Chapter 6……………………
The Companion of Panake
Ellexena was not someone who missed an opportunity once it was placed before her.
Before Iglea could make another move, she immediately called for the head maid, intending to put a firm seal on the matter.
The head maid, summoned without warning, showed no change in expression and bowed respectfully.
“I was told you called for me.”
“Yes. There is something you must do.”
Ellexena began lightly. The head maid straightened and quietly waited for her to continue. Ellexena studied her carefully.
Quick in action, quick to understand, and sparing with words. At the same time, she seemed highly perceptive, carefully gauging Ellexena’s mood.
However, this woman was almost certainly one of her mother’s people. There was no need to expect too much. In fact, it was better to assume she was an enemy.
“Those under me were rather reckless before I regained my senses.”
“Is that so.”
The head maid’s reply was less an inquiry into truth and more an attempt to match the princess’s mood.
“Honestly, I would prefer to lock them up and interrogate them one by one, but that is not possible. Still, they are all people who served me.”
Ellexena let out a faint laugh. By now, the head maid should have understood what she meant.
“So I will allow them to speak of their own merits and faults—three people per day. If they confess everything honestly, I will show mercy. Make sure that message is delivered properly.”
“Yes. Understood.”
The head maid answered quickly.
“And bring me a list of all the maids and servants by the end of today.”
“Yes.”
Again, the reply was immediate.
The head maid bowed once more and withdrew silently, without a single sound.
Even after she left, the door did not stay closed for long at any point throughout the day.
Servants and maids came and went continuously.
Ellexena sat in her chair, waiting for them. As expected, they came quickly.
“You may enter.”
At her permission, the door opened quietly. The servant carried a heavy burden in his hands.
“Lady Iglea has sent wine and jewels.”
“Save the explanation. I’m sure she has sent something ‘proper.’ Tell her I express my gratitude.”
Ellexena cut him off. This was already the fifth delivery. Iglea had been sending gifts every few hours since afternoon—sometimes congratulatory items for her recovery, sometimes herbs and fruits “out of concern for her daughter.”
There was no way to interpret them as simple gifts.
“Lady Iglea has sent tea leaves and refreshments.”
“Very well. Tell her I will enjoy them.”
A maid arrived next, leaving tea and sweets behind.
Ellexena clicked her tongue.
Leaving the door open might have been better.
Most of these things were better thrown away. Not because they were of poor quality.
This was essentially coercion.
A message that everything in this mansion—every servant and maid—was under Iglea’s control, and that anything could be placed in this room through them. Gifts, or something else entirely. It was a mild form of threat, but a threat nonetheless.
Knock, knock.
A formal knock sounded, followed by a low voice.
“May I enter, Princess?”
This time, it was a man of higher rank than a servant.
“Come in.”
The door opened, revealing a man in his fifties. Behind him stood another man in his mid-thirties wearing white robes.
“We have brought the physician sent by the lady of the house.”
The older man introduced him, and the physician bowed respectfully.
“Greetings, Princess of House Windecius.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I have come to examine you after hearing you recently regained consciousness.”
Now even a physician.
Ellexena let out a dry laugh. Sending a doctor one cannot trust was almost amusing.
She allowed the examination without resistance. It did not take long. The physician’s hands emitted a faint white glow a few times, and that was it.
‘What is this, some priest of the God of Medicine?’
Even in her past life as a renowned hero, she rarely encountered the children or priests of the God of Medicine. That god was notoriously temperamental.
The physician smiled gently.
“There appears to be nothing wrong. However, your injuries have not fully healed. I will rewrap your bandages. You should rest for a while longer.”
He quickly rebandaged her arm and legs before leaving.
Ellexena’s irritation only grew.
And the next visitors bore the brunt of it.
“We are here to repair the floor.”
“Did my mother send you as well?”
“Yes.”
“Of course she knows everything.”
A cold laugh escaped her lips. The workers flinched, but continued their repairs without hesitation.
This endless procession of “gifts” only ended after the sun had completely set.
The final visitor of the day was a maid.
As dusk fell, the head maid returned, accompanied by a document in one hand and a young woman in her late teens behind her.
“I brought the list you requested.”
“Give it to me.”
The list was not thick. Ellexena skimmed through it casually. Several names looked familiar.
Then she turned her gaze to the girl behind the head maid.
The girl fidgeted under her stare.
“And who is this?”
“A new maid sent by the lady of the house.”
So it’s her again.
Ellexena’s eyes turned cold as she looked at the head maid.
The head maid continued calmly.
“The previous attendants may have been inconvenient for you, so she was brought in urgently. Introduce yourself.”
The girl stepped forward hesitantly.
“M-my name is Yutino. I will serve you faithfully, Princess…”
“Yuyutino?”
“N-no, Yutino.”
The head maid corrected her quickly.
Ellexena clicked her tongue audibly.
Another incompetent one.
She looked clumsy in every way—flustered at a single remark, clearly inexperienced. Compared to Tia or Sennia, who could control even their breathing, she was clearly hastily recruited.
“I understand. Pass my thanks along.”
Now even the people closest to her were being assigned by “mother.”
A surveillance net.
Still, surveillance itself was not the main issue. It was merely annoying.
The real problem was poison.
When everyone around you is an enemy, you never know when poison might enter your food.
Even legendary heroes—those with bodies harder than stone and strength like rhinoceroses—had fallen to poison.
Of course, heroes had greater resistance than ordinary humans. Ordinary toxins from plants would barely affect them.
But poison created by witches or monsters was different.
Such poisons, often impossible to neutralize with ordinary antidotes, spread quickly through the bloodstream and destroyed even the strongest bodies. Even heroes with half divine blood had fallen to them.
Ellexena herself had nearly died once from Panake’s poison.
So yes—poison was a serious matter.
And there was something troubling she had heard from Cardia.
—“At first, my stepmother was really kind to me.”
—“She used to brew tea for me every day. She talked with me a lot… always very gentle. She even asked if the tea was too hot, and checked if I finished it…”
—“You drank it?”
—“Yes… and I felt sleepy. And… dizzy, I think?”
Sleepiness and dizziness alone could be dismissed as a child’s perception. But after seeing Cardia’s body, Ellexena thought differently.
The development of body and soul being mismatched… unless it was natural, there had to be a reason the soul’s growth was restrained.
And such techniques were often the work of witches.
Two possibilities.
Either Iglea herself was a witch, or she was connected to one.
Either way, it was troublesome.
Witches inherited their power from mother to daughter, forming closed groups consisting only of women. And they were notoriously kind only to those connected to them.
Worse still, they were enemies even Ellexena had struggled against in her prime as a hero.
For now, one thing was clear.
Poison had to be addressed.
‘No choice.’
Once again, she would need an old friend.
“Yutino. Prepare my clothes immediately.”
“Y-yes! Understood!”
The maid hurried to fetch clothing.
But when Ellexena saw the ornate dress, she clicked her tongue.
“I said hunting clothes.”
There was no way she would meet that friend dressed like this.
Panake—the Companion.
Daughter of the God of Life and Death, a beast with the form of a bird.
Within its beak, boar tusks that produce ten thousand poisons. From its eyes, tears that cure all poisons.
She would go and find it.
