CHAPTER 139……………………………………….
A considerable amount of time passed.
“…Ugh…”
Sherbert’s hand, which had been lying limply, twitched.
Soon, a faint groan escaped him.
“…My, my throat… it… hurts…”
Ron immediately understood and wet a clean cloth with water, pressing it gently to Sherbert’s lips.
After repeating it several times, as if he were extremely thirsty, Ron finally stopped.
“Sherbert, can you hear me?”
His slowly fluttering eyelids paused, revealing his red eyes.
Sherbert spoke.
“My… my body… feels… strange…”
I suppressed the rising tears in my chest and replied as calmly as I could.
“You’ve taken the antidote. You need to rest while your body detoxifies. Don’t push yourself to move.”
“…Ron… is that you?”
“Yes, I’m your brother, Ron Keres.”
Ron leaned closer to him.
“This isn’t a dream. This is reality. We’re protecting you, so you don’t need to worry.”
Sherbert’s lips curved weakly upward.
“You say you’re protecting me… that’s… amusing…”
But Sherbert couldn’t speak further and slowly lowered his eyelids.
He seemed drowsy from the antidote.
Ron lowered his voice and said softly.
“When you open your eyes again, both Anne and I will still be here protecting you. You must… endure this.”
At the end of Ron’s words, the trembling in Sherbert’s eyes ceased.
Soon, his breathing became steady.
A day passed, and Sherbert’s condition improved.
He could move his fingers voluntarily and lift his arms slowly.
Ron and I firmly believed he would recover completely soon.
Sherbert began to recount past events one by one.
“The lady left the mansion and went into Alteren Forest, so I followed. I had many questions for her. But where she stopped…”
He trailed off.
I reassured him.
“It’s okay if you don’t say. We also saw Lady Alter in that forest.”
“…I see.”
He admitted he was deeply shocked by what he had witnessed firsthand.
“I stayed in a daze for a while, then went back a few days later and saw her again. I chased after her, and that’s how I ended up like this.”
Sherbert’s expression darkened.
“I think I asked her why, what she was doing. That’s all I remember.”
After that, Sherbert collapsed due to the Seleron scent Bianca had scattered.
It was the Devel organization members who discovered him.
I cautiously spoke.
“So far, it seems possible that an evil spirit has entered Lady Alter’s body.”
“Evil spirit? No… that can’t be…”
Sherbert glanced between Ron and me.
“I can guarantee that. Lady Alter may look different than before, but her eyes… they’re the same as they were.”
“Her eyes?”
I wondered if Sherbert, perhaps infatuated with her, was mistaken.
But he firmly sided with her.
“It’s certain. The gaze she gave me carried sadness and guilt. It even felt as if someone forced her to do something against her will.”
“Someone?”
At Sherbert’s next words, Ron and I couldn’t help but be shocked.
“…The Duchess. Bianca’s mother.”
Sherbert spoke with unwavering conviction.
I had seen her once before, when visiting the Duke’s mansion for his funeral and meeting Bianca and her mother.
Suddenly, I recalled the strange pain I had felt back then.
I hadn’t focused on her mother at the time because I was thinking about Bianca.
“How was the Duchess when you observed her?”
Ron asked, and Sherbert answered as if recalling her.
“She was always with the lady wherever she went. But it was strange. I thought their family got along well, yet every time Bianca saw her mother, she would flinch and tremble.”
“It was the same when we paid respects at the funeral.”
“Yes. So I think if an evil spirit is present, it’s likely in her mother, not Lady Alter.”
We needed to save her immediately.
Sherbert continued, his expression saddened.
The Duchess of Alter frowned upon hearing the report of Danis’s death.
Last time it was Lurd in the alley.
And now Danis.
Especially since she had kept Danis close like a hand.
Yet she felt no regret over his death.
“He’s probably hiding somewhere else now.”
Danis’s body had decayed.
But the evil spirit inside would seek out another weak-minded human with strong malice to inhabit.
“Hmm.”
A thin sigh escaped her lips.
More bothersome to her than Danis’s death was the sacred power.
Her white hand clenched tightly below her thin wrist.
“…The guardians are quiet, huh.”
There had been times when the guardians chased her relentlessly.
She had nearly been caught multiple times.
But now, it was different.
With all the people she had killed and the malice she had consumed, even the guardians could not easily catch her.
“They shouldn’t underestimate me.”
Yet unease remained.
“…The relic. I need to find it.”
She had to take away the relic created by the primal creator.
Although it was in the central temple, she could not enter the sacred place.
At one point, she had considered sending Bianca to the temple.
But the plan had to change.
That cursed Pope had proposed a deal that was unacceptable.
‘Someone with this much divine power should rightfully be enshrined at the temple. But if she comes to the temple, she cannot leave during her saintly education, nor meet family.’
She had already brainwashed Bianca, so she could not leave her in the temple.
“What a sly Pope.”
So the Duchess chose the palace instead of the temple.
To make Bianca the crown princess.
Afterward, the relic could be taken.
Moreover, the palace was where the first evil spirit—the Duchess herself—was created.
At that moment, the Duchess’s cold gaze turned to the door.
Soon, the door opened, signaling Bianca’s return.
The Duchess folded her thoughts and faced her daughter.
“You went to the forest?”
“…Yes.”
“Lift your head.”
Bianca, with sunken cheeks, slowly lifted her gaze.
She still looked too weak to eat properly.
“For now, you report to me, not Danis.”
“Huh? …What about Danis?”
“He’s dead.”
“…!”
Bianca’s eyes widened.
It had been Danis who told her to go to the forest to handle the corpses.
As a former slave, he was cruel among the other slaves.
Being a noblewoman, she was spared, but she had always been the one to clean up after his deeds.
Even so, she feared death.
“…Why… why did he die? What happened to the corpses?”
“There are none. Someone must have kidnapped Danis and killed him.”
The Duchess raised her long eyelashes at Bianca’s question.
Her piercing gaze fell upon Bianca.
“Bianca.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Danis died because of you.”
“…What? Because of me?”
The Duchess, as always, placed the blame for events squarely on Bianca.
To break her with guilt.
“Yes. He died in your place. Just as your father sacrificed himself for you, Danis did the same.”
Bianca’s lips trembled.
No tears came from her already dry eyes.
Only her unfocused pupils sank low.
“So… it was because of me again.”
“Yes. Therefore, you must obey my words. Otherwise, like your father, I could die too. Would you want that?”
“….”
Bianca shook her head slowly but firmly.
“Good. I am your only remaining protector. I love you, Bianca.”
Bianca saw her mother sweetly whispering that she loved her.
It was the mother she had always known.
Talking gently with her father, smiling beautifully.
She never wanted to lose that mother, just like she had never wanted to lose her father.
“…I love you too, mother.”
Pleased, the Duchess called the waiting maids outside.
She spoke to the frightened maids.
“You’re going to be the crown princess soon, yet you’re so thin. Go eat something immediately.”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
The maids bowed and held Bianca’s arms.
As if being led away, Bianca’s eyes could not leave her mother, but the Duchess thought:
‘…The wedding day will be perfect.’
