The Duke Devoured Before the World Tree (4)
With the World Tree behind us, we made our way out of the garden.
Rosena’s pace was slower than usual. As she walked ahead of me, adjusting the lay of her dress, the bitch from a moment ago was nowhere to be seen; in her place was once again the cold, immaculate shell of a duke.
I followed in silence half a step behind her, and the closer we got to the corridor outside the garden, the more a commotion drifted toward us.
“Let go, I said! Get your hands off me!”
It was Leni’s voice—high, sharp, and close to a scream. When we rounded the corridor, the scene that spread before us was a complete disaster area.
“Hold still, pretty boy. We just want a taste. Last time you were all so eager to spread for us, weren’t you?”
Ver had one hand locked around Leni’s wrist and was shoving him against the wall.
The wolf beastman’s yellow eyes were utterly bloodshot with heat, and a thread of saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth.
Beside her, three or four other noble demonfolk had surrounded the male prostitutes, each of them red-eyed and breathing hard.
“Please, everyone, calm down! These gentlemen are the duke’s guests!”
The head maid spread both arms to block the way, but the difference in build was just too great.
One wolf beastman gave her shoulder a rough shove, and she stumbled back a step.
“Guests? Male prostitutes are guests? Hah, that’s rich. You’re saying we’re supposed to park these pretty things right here and not touch them?”
“Just smell that silver-haired elf. Shit, I’m losing my mind.”
Ver buried her nose in the nape of Leni’s neck and inhaled shamelessly.
Leni’s face had gone paper-white, and the other two male prostitutes were pressed into a corner, clutching at one another for comfort. Then it happened.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The temperature dropped. Not figuratively—literally, the air in the corridor seemed to freeze in place.
Rosena stood at the far end of the hall.
It was hard to believe she was the same woman who had been crying and barking like a dog beneath the World Tree just moments ago. An icy, crushing authority spread outward from her in all directions.
Ver let go of Leni’s wrist and turned. The madness veiling her eyes receded in an instant, though it never vanished completely.
“Ah, Your Grace. We were just about to have a little taste of the male prostitutes. With goods this fine, it’d be a shame to just leave them alone...”
“A taste?”
Rosena’s eyes narrowed.
When she stepped forward, Ver’s shoulders jerked downward. The duke’s mana became an invisible pressure, beginning to bear down on the entire corridor.
“These people are guests invited into my duchy. What do you call this behavior toward guests?”
“B-but, Your Grace... They’re male prostitutes, aren’t they? We were only trying to enjoy ourselves a little...”
“So because they’re male prostitutes, you think you may handle them however you please?”
Rosena’s voice dropped another degree. With that alone, Ver’s tail curled tight between her legs. The other nobles nearby began lowering their heads one by one.
“In my duchy, touching my guests without my permission? You dare?”
“S-sorry, Your Grace...!”
Ver dropped to her knees. In quick succession, the rest of the nobles flattened themselves to the floor as well. No matter how strong a count-level demon might be, before a duke they were nothing but ants.
Rosena’s mana was already causing the stone slabs beneath the corridor to fissure with hairline cracks.
“If anything like this happens one more time, I’ll strip you of your titles myself. Understood?”
“We will remember, Your Grace...!”
The nobles all bowed their heads at once. Ver’s wolf ears were pinned flat against her skull, and her tail lay still against the floor, not twitching in the slightest.
Rosena swept them with a cold glance, then turned her head slightly.
Our eyes met. Only for a heartbeat, but her gaze flicked over my face in a quick, searching sweep.
She was checking my expression. Whether I was offended. Whether I was displeased. When her eyes moved away again, I tilted my head inwardly.
Wait... is she actually watching my mood right now? Because her subordinates made fools of themselves in front of me?
That was, in its own way, kind of cute. The same woman who’d been barking like a dog just a moment ago.
Of course, I didn’t say a word out loud.
“Head maid.”
Rosena called her over. The head maid hurried forward and bowed deeply.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“While you remain in this duchy, no coercive acts will be permitted against you.”
The head maid’s eyes widened.
The male prostitutes also looked at Rosena in surprise. For a duke to personally guarantee the safety of male prostitutes was, by demonic realm standards, highly unusual.
“All entertainment will be conducted by mutual consent, and safety will likewise be guaranteed by me. If anything untoward occurs, report it to me at once.”
“Th-thank you, Your Grace...!”
The head maid bowed again, deeply this time, and relief spread across the faces of Leni and the others.
Leni was staring up at Rosena with a dazed look, as if he’d never once received treatment like this before.
Without saying anything else, Rosena turned and started walking again. As she left the corridor, the male prostitutes and the head maid sent her grateful looks.
I was about to see her off from where I stood, but Rosena stopped.
Her head turned back. Those red eyes locked straight onto me. She didn’t speak, but her eyes did. Why weren’t I following?
“...Me too?”
I asked cautiously. Rosena’s brow furrowed. Her lips twitched once, then pressed into a line, and her expression grew even sterner.
She wasn’t irritated that I’d spoken; she was irritated that I’d been dense enough not to get it.
I hurried after her and took my place half a step behind.
Rosena shot me one more sidelong glance, then smoothed out her expression and continued forward.
I could feel the stares of the male prostitutes and the head maid left behind us, but I couldn’t turn around.
As we walked side by side down the long corridor, Rosena said nothing, and I kept my silence as well.
Still, it was obvious her pace had slowed a little from before. So I could keep up.
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Baek Seon-hwa, the Marquis, stood on the upper balcony of the corridor with her arms folded, looking down below.
Rosena, the duke, leaving the corridor with Damian—a male prostitute—placed half a step behind her.
Only after watching that scene to the very end did she murmur in a low voice, “...So it was true.”
It was hard to believe. Rosena, who had never let so much as a man’s shadow near her for centuries, had brought a male prostitute into the World Tree garden.
Since even a marquis could not set foot in the garden without permission, Baek Seon-hwa had not been able to see what had happened inside with her own eyes.
But there were still things she could tell.
The pulse of mana leaking out from the garden, the World Tree’s light beating brighter than usual, and the flush still lingering on the duke’s face when she came back out.
Above all else, what had just happened was decisive.
Normally, Rosena would never bother reprimanding her subordinates for something so trivial. Like Ver had said, he was only a male prostitute.
But even granting the duke’s dignity in openly chastising her subordinates for their vulgarity...
Rosena checking the male prostitute’s expression afterward, frowning when he didn’t follow, then slowing her steps to wait for him?
Even Baek Seon-hwa, who had served her for centuries, had never seen that side of her before.
“There’s definitely... something about that male prostitute.”
Her gaze dropped again. Damian had already gone off with the duke, leaving only the kneeling nobles, the pale male prostitutes,
and the head maid breathing out in relief.
Baek Seon-hwa rested her chin on her hand and fell into thought. There was nothing wrong, in itself, with the duke taking a man in. No—if anything, it was something to be relieved about.
That ironclad woman was finally opening her heart to someone.
Only...
The timing, of all things.
Baek Seon-hwa’s brow tightened. The duchy was on the brink of a large-scale dungeon purge. Every knight in the order had already shifted into combat readiness,
while supply lines were being checked and mana weapons tuned at the same time.
With everyone already on edge, the arrival of male prostitutes had been enough to set off this mess.
With Ver at the center of it, the nobles rushing to devour the prostitutes headfirst was ultimately nothing more than an outlet for the tension of an impending battle.
“If this ends up affecting the purge somehow...”
The concern rose to the tip of her lips, but Baek Seon-hwa shook her head and swallowed it back down.
The duke had made the judgment herself.
It was not a place for a marquis to interfere.
Coming down from the balcony, Baek Seon-hwa headed to the lower level by the stairs. The head maid was standing outside the reception room where the male prostitutes were staying.
Inside, the murmuring voices of Leni and the others seeped through the door.
“Head maid.”
“Ah, Marquis.”
The head maid bowed in haste.
Baek Seon-hwa raised a hand lightly to excuse the formality and opened the reception room door.
Inside, three male prostitutes sat together on a sofa, and Leni was rubbing his wrist, his face still drained of color.
“You must have all been startled.”
As Baek Seon-hwa entered, every gaze turned toward her at once. The title of marquis seemed to stiffen their bodies.
Baek Seon-hwa took the seat opposite them and spoke as gently as she could.
“I apologize for today’s incident. It was a failure of management among the nobles within the duchy.”
“...No, Marquis.”
The head maid answered carefully. Leni still kept his head lowered, fingers working at his wrist.
Baek Seon-hwa looked at him for a moment, then continued.
“Rest well tonight. Your rooms are already prepared, and if you need anything, speak to the maids.”
“What happens tomorrow...?”
Leni raised his head. Suspicion still lingered in the eyes visible between his silver bangs.
Baek Seon-hwa chose her words for a moment, then answered frankly.
“From tomorrow, entertainments with the nobles will begin. Since the duke has personally ordered that everything be handled by mutual consent, there will be no repeat of today. Of course, they are demonfolk, so they may still be rough. But roughness within a mutually agreed-upon arrangement is different from barging in and wrenching someone’s wrist. At the very least, I will guarantee that line.”
The head maid bowed deeply. Even among the male prostitutes, some of the tension began to drain away. One of them cautiously raised a hand.
“Um... what about Damian? He didn’t come back with us...”
Baek Seon-hwa’s eyes narrowed a fraction, then relaxed again.
“That one was called separately by the duke. You needn’t worry.”
Leni’s mouth tugged upward on one side, but he said nothing. Baek Seon-hwa rose from her seat and looked at the head maid.
“I’ll post guards around the reception room tonight. Rest easy.”
“Thank you, truly, Marquis.”
There was genuine gratitude in the head maid’s voice. Baek Seon-hwa gave a light nod and left the reception room.
The moment the door closed, she could hear the male prostitutes all letting out a collective breath inside. As she walked the corridor, she looked out the window.
“...Please, let it not affect the purge.”
With that low murmur left behind her, the marquis’s footsteps disappeared into the dark.