Duke, Please Let Go of My Ankle! - Chapter 29

Meanwhile, Audrey was anxious to the point of death.

It seemed unlikely that she would die peacefully after all.

Isn’t it like wine?

First, you enjoy it with your eyes, then with your nose, and finally savor its taste.

That’s what Audrey was to Duke Frith.

After thoroughly enjoying the sight of her trembling like a young lamb, he clearly intended to slowly drain her blood and kill her.

‘What an utterly wicked man!’

Duke Frith was staring only at her.

He seemed to think he wasn’t showing it, but it was impossible not to notice when he stopped what he was doing and gazed absentmindedly.

Derek was quite openly stealing glances at her hands.

‘……Are those maple leaves?’

There’s no way those tiny things could be human hands.

Being so adorably small, how could one survive in this harsh world?

Forget about swords, it was doubtful if she could even properly hold a pen.

‘To think she’s been working with such cute hands all this time……’

Somehow, it felt like his face might melt into a puddle.

They were truly lovable. He truly wanted to bite them.

This time, his gaze lowered beneath the desk. Then he noticed her feet peeking out.

‘Why are her feet so small too?’

Aren’t they just like little whole-wheat buns?

Whole wheat buns attached to human legs! It seemed like they might make cute crunching sounds with every step.

How could his Dodori be so lovable just by existing?

Unable to control his facial muscles at all, Derek’s face contorted severely.

However, Audrey, witnessing this series of events, was terrified.

‘Why, why is he looking at me like that?’

Those eerie blood-red eyes were carefully examining her wrists and ankles.

It was as if he was appraising each joint.

‘He’s going to cut them off! He’s going to cut them off!’

Convinced that he would cut off her wrists and ankles, Audrey went into a state of panic.

Whenever he even slightly furrowed his brow, she tried her hardest to calm her trembling hands and feet.

She already felt her blood running cold.

‘Don’t cry…… Crying won’t solve anything. Don’t cry!’

Audrey desperately held back her tears.

But her once-clear hands and feet began to blur more and more.

Though she tried hard to keep her eyes wide open and remain calm, her bright red nose was not something easily hidden.

─Thud.

“……!”

Suddenly, Duke Frith stood up, pushing back his chair.

“……Your Grace?”

“……”

He glared at the innocent Audrey for a long while, then left the Finance Department without a word.

Surprised by this sudden turn of events, people froze in place, unable to even open their mouths.

‘This is dangerous, dangerous.’

Derek crossed the corridor at the fastest speed of his life.

If he had stayed in the Finance Department even a moment longer, who knows what might have happened.

This was all because his Dodori was so adorable.

‘I really can’t stand it!’

As he stole glances at her, an inexplicable urge for violence surged within him.

He wanted to rush to the training grounds and mercilessly slash the straw dummies. He also wanted to smash every wall in sight.

‘Am I going crazy?’

It was frustrating; he clearly felt an itch somewhere but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

Would this strange itching sensation disappear if he slashed away at something?

It was truly a problem that Dodori’s lovableness was too much to handle.

─Swish! Swish!

Arriving at the training grounds, Derek went berserk.

Following his merciless sword strokes, the training dummies were cruelly shattered to pieces.

Even though he knew they weren’t people, seeing the straw debris scattered across the entire training ground was enough to make one’s skin crawl.

‘Who upset His Grace’s mood again?’

Lucas stood idly by, watching the spectacle.

Duke Frith, thoroughly enraged, and not content with just chopping up the dummies, began pounding them with his fists instead of his sword.

The reason was utterly incomprehensible.

Why had someone who had just been sitting in the Finance Department suddenly become so angry?

Lucas, who had been carefully observing, very cautiously asked the reason.

“Your Grace. Perhaps there was some unpleasant matter……”

“Hah. Nothing of the sort. Just because.”

“……!”

Derek, without a hair out of place, strode over.

He looked quite fitting, charging forward with a longsword in hand, leaving the shattered dummies behind.

One might say he looked like a general coming to end the enemy’s life.

‘Eek, eek! Don’t come closer!’

The pale-faced aide unknowingly took a step back.

However, Derek, who had come right up to him, stopped in his tracks and couldn’t continue speaking for a while.

He seemed to be struggling with what to say.

“Hands……”

“Pardon?”

“Hands as small as maple leaves. Human hands.”

“Your Grace?”

“……As small as maple leaves.”

Duke Frith pressed the aide with a dazed expression.

Somehow, it felt like he was venting his frustrations.

“You probably haven’t seen them, but there are hands as small as maple leaves.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Hands as small as maple leaves.”

“……”

So what do you want me to do about it?

Did he want to boast, ‘You’ve never seen such a thing, have you?’

Duke Frith remained motionless for a moment afterward, his gaze distant as if lost in memory.

***

‘This won’t do at all.’

Derek felt even more urgent.

He thought having Dodori in front of him would calm his aching heart a little.

Instead, it made him more impatient, and he worried that others might set their sights on Dodori too.

‘I need to hurry.’

It seemed he would have to change the major construction on the fourth floor to a medium-scale project.

“How many workers are there currently?”

“Ten workers have been deployed, sir.”

“No wonder it’s been so slow.”

Duke Frith carefully examined every corner of the fourth-floor office.

Then he called all the resting workers together.

“Can you finish the construction by tomorrow morning at the latest?”

“…W-We’ll try to hurry, but it’s nearly impossible. We’re short-handed, and above all-“

“How many more do you need?”

“Huh? W-Well, even twenty more would make it easier, but-“

“Good. Lucas, deploy thirty more workers to the fourth floor.”

“……!”

Duke Frith was serious.

“I know it’s an unreasonable request. So I won’t ask empty-handed.”

“……”

“For this construction, I’ll pay ten times the usual wage.”

“……!”

“However, those with personal circumstances can work as much as they can and then leave.”

Lucas thought his lord had surely gone completely mad.

To pour out money and people just because he couldn’t wait a few days!

It wasn’t a thought that could come from a sane mind.

“For those who can, I hope you’ll work through the night. I won’t mind any construction noise at all.”

“Yes! Understood!”

The aide’s suspicious gaze turned towards his lord.

‘…Could it be because of Lady Kevelson?’

A man who had never known complaints in his life suddenly ordered construction.

At first, it was clearly for Count Kevelson.

But somehow, after Lady Kevelson’s visit, the construction proceeded rather suspiciously.

First, they knocked down the wall in the adjacent room. Then they searched the world over to bring in one enormous cherry blossom tree.

A tree indoors with no soil to root in was something only possible in imagination.

But Duke Frith made it all possible with money.

He had dozens of expensive magic stones hammered into the roots of the cherry blossom tree.

“It’s exactly the same color as Dodori’s hair.”

The drive to transplant a tree just because it matched her hair color was chilling.

‘…He’s gone mad.’

Anyone could see that was for Lady Kevelson.

There’s no way he would gift a money-eating cherry blossom tree to a count nearing fifty.

It seemed his lord intended to share the office with ‘his’ Dodori instead of Count Kevelson.

The strange orders didn’t stop there.

“I want something made. Like… a cart.”

“What do you need it for?”

“I want to give it to Dodori.”

“Pardon?”

Lucas exercised all his imagination.

Did Lady Kevelson need a cart? It’s not like he was going to use her as a porter.

Compared to the cherry blossom tree, it wasn’t a romantic gift at all.

But Derek’s face was quite serious.

“We should assign a person to it too.”

“Wh-What?”

“It would be tiring to walk around with those tiny feet, wouldn’t it?”

As a rule, small and cute things should be treated preciously.

Derek clenched his fist again as he recalled those adorable feet.

Meanwhile, Lucas wore an expression that suggested he was hearing all sorts of bizarre things.

‘A cart and a person too?’

Somehow, his lord’s actions seemed suspicious.

Surely, surely this lifelong bachelor… couldn’t be planning to put Lady Kevelson on a cargo cart?

Because her feet might hurt?

‘Oh, God!’

The scene of Audrey being carted around the entire ducal castle involuntarily came to mind.

Unlike Duke Frith’s imagination, that scene wasn’t romantic at all.

Lady Kevelson being moved like a package, accompanied by the noisy rumbling of wheels.

‘It’s just like transporting a statue!’

He could almost see her face, eyes rolling tearfully.

No, what man in the world courts a woman like this?

“Um, Your Grace. Please reconsider-“

“You say that because you haven’t seen it. Human feet as small as whole wheat buns.”

“Never mind whole wheat buns or rye bread-“

“I can’t overwork those tiny feet.”

Derek clicked his tongue, recalling the portraits of past dukes one by one.

‘If it’s living space, couldn’t they have built it moderately?’

What were they thinking, building the ducal castle so ridiculously large?

At this rate, the future duchess’s feet might become cracked whole wheat buns!

The lifelong bachelor’s mind was soaring in strange directions. It was a talent if you could call it that.