The Devilish Duke Can't Sleep

Proofreader: somnium

‘His Excellency is doing well, so I got reckless.’

In the wooden bathtub filled with warm water, Lena let out her sighs incessantly. She thought that she was going to take lessons to become a more skillful maid, but she didn’t think that would be a troublesome thing for Marianne. She felt sorry because she thought it meant that she was just thinking about herself.

Besides, she even spoke back to Kahel, who was trying to get rid of her stupidity modestly, and she was so embarrassed that she couldn’t raise her head. She wants to do anything to help Kahel, who only does good things for her, but why does she keep making mistakes and doing stupid things?

Lena, who had been sobbing, barely stopped her tears and hurriedly washed her face.

‘I can’t believe I’m crying over something like this.’

In the Barony, she didn’t cry even though she suffered worse, but she couldn’t figure out why she was crying so much now. Lena, who thought that even that was proof of her recklessness, slapped her cheeks.

‘Don’t cry! You can do better in the future. Stay alert. If I don’t do well, I might get in trouble for Uncle Theo and Sid.’

Lena clasped her hands tightly and hurriedly finished her bath.

But when she returned from washing her body, Lena was bewildered when she saw that the luggage she had left by Kahel’s door was gone. She suddenly felt like she had forgotten where she had even put her belongings, and she was sweating behind her back. As she rummaged around the parlor for a while, she saw Kahel, dressed in comfortable clothes, appearing in the parlor.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m sorry, Your Excellency. My luggage was gone and I was looking for it. I’m sure I left it here…….”

“Perhaps the maid moved it to your room. Your room is the additional bedroom attached to this room, so go check it out.”

“Yes?”

Lena tilted her head, not understanding what Kahel was saying.

“If this is the room Your Excellency is using…… The second bedroom attached here is my…… Are you saying my room?”

“Yes.”

“However…… I knew the close maid will be given a separate room.”

“That’s why I gave you a second bedroom. Why?”

Kahel also frowned as if he didn’t understand what Lena was saying. Lena bit her mouth when she tried to ask if this was normal. Earlier she talked back at Kahel for nothing, and she upset him, but she didn’t want to be seen like that again. Even though it was a bedroom attached to Kahel’s room anyway, it was far from the main bedroom he was staying in, and in this place without Arder, she had to be his limb, so it was more convenient for her to be nearby.

“I thought it was going to be a separate room. Sorry.”

In fact, it was correct to be given a separate room. It was only Kahel who changed it. This is because, in his sense, who had never had an attendant by his side, he thought it was very inefficient for the maid, who was supposed to assist him in his immediate vicinity, to stay in another room. Of course, the desire to have Lena stay in the same room—even though they were quite far apart to be considered the same room—was not reflected at all.

Lena seemed to agree with him anyway, so she just nodded her head like so and turned around, but it had been bothering him since before. The word ‘sorry’ started to come out of Lena’s mouth again. Kahel felt confused as he looked at her when she began to serve him. Even at that time, she only looked at him and started saying sorry for even the insignificant things.

It was obvious why Lena was doing that. The appearance of him stopping Marianne from talking about the curse of the devilish power earlier must have suddenly felt overbearing to Lena, who didn’t know anything.

But he didn’t like that Lena knew about his devilish curse. Although it is said that she is not swayed by demons, and that she will find out someday, Lena’s gaze upon him will seem to change once she knows the contents of the curse. It will be like seeing something very dirty…….

So he had to pretend he didn’t know. He was just making a request under the guise of an order to express his apologetic heart.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, don’t apologize.”

“Ah, sor, sorry…… !”

“Again.”

Lena, who showed a bewildered expression, neither did this nor that, and only bit her lip. Even so, the cold, dry air of Sharden easily chapped her lips, but he thought it would be a mess if she bit it like that. In his mind, he wanted to take out the horse oil cream and apply it directly to her lips, but Kahel barely resisted, remembering Voltaire’s advice.

Voltaire, commander of the Knights, who taught him hunting and archery a long time ago, said: when the caught prey suddenly becomes wary and hesitates, you should never approach it in a hurry. At that time, he was told that he had to wait more slowly and patiently than when he first caught it. Otherwise, if you rush into it, the prey will run away altogether.

He was upset that Lena, who had been slowly getting closer to him for half a year, seemed to have moved away again, but Kahel was more careful than when he was doing any other hunting. If he misses a fox, he can catch another fox, and if he misses a deer, he can catch another deer, but if he misses Lena, he won’t be able to find a replacement for her.

“We will have dinner here. The maids will even bring your meal, so you just have to pick it up and move it.”

“Aren’t you going…..to the main hall?”

“I’m just going to go ahead and show my face for a while. If I sit there, the people will not be able to eat as much as they can, and they will not be able to talk to their heart’s content.”

“It could be…… As expected, Your Excellency is very kind.”

Lena sincerely thought he was and she smiled cautiously. She was terrified, fearing that it was cocky of her, but she didn’t want to answer with a short answer to the words of the person she had been with all day. Kahel didn’t really hate it, either, so he smiled a little as usual.

“I’m glad I’m still considered a kind person.”

Kahel seemed a little relieved that his cute rabbit hadn’t gone too far.

* * *

To the west of Sharden was Levanas, one of the estates of the Santella family, and to the north was Mount Kalahan, the ridge from Levanas.

Kalahan Mountain was a mountain with opposite faces. Rare herbs grew in piles, but poisonous plants were also plentiful, and although it was beautiful enough to be admired, the mountain was steep and not accessible. It is a treasure trove of abundant forest resources, but it has been difficult for humans to touch. This is because monsters often appeared.

Especially in winter, monsters would appear in groups as if they were waking up, and the reason the head of the Duchy of Luave visited Sharden every winter was to deal with these monsters.

Monsters were a troublesome problem in other countries as well. They were monsters of unknown origin. Although they are often summoned by black magic, sometimes they occur in the middle of a cave or forest for no reason.

However, Kahel was convinced that the cause of the hordes of monsters that haunt every winter was in Levanas. It wasn’t like this before, but when Leonard became the head of the Santella family, and when he went to Levanas every winter, the monsters started appearing.

Kahel’s father, Damian, raised the suspicion several times, but the Santella family strongly denied it. Still, the refusal to send an investigative team involving people from the Luave family also fueled the suspicion. He gave the excuse that top-secret research for the business of the Santella was going on there, but that was nothing more than an excuse.

However, there were very few soldiers stationed in Levanas, and at the same time, monsters appeared in areas other than Sharden, so the royal family rejected the request of the Luave family to ‘inspect it closely.’ It was absurd for a Guardian family to summon monsters. For the royal family, they would not have wished to upset the Santella family because of an unconfirmed matter.

“Good work, Margella.”

“Are you here, Your Highness?”

A dark-haired woman named Margella greeted Leonard with a welcoming smile.

“What is going on in Ardennes?”

“Ah, it’s going well. Liddell is very ambitious.”

“Miss Liddell is trying to find her place. There is no one in Logos more worthy of the queen’s crown than Miss Liddell.”

“Sure. Because that child is the wish and essence of the Santella family.”

After Melike’s prophecy was discovered, the Santella family prepared to become one-winged rulers of Logos. The biggest obstacle was their cursed constitution to obey the power of the Queen.

They believe that a child of fate will be born at the time of Logos upheaval, and they have used their magical powers to dilute their obedience that flows through their blood. Thanks to this, even if it was not Liddell, the people of the Santella family were significantly less obedient to the Queen compared to the Luaves. Then Leonard’s daughter became that child of fate.

When three-year-old Liddell, who returned from meeting the Queen for the first time in her mother’s arms, said, ‘The Queen, I don’t want to,’ Leonard knew that a Santella who was not ruled by the Queen’s power had finally been born. Because normal blood relatives are bound to like the Queen from the moment they first meet.

Leonard trembled at the excitement just to have been able to become the child’s father. And he considered it his own mission to make Liddell the Queen. He could do anything to achieve that. Cursing a child who doesn’t know anything, killing people without knowing, or even touching black magic that is forbidden in every country.

“Yes, what do you think this year’s harvest will be like?”

Leonard fiddled with the collar of the silver fox fur coat and cast his gaze behind Margella’s back.

The gigantic hollow space that his gaze touched was so large that it was impossible to imagine looking at the narrow entrance of this cave. However, if it was just an empty space inside the cave, Leonard wouldn’t have been interested in it no matter how big it was. What is special here is that an ancient magic circle was drawn on the flat bottom of the space.

As a successor, he discovered it while inspecting each estate, and it was not long before he became the Master that he found out that it was a magic circle of black magic. And by some coincidence, Margella, the warlock who was caught in a temple in a foreign country at that time, was able to be taken in.

He believed that all this was God’s will to make Liddell the Queen.