You are at the End of the Downfall

At Darinka’s diagnosis, the laundress’s face turned ashen. If she’s driven out for spreading disease, where would she earn money? She had struggled to get this laundress position, and if she lost it, she would have to starve starting today.

“If it spreads in the castle, it will spread outside too. Take the child and treat it until it’s fully recovered. Check if it hasn’t already spread among the other children.”

“Is that alright?” Darinka asked, brightening up. Although she had to closely monitor the Grand Duchess’s condition as per the Grand Duke’s orders, she had been feeling restless with little to do by the Grand Duchess’s side.

“Do it. It’s a waste of talent to leave a capable doctor idle.”

While she had no intention of expanding the fortress, deepening the moat, or changing the castle’s infrastructure, surely it would be fine to let a doctor who usually cared for the poor do his job? Yes, that should be just right.

Kaela gazed distantly at the little girl who was now wheezing after crying herself out. The child was clinging tightly to her mother.

The mother, too, was holding the child close. It must be a precious joy. Kaela looked away. It was something she would never know in her lifetime.

****

Rolf Anderson, the butler of Lusenford Castle, was struggling to manage the castle in the current absence of a head maid.

He always proudly referred to himself as ‘Baron’ and believed he worked with great responsibility and loyalty to his duties.

To others, it seemed more like his pride was unnecessarily inflated rather than being responsible, but not everyone can be objective about themselves.

That’s why he felt a serious crisis when the doctor suddenly came demanding to open the storehouse.

“No, those are such precious items, how can you ask for them! Is that really necessary for treating Her Highness the Grand Duchess?”

This woman, whether an apothecary or whatever, who had barged in on the butler with Sir Wilberk in the lead, seemed like a completely wrong choice to Baron Rolf Anderson.

In his view, women were somewhat dull and excessively emotional, unsuitable for productive and important work like treating someone. But since His Highness the Grand Duke had chosen her, he had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Her Highness ordered us to give them out.”

Moreover, this female apothecary had an extremely impertinent gaze and was not docile at all. She was as blunt as the knights, just saying that and nothing more.

He couldn’t understand why the newly arrived Grand Duchess, who couldn’t even digest a simple tour berry and caused such a fuss, was now ordering precious soap and medicines to be handed out.

With a mountain of work to do, Rolf was extremely annoyed and irritated that he had to go to the storehouse himself in the midst of all this.

With Sir Wilberk quietly watching from behind, he had no choice but to go to the storehouse and open the door, but the apothecary’s words kept bothering him throughout.

“Good heavens, if you stack things like this without proper management, they’ll all go to waste. I need to take these out quickly.”

How can she talk so much while taking away precious medicines and soap to use?

In this cold place, one always had to hoard, cherish, and economize everything! After firmly locking the storehouse door again and returning to his post, Rolf sat thinking for a while before getting up again.

As the butler overseeing Lusenford Castle, he needed to know exactly how those items were being used.

Rolf had a perfect grip on the castle, and he quickly found out where that woman was using the precious medicines on the Grand Duchess’s orders.

Those precious medicines were, good heavens, being used on dirty children!

“Tell us about the dragon!”

Rolf peeked through the crack in the door at the sight of the employees’ lowly children sniffling and whining to the apothecary.

“Dragons are born from ashes.”

“Not from red fire?”

“After fire burns, and burns, and burns again, they’re born from the remaining ashes. And then they breathe terrifying flames that burn everything. Now, let’s see here? Right. Seems you have a fever.”

As the children’s bright eyes turned towards Darinka, Rolf quickly left the place. The Grand Duchess was being foolish!

How could she give such precious items, which should be saved for the wounded if a dragon attacks, to such lowly creatures! How to deal with this wasteful habit of someone who grew up pampered and knows nothing about spending money like water!

‘And yet His Highness the Grand Duke knows nothing and is simply bewitched…!’

What did the head maid Doris say when she was exiled? That the Grand Duke they had carefully raised had been bewitched by a woman.

And by a southern woman, the Emperor’s niece, no less! Well, young men infatuated with women are known to be blind to everything else.

The castle under the Grand Duke’s rule was running in a strange way, and keys were slipping out of the butler’s grasp one by one. That shouldn’t happen.

“It shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t.”

The butler overseeing Lusenford Castle picked up his pen with a pure heart, solely out of concern for the Grand Duke. Nothing in Lusenford should change.

Everything must stay in its place; the moment things change, it all becomes unstable. How could the castle guarding the North be like that! The exile of the head maid should be enough. Now it was time to return to the old ways.

The pen began to draw mysterious codes instead of Craine letters. After meticulously completing the coded message, Rolf sealed it using the same method as always and handed it to his close associate who was always wandering around the castle.

“To the usual place.”

The associate who disappeared after only bowing his head without a word returned shortly with a reply. Rolf closed the door tightly and opened the envelope sealed in the same way he had sealed his, reading the coded message.

-Already reported.-

Ah, of course. Rolf slightly furrowed his brow. What a vile dog of the Emperor. So they’ve already reported to Craine that the Grand Duchess had collapsed.

“How quick. Anyway…”

They’re just after the crumbs falling from Craine’s table. Of course, Rolf himself had essentially ordered the news of the Lusenford Grand Duchess’s collapse to be sent to the Emperor, but he was merely using them.

It’s the role of a guardian to properly guide a young person who has temporarily lost their way.

In that sense, if the Emperor hears the news and once again, as always, sends an envoy to stir up Lusenford, the Grand Duke will surely come to his senses. He’ll realize that the Grand Duchess is just a Craine woman sent by the Emperor, not a person of Lusenford.

After all, she was the Emperor’s niece, so that was unavoidable. It was just frustrating that the Grand Duke hadn’t realized what everyone else already knew.

‘Sometimes a rod is necessary too. Indeed it is.’

This was all out of a desire for the Grand Duke to grow up properly. The Emperor would deliver the beating on his behalf, and the butler would use all of this to establish the Lusenford Grand Duke as a proper Grand Duke.

Rolf felt proud as he once again reflected on how wise and intelligent he was for thinking all this through.

As always, he was a man overflowing with pride.

Outside the tightly closed castle, spies serving as the Emperor’s eyes and ears were already moving quickly. Inside the castle, in the warm, fire-lit infirmary, the dragon story for the children was still ongoing.

“Dragons hold gold within them. Even the hottest fire can’t defeat a dragon.”

Far in the distance, in the realm of the evil dragon, something ominous and black – whether shadow or smoke – rose up.