Supporting Characters Also Need Some Love

CHAPTER 1: THE SUPPORTING ROLE IS ALSO QUITE DIFFICULT (III)

Part 004

Duke Bigor was dead. At the age of 48, one of Laurentian’s only three dukes, who had been vigorously active until the previous year, in the prime of his age, died suddenly. His son, the actual Duke, hastily returned from the border. On the 63rd day of winter, when the winter rain was pouring down, he immediately gave up his post as commander and took only about 30 of his subordinates and entered Midok, the capital city. Adrian Bigor, the new duke, entered the mansion dressed in military boots and took a cold glance at his father who had become a corpse.

The duke, whom he hadn’t met in four years, was skinny. Adrian, who had been looking down at his dead father for a while, turned around and the old butler, who had been bending his back as much as he could, lowered his head even more.

“Guide me.”

Even in the middle of winter, the butler led him to a strange research room on the 1st basement floor where a peacock was found dead. It was the place where Duke Bigor had been shutting himself up for the past year after all political activities had ceased. His dim interior was a mess. Numerous books without covers, bizarre characters that he didn’t know if they were murals or incantations. The altar that occupied one side of the wall, the sacrifices that were so rotten that it was difficult to discern what they were.

Duke Bigor was found there. The duke forbade entry, so even the butler couldn’t open the door, and there were two knights standing guard in front of the door leading to the basement, so no one went in and out. One day, the Duke did not appear even after the third day of his descent. While the attendants were gathering and whispering about whether or not to break down the door to enter, the creaking wooden door opened from the inside, and someone appeared.

The three unidentified people who didn’t even know they were in the mansion and an old man claiming to be a doctor were sticking their heads out. The butler, who found the duke’s body lying on a cot, arrested the four and imprisoned them in a prison on the second basement level, and sent a telegram to the Taln border where the duke was. The stiff corpse, which must have been dead for at least a day and a half, was beginning to decompose despite the cold weather by the time the Duke arrived after riding his horse for three days and three nights.

“Bring them on.”

When the butler sent knights to bring back the detainee and knelt at the feet of the Duke, the Duke ordered them to empty the room. The two knights who followed from the front line and stuck behind the Duke like shadows looked dissatisfied. I tried to say something, but after looking at the sharp side of the Duke for a while, I followed the attendants and closed the door. The four people who were bound and knelt down seemed to be strangled by the momentum of Adrian, who sat silently. As they glanced at each other and surveyed the atmosphere, the first one to speak was an old man with a decent attire.

“I am the personal physician of the Duke of Bigor. The duke died and I tried to call someone, but I couldn’t help it because the rude people stopped me. I am not guilty. The duke’s death was due to a chronic disease, not my fault.”

“A chronic disease?”

“Yes, yes, the Duke has been fighting the disease for a year. A tumor grew inside his head, and even though I raised the word to receive proper treatment, he only listened to those heinous people and refused treatment, then stopped…”

“Was it a disease that could be cured with treatment?”

“I-that’s…”

When the doctor hesitated for a moment, one of the three who had been watching by the side raised his head and shouted.

“It’s a lie. The disease the Duke suffers from was incurable! That’s why we’re here to help the Duke. Better, the little Duke, don’t do this to us!”

As one opened her mouth, the other two nodded and nodded.

“That’s right. We continued to serve the Duke and did our best here. It is unfortunate that the Duke passed away, but it was irresistible.”

“That’s right, little Duke, we’ve been locked up in the most disgusting place for a year.”

“It’s noisy. If you don’t shut up, I’ll make you shut up.”

The mouth that was chattering at Adrian’s sigh, which was spitting out without a change in expression, was shut.

Adrian asked the doctor.

“It’s an incurable disease. Is that right?”

“Yes? Yes… It’s a disease with no cure, but if you take good care of yourself, you wouldn’t have died so suddenly in a year.”

“There is no cure, so what have you done?”

“I was prescribing painkillers for the Duke.”

“When exactly did the duke die?”

“That was done the morning before the butler knocked on the door.”

“But why didn’t you call people?”

“I was going to call! But the authors! The authors prevented me from calling people because they were trying to figure out a way out of fear that they would be misunderstood!”

“Stop talking nonsense. You were trying to find a way to get in between us!”

Adrian took a look around the lab, which was like a closed room with only one entrance, let alone a window. Even if one left this room, one door at the end of the long corridor was the second basement floor, the door to the closed prison. And in front of the door to the other side of the ground, soldiers would have been guarding it. So, it seemed that they were trying to figure out how to get out, but couldn’t find a way out, so they opened the door to the butler with no choice.

“What are you?”

“Well, we are shamans.”

“A witch doctor?”

It was a question without expression on both sides, but the men wearing the same hoods trembled. It was because he felt Adrian’s deep disgust.

“Yes, we were here doing what the Duke told us to do.”

“What did the Duke do to you?”

“Healing the Duke’s illness…”

“Are you able to cure it?”

“Chi, it’s not a cure, it’s a segment…”

As the men looked at each other and couldn’t speak properly, Adrian put his hand on the handle of his sword.

“What do you need three mouths that can’t speak properly?”

“The Duke asked me to transfer the bottle to someone else!”

The man lowered his head and answered quickly.

“It spreads the disease to others. Is that possible?”

“Even we have never tried it, but it has been said that there is such a secret among the ancient curses…”

“The decline of ancient times, my father gave me a lot of that. You all were in a hurry too… but he wasn’t a person who believed in vain things. So?”

“Yes?”

“He was not the one who would have saved you guys who would have only failed for a year. The fact that you are still surviving today means that you did something different and had your own results. What else did you do?”

The three men’s pale faces died. The three rolled their eyes and looked at each other, pouring out cold sweat.

“If you make me ask one more time, you will all die. Tell me before my useless curiosity runs out.”

“Wow, he said to find a woman who would become queen!”

A man fell on his face and shouted.

“Queen?”

“I was in charge of the research to transfer the disease to the Duke. I found a suitable person to receive the bottle and was about to implement it soon. And these two performed a spell to descend the ‘Queen’s Star’. It couldn’t be transplanted to women, but there must be a woman with a star implanted somewhere in Midoc.”

Adrian’s face crumpled. Couldn’t you give up that greed? Queen’s Star? That sounds funny. A sorceress, was she desperate enough to be fooled by such superstitious sounds? Why did he covet the throne so much?

The dead Duke of Bigor. Antalof Bigor. Its former name was Antalof Hegemony.

An undefeated Duke who was born as the second son of an earlier king and lived with a lifetime of regret over having the throne stolen by an indecisive and incompetent older brother. He led a long war with his nemesis Gatan Kingdom to victory, but Antalof, who had the castle of hegemony taken away by his father and became a Duke, prepared to regain the throne step by step for a very long time. He instigated the crown prince and the second prince to tear the aristocratic faction in two and seize control of the military.

Four years ago, he set up an ambition to overthrow Lorraine by attracting the Duchy of Taln, and with the dispatch of the Duchy of Taln, he raised a military junta and tried to overthrow the country-

The one who stood in my way was the son of the Duke, who sealed the mansion by rallying the forces of young and emerging soldiers. When Antalov, the leader, did not appear, the army that had been waiting around the castle could not move all night. Antalof, imprisoned in the mansion by his son, stood in front of me and burst into anger at the motionless Adrian.

Adrian went to the gathered army without releasing Antalof’s confinement, and led the army heading to the royal castle to the battlefield with the Duchy of Taln. The war with the Principality of Taln, which had been dispatched due to a deal with Antalof, ended quickly in a week. Unaware of anything, Laurenty welcomed Adrian, who was improving with the joy of victory.

Adrian, who returned to the mansion after refusing both the congratulations and the banquet, met Antalof, who was no longer looking at something other than his blood.

‘If I stay still, I’ll scoop up the throne and feed you, but you dare!’

‘I don’t need a throne, father. Why should I shed meaningless blood out of greed?’

‘For my family! This Antalof will be king! That’s mine!’

‘Father.’

‘Noisy! Don’t call me father. If you stand in my way one more time, I will definitely tear you apart!’

Adrian left the dDuke’s residence that day.

The military was split in half. Antalof, whose 10 years of preparation was in vain, gnashed his teeth and sent Adrian to the border area, while Adrian kept an eye on Midok, not panicking to return for four years.

Crumpled up, with a cold voice Adrian asked.

“How many fitters women failed in total?”

The three couldn’t answer this time, but finally opened their mouths to Adrian’s momentum, which was getting more and more violent.

“Yeah, it’s going to be a little over ten.”

The silent doctor interrupts him snoring.

“Heng? Funny sound! Even if you get it right, you’ll be fifty years old. Little Duke. They said they should be of similar age, should have similar constitutions, should be young and healthy, should be blood relatives…”

Excitedly, he put his finger on his tongue and swallowed the words with a chewed face. The three sorcerers, who had their heads down, trembled. Adrian’s right corner of his mouth went up.

It’s sharp, cold, and that’s why it hurts.

“It seems that the final suitable ligature was me.”

So, did he tell him to attend the New Year’s party this year for that reason?

There was nothing more to hear. Adrian kicked the door open and came out. The stale and damp air in the basement was stuffy. In front of the door, his close friends and subordinates were waiting for Adrian with hard faces.

“Finish them.”

“Little Duke! If we die, you die too!!”

At Adrian’s command to kill everyone, a sorcerer casted an evil spell. Adrian didn’t look back, but his men, Thierry and George, strode towards them. Rohan was a hauntingly large man, and the other was a skinny little man, but when they stood together, one seemed bigger and the other smaller.

Thierry grabbed the neck of the shaman who had teased him and lifted him up. As the shaman who had grabbed him by the throat gasped for breath, the other shaman stammered his words as he sank his nose to the floor.

“The spell has already been cast. Ha, one of them has already died, but the disease will dwell in Duke’s head like this. We… we can solve it.

Rolling his eyeballs as they were, one spoke and the other nodded passionately.

“The Duke is already dead, so what kind of disease are you talking about?”

George, a bit on the short side, intervened impatiently. Thierry tossed away the filth as the sorcerer urinated in his grip.

“My lord, what about these?”

George asked with a disapproving face, and Adrian turned around with a pout.

“I think I told you to get rid of it.”

“No, but maybe…”

“If they really could do anything, it would have been me lying on top of there, not my Father.”

Adrian laughed at the witch doctors. As the day of his death approached, even Duke Bigor genuinely hated them, but the young man in front of them was more cool-headed than his father. Even when his own life was threatened, he didn’t bat an eye, only hated the sorcerers.

It’s like a spell that curses people and leads to death. It’s complicated to prepare and the risk to the caster is high, so it’s a problem. The people who were picked by the Duke of Bigor and picked up by him would not be idiots. The man who died at the hands of Thierry was a man who had done dirty work several times. However, to revive a person suffering from a terminal illness was something that only God’s blessings dare to look forward to. There was nothing the shaman who hides in the shadows of darkness couldn’t do.

At first, he responded to the Duke’s call with the intention of killing anyone as a sacrifice with plausible words and stealing money and disappearing. However, the Duke, who was more careful than expected, did not release them from the underground even after killing the sacrifice and completing the magic.

‘Queen’s Star’

It was almost a miracle that the magic that descended on the earth was even half successful. However, when the mark did not appear on any of the women prepared in front of him, the Duke was really ready to kill the magicians.

He wanted to live and lied, saying that the darker the blood, the higher the chance of passing on the disease. He softened his heart and was worried that he would get angry for touching his pupil, but rather, the shamans knew that this was their last chance, even as they bought time for the Duke’s reaction and were relieved. It takes a lot of power to save a single hair from death. How could he curse in a difficult situation?

He appeased the Duke saying he needed the blood of the duke and was buying time while growing up. The fact that he continued to drink strong painkillers to forget the intensifying headaches was also a factor that ruined his body. When the pain started, the Duke’s hysteria was uncontrollable, so the doctor continued to prescribe strong painkillers. The doctor knew the duke wouldn’t last long. The problem was, there was no way to get out of this damn basement. The shamans, who were making fun of lies, slammed their heads on the floor and begged. The doctor, who felt that the atmosphere was not even safe for his own life, banged his head together.

“Please help me! Please help me! Just help me and I’ll find the queen’s star. With that woman, you can become a king. This is true. The little Duke will be better. It’s true, really.”

It’s like throwing the last bait for him, but it’s the same as Adrian.

“How long are you going to dirty my ears?”

At the command of the master who spat bitterly, George’s sword was pulled out of the scabbard without a sound.

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Translator Note: