In the end, he was poisoned by monsters.
‘Ugh…’
It felt like being dipped in boiling water and then plunged into ice water. Something squeezed his heart, and the needles rode through his veins and the pain continued uninterruptedly. Elliot regretted it as the poison intoxicated his mind. Even if he only used his holy power. Every time he thought of this, his mother’s voice in his memories echoed in his head.
“Elliot, no one should know that you have holy powers.”
He naturally remembered the moment he heard these words. SIt was when Elliot was only nine years old. Unbeknownst to his parents, Giselle and Daniel escaped the mansion and met a one-horned bear while playing in the woods. It was unreasonable for nine-year-olds to defeat monsters with toy swords. Giselle and Daniel had already manifested their holy powers, but Giselle’s healing power was useless against monsters, and Daniel’s cleansing power was not enough. They were eventually chased and driven to a dead end. It was the moment when he thought he would die that he reflexively reached out his hand just before being hit by the one-horned bear’s swinging foot.
Flash!
A pure white light covered his eyes…
Pop!
There was the sound of something exploding. When Elliot opened his eyes, he couldn’t believe it. The huge bear burst into a ball at once and died. It was the moment when Elliot’s holy power was manifested. He had tremendous destructive power and even his defense was monstrously strong. He, who was envious of his friends in his young mind, also had a really cool ability, so he wanted to boast proudly. However…
“Giselle and Daniel can do it, so why can’t I?”
“Bad people will try to use you.”
He didn’t quite understand it then, but as he looked at his mother’s worried face at that moment, he couldn’t help but promise.
‘But holy power is a blessing from God…’
He had a great ability, but it was a pity that he couldn’t use it for the rest of his life and had to seal it.
‘If I get a better ability, I might be able to forget this ability.’
So, from swordsmanship and tactics to various studies, which were the knowledge of the family head, he clung to them. Even so, Elliot couldn’t let go of his lingering attachments, so he got his books secretly from the adults and trained his holy power, but was caught by his mother and scolded. Then, when he was fourteen, Luna was born and a ray of light began to be seen.
“Couldn’t even be Luna, the head of the household? I want to become a paladin.”
He revealed to his parents the dream he had been quietly raising alone for five years. After a long discussion, the two decided to support Elliot’s dream and took him to the Vatican.
“Bad people will try to use you.”
And Elliot realized the meaning there.
“God has given the Grand Duke the level of destructive power that the empire doesn’t need an army for.”
His mother, who was a saint, had guessed that his holy power was too strong. Fortunately, the Pope at that time was not an ambitious man. Elliot joined the secret Holy Knights directly under the Pope as an apprentice knight. There he learned to control and harness the uncontrollable power within himself. Someday he would be able to devote his abilities to the good cause of eradicating the monsters infesting the empire and defeating the enemies rampaging outside the empire. It was a time when he was happy to undergo hard training every day with high expectations. The law was changed so that women could not become household heads. Elliot had to pack up and return to the Grand Duke’s mansion. And when Luca was born he had to do the same thing over and over again. Then, after his parents passed away, he had to give up his dream of becoming a paladin.
“Elliot, no one should know that you have holy powers.”
In that way, the holy power also became a cumbersome ability that had to be sealed forever. To think that his younger siblings had been threatened by the imperial family because of his ability was beyond cumbersome and dangerous. In the end, holy power was not a blessing to him, but a curse.
‘If it hadn’t been…’
It was a time when he was gasping for breath as he fought against the venom that circulated through his body. He heard her mother’s voice.
“Elliot, are you sick?”
No. She was fine.
“Oops… Sometimes, like Luca, you should try to be tough.”
He heard her tongue doing ‘tsk-tsk’, then he felt a hand shaking his shoulder.
“Elliot, open your eyes. I’ve made your favorite chicken soup.”
It’s definitely a dream. It should be a dream, but it seemed like he could smell his mother’s chicken soup.
Mother?
Elliot opened his eyes. However, the person in front of his eyes was not his mother, but his younger siblings’ nanny.
“I made the chicken soup that your mother used to make.”
As if he hadn’t woken up from a dream yet, he stood up in a daze and took the soup bowl. Chicken and noodles in clear soup, well-cooked peas and carrots. Outwardly, it was quite similar to his mother’s soup.
“Try it.”
“Thank you.”
Elliot hesitated, taking a spoonful of soup and putting it in his mouth. He raised his head and peered deeply into her bewildered emerald eyes. What the hell was she?
“I’ll give you the medicine when it cools down.”
* * *
She took the small cauldron of bubbling purple potion off the stove and set it by the window of the makeshift cabin. Then she looked around to see if there was anything else to do, but there seemed to be nothing, so she started eating lunch with a bowl of soup.
“Mmm, this is really delicious.”
It’s embarrassing to say it with her mouth after she had boiled it.
“I kept the promise to make chicken soup for Your Highness if one day you get sick.”
However, the Grand Duke did not eat the soup, but only stared at it. Embarrassed, he added.
“It will be different from the one the Grand Duchess cooked.”
At that moment, the Grand Duke raised his head and looked at her blankly.
“Same.”
It was an unexpected answer. She wondered if it was polite, but the Grand Duke’s expression was serious.
“Surprisingly.”
“Once I hear it, I do it well. Whoop whoop.”
“Ah… Is that why?”
The Grand Duke, who had been staring at the bowl of soup, then began to eat the soup.
“Now, drink all the medicine.”
After the meal, she handed the moderately cooled detoxifying potion to the Grand Duke.
“How is it? Does it work?”
She asked, returning the empty glass. The Grand Duke nodded, but his face was still pale. Maybe it didn’t work.
The Grand Duke looked at her sullen face and added,
“Cannibal bees are powerful monsters, so they can’t be poisoned at once.”
It was difficult for the Grand Duke to even speak. He lay down again in his sleeping bag and brushed his sweaty silver hair. The Grand Duke, who had been still with his arm resting on his sweaty brow, suddenly took a deep breath.
“Ha…”
She reached out to give him a cold wet towel, but when the hot breath touched the inside of her arm, she was startled and withdrew my hand.
“It’s a bit better though. Thank you.”
“What.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Your Highness, don’t do this.”
While boiling the medicine and watching the Grand Duke suffer, she suddenly came up with an idea.
“I know how to make a dwarf potion…”
“No.”
“Why?”
She offered to make the Grand Duke small and move him to his mansion, but he opposed it outright.
“So Miss Hazel is going to be left alone in this dangerous forest?”
He lifted his blindfolded arm and cast a glance at her from underneath. Purple eyes between half-lazily closed eyelids stared at her, and she started stuttering like an idiot.
“Uh… That’s because I was originally a witch living here… Anyhow, haha…”
“No way.”
The Grand Duke, who had hammered the nails firmly, distorted his face for a moment, perhaps in pain, then continued.
“It was different then and now. Didn’t Miss Hazel see with her own eyes that the Black Forest became a forest of monsters thanks to someone who couldn’t fight me directly?”
She bumped her fingers, unable to watch the Grand Duke keep frowning as he spoke.
“Time for a pain reliever potion.”
The Grand Duke, who drank the potion brought from home, let out a long breath as if he were going to live. She averted her gaze in amazement as his chest, exposed through the half-open shirt, moved greatly.
“Why are vases…”
As he returned the vial to me, he suddenly narrowed his eyes. He asked when he saw the vase she had planted wildflowers in and placed in a box next to her sleeping bag.
“If a lumberjack passing by sees it, he’ll think he’s set up a honeymoon.”
At that moment, her face heated up.
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean that… Oh, giving flowers to someone who is sick is basic courtesy!”
“Right. But why are you screaming?”
The Grand Duke closed his arms and frowned at her. Embarrassed, she turned around and grabbed the broom that was sweeping the floor on her own and started sweeping.
“By the way, what if there are aftereffects?”
She put the broom on the soon-to-be-occurring concern. She sighed as she sat on her sleeping bag, one step away from the Grand Duke, holding a magic book with parchment with magic formulas on it.
“If there is a disability… Become infertile or…”
The Grand Duke’s pupils, which were looking at her under his blindfolded forearm, fluttered.
“I’ll have to find a book about monsters when I go back and check it out.”
There was no information about cannibal bees in her magic book. Where to get it? While thinking about it, the Grand Duke opened his mouth.
“Come to think of it… I almost got stung by a cannibal bee during the last subjugation.”
“Ah, is that so?”
“If it hadn’t been for Miss Hazel, it would have been a big deal. Of course, even now… but.”
The Grand Duke’s speech slowed down, perhaps because of the sleeping herb in the painkiller potion.
“I couldn’t even raise all of my younger siblings… Risking my life to save someone else’s child… Am I not stupid?”
A bitter smile was engraved on the face of the Grand Duke, who was slowly sinking into sleep, and she replied involuntarily.
“No, I like that of His Highness the Grand Duke.”
“I like Hazel too.”
At that moment, she dropped the quill in her hand.
—————————————————————
Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. Thank you very much for reading! 😀
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Next post will be released tomorrow. See you then!
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