Chapter 83
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 83
“I don’t know.”
Cedric answered curtly, pouring more water into his cup. He understood Edgar’s anxiety; it was natural to be nervous, given they had no idea how much of the substance he’d consumed.
But Cedric was simply satisfied that the glass hadn’t contained poison. He didn’t care to ponder the drug’s true nature.
He wasn’t afraid of death itself. However, if he were to die suddenly without leaving an heir, the Kailas Ducal House—which his father had spent a lifetime building—would vanish into dust in an instant. For now, he simply couldn’t afford to die.
The Butler will throw a fit again, insisting that every single thing I eat or drink be double-checked.
As he reached for the water glass, his vision blurred again.
“Damn it.”
Cedric bit out a low curse, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
Thanks to Harriet’s advice to drink plenty of water and use the restroom, he wasn’t as dazed or plagued by that embarrassing urge as before. Still, compared to his usual self, his speech and movements felt clumsy.
Edgar stayed close to Cedric’s side, doing his best to shield him from the prying eyes of the other guests.
“Tsk, tsk. It’s a good thing Miss Harriet was there earlier. Otherwise, a massive scandal would have erupted. After all, who would refuse the great Cedric Kailas?”
Cedric responded to the taunt with a sharp snort.
Edgar was right, but there was something he didn’t know. No other woman could have been in that gazebo besides Harriet. It wasn’t that Harriet happened to be where Cedric went; he had followed her there.
Did she meet Tez Roark by chance, or had they arranged it?
If she had made an appointment to meet a man notorious for his lechery in such a secluded, dark place, she wouldn't have gone there just to reminisce about the old days.
Then again, Harriet had seemed genuinely angry. It probably wasn’t that kind of relationship.
I’m having strange thoughts again.
Cedric gulped down the water in his cup. No matter how much cold water he drank, he couldn’t chase Harriet’s image from his mind.
Unexpectedly, however, another woman managed to do the trick.
While Edgar had briefly stepped away to refill the empty water bottle, a familiar voice drifted from beside him.
“Duke. I was worried when you suddenly disappeared. Where did you go?”
It was the woman with black hair, pale skin, and red lips who had tried to lead him toward the rose greenhouse earlier.
Ah, right. Was her name Leslie?
She was one of the "friends" Albert had brought along. She boldly approached Cedric and stroked his arm.
“Don’t stay here. Come with me. It’s boring here, isn’t it?”
Her voice, which had sounded so seductive earlier, was now merely irritating.
The fortunate part was that the memory of the situation before he found Harriet caused a surge of heat in his stomach, clearing his head slightly. Cedric gripped the almost empty water glass and warned her in a cold, clear voice.
“Go back to Albert and tell him this: the price for displeasing me will be quite high.”
“What?”
Leslie asked, flustered, but Cedric merely glared in Albert’s direction once before standing up. Just then, Edgar returned with the water bottle.
“Let’s go home for today, Edgar. I should say my goodbyes. Where is Count Laurel?”
“Huh? Leaving already?”
Cedric pulled the bewildered Edgar along, setting out to find their host.
Left behind, Leslie bit her lip before immediately retreating to Albert’s side.
“I knew it, Albert! The Duke of Kailas figured out it was your doing. That’s why I said I didn’t want to go back!”
It was Albert’s doing. Overconfident in the drug’s effects, he had forced her to go back to Cedric. He looked on in disbelief when she told him Cedric had coldly cut her off.
“You mean the drug’s effect has already worn off? No way.”
“He kept drinking water, which means he knows how to counteract it. And he told me to deliver a message to you…”
Albert swallowed hard after hearing Cedric’s warning. However, he soon shook his head, regaining his bravado.
“There’s no proof I did it.”
Without proof, there would be no legal battle or public accusation.
“It would have been better to use Caverdin,” Leslie hissed. “We won’t get another chance like this.”
“Just dying isn’t enough. He has to die after his honor has been dragged through the mud.”
The Caverdin Leslie mentioned was a poisonous herb from the Firma Kingdom, used for assassinations because it left no trace. Its extract was an excellent poison—completely colorless, odorless, and tasteless. However, the disadvantage was that Caverdin grew in such harsh environments that creating even a small bottle cost a fortune.
Albert refused to simply use up the three bottles of Caverdin concentrate he had barely managed to acquire. While Caverdin was precious, it was more important to Albert that Cedric’s reputation be ruined than for him to simply die.
“You’ll regret today’s failure.”
“If they can’t prove it was my doing, there will be plenty of other chances. Let’s just call today a practice run.”
Albert snorted, raising his glass with his friends again. However, his right leg kept trembling, as if he were uneasy despite his words.
Leslie, disgusted with Albert, clicked her tongue and watched Cedric leave the banquet hall with a cold gaze.
*
The door opened and shut with a heavy bang.
Leslie appeared, not bothering to hide her rage as she flung her shawl onto the sofa.
“What happened now? Throwing another fit?”
A gruff-voiced older man asked her. Publicly, he was known as her father, but in reality, the two shared not a drop of blood. They were spies and assassins dispatched from the Firma Kingdom.
“Albert is useless. That man doesn’t want to kill Cedric Kailas. He just wants to ruin him so he can feel superior.”
“I told you. He didn’t seem useful at all.”
“I could have killed him today if I’d wanted to, but because of Albert…!”
Leslie bit off her words in frustration. Only then did the man pay attention.
“What on earth happened?”
She recounted everything that had occurred at the party: Albert’s plausible plan, the Angelic concentrate, and how Cedric had been truly intoxicated and nearly collapsed.
“I kept trying to persuade him to use Caverdin, but he insisted on Angelic until the end.”
“He’s obsessed with that drug. But you, too—why did you go along with him? You should have just mixed in the Caverdin yourself.”
“I used my emergency Caverdin to get rid of those guys lurking around here! I tried to use Albert’s, but he wouldn’t hand it over.”
“You should have gotten it out of him somehow. You’re not harboring thoughts of betraying our homeland, are you?”
“Are you crazy? What are you doing, anyway? Just loafing around this house.”
The two glared at each other, exchanging barbed words. Colleagues and overseers—that was their true relationship.
After a period of cold silence, they turned their heads sharply at a sound from the stairs leading to the second floor.
“So noisy, I can’t even sleep. Why are you fighting in the middle of the night?”
It was another colleague, their leader, who played the role of Baroness Ozer and was tied to the Ozer family.
Leslie mumbled, feeling wronged. “He keeps suspecting me. It’s upsetting. I’m enduring all sorts of nasty things out there just to complete this mission.”
The Baroness chuckled, taking her side. “Don’t be so hard on your daughter. Leslie is playing a crucial role in this mission, after all.”
“I was just telling her not to let her guard down,” the man grumbled.
The man playing Baron Ozer stood up with a sullen face and took a bottle of Firma Kingdom whiskey from a nearby cabinet. He took out three glasses, poured a measure into each, and placed them in front of Leslie and the Baroness.
Knowing it was his way of apologizing, Leslie grumbled but picked up the glass and downed it in one go.
The Baroness sipped hers slowly, then spoke. “I only half-heard it earlier, but I don’t think Albert’s method is bad. I understand his feeling that a simple death isn’t enough... forgiveness, perhaps?”
At her words, Leslie and the Baron looked at her with puzzled eyes.
“Cedric Kailas is a man who absolutely must die,” the Baroness continued. “But if he dies like this, the Empire might stir up Firma again, claiming they are honoring a national hero.”