Theodore’s statue was replaced with a new one in the square. Perhaps it was because the security was particularly strict now, but thankfully enough, no one damaged it even after several days.

“Today, Sercia sent us some lobster.”

Looking at the lobster that was too big to be considered breakfast, Theodore laughed as if at a loss for words.

As soon as he did that, the butler cut it into bite-size pieces and placed it onto Theodore’s plate. He then nodded and good-naturedly responded, “She visited a port city for work and personally sent someone to deliver it early this morning because she thought of the Grand Duchess.”

“Last time it was sheep, before then it was financiers, and the time before then… what was it?”

TL/N: Financiers are a type of French bread.

“Beef,” Selphius replied, taking a piece of lobster meat and putting it into his mouth before chewing.

“Oh, yeah. It was beef… Thanks to you, all of us are enjoying these luxuries.”

Each time Sercia visited a new area, she sent me its specialty product.

Smiling, I put a piece of lobster meat into my mouth. The chewy yet soft meat melted on my tongue.

“It’s so good!”

I couldn’t help my surprised exclamation from coming out. Rebecca laughed and scrunched her nose as I widened my eyes and covered my mouth with my hand before she filled my cup with water.

“Apparently, because it’s so fresh, the kitchen is also preparing it so you can enjoy it raw! Eat lots, Your Highness!”

When I usually ate with the family, it was just us and the butler while everyone else who’d serve us was sent out.

But after the recent arrival of so many delicious ingredients, Rebecca began waiting on me so I could eat with ease.

Eating something so tasty made me feel pretty good. Even Theodore and Selphius were enjoying this morning.

I had a strangely good feeling that everything would go well today.

‘I wish it was always like this!’

It was a flawless morning lacking nothing.

“…?”

That is, until now.

“Huh?”

The tip of my tongue suddenly started tingling. Feeling something strange, I stopped eating and frowned. I tried rolling my tongue inside of my mouth.

“Huuuh?”

It felt weird and stubby, as if it wasn’t my tongue.

“What is it?” Theodore noticed something was wrong and stopped eating to ask.

My tongue, which had felt stubby, could no longer move. It happened in a single moment. Before I could even be surprised, that feeling spread throughout my entire body.

Clang!

The fork and knife in my hand fell onto the floor with a sharp sound.

“Your Highness?”

Selphius’ eyes widened as he stared at me. I was absurdly used to this feeling.

‘Ah, again? Why did it have to happen now? Who was it this time?’

I quickly stared at them while complaining to myself. It seemed like I’d ingested one of the two’s blood, but neither appeared to be bleeding from the outside.

‘My lobster…!’

And I…

“Ugh!”

“…Pershati!”

“Your Highness!”

“Kya! Your Highness!”

After crying out, I banged my head on the table and fainted.

* * *

The entire Lapileon household was turned inside out after seeing Pershati suddenly lose consciousness and faint.

Rebecca ran, saying she’d call a doctor, and Theodore quickly moved the unconscious Pershati into the bedroom.

Pershati let out rough breaths on top of the bed, as if tortured by the pain.

At the sight of that, Theodore hurriedly scanned his own body. He was checking if he had any wounds he wasn’t aware of, but there were none.

“Selphi!”

After he finished the inspection of his own body, Theodore roughly called for Selphius. He then thoroughly scanned over Selphius, who’d followed him.

“I’ve already checked, Your Excellency. There’s no problem.”

It wasn’t just Theodore who was used to stuff like this. As soon as Pershati collapsed, Selphius had already checked his own body.

“It wasn’t me.”

Selphius walked by Theodore and approached the suffering Pershati.

“Your Excellency, calm down. This is unlike you.”

“What?”

“Her Highness woke up even after ingesting our blood, which is much stronger than normal poison.”

After sitting on the chair next to the bed, Selphius reached to grab Pershati’s hand before hesitating.

“So she’ll be fine this time as well, and wake up.”

In the end, Selphius’ hand, which had been hovering in midair, was unable to grasp Pershati’s.

It was the innocent consideration of a child, just in case, Pershati would be in more pain if she touched him because of the poison in his blood—though there was no way that would happen.

Theodore roughly swept his hair up at Selphius’ logical words. Pershati’s complexion was so pale that you could notice it even from a distance.

“And the doctor?”

“The Grand Duchess’ lady-in-waiting went to call him.”

“…The symptoms are the same as when she consumed our blood, but it’s definitely not our blood, right?”

“Neither Your Excellency nor I are bleeding anywhere. There’s no way it was us.”

“Does that mean there’s an issue with the food?”

“…I’m not sure.”

With a tearful face, Selphius looked up at the angry Theodore. His lips trembled anxiously.

“Even if there was poison in the food, we wouldn’t be able to feel it…”

He was correct. That was the only benefit in having the curse of poison in their blood: no matter what deadly poison they consumed, they wouldn’t be able to feel it.

That was why they were in this situation.

Biting down hard on his lower lip, Theodore kicked the desk with his foot.

“Damnit! Just when is the doctor coming?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs was heard. Theodore ran out of the bedroom and reprimanded the running doctor.

“Your steps are so slow!”

Then, he took the heavily-breathing doctor by the nape of his neck before roughly throwing him to Pershati’s side.

“O-One moment… Y-Your Excellency…”

“Do something—anything—now.”

Facing someone who seemed ready to kill him on the spot, the doctor rapidly took the medical gloves out of his bag without even greeting him.

“I-I’ll take a look.”

The doctor carefully examined the precarious Pershati, who was breathing weakly like she was on the verge of death.

Tilting his head, the doctor started glancing over at Theodore.

“A-Ahem. T-The Grand Duchess…”

“Shut up and examine her.”

He didn’t have a good feeling.

Theodore, swearing lowly at the doctor, crooked a finger at the butler.

“Uncle Finneas should be in the Capital right now because of the Extra incident from a few days ago. Find and bring him right away.”

“Yes, understood.”

Being commanded to find and bring someone no one knew the whereabouts of was outrageous.

However, the butler nodded and exited the bedroom quickly. After confirming that he’d left, Theodore called Selphius this time.

“Selphi.”

“Y-Yes?” Selphius, who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Pershati, replied with a worried expression.

“Go down and make sure they don’t throw out any of the food or ingredients from today’s breakfast.”

“I’ve already called the knights and made sure they banned all entry into the kitchen, so don’t worry about that. Just in case, I also ordered them to ensure the chef didn’t escape.”

Theodore looked at Selphius with surprise. Then, he lightly patted the child’s head.

“You’re better than me. Not sending you back to the countryside was a good decision…”

Even at Theodore’s compliment, which was very rare to hear, Selphius didn’t look happy.

“Will the Grand Duchess be okay…?”

“The doctor will examine her. Since the butler went to go find Uncle Finneas, let’s just wait.”

“…Your uncle is in the Capital?”

“The Extra incident from before was probably resolved so cleanly because of Aunt Gloria’s work. If Aunt Gloria is in the Capital, then Uncle Finneas is definitely here too.”

“G-Grandmother is in the Capital?”

“Probably. The only person who could resolve something regarding the Lapileon family so neatly is Aunt Gloria.”

Watching the two conversing quietly, the doctor approached while clearing his throat.

“Um…”

“Speak.”

“I think the Grand Duchess has been poisoned.”

Probably.

Although it was the expected answer, hearing it firsthand from the doctor gave Theodore a nasty feeling. He ground his teeth.

“We need to detoxify it before her condition worsens… And to do that, we need to find out what poison it is. The symptoms are in the preliminary stage right now… s-so…”

Seeing the pathetic doctor rambling, Theodore’s red eyes shone with lunacy.

“Get to the point.”

“S-So…”

“In one sentence.”

“I think I need more time.”

Theodore laughed slowly as if at a loss for words. While his hand approached the handle of the sword hanging from his waist, the doctor began spitting out excuses.

“B-Because there are still signs of paralyzation, and the only symptom I’ve observed is losing consciousness in a single breath, I-I think it’ll take time n-narrowing down w-what kind of p-poison it is… T-Thus, we need to wait for the secondary symptoms of the poison to show up in order to know exactly what kind of poison was used…!”

“So what you’re saying is…”

Theodore ended up unsheathing the sword at his waist. Reflecting the light from the chandelier, the sword shone onto the paling face of the doctor.

“You’re going to wait until the Grand Duchess’ symptoms get worse in order to find out the traits of the poison?”

“T-That’s not what I meant…”

“And if the Grand Duchess dies in that process, are you just going to report her death as caused by, oh, this poison?”

“S-So…”

The doctor was busy following the sword in front of his nose, which was moving as if performing a sword dance, with his eyes.

Selphius spoke while pityingly watching the incompetent doctor’s inability to provide a decisive answer.

“I’ll go look for your Uncle as well.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

As soon as he heard the command, Selphius shot out of the bedroom like an arrow. The doctor watched him with envious eyes because he, too, wanted to flee the bedroom.

To think he’d be stuck with the Grand Duchess, who had almost no hope for survival, and the Grand Duke, who was trying to save her at all costs.

“What are you doing?”

“P-Pardon?”

As he blankly stared at the wide-open bedroom door, he suddenly tilted his head to stare at Theodore, who was blocking it.

“Go save my wife.”

The sword in his hand seemed to be signifying that if he couldn’t save the Grand Duchess, he wouldn’t be leaving this bedroom alive.

Knowing he didn’t have a choice, the doctor turned his body and trudged wearily to Pershati’s side. She was on the verge of life and death.

He had to do something.

* * *

The sun slowly set. Pershati faced several crises. Whenever that happened, the doctor became lost in contemplation as he sweated profusely and did all that he could.

Well, to be honest, he could no longer tell if she was alive or dead now. The doctor glanced at her as she lay on top of the bed.

It’d been a long time since her pained body movements had stopped. It’d also been a long time since her slowing breaths could no longer be heard.

Her body, which was lying down with a pale white face, didn’t move at all.

He’d sat for several hours reading books about poison, experimenting with various methods whenever he came across something with similar symptoms.

However, there was no improvement.

He’d even force-fed Pershati a medicine to make her vomit so she’d throw everything up, but that alone didn’t solve anything.

The doctor sweat profusely while reading the last page of the book.

‘She won’t live. She might even already be dead.’

The doctor closed his eyes tightly as he watched Pershati, who’d lost the liveliness in her complexion a long time ago. Pershati dying meant that he, too, would soon die.

He wiped the tears welling up in his eyes with his sleeve as he closed the book. And right when he turned his head to beg for his life…

The sound of footsteps running up the stairs echoed through the residence. It was followed by wail-like shouts calling for Theodore.

“Y-Your Excellency! …Your Excellency!”

It was Selphius running up the stairs. Selphius gasped for air after he’d run around so much that his hair and clothes had become dishevelled.

“I-I found… huff huff, a-and brought him.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a big shadow was cast behind the child.

“Theo.”

A nice-sounding baritone voice of a middle-aged man filled the air. It was a man of a similar height to Theodore. At his appearance, Theodore mumbled lowly.

“…Uncle.”

Finneas Gun Lapileon. He was the Lapileon family’s doctor.

“Let’s greet each other properly later.”

Patting Theodore lightly on his shoulder, Finneas passed him and walked toward the bed Pershati was on. Then, he spoke words that gave the despaired doctor hope.

“I’ll look after her from now on, so you can take your leave.”

As soon as Finneas finished speaking, the doctor picked up his medicinal bag and hurriedly left the bedroom.

Looking at Pershati’s face, which was not only pale but also devoid of any liveliness, Finneas began moving quickly. He took out a small scalpel from the bag he’d brought with him.

After disinfecting Pershati’s index finger with a cotton pad, he moved the scalpel toward it.