Chapter 45
At first, they suspected an epidemic.
But after that incident, no more people died.
Next, they suspected poisoning.
Because when they touched the traces left at the scene during the investigation, their hands necrotized as though they had been exposed to poison.
However, scholars and physicians examined the site tirelessly, and yet it matched no poison known to the world.
They couldn’t even analyze its components.
It disappeared, leaving behind only a gruesome sight that looked more like a curse.
Humans were certain that beastkin were the culprits, and the beastkin were certain that humans were the culprits.
“Ever since they started indiscriminately letting those mysterious magical beasts into the territory, we should’ve known! It must be one of them.”
“They must have intentionally hidden and raised an extremely powerful beastkin. Were they planning to stage a rebellion? They’ve fallen victim to their own schemes.”
“No matter who the culprit is, it’s practically the Valkyrisen family who killed them.”
That’s what the humans of Terranollia said.
Animalnollia claimed that Valkyrisen had created powerful human weapons through illegal human experimentation.
Of course, most of these rumors were propaganda created by both continents to justify war.
But the part about there being only one perpetrator might actually be true.
If all the victims had died from Caron’s poison.
If it were his poison, it could have killed humans, beastkin, plants, and animals alike without leaving a trace.
Elodie had never been to Valkyrisen during that era, so she had not witnessed the massacre firsthand.
But the descriptions she read in the newspapers matched exactly with the state of the Serenity Palace, tainted by Caron’s poison.
And the Third Prince died exactly five years after the time of the massacre.
If Caron was the culprit…
There were two possible theories.
Either Caron’s poison grew stronger over the years until it finally went berserk, causing a massacre he never intended and killing him as well.
Or—
Caron massacred the people of Valkyrisen under orders from the Basilisk family. After laying the groundwork for Valkyrisen’s extermination, he faked his death and disappeared.
If it was the former, he was clearly a victim.
If it was the latter, then clearly a perpetrator.
How troublesome.
Her thoughts kept drifting toward the latter theory.
Why did the Third Prince draw such a sharp line between himself and his family, and the people of Valkyrisen?
Because they were destined to die anyway? Because the family was going to be exterminated?
Even if it was the latter, he was still just a child then—he would’ve only followed his family’s orders.
But…
The casualties didn’t end with the people of Valkyrisen.
Once the peace treaty was broken, how many more people were dragged into war and died?
Still, everything was speculation and theory.
It hadn’t happened yet, and Caron was just a nine-year-old child who hadn’t committed any wrongdoing.
Whether it was the former or latter, it was in her best interest to help him learn to control his poison.
If it was the former, she’d persuade him later to cooperate.
If it was the latter… he was still a child, so she would try to win him over.
But if he had no possibility of breaking free from the Basilisk family, then there was no choice.
She would have to consider him an enemy.
Elodie felt the child kept lingering in her thoughts in an inexplicable way…
But in the end, she made a cold conclusion.
Caron suddenly opened his eyes.
He must have fainted.
Perhaps it was because he had pushed his body too hard while already in the worst possible condition.
It was a familiar situation for him, though.
“…It doesn’t hurt.”
Why didn’t it hurt?
Caron murmured while feeling along his chest and stomach.
There was no way he could have already adapted to the mutated poison, yet the pain had subsided.
Why was he recovering faster than expected? He wondered, until—
He remembered that the Ratson heir had entered the room.
A dream?
Caron looked down at his own fingertips through hazy eyes.
No, it wasn’t a dream.
It had definitely been warm.
A warmth entirely different from the burning sensation that pain brought.
It was the temperature of a living person’s skin—something he was feeling for the first time.
Even while his organs were being melted alive by the increasingly potent poison, he had sensed it clearly.
Ah.
Caron, who was already pale, went even whiter.
That child had touched him—at the very moment he lost control of his poison.
With bare hands.
There was no way they could still be alive.
In that state, just breathing the same air as him was enough to kill someone!
What were they thinking, touching him…!
But Caron remembered.
He remembered the child he had met in the garden.
The child who had followed after him with clumsy steps when he tried to ignore them, then handed him an armful of flowers.
“There’s a shnake here, is dangeroush. If, the prince is bit then chew thish or crush it and put it on the wound.”
(There’s a snake here. It’s dangerous. If you get bitten, chew this or crush it and put it on the wound.)
The child hadn’t even known who he was.
They had simply given him a medicinal herb that neutralized snake venom and warned him.
Just because there might be danger nearby, that child plucked herbs to give to a complete stranger.
And the Ratson family’s ability was healing.
No way.
Could it be that the child, knowing nothing, simply reached out because he was in pain—trying to heal him?
Was that why he had temporarily been freed from agony?
The thought made Caron feel even more unhinged.
Because it meant he had killed the child who reached out to help him.
This was reality?
Someone so tiny and fragile that they could have melted away like snow the moment they touched him.
So small, so delicate—yet they had come all the way here…
There’s no body…
He climbed down from his bed and scanned the floor carefully.
It was his habit to check for corpses turned completely black after being poisoned by him.
He even checked under the bed, but found no trace.
Did they escape unharmed?
Was that possible?
It made no sense. But still…
The fact that there was no corpse to bury meant something.
Yes… if they’re a Ratson, maybe…
At that moment, Caron stepped on shattered glass and let out a small sound.
“…Ah.”
The wound was deep, but that was the extent of his reaction.
He simply looked down indifferently at the black blood soaking into the carpet.
Ssshh—
Where the blood touched, the fibers rapidly dissolved.
The carpet fell apart almost instantly, making his earlier hope seem foolish.
Each drop burned a hole straight through the fabric and scorched the floor black beneath it.
Watching that…
He had to accept reality.
There was no way anyone who encountered such a monster could have survived.
Maybe the body is in the corridor.
They might have escaped the room.
But somewhere along the way, they would have been poisoned and died.
Caron was certain of this for a reason.
He had met the Ratson High Priest once when he was even younger.
Yet even that divine priest had struggled to withstand Caron’s poison.
If someone chosen by the gods couldn’t endure it, who possibly could?
And his poison mutated day by day, becoming stronger.
It melted his body again and again, waiting for it to regenerate before melting it once more.
Being from the Ratson bloodline wouldn’t have saved them.
He didn’t entertain such foolish hopes.
I’ll have to bury them.
He wasn’t sure if there was space left in the basement to dig, but he couldn’t leave a poisoned corpse outside.
Caron pressed his foot against the carpet to roughly stop the bleeding while thinking.
Surely the child hadn’t expected to be killed by the very person they tried to heal.
That child, and that child’s parents.
“…”
In the end, he had even killed God’s representative.
What would happen now that the only heir was dead?
So Ratson will eventually…
Caron covered his face with his hand.
Someone would rejoice.
Someone would praise him.
They would say, “As expected, you were born with the Basilisk’s blood.”
Caron just wanted to die.
