Episode 140
After Elonia’s frantic explanations, everyone finally understood the situation. Valerian turned to Lucius and asked,
“Is that why you refused treatment that required removing your clothes?”
“…It’s a scar I’d rather not show.”
Lucius, turning his head away, then greeted Caroline, as if changing the subject.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aunt.”
“…”
Caroline was speechless, her eyes wide with shock.
Elonia, seeing her reaction, was puzzled.
‘Why is she reacting like this? As if she’s seeing him for the first time…’
She and Lucius had conspired together when he faked his death. Caroline’s reaction suggested she had just realized Cielun was Lucius.
“Caroline, have you met Young Master Lu…neus before?”
“No.”
“…No.”
Caroline, after a moment of hesitation, nodded, and Duchess Luneus, her voice filled with exasperation, added,
“Caroline hasn’t been home since she became a professor at the academy. This is her first visit in almost forty years.”
Elonia sighed inwardly.
Caroline had believed Lucius was dead. He hadn’t returned for seven years after faking his death. And now he was suddenly her sister’s adopted son. It was understandable that she was shocked.
Caroline, snapping out of her daze, finally addressed the real issue.
“This isn’t the time for this. Your Highness, I have a report regarding the purification potion.”
“Ah, yes.”
Caroline began her explanation. She had been working on the antidote with Julietta and Theodore, but there was a problem. An unknown ingredient.
“This ingredient is preventing us from creating a perfect antidote.”
“It seems similar to Holy Power, but Professor Julietta says it’s different.”
“If we can identify this ingredient, creating the antidote will be a simple matter. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Suggestions…”
Elonia, her arms crossed, pondered the question.
‘Should I interrogate the prisoners?’
But the nobles in prison were just distributors, not manufacturers. They wouldn’t know the ingredients.
‘Perhaps we should raid their headquarters.’
They couldn’t be producing such a large quantity of the potion out of thin air.
Elonia nodded.
“Alright, let’s return to the palace and investigate.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Then we’ll take our leave.”
Caroline and Duchess Luneus left, but Valerian remained. He looked at Elonia with concern.
“Your Highness, you look unwell.”
“I just didn’t sleep well.”
“Lucius said you had a meeting with Princess Olivia and Prince Simon.”
Lucius had told on her. Elonia glared at him and said to Valerian, as if offering an excuse,
“That’s not it. I was up all night.”
She had actually been too shocked by Simon’s proposal to sleep, but she pretended it was because of work.
And she was more concerned about Lucius’s scar than her own emotional turmoil.
‘He must have gotten it in Heilan.’
It looked relatively recent, perhaps three years old at most. Lucius, noticing her gaze fixed on his chest, quickly closed his robe.
“Where are you looking?”
Elonia, realizing her stare was inappropriate, apologized.
“Sorry, it was visible…”
It was a lame excuse.
Just as they were all awkwardly silent,
“Your Highness, urgent news from the palace! Forgive my intrusion!”
A knight, not from the Imperial Princess’s Palace, but from the Main Palace, burst into the room.
It was unusual for a knight from the Main Palace to contact her directly, bypassing Ethan and Ricardo.
Before Elonia could ask, the knight knelt and reported,
“Marquis Hellington and the other Resurrectionists have escaped from prison!”
“Gasp… Gasp…”
Marquis Hellington ran, his breathing ragged. He hadn’t seen the face of the person who had freed them, their body completely concealed by a cloak, but this was his chance.
‘We haven’t been abandoned…!’
He had to return and prepare for His resurrection.
But Viscount Hugo stopped running.
“Marquis, Count, this is strange.”
“What now?! The knights will be here any minute!”
“The carriage is waiting in the Peace Treaty Zone! We’re almost there!”
The Peace Treaty Zone was where the former Heilan hostages resided. That was what Viscount Hugo found suspicious.
“Since when is the Imperial Palace security so lax?! The Peace Treaty Zone is swarming with Ravanta knights!”
“Just keep running! We escaped! If we’re caught, we’ll lose our legs! Do you want to lose your legs, Viscount Hugo?”
Artius was ruthless towards criminals, especially nobles. They were already battered and bruised.
More torture? Viscount Hugo shuddered.
“Then hurry up!”
Marquis Hellington shouted, and Viscount Hugo, like a hunted animal, resumed running.
They finally reached the Peace Treaty Zone, and as promised, a rickety carriage was waiting for them.
They quickly climbed inside, but someone was already there.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You’re the one who—!”
It was their mysterious benefactor.
‘How? They were behind us…’
The three nobles, their faces filled with confusion, sat down as instructed.
A strand of curly blond hair, illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the open carriage door, peeked out from under the benefactor’s hood.
“What?”
Marquis Hellington and the other Resurrectionists had escaped?
‘How? Dad was keeping a close eye on them.’
Artius wasn’t careless, and neither were his knights.
A disturbing thought crossed Elonia’s mind.
‘Could the potion of luck have reached the palace?’
Vivian had been affected, but that was different. The potion amplified negative emotions, but it didn’t induce blind faith like the prayer altars.
She had to investigate.
“Lucius, I’ll be going now.”
Just as she turned to Lucius,
“Your Highness, please take me with you.”
Lucius, his eyes filled with a desperate plea, clutched her sleeve.
Hadn’t she just refused him? Elonia, startled by his persistence, said,
“No, this isn’t something I can ask a patient to handle.”
“But—”
Lucius wanted to argue, but she was right. He was a burden. He couldn’t even protect himself, let alone help her.
But he was also anxious. He clung to her sleeve, his voice barely a whisper.
“Then promise me something.”
“What?”
“…Don’t trust anyone.”
It was a surprisingly simple request.
Elonia had lived a life of suspicion since entering the academy. She couldn’t simply stop being suspicious.
She knelt down, meeting his gaze, and replied,
“Alright, I promise.”
Lucius, seeing her slightly exasperated expression, shook his head and said, his voice serious,
“Not even His Majesty, or your godmother. Promise me. Otherwise, I’ll follow you, even if it kills me.”
Elonia, instead of getting angry, was shocked.
“…What?”
“His Majesty meets with many people. Lady Sardia as well. You have to consider the possibility that they might have ingested the potion, intentionally or not.”
“…I know, but they—”
“Please. You and I, with our apostle’s power and abundant mana, are the only ones immune to the potion. Be wary of everyone. Otherwise, Ravanta will be consumed by suspicion and paranoia.”
Lucius’s head drooped, his posture, though he was sitting on the bed, resembling that of someone kneeling in supplication.
Elonia would have normally agreed, trying to reassure him.
But there were some lines she couldn’t cross.
She had found happiness through the people around her. Telling her not to trust anyone, especially her family, was a cruel request.
“…”
Elonia left without a word.
She looked like she was struggling to swallow the bitter pill of suspicion, the thought of distrusting her own family. After she left, Valerian, scratching his cheek awkwardly, turned to Lucius.
“Lucius.”
He sat down where Elonia had been sitting and asked,
“Lucius, do you suspect me as well?”
Lucius looked up at him and asked,
“What do you think?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That means I’m good at hiding my emotions.”
Lucius’s earlier anxiety was gone, his face a mask of calm indifference.
His behavior made sense. Sharing suspicion wasn’t pleasant. Trust was meant to be shared, but not suspicion.
He seemed cold and distant, but he was just protecting himself, drawing boundaries to avoid being hurt. His warning to Elonia had been the same, an attempt to protect her.
But he wouldn’t intentionally hurt her, not when he knew how much she valued her family.
Valerian, observing him closely, asked, his orange eyes unusually sharp,
“You know something, don’t you?”
Lucius hesitated, his lips pressed into a thin line. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. Valerian pressed on,
“Tell me. Don’t let Her Highness misunderstand.”
Elonia. Lucius’s weakness. His savior, the one who had always guided him, the one who had given him hope.
Lucius, his shoulders slumping in defeat, finally confessed,
“I awakened a new divine power while I was in Heilan.”
He had lost his Holy Power and his apostle’s power to Tristan. He hadn’t been worried, since it was recoverable and hadn’t been transferred to Tristan.
But something unexpected had happened.
Perhaps it was because he had returned to Heilan, a land blessed by the Calamity God, after so many years, but he had awakened a new power.
“Precognitive dreams. Prophecy is a god’s domain. So an apostle’s dreams become reality.”
“…!”
He had had a dream, the day he almost died after Tristan drained his power. A dream of Tristan stabbing Alexia with a sword.
And the next day, it had happened.
He had dismissed it as a coincidence. But then he had another dream, a dream of himself being stabbed.
And the next day, he had been stabbed. And it had continued.
“I dreamed of losing my eye, of Tristan showing a moment of vulnerability, of escaping… And when I actually escaped, I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence.”
Valerian’s eyes widened. Even the High Priests of the Madicte Temple couldn’t see the future.
He had known an apostle’s power was significant, but he hadn’t expected it to be this powerful.
“So what did you dream about?”
He must have warned Elonia because he had a dream about her.
Lucius, his hands crumpling the white sheets, finally spoke, his voice strained,
“…I dreamed of His Majesty stabbing a woman with bright mint-green hair.”
It was Elonia. She would be stabbed by Artius.