Bonis sat on the floor and stepped back.
'What should I do, what should I do?!
She had no intention of killing Prince Tesla.
She was just going to threaten him with a dagger, push him away, and run away.
But the moment Prince Tesla's lips covered hers, her body reacted first.
She stabbed a man...
A prince of the Shattonil Kingdom at that.
But he's a bad guy. He deserves to die!
No, how could I kill a man?
She held her head with both hands and looked at the blood flowing from Prince Tesla's side in agony.
'Bonis, my daughter.'
She thought she heard her father's voice from somewhere.
I have to see my father... I couldn't show his daughter, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, a murderer.
'Think. Come to your senses and figure out what to do!'
Bonis wiped away her tears with her hand and mercilessly hit the side of her head with her palm.
The first thought that came to mind was that she had to get out of here.
The hallway was dark, and there were only two of them in the living room.
No one had seen her and Prince Tesla.
All she had to do was leave this place and go up to her quarters.
The fact that Prince Tesla was dead would be known only at dawn or tomorrow morning. Since there was no witness, it was perfect.
“It was self-defense.”
Bonis stood up on shaky legs and said to herself as if hypnotizing her.
“And I lost my little finger because of that bastard. So... it’s okay. It’s not my fault.”
In fact, it wasn’t okay.
Cutting off a little finger with a sword and stabbing someone to death were two completely different things.
It was a moment of crisis, but it wasn’t something that should have been done.
However, Bonis tried to avert her eyes. She soon looked away from Prince Tesla, turned around, opened the door, and went out. She ran down the hallway and climbed the stairs in one breath.
She looked up the stairs to see if anyone was coming down, and she climbed two steps at a time, out of breath.
When she reached the floor where her quarters were, Bonis was out of breath, so he held onto the wall with her hand and turned the corner.
When she saw her room, her energy level dropped rapidly as if she was going to faint.
Bonis walked with all her might, but before she reached her room, another door opened.
“Bonis? Where have you been?”
It was Commander Macrom.
“Oh, yes. I was going to get some water from the first floor.”
However, Bonis was empty-handed.
Commander Macrom asked Bonis, his eyes tense as he heard her trembling voice.
“What’s wrong?”
Bonis shook her head from side to side without saying a word.
Commander Macrom made a worried expression as if he had seen her nod.
The energy he felt from Bonis was extremely unsettling.
The Commander asked her as if he were worried about the old woman.
“Do you keep the dagger I gave you safe? You won’t need it much, but there may be times when you need it in the forest. So always carry the dagger...”
“Ah!”
Bones covered her mouth with her hand after hearing Commander Macrom’s advice.
‘I didn’t bring the dagger!’
She realized belatedly that she had stupidly left the dagger stuck in Prince Tesla’s side.
No matter how flustered she was, she should have brought the dagger.
“Why?”
Commander Macrom raised one eyebrow and asked seriously.
“Commander... what should I do now?”
Commander Macrom sensed that something big had happened when Bonis suddenly asked, “What should I do now?”
“Please tell me what’s wrong. I’ll take care of it.”
How would you take care of it? I killed a person!
A prince from the Kingdom of Shattonil!
Bonis shouted to Commander Macrom, who was looking at him with a serious expression.
But it was strange.
For some reason, Commander Macrom’s words became a source of strength.
Bonis grabbed Commander Macrom’s arm as if holding onto a rope at the edge of a cliff and whispered.
“It was an accident. Prince Tesla tried to rape me, so I unknowingly used that dagger...”
Commander Macrom, who realized why Bonis’s energy was so unstable, asked seriously.
“Did you stab him?”
“I killed him.”
Silence followed Bonis’s answer.
Commander Macrom, who had been blank for a moment, swallowed once and asked again in a lowered voice.
“Where is Prince Tesla now?”
“It’s in the living room on the first floor. No one has seen it, but... I left the dagger here. It’s still stuck in Prince Tesla’s side. What should I do?!”
Bonis burst into tears.
“We should come and find it. Bonis, please stay in your room.”
When Commander Macrom spoke with a solemn expression, Bonis shook her head.
“No, I’ll go with you.”
“It’s okay. Please stay in. I...”
At that moment, an urgent voice from the first floor echoed throughout the villa.
“Prince Tesla has collapsed on the first floor! Call the doctor!!”
“Commander, what do we do?”
Bonis couldn’t breathe properly.
Soon, people would rush in, right?
And everyone would see Commander Macrom’s dagger stuck in Prince Tesla’s side.
***
“Call the doctor!!”
While lying face down on the bed and receiving a back massage from Linel, I heard someone shouting from afar.
Why was it that something happened every night in the villa where I was staying?
“Did you hear?”
I turned my head and asked Linel.
“What’s going on today?”
He sighed and rubbed my waist one last time before getting out of bed.
I got up at the same time, and he pointed at me with one finger and gave me a look telling me to stay still.
“Why?”
“Why? You’re hurt.”
“I told you I was okay earlier.”
I took a sip of the lemon tea on the table and turned around.
“Hmm?”
The lemon tea tasted a little strange.
It didn’t taste like the one I always drank.
A kitchen maid would know how to make lemon tea, but why does it taste like this?
“What’s wrong?”
Linel snatched the glass from me as I was looking at the lemon tea and tasted it himself.
“Did that maid make it earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you say lemon tea? It barely tastes like lemon, and it’s just water with a lot of honey in it? Didn’t you tell her to make honey water?”
“Oh, I guess so. Nancy must have forgotten to call honey water lemon tea. That’s why I was confused for a moment.”
I just agreed with Linel and moved on.
Nancy went down to the restaurant with Bonis, so she might have switched with Bonis.
“Even if I told you to stay, you’d follow me, right?”
He asked in a self-deprecating voice as he put down the lemon tea.
When I nodded with a bashful smile, he gathered my robe and wrapped it around my shoulders as he walked to the door.
“Aren’t you going to hold my hand tonight?”
I followed him and held out my hand.
“What’s pretty?”
He said curtly and opened the door.
I smiled and followed him out the door. But Linel suddenly bent down in front of the door, then straightened up and looked back at me.
“Why is this here?”
“What is it?”
He was holding my magic potion bottle in his hand.
“It’s here, next to the door.”
“...Huh?”
Why is it outside the door?
I took the potion bottle from him and examined it closely.
It was definitely the bottle of magic potion I was taking.
“Zelda, what you left behind... No, that can’t be. When did you take the potion out?”
“Yes, I took it out to drink it when my fever suddenly came up, and it got worse... Oh, actually, I went to see the magic tower master with Rogie earlier.”
“So that’s why you went to see Rogie. And even the magic tower master.”
Linel seemed angry at first, but since I had gone to see the magic tower master because of my fever, I didn’t say anything in particular.
“What did the magic tower master say?”
“He said it would be good to watch the condition until tomorrow morning and then drink it. I thought the same thing. The fever didn’t last; it just came up and went down suddenly.”
“But after you took a bath earlier, did the fever completely go away?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, is that why you fell over while dancing excitedly?”
“...Yes.”
Linel chuckled at my answer and continued talking.
“You didn’t leave it outside the door on your way back from meeting the magic tower master, right?”
“Yes, I think I brought it in and put it on the vanity for a moment, and then forgot and went straight into the bathroom.”
“Are you sure you left it on the vanity?”
He asked, looking down at the magic potion.
My memory was not certain since the potion bottle was found in the wrong place.
“I don’t know. No, I left it on the vanity.”
Unless I was out of my mind due to fever, there was no way I would have left the potion bottle next to the door.
“Then who brought it there... Wasn’t it Nancy who did it?”
“Nancy? But that can’t be. And if she's going to take it, take it. Why would she leave it here?”
“That’s true, but I have a feeling that...”
Linel tilted his head to the side and thought deeply about something.
At that moment, Bellos and the wizard Big could be seen walking quickly toward the stairs from the other side of the hallway.
“Did you both come out after hearing the noise?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. It seems there was an accident on the first floor.”
“We were going to go down anyway,”
I said, putting the magic potion bottle in my robe pocket.
At that moment, doors were opening here and there.
Not only Raphael and Stiane, but also Grand Duke Martins and Princess Resilia must have heard the shouting on the first floor because the structure of the villa room where they were staying today was close to the rooms where the distinguished guests of the Kingdom of Shattonil stayed.
“What’s going on?”
“Who’s yelling?”
Grand Duke Martins looked slightly drunk, and Princess Resilia looked like she had just woken up from a deep sleep.
“You’ll know when you get down.”
Bellos was the first to go down the stairs, and everyone else followed him down.
“Who’s hurt? Where are you?”
Bellos, who had come down to the first floor, shouted toward the hallway.
Since he didn’t know exactly which room the sound was coming from, it was faster to ask like that than to search around.
“This is the reception room!”
The group standing in the middle of the hallway turned toward the direction of the voice.
“Is that Prince Calvain’s voice?”
“I think so.”
I whispered to Linel, and he nodded in return. Everyone froze as they entered the reception room.
Prince Tesla lay unconscious on the floor, bleeding from his side, and Prince Calvain and Commander Macrom were cauterizing his wound.
Bonis was standing next to them, and her face was pale.
What the hell was going on?
“Brother!!”
Princess Resilia pushed me aside from behind and rushed forward, running towards Prince Tesla.
“What happened to my brother? Huh? Why is he bleeding?”
Princess Resilia asked Prince Calvain in an excited voice.
“I don’t know the details because I came down to look for something I left in the reception room and found the Prince. But it seems like he was attacked by someone.”
Prince Calvain said, nodding to the floor.
There was a dagger covered in Prince Tesla’s blood on the floor.
“Your Majesty! Someone tried to kill my brother! Please save my brother, sob sob...”
Princess Resilia cried and grabbed Linel’s trouser leg, slumping forward.
“Princess, calm down. Big, hurry, and check on Prince Tesla’s condition.”
Linel patted Princess Resilia on the back and then took her hand off his trouser leg, nodding to the wizard Big.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The wizard Big immediately examined Prince Tesla’s wounds and looked up at his master, Bellos.
Bellos then knelt down, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on Prince Tesla’s wounds.
“Is he, is he dead?”
Princess Resilia asked a few seconds later, her lips trembling.
Bellos opened her eyes and lowered her hands.
“No. He lost consciousness due to shock from excessive bleeding. However, the blade seems to have penetrated deeply, so we need to hurry up and treat him.”
Unfortunately, Prince Tesla did not die.
Although he had not expected to die, the first thought that came to mind when I heard that he was alive was not a relief, but rather that bad guys have long lives.
“Macrom, have the knights carry the Prince on a stretcher and carry him to the room.”
“...Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Wait!”
Prince Calvain said to Linel, glaring at Commander Macrom.
“Your Majesty, I think you should send someone else instead of Commander Macrom!”
“Is there a reason for that?”
My memory was not certain since the potion bottle was found in the wrong place.
“I don’t know. No, I left it on the vanity.”
Unless I was out of my mind due to fever, there was no way I would have left the potion bottle next to the door.
“Then who brought it there... Wasn’t it Nancy who did it?”
“Nancy? But that can’t be. And if she's going to take it, take it. Why would she leave it here?”
“That’s true, but I have a feeling that...”
Linel tilted his head to the side and thought deeply about something.
At that moment, Bellos and the wizard Big could be seen walking quickly toward the stairs from the other side of the hallway.
“Did you both come out after hearing the noise?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. It seems there was an accident on the first floor.”
“We were going to go down anyway,”
I said, putting the magic potion bottle in my robe pocket.
At that moment, doors were opening here and there.
Not only Raphael and Stiane, but also Grand Duke Martins and Princess Resilia must have heard the shouting on the first floor because the structure of the villa room where they were staying today was close to the rooms where the distinguished guests of the Kingdom of Shattonil stayed.
“What’s going on?”
“Who’s yelling?”
Grand Duke Martins looked slightly drunk, and Princess Resilia looked like she had just woken up from a deep sleep.
“You’ll know when you get down.”
Bellos was the first to go down the stairs, and everyone else followed him down.
“Who’s hurt? Where are you?”
Bellos, who had come down to the first floor, shouted toward the hallway.
Since he didn’t know exactly which room the sound was coming from, it was faster to ask like that than to search around.
“This is the reception room!”
The group standing in the middle of the hallway turned toward the direction of the voice.
“Is that Prince Calvain’s voice?”
“I think so.”
I whispered to Linel, and he nodded in return. Everyone froze as they entered the reception room.
Prince Tesla lay unconscious on the floor, bleeding from his side, and Prince Calvain and Commander Macrom were cauterizing his wound.
Bonis was standing next to them, and her face was pale.
What the hell was going on?
“Brother!!”
Princess Resilia pushed me aside from behind and rushed forward, running towards Prince Tesla.
“What happened to my brother? Huh? Why is he bleeding?”
Princess Resilia asked Prince Calvain in an excited voice.
“I don’t know the details because I came down to look for something I left in the reception room and found the Prince. But it seems like he was attacked by someone.”
Prince Calvain said, nodding to the floor.
There was a dagger covered in Prince Tesla’s blood on the floor.
“Your Majesty! Someone tried to kill my brother! Please save my brother, sob sob...”
Princess Resilia cried and grabbed Linel’s trouser leg, slumping forward.
“Princess, calm down. Big, hurry, and check on Prince Tesla’s condition.”
Linel patted Princess Resilia on the back and then took her hand off his trouser leg, nodding to the wizard Big.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The wizard Big immediately examined Prince Tesla’s wounds and looked up at his master, Bellos.
Bellos then knelt down, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on Prince Tesla’s wounds.
“Is he, is he dead?”
Princess Resilia asked a few seconds later, her lips trembling.
Bellos opened her eyes and lowered her hands.
“No. He lost consciousness due to shock from excessive bleeding. However, the blade seems to have penetrated deeply, so we need to hurry up and treat him.”
Unfortunately, Prince Tesla did not die.
Although he had not expected to die, the first thought that came to mind when I heard that he was alive was not a relief, but rather that bad guys have long lives.
“Macrom, have the knights carry the Prince on a stretcher and carry him to the room.”
“...Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Wait!”
Prince Calvain said to Linel, glaring at Commander Macrom.
“Your Majesty, I think you should send someone else instead of Commander Macrom!”
“Is there a reason for that?”
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