Chapter 87

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: The Stalker
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Michele knew. Her master had been born a prince, so he became a soldier. And because he was a soldier, he killed people.

Had he been born the son of a butcher, he would have killed cows and pigs. To Cesare, there was no difference between humans and beasts. The act of killing held no meaning for him.

“If he’d been a butcher’s son, I wonder if I’d be trimming cow intestines alongside him.”

As Michele mused on Cesare’s recent activities, she muttered the thought aloud. Diego, standing beside her, threw in a word.

“His Excellency?”

“…Ah.”

He was a man who would have risen to the top no matter what he was born as. To imagine he would have ended up a mere butcher—realizing her mistake, Michele scratched her head in brief embarrassment. Then, she grinned, pointed at the building, and whistled.

A short, sharp sound pierced the quiet night air. At the same moment, the waiting soldiers swarmed into the building.

As the soldiers burst through the doors, the people inside shrieked and began to flee. But those high on alcohol and drugs were not very nimble. The soldiers easily caught the stumbling figures.

Michele strolled in leisurely a moment later and grabbed the head of a man trying to scurry past her like a rat. She immediately slammed it down onto a table.

*CRACK!* The sound was loud enough to break the table. With an indifferent expression, Michele smashed the man’s head against the tabletop—*thud, thud, thud*—at a steady rhythm.

“Ugh.”

Diego, who followed her in, grimaced. He stepped around a piece of a tooth that had fallen from the bloodied man’s mouth and scanned the building’s interior. Michele tossed aside the man, who was long since unconscious, and followed Diego.

“I told them not to do drugs, the fucking bastards… making things difficult. They treat the Empire’s laws like their own damn dicks, I swear.”

Diego shrugged at her vulgar cursing, no different from that of a common thug. Officially, the operation was to arrest drug users, but there was no reason for Michele and Diego to be mobilized just to round up a few junkies.

The knights had come in person to secure a list of the nobles who did drugs here. Cesare had given the order, specifying the exact date, so there was no doubt it would be here.

But Diego, searching the building with Michele, seemed completely unfocused. He stopped looking around and sidled up to her.

Michele, who had been firing her gun into a suspicious-looking space, stopped shooting and turned to him.

“What?”

“You remember? When we blew up that pub in Fiore.”

“Ah, yeah.”

After beheading the King of Kalpen, Cesare had destroyed one of the largest pubs on Fiore Street. It was such a sudden move that even his own knights had been baffled.

“Thinking about it now, I wonder if that pub… was *that* place.”

His words were vague, but Michele understood perfectly. He was speculating that it was where the deceased Aileen’s body had been desecrated.

Michele holstered her pistol and crossed her arms over her chest. Her freckles bunched together as she scowled.

“I’ve been wondering something myself, actually. That delusion Senon mentioned. In that delusion, what choice would we have made? We would have followed His Excellency, of course, right?”

“…I suppose so.”

They couldn’t be sure, but it would have been beyond compare to the quiet slaughter Cesare was now beginning to orchestrate beneath the surface of the Traon Empire.

Cesare was the commander-in-chief of Traon, but he possessed no particular patriotism. The same was true for his knights. They probably wouldn’t have just followed him; they likely would have been at the forefront of the massacre.

For the dead Aileen.

“Fuck,” Michele spat. The very thought was a foul one. ‘The dead Aileen.’

“You heard from Rotan, right?”

“……”

At the abrupt question, Michele pressed her lips together and nodded. When they heard that their master had nearly killed Aileen, the knights had been speechless for some time.

They now knew Cesare was in a far more precarious state than they had imagined, but with no clear solution, the situation felt hopeless.

“For now, the best we can do is avoid doing anything that might provoke His Excellency.”

Diego let out a long sigh. He shared his worries with Michele, his face etched with concern.

“But I heard that guy is coming with the professors. To see Lady Aileen.”

Michele’s eyes narrowed to slits. She asked again, as if in disbelief.

“…Don’t tell me. That stalker bastard?”

***

The phantom scent of cigarette smoke lingered at the tip of her nose. Aileen rubbed her cheek, though the smell wasn’t real. Her mind kept drifting back to last night.

The memory of them kissing under the orange tree, standing side by side in the rain.

“Rainy days aren’t always so bad.”

After saying that, Cesare had led her back into the mansion. Sonio, who must have been watching the courtyard from inside, immediately approached with a dry cloth.

Aileen hadn’t gotten very wet, as she was covered by Cesare’s uniform jacket. Even so, Cesare tended to her first. He handed his soaked uniform to Sonio and took the towel to dry Aileen himself.

*We even slept together.*

Aileen had fallen asleep in Cesare’s arms, listening to the sound of the rain. It seemed Cesare had also slept soundly to some extent. She couldn’t be certain, as she hadn’t seen him asleep, but she guessed as much from how calm his expression had been that morning compared to other days.

Aileen smiled to herself before quickly schooling her features. For some reason, she felt shy, even though no one was watching. Shaking her head, she focused on her research again.

The laboratory in the grand ducal estate was equipped with every tool Aileen could possibly need. Compared to her previous days, rattling around with old equipment in a small, stuffy room, it was like heaven and earth had been turned upside down.

Before, she had to buy cheap, low-purity opium for her experiments. Now, she could procure raw opium and use it as she pleased. Cesare’s full support had made her experiments much smoother.

While the water boiled, Aileen carefully reviewed the experiment logs she had written so far.

Her goal was to extract the analgesic compound, which made up only about ten percent of opium, in crystalline form. However, she was struggling with the difficult process of removing unnecessary components to isolate only the pain-relieving substance.

She was repeatedly trying a process of filtering the opium with boiled water and adding various chemical compounds.

“Haa…”

Her desire to see results quickly was making her anxious. She told herself to remain calm, but her heart wouldn’t listen.

To compose herself for a moment, Aileen looked at the poppy she had placed by the window. Bathed in sunlight, its red petals looked fresh and vibrant. The color red naturally brought a certain person to mind.

The painkiller Aileen was trying to develop, Morpheus, was named after the god of dreams. She hoped that patients suffering from pain could forget their suffering and sleep soundly through Morpheus.

According to myth, there were two gates where the god of dreams lived. One was made of bone, the other of ivory.

Dreams delivered to humans through the gate of bone were meaningless and quickly forgotten. But dreams delivered through the gate of ivory were said to carry the will of the gods.

*Was Cesare’s dream delivered by a god through the ivory gate? If so, what could it mean? Judging by what he said, he seems to have the same dream over and over…*

*And of all things, it’s a dream of killing me.*

She couldn’t help but be curious about the dream’s meaning. Just as the water finished boiling and she was about to turn off the gas, a polite knock echoed through the lab. A servant then announced a visitor.

“You have a guest, my lady. They’ve arrived earlier than the appointed time. Shall I tell them to wait?”

“No, that’s alright. I’ll be right out!”

Aileen tidied up her equipment and hurried out of the lab. This was a guest she had been eagerly awaiting. Her professors from university had come to visit.

She straightened her clothes and went down to the drawing room. There, a middle-aged man and woman, along with a young man, sat stiffly, glancing around nervously. They seemed overwhelmed by the splendor of the grand ducal estate.

The group, who had been awkwardly clinking their teacups, rose in unison as Aileen entered the room. At first, they didn’t recognize her and hesitated, but when Aileen smiled brightly, they finally realized who she was and called out her name.

“Aileen!”

The professors, who had called her name with delight, clamped their mouths shut. Realizing their mistake, they belatedly glanced at the servants. The servants still wore smiles, but their eyes were not quite as kind.

“It’s… an honor to meet you…”

As the professors quickly tried to adopt a formal demeanor, Aileen approached and took their hands.

“Welcome. I’ve missed you all so much.”

Just as the professors looked moved by her warm welcome, the young man who had been standing silently to the side spoke up.

“How have you been?”

The man had a friendly face, but she had never seen him before. Thinking he must be a student who had come with the professors, Aileen blinked at him with an unfamiliar gaze. The man smiled awkwardly.

“It’s Lucio.”

“What? Senior Lucio…?”

Aileen was genuinely surprised. He had been her closest senior at university. But his appearance had changed so completely that she hadn’t recognized him at all.

“I’ve missed you, Lady Aileen.”

As Aileen just stared with wide eyes, Lucio added with a faint smile.

“Very much so.”