Chapter 8 - Volume 1 (1/2)

When she — the candidate to be Duke Ranuncula’s second wife, Robinia, heard from Wolf that the number of dinner guests would increase, she said「Okay」. Appearing to be smiling, as she nodded.

With the excuse of practicing her cooking, she confined herself to the kitchen early. That was why, in the evening, she already called Wolf over to the kitchen.

Holding out a small saucer of soup, she offered Wolf a taste.

It was at that exact moment, that I rushed into the kitchen of the Ranuncula residence.

「Wolf!」

Calling out as loud as I could, Wolf’s head quickly turned my way.

「Lycoris, what’s wrong? Did something happen?」

Running all the way here as fast as possible, I voiced the word 「Doctor」 to Wolf .

「I don’t feel well, would you call the doctor for me? Please.」

Because I had sprinted all the way here, my breathing was suspicious, so Wolf panicked.

「Robinia, this girl is Lycoris. I’ll leave her in your care for a while.」

Only saying that much, hurried footsteps made their way out of the kitchen.

And so, I faced the woman who was standing still in front of the pot of soup.

Robinia was, from head to toe, a slender and fair-skinned woman. She looked younger than I imagined, it was hard to believe that she was already in her late thirties.

The aura she had looked like nothing but a fleeting innocence.

「Nice to meet you, my name is Lycoris Radiata.」

My voice was impatient, curt. From the beginning, I had no plans to make small talk with her. I only wanted to confirm one thing. If this was all a mistake on my part, then I will happily try all I can to make amends with her.

「Pardon my rudeness, but may I know whether you’ve tasted the soup?」

「…」

「If you haven’t, I would suggest you try it out first」

Bringing out a new saucer, and innocently adding a silver spoon as I said so… I then offered it to her. (1)

「Even me, when I try to cook, there are times that I would unbelievably fail at it. For example, accidentally putting sugar instead of salt. That’s why-」

「How did you find out?」

I wasn’t able to finish my sentence as she cut off my words with a flat tone. My face quickly turned white.

「I wonder how you found out. How strange.」

The woman’s eyes certainly reflected that of a killer.

Adding poison to her own cooking, and confidently making people eat it. In that matter, without defending herself on her attempt at murder by poisoning, I can’t think that her behaviour would indicate she’d try to escape.

She stared at the poisoned soup that she had made, looking like a child at a loss.

And then.

「…How mean. Now the soup has gone to waste.」

She murmured with a voice that sounded to be in deep sorrow. (2)

「… Even I, at first, thought I could be a good mother. But, you always had a displeased face, and you never once called me “Mother”.」

When she said 『You』, she looked in the direction of the doorway, where Wolf stood, with all color drained from his face.

「And then I realized, for the Duke and I to have a new life, I couldn’t stand having someone else in this house after all. With a clean slate, I wanted to build a wonderful family with the Prime Minister-sama. The second wife’s children, it’s common that they’ll get bullied by the first wife’s children. If I give birth to my cute baby, what could I do if you bullied that child? What’s more…」

She sent a resentful look towards Wolf.Innocently muttering those blunt complaints to a child, seeing that sent a dreadful chill down my spine.

「That’s why, in order to kill the nuisance, I got this. I don’t know whether it was handy, but when I put the poison in my purse, the feeling I had was really dreadful」

She placed a small vial on top of the table with a clink. As expected, she really didn’t plan on hiding what she’d done.

Robinia was a psychopath. At least, I could only think of her as nothing but one.