The Duke Could Never Forget That Night
The Baron had not even finished thrusting out the red envelope with her trembling hand when it happened.
Rozena, the Duke, shot to her feet before she was aware of moving, snatching the letter as though she were tearing it from the air.
It was a vulgar, unseemly reaction—one the normally cool and rational Duke would never have shown—but she did not even realize what she had done.
The moment the smooth envelope brushed her fingertips, a faint, trembling smile spread across lips that had been stiff for days.
She hurriedly composed her expression and cleared her throat.
“Ahem... I understand. You’ve all worked hard, so you may leave for now.”
As the Marquis and the Baron bowed with puzzled looks and withdrew from the study, the heavy door shut behind them, leaving Rozena alone in the room.
She handled the red envelope with both hands, as carefully as though it were some precious treasure.
So you finally sent something, you insolent little brat... Still, since you wrote at last, I’ll graciously forgive you this one time.
In her mind she pictured Damian’s arrogant, domineering gaze, and she let out a small breath to cool the heat rising in her cheeks.
Then, carefully, she peeled away the sealing wax and unfolded the neatly creased parchment inside.
Expecting a sweet love letter or an excuse, she lowered her eyes—and they soon began to tremble with confusion.
“...Hm?”
The name written in the sender’s signature line was not Damian, the man she had been waiting for so desperately.
Written in graceful script beside a red rose emblem was none other than Lilith, Countess, Owner of Monghwan-ui Jan.
Rozena, flustered, skimmed the contents at once. Rather than a tender letter, it was closer to a business proposal—formal, polished, and entirely transactional.
The letter began with a light greeting praising the labor of Rozena, the Duke, the mighty shield of the Demon Capital.
And then came the point. Lilith stated, in bold and startling terms, that she wished for Monghwan-ui Jan, the finest brothel in Heruen, to handle exclusively the replenishment of vitality and hospitality for Duke Rozena herself, as well as for the high-ranking nobles of her duchy.
Not a single line mentioned Damian’s personal regards or message.
It was a perfect business document.
Not one line.
No matter how hard she searched, there was no sign of the name of that arrogant male prostitute she had been waiting for, nor any private word of concern.
The Duke’s cool eyes began to tremble, then flared with a heat of savage, uncontrollable rage.
She could not bear it and summoned the Baron who had just left, her voice harsh.
“Baron! Were there no other letters from Heruen?! Bring every single one of them here, without missing a thing!”
The Baron went pale. Hearing that shrill, irritated voice instead of the usual calm and commanding tone, she dropped flat to the floor.
“N-no, Your Grace! That was everything delivered just now, b-but... just in case, I’ll search around the transfer circle again, thoroughly!”
The Baron fled the study as though running for her life. Left alone, Rozena bit down hard on her red lips, unable to contain her fury.
“That damned whore of a bastard.... How dare he do that to me and not send even one message?!”
She tore Lilith’s polite proposal into shreds and flung it roughly to the floor.
A ferocious urge surged up in her chest—an impulse to personally lead an elite force and erase that pitiful so-called Monghwan-ui Jan from the map, once and for all.
For Rozena, who ruled the Demon Capital through relentless reason and overwhelming force, it was an absurdly emotional, childish thought—one she would never, not once, have imagined in her life.
And then, for a fleeting instant, a dizzying awareness of how terrible her own thoughts had become washed over her.
“Haah.... What on earth am I even doing...?”
Covering her burning cheeks with one hand, she let out a deep sigh. Then, to empty her head before it burst, she rose from her seat with a sharp, irritated motion.
She could not keep holed up in her study like some heat-crazed bitch in rut forever.
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The vast private training ground lay deep within the grand Duke’s castle.
Spanning a space so immense that thousands of soldiers could have swung swords there at once, it was a silent practice hall reserved for Rozena alone.
It was the place where she had shed sweat every dawn, cleaving through the morning air day after day—but since that night, she had fallen into something like an illness and stopped coming altogether, making this visit feel strangely long overdue.
Standing alone at the center of the cold training ground, Rozena slowly closed her eyes.
To forcibly suppress the tangled thoughts in her mind and the sticky heat coiling low in her belly, a frigid, formidable wave of magic began boiling up violently from the depths of her trained body.
At the center of the training yard, Rozena was pulling her magic up in rough, forceful surges, unleashing destructive techniques without mercy.
BOOM—!
With a deafening blast that seemed to split the air itself, the floor of the specially reinforced training ground was left cratered and gouged by the explosive aftermath of her magic.
Watching that overwhelming display from afar, Baek Seon-hwa swallowed hard without realizing it.
It was a destructive, beautiful set of movements worthy of the very strongest of the Demon Capital. If this had been an open plain, the surrounding hills and forests would have been flattened and erased outright.
Even she, the Marquis who nominally served as second in command of the duchy, could only barely hope to keep pace with the Duke’s footsteps before such immense power.
But Baek Seon-hwa’s cool eyes soon narrowed. Today, Rozena’s sword work was far rougher and far more emotional than usual—a release of something repressed, rather than the precision of ordinary training.
She really is more emotional than usual.
Baek Seon-hwa murmured silently to herself.
Since that visit to Monghwan-ui Jan, the brothel that brute of a wolf kin, Berg, had been so loud about, she had already noticed that their normally composed lord’s state had changed in a way that was impossible to miss.
What on earth had happened in that pleasure district to leave her so agitated?
Just as Baek Seon-hwa was about to sigh quietly, a shout rang out.
“Marquis!”
The Baron who had been chased out of the study earlier came running in a panic toward the entrance to the training ground. Seeing her gasping for breath, Baek Seon-hwa tilted her golden horns in clear irritation and scolded her.
“What is all this noise? Are you trying to interrupt Her Grace’s private training?”
“N-no, that’s not it! An urgent message just came from Heruen!”
The Baron wiped at the sweat on her brow, swallowed hard, and blurted out the report in a hurry.
“Monghwan-ui Jan... has requested direct crystal orb communication with Her Grace Rozena!”
If it had been the ordinary Marquis, she would have dismissed the request outright, offended that some lowly brothel would dare demand direct contact with a Demon Capital Duke.
But hadn’t she, with her own eyes, seen just how desperately and anxiously their lord had been waiting for word from that place?
“I see. You may withdraw. I’ll deliver it myself.”
Baek Seon-hwa quickly sent the Baron away, then stepped carefully into the center of the training ground, where a storm of magic still churned around them.
“Your Grace!”
She called out louder, but the words never reached Duke Rozena.
Like someone trying to erase every thought in her head, every memory of that night’s filthy indulgence, the Duke was still hurling destructive magic in all directions like a madwoman.
BOOM—!
Sharp sword energy ripped through the air, smashing the earth and sending one massive explosion after another.
If some insignificant fool had approached this place, not even bones would have remained—there would have been nothing left but a trace evaporating into smoke.
Baek Seon-hwa narrowed her cold eyes and, with graceful precision, slipped past the deadly remnants of magic flying in from every direction.
With the nimble movement befitting the second in command of the Demon Capital, she cut through the path of destruction and finally drew near Rozena, whose body was slick with sweat and whose breaths were ragged.
“Your Grace.”
Rozena was just about to swing her sword again, ignoring the call, when Baek Seon-hwa’s clear, cold voice struck like a nail driven home.
“Monghwan-ui Jan has requested direct crystal orb communication with Your Grace.”
Then it happened.
Rozena, who had been boiling with such violent intensity it seemed she meant to smash the world itself apart, came to a dead stop—as if by magic.
The chilled blade that had been about to slice downward through the air froze in place, and the immense pressure of her magic that had been weighing heavily on the training ground vanished in an instant, melting away like spring snow.
Rozena’s slender shoulders, rising and falling harshly just moments before, gave a tiny start. Then a small, strangely sultry breath slipped faintly through her red lips.
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In her private study, the room sat beneath a heavy silence, and only Duke Rozena remained alone at her desk.
Soft magic rose over the transparent crystal orb placed at the center of the tabletop, and soon the face of Lilith—the seductive woman with red hair—appeared in clear relief.
“Great Rozena, Shield of the Demon Capital and one of the Seven Dukes. I trust you reached your domain safely? I pray that the night you spent in our humble Monghwan-ui Jan has brought even a little vitality to Your Grace’s noble body...”
Across the crystal orb, Lilith began showering her with all manner of ornate compliments and flattering nonsense, wearing that uniquely sultry smile of hers.
Rozena frowned in obvious displeasure. She had not waited so anxiously for a call just to hear worthless, syrupy flattery. Irritation rising, she cut the woman off coldly.
“Enough. Stop the tiresome sweet talk and get to the point.”
At that frosty rebuke, Lilith did not look the least bit flustered. Instead, as though she had been waiting for exactly that, she simply lifted her red lips into a deep, knowing smile.
“Heh... my apologies. Then I’ll go straight to the point. The matter is that we’d like to bring the finest service our Monghwan-ui Jan is proud of to Your Grace’s territory as well.”
Lilith continued with easy confidence.
“Of course, Your Grace has already tasted our brothel’s true worth, and quite deeply at that. But the majority of the nobles in the duchy still don’t know that bliss, do they? So, on this occasion, we’d like to send several of our more capable male prostitutes directly to the duchy.”
Rozena snorted inwardly.
So she had contacted her directly just to arrange a brothel’s off-site service?
She was on the verge of cutting off the communication then and there when Lilith’s soft, intimate voice slid into her ear.
“Naturally, the list of those dispatched will also include Damian, whom Your Grace has favored so especially.”
The instant that name fell from her lips, Duke Rozena’s once-cool eyes flew wide open like lanterns lit in the dark.