Thank you WhiteKirby, for the Kofi ♥
[Chapter 30]
“Lord Ian. I will accompany you to your residence.”
I used my palm to cover my mouth, preventing myself from calling out to him. Despite being surrounded by darkness, I could still discern that the voices belonged to the individuals who had just closed the door and left.
“As they please.”
“I still have unfinished tasks.”
There was a sense of aristocratic arrogance in his calm and leisurely tone.
“It is an order from His Grace to serve you, My Lord.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“If the young lord resists, I have been instructed to forcibly bring you, by any means necessary.”
“And he sent only five people for that?”
Even without seeing Ian’s bright smile, I could sense it. How should I put it? His response was truly befitting of him.
“…I’m disappointed. What does Father really think of me? Right?”
He had a knack for leaving people speechless even in tense situations. Surely, even when he was a young lord in the Duke’s household, he must have played the role of the defiant youngest son. The knights, too, seemed momentarily at a loss for words in the face of his consistent grumbling tone.
“No, before that, how do you all see me?”
But at the same time, his words carried a threatening tone.
“I alone would be enough to take care of the valuable personnel in this prison.”
The knights fell silent at the sudden deep, chilling tone. Judging by their manner of speech, they didn’t seem to be the knights personally sent by the Duke. Could it be his brothers, then? I think one of their names was Irnes.
As I strain to recall the information from the original work, furrowing my brow and delving into my own thoughts, a sudden retching sound causes my shoulders to twitch.
It was a strange sound. It was as if sharp objects were piercing through soft flesh, followed by metallic clanks coming from both the right and left sides. In the eerie silence without any conversation, I slowly folded my knees and covered one ear, while keeping my focus on the unfolding situation.
I had a rough idea of what Ian was capable of. He was a half-hearted monster who didn’t take much pleasure in killing. Suddenly, the realization that I had survived encounters with such a man filled me with a mix of indescribable relief and concern about how to deal with Ian going forward.
It was then.
“Lemony, can you wait for a moment?”
The man who suddenly opened the door smiled charmingly.
“Stay comfortable outside. Just give me a moment, I’ll go to the secret room and come back.”
His pale skin resembled marble, and there were splatters of blood like red paint on it. I nodded my head stiffly while crouching, and the man effortlessly lifted one thrashing leg and entered the secret room.
“….Ah.”
The area outside the closet was a mess. I couldn’t help but think that it was better to stay hidden. Trying to clear my mind, I covered my eyes with my hands and took a seat in the most secluded corner I could find, crouching down.
No, this wasn’t helping. It felt like I was losing my mind even more. I stood up again, determined, and removed my hands that had been covering my eyes.
If this were a movie, everything in my field of vision would be blurred or obscured. But this was reality, and it seemed like it would take a while for Ian to finish.
“I think I’m slowly going crazy too.”
So, the choice I made was a mop I found in the cleaning supplies closet.
I knew it was strange. If the protagonist in a drama chose to clean in a situation like this, they would be called a psychopath and people would scream in horror.
However, I knew it. I couldn’t escape from that man. With furrowed brows, I was determined to get rid of those stubborn bloodstains, even enduring the foul stench.
“…this is, what the hell…”
I couldn’t believe my own actions, but it seemed like I had adapted to this prison to some extent. Choosing to remain silent instead of speaking, I went to a secluded corner, turned on the faucet, dampened the mop, and began to clean the floor, pushing the lifeless body aside with my shoe.
It would have been nice to have at least some supplies, but it seemed like there were no such trivial items in the torture chamber to begin with.
Drip. The bloodstains that had accumulated where the mop hit splattered. It seemed like some had gotten on my face, and involuntarily, I revealed a look of disgust as I furrowed my brow.
Then someone appeared.
“…you,”
The man, who seemed at a loss for words in the bewildering scene, stared at my face and then let out a sigh of relief.
“You’re alive.”
It was Deon.
“…Deon.”
What should I say? If the police were to come, would it feel like this? Approaching with a relieved heart, I was suddenly dragged into the closet by a hand that caught me off guard.
◆
“Deon?”
“…..Give me some orders.”
This woman was foolish.
“Slap me, make me kneel, or do something to get me to snap out of it.”
“…Slap you?”
Despite giving her two chances, he couldn’t help but feel infinite trust in those purple eyes staring back at him. When my eyes met that innocent face, the self-restraint he had struggled to maintain crumbled in an instant.
This woman is foolish.
“Deon?”
This woman missed her chance.
“If the dog is in heat, the owner should take responsibility.”
Caught off guard amidst the sharp, splitting sound, the startled woman tried to give an order, but naturally, he had no intention of listening. In the darkness, as her vivid red lips parted, Deon acted according to his own desires.
It was surprisingly moist, yet at the same time, it evoked an impulse to destroy the delicate texture like petals. Holding Lemony captive more firmly than usual, he anxiously and hastily delved into the space between her lips.
“De,”
He swallowed her attempts to call out his name, taking her tongue completely. As she weakly tried to push his shoulder away, he only found it more stimulating.
Her muffled murmurs seemed like attempts at speech, but they were transformed into ambiguous moans. Twisting his head, he pressed her harder, and the parted redness of her mouth glistened with saliva as she struggled to breathe.
He fought against the urge to break something and attacked her lips once again. A disfigured face revealed itself through the breathless exchanges, with pale, flushed skin, wet eyelashes, and even contorted eyebrows.
Even the scent was pleasing.
He could feel the vampire cub was raging with desire.
“Fuck.”
Everything drove him crazy. If even the last bit of rationality had vanished to the point of leaving such a comment, he might have succumbed to the tightness in his lower abdomen and taken her forcefully as he desired.
In truth, the symptoms of berserk ceased at the sound of the woman’s command from distance. However, when his eyes met the mysterious violet irises that seemed to be embedded with amethyst, he was overcome by a strange impulse, incomparable to before, and went completely insane.
“Lemony?”
At that moment,
A man’s voice, searching for the woman, could be heard from the other side of the closed door.
“Lemony, are you okay?”
In response to that voice, Deon, who was lightly biting on Lemony’s lower lip, abruptly released his grip on the closet door handle, which was about to break. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lemony quickly turned her head.
“Stop.”
It was just a soft murmur, but to him, that voice was the universe itself. Upon hearing it, all his desires and movements lost their function.
Deon could finally gaze directly at Lemony’s face. Between her long hair, flowing like curtains, he could see her small, slightly upturned nose and slightly swollen lips.
Lost in staring at her appearance, he belatedly realized that the woman was glaring into empty space. Then, unexpectedly, she raised her head and tightly closed her eyes. Something seeped out between her tightly closed eyelashes, but she hurriedly used the back of her hand to wipe her eye corner.
“Do you hate it that much?”
As Lemony looked at him with a piercing gaze, he could sense the anger brewing in her eyes, tightly suppressed. It felt strange. He had clearly done something to provoke her disapproval, and his desires had been aimed at breaking her down, but upon seeing her face, the remaining embers inside him suddenly turned cold.
“…Because you don’t consider others and just do whatever you want, that’s why I hate it.”
“You were the same.”
The woman, momentarily frozen by the reflexive response, now stared directly at him.
“Deon, at least I,”
However, just as Lemony was about to speak, she abruptly closed her mouth.
“…..Never mind, If your berserk symptoms have subsided, then I’ll leave now.”
The woman pushed Deon’s shoulder as if betrayed and walked out of the closet. Deon pondered over Lemony’s expression for a while inside the closet and then belatedly let out a low laugh.
For some reason, he felt dirty.
◆
“These berserk symptoms were a deliberate operation. It was ordered by Duke Ernest himself.”
As I stepped out of the closet, all the personnel gathered, including the watcher who came running belatedly. Our mission, now that we were reunited, was clear: escape. With Ian, who had made up his mind at the last moment, we all gathered in the torture chamber, and he began revealing the secrets he had been concealing in earnest.
“…W-What did you say?! The Duke Ernest of the Western Empire?”
As expected, the watcher, being the first to speak, opened his mouth wide and exclaimed in astonishment.
“If I’m not mistaken, isn’t the House of Ernest the second most powerful family in the Western Empire, just after the royal family? Oh, and now that I think about it, Ian, you were also a member of the Ernest family, right?”
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Thank you for reading!
