning, Kassia whipped her head around.

She wanted to see the person who spoke with such subtle, sophisticated sarcasm.

…Was he in his early seventies?

The man who had spoken so casually was an elderly gentleman with silver hair.

He wasn’t incredibly handsome, but he was quite good-looking.

“Ahem. Hello. I’ve come to meet His Grace, the Grand Duke.”

At her polite greeting, a strange glint appeared in the old gentleman’s eyes.

It was so brief that she almost thought she had imagined it.