Chapter 9 (2/2)
Adding to that, I couldn’t see where Ash had escaped.
As I was busy contemplating, Lennox’s voice caught my ears.
“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll call off the perimeter.”
“What? No…”
Lennox stood up from his seat.
As impatient as I was, I couldn’t stay polite in that urgent situation.
“Your Highness, hold on!”
‘What will happen after you leave!?’
As soon as I grabbed his sleeve in an attempt to stop him, my hand brushed against his skin, and a blue fume erupted from within my skin.
The generated fume was immediately sucked into Lennox’s skin.
“Again…”
Embarrassed, he ran his fingers down the bangs that covered half of his forehead.
“…It wasn’t intentional.”
It was understandable. Besides, it had happened a while ago when he grabbed my wrist.
‘I’m not sick or tired anywhere.’
Yet, it felt like something escaped my body.
“It’s fine. I understand that the Duke didn’t take it on purpose. It’s just…Oh!”
I exclaimed shortly after I spoke.
‘Why didn’t I think of that until now?’
The answer to my problem was just around the corner.
“Just in case.”
I clasped Lennox’s hands tightly, trying to change my expression to look as innocent and desperate as possible.
“Could I ask Your Grace for a favor?”
***
After a while, I entered the carriage belonging to the Duke of Kravant with Lennox.
My eyes grew wide when I found the carriage—with no decoration on the outside—to be so comfortable on the inside.
But that contentment disappeared as soon as it came.
“It’s unbelievable that you ventured out of the mansion without an attendant when your power was at an incomplete awakening.”
“…”
“You’re very reckless. Why didn’t you see that you were going to die?”
The man had a unique skill of bringing a person on edge with his words.
All the while, his words were only right.
He didn’t seem to like my request for a ride.
‘Do you still have to do this?’
I listened to his grumbles quietly as if I committed a crime, but he was only getting unfair as time went on.
I protested timidly,
“I didn’t come out because I wanted to die. If I had known that evil spirits would attack me, I wouldn’t have come out without countermeasures.”
“Ignorants should not boast.”
However, this man—who could detonate verbal bombs—was relentless.
“I wonder if you were out of your mind or if you felt your life was just a waste.”
The bitter sarcastic remarks of his finally made me snap.
“What would I have done when I had something to investigate? There was no one to help me, so I had no choice but to proceed myself!”
“Investigate?”
“That’s right!”
I unfolded my handkerchief that I had folded finely earlier and held it out to him.
Inside it was two tea leaves spread out straight with the dampness of water around them.
“Look. The leaves are different, right? I was trying to find out what kind of leaf it was because I thought something else was mixed with the tea leaves I was given to drink.”
One of his eyebrows wriggled when he saw the tea leaves.
“Where did you get the Qualum leaves?”
“What?”
Lennox pointed to the left leaf.
Oh, his face was stiff now, alright.
“I asked, how did you get a hold of Qualum leaves?”
“Well, I told you, didn’t I? It was mixed with the tea leaves I was given to drink. I had no idea what this was.”
I stuttered as if I was making excuses in the suddenly frozen atmosphere.
Lennox narrowed his eyes at the leaves as if he were measuring the authenticity of my words before he looked at me.
“I’m not lying.”
I confidently stared at him—who was giving me a sharp scrutinizing look—because I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Rather, I’ll ask you. How did you recognize them?”
How did Lennox know about the leaves when Ash didn’t even know?
‘If Lennox is an accomplice of Carinne… and if he intentionally approached me…’
I felt my heart sinking.
‘No, it can’t be possible.’
I looked straight at Lennox, pressing down the suspicions that sprouted from the corner of my chest.
“Tell me what this Qualum is and how Your Grace knows about it.”
Momentarily, his fierce eyes went back and forth between me and the leaves, as if he was wondering if I was an enemy or an ally.
When he finally eased his eyes, he spoke,
“Qualum is a tree that grows only in the forest of Rutoru.”
“A tree… in the forest of Rutoru?”
The Balkan Empire, the most powerful country known on a continental scale, actually had a problem.
The Rutoru Forest, also called ‘the cursed land’, was at the southernmost part of the empire.
It was abandoned land that was off-limits.
It was said that all kinds of unknown evil things still swarmed those woods.
The person who was responsible for protecting the empire from such wickedness and keeping them from escaping the Rutoru forest was none other than…
‘The lineage of Kravant.’
AKA Lennox.
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