How Can You Pay Back The Kindness I Raised With Obsession?

… I look forward to your valiant performance this time.

That was the emperor’s edict. Elliot crumpled the fine parchment scrawled with the emperor’s signature and threw it to the corner of his desk. Daniel’s brow wrinkled like a book when he picked it up and opened it.

“It’s been less than a month since I came back from the expedition.”

That time, however, he had to destroy the demons on the eastern frontier. The deadline given to depart was only a week.

“Even if you’re so good at your job, it’s too much to ask you to go so soon.”

“Maybe it’s because I come back alive every time.”

In front of Daniel’s bitter smile, Elliot cupped his forehead with one hand.

“How many times his orders had sent you out this year?”

Simply saying no was not the way. It’s clear that retaliation would follow one way or another. He thought about losing the battle with a trick. If defeat was repeated, the emperor would no longer look for him. However, if he lost, whether it was a war or a demon subjugation, the damage would be seen by the people. It was not something he could do for my own personal gain. But because of that, leaving his younger siblings alone was dangerous. That was a private matter that could never be abandoned in the face of any public interest.

“What can I do this time?”

Struggling and burying himself deep in his chair, Daniel held out another scroll of parchment.

“Here you have the report of the alchemist and the apothecary.”

That was what Elliot was waiting for. His eyes slowly softened as he opened it and read it without hesitation.

“You didn’t find anything?”

“Yes, it’s just plain delicious cake.”

As soon as he brought his younger siblings to the Grand Duke, he called a wizard and a doctor to check them out. The eminent wizard who first inspected the cake also concluded so. It was fortunate that there was no magic, poison, or potion on the cake. The wizard said he didn’t feel any dark magic or magic energy in the children. The doctor even admired the good nutrition of the cake and disappeared. However, the more the test results were received, the more questions piled up without any questions being answered.

“Hmm… Is it just cake?”

“Hardly. It must be that the witch used magic that no one knew about.”

“You didn’t feel anything?”

“No, but…”

“I didn’t feel it either”

In the witch’s hut, he was only worried about his siblings, so he couldn’t make a leisurely rational judgment. But now that he thought about that witch, it was suspicious that she wasn’t suspicious.

“An evil witch taking care of the children… There’s no way that can be true.”

“Yes.”

“But she didn’t want money, she didn’t want to assassinate them, not mean to eat them.”

“But it’s rumored to be grilling people.”

“That’s a rumor. No one actually says their family was eaten. But even if she had not eaten anybody, there are a lot of people who said that the witch has been grumpy with them while scolding.”

Daniel began to recite the witch’s evil deeds: turning a villager into a frog because she didn’t like the way he stared, turning crushed grapes into rats at the grape treading festival and, even if there was no evidence of that, a witch who did not get along with the witch of the Black Forest died of an unexplained illness.

She apparently even changed her appearance a few years ago to a completely different person. Since that was used for espionage, it was even a spell that was only allowed to imperial wizards. But the witch wasn’t trying to fake her new identity. When he saw her walking around with a new face, he didn’t see any sinister intentions, so he didn’t take issue with it.

“But those evil things stopped several years ago.”

He meant, from that time before her appearance changed.

“That’s suspicious.”

He felt like she wasn’t the witch he had heard about as a rumor.

“Maybe she is pretending to be nice to mislead people with their friendly appearance.”

“Looks are enough to deceive people, but does she really need to be nice?”

Daniel, who immediately realized that he was referring to someone in the imperial palace, smiled bitterly and nodded.

“There is no need to be nice.”

The corners of Elliot’s mouth, which had been rising at an angle, suddenly dropped. Now was not the time to talk or laugh like that. There was only a week left until the ship’s release. There was no way not to go. Before leaving, he had to find a way to prevent his younger siblings from running away from home a second time.

Already notorious within the empire, there was not even a candidate for a new nanny. So finding a nanny who would win the hearts of the children within a week was next to impossible. They were loyal, but they could hardly be trusted as the watchdogs of their his siblings. Last time, even though the Guard was instructed to watch them at all times, the two of them had managed to find a gap and slip away.

“I mean bring Hazel instead of that nanny!”

Luna’s cry echoed again and again in Elliot’s mind as he slammed on the desk.

Let’s believe it. His sensibilities were rarely wrong. Moreover, Elliott was quick to decide. He ended the conflict in an instant and raised his head.

“Sir Daniel.”

“Yes?”

“You were once a paladin, weren’t you?”

Elliot laughed, raising the corners of his mouth coolly. That smile was not always ominous. In fact, it was ominous only from the moment he suddenly attached the official title of ‘Sir’ to any person, and sadly, Daniel’s feelings for his superiors were never wrong.

* * *

If she keeped being like that, fall would end before she knew.

She scrambled out and picked up an empty basket. If she didn’t pick and dry the mushrooms before they receded, she wouldn’t even taste them until next fall.

“I’ll be back.”

Sitting at the table, she held a tail-wagging Daisy in her arms and waved to Lady. Lady, lying sullenly on the sunlit floor, muttered with a smirk as she grabbed the doorknob.

[Tell them to get down on their knees and pray.]

“To whom?”

[You’ll find out soon.]

She tilted her head and opened the door wide, before froze. And the man she made eye contact with also became ice.

“Grand Duke?”

A man with silver hair and purple eyes: Archduke Blaine was standing in front of her cabin. Blinking in disbelief, she raised her hand to knock on the door and looked behind the man’s stiff back.

“What about the nights?”

He wouldn’t have come without bringing them. But there were no wagons, not even escorts. A white horse touring outside the fence was all he had brought with him.

“Then why are you here?”

She shifted her gaze back to the Grand Duke and looked. There were no footprints in the damp front yard from the morning rain. Only one person’s footprint.

After thinking about it for a long time, looking at the way he looked, she seemed to know why he came. She looked at him suspiciously, and the Grand Duke asked as he lowered the hand he was holding hesitantly.

“Miss Hazel, can you give me some time?”

Before he called her an evil witch, a kidnapper, and ruder things. Now, he even talked to her in a respectful tone with honorifics. At that moment, doubt turned to conviction.

“You came because you had a request for me.”

It was obvious that the people who used to point the finger at her as an evil witch were changing their attitude when asking for something. To curse someone, or to kill someone, or even to steal that person’s heart. She had been asked countless times to use forbidden magic for selfish reasons.

‘Is the Grand Duke like that too?’

It was so shameless.

“I’m busy.”

She brushed past him and whispered. She stepped out into the yard and flicked her fingers, and the door slammed closed. The man just stood there and looked at her with a little displeasure.

[That guy smelled like little guys!]

Daisy huffed in her arms and wagged her tail wildly.

[Don’t wag your tail, that’s a bad boy.]

She stepped out of the fence, blindfolded by Daisy, who tilted her head over her shoulder towards the man. Judging from the Grand Duke’s calm demeanor, it was clear that there was no emergency for the chestnuts. So there was no need to mix things up.

‘What…’

As she walked into the thickening shade of the woods, she came to a standstill. At the same time, the footsteps that had been following her stopped. She turned around. The Grand Duke stood arm in arm on the trail about three steps away from her.

As a matter of habit, the corners of her eyes curved slightly when their eyes met, but her eyes were not smiling at all.

“’Why are you following me?”

“For a quick conversation. I’m a busy person too.”

“If you’re busy, why don’t you go back?”

It was a chilly rebuttal that wasn’t really like her. But she couldn’t help but smile at the thought that man abused her children. Besides, what the hell did he do to find the children and take them back? She grumbled to herself and walked back up. The sound of footsteps echoed again behind her back.

“Where are we going?”

“To the forest.”

“Aren’t we already in it?”

“…”

“Well, Let me change the question. What are you going to do?”

“I’m on my way to sacrifice His Highness the Grand Duke to a secret altar deep in the forest.”

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Translator Note: