Grand Duke, I Like You, But Please Die! - Chapter 25

“For the time being, don’t do anything.”

Delia, who had snapped back to her senses, jerked her head up.

“Why!”

“Things keep getting complicated.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Of course, she had been causing trouble, but it was all for him!

“You’ve done enough. Now rest.”

At his words, Delia suddenly stood up.

“What’s with the sudden change? Do you still not trust me?”

Kaiel, who slowly stood up following her, said,

“I trust you.”

“I even took an arrow for you today…”

“Yes, you saved me.”

“Then why!”

Delia’s voice, which had been rising with indignation, suddenly softened at his next words.

“What more can I ask for from someone who got hurt saving me?”

It was an unexpected statement.

“Kaiel?”

Delia cautiously approached him.

“I did it because I wanted to, so why…”

“Or…”

Kaiel, who stepped back to avoid her, ran a hand through his hair.

“Do you want me to thank you?”

Delia called his name in a calm voice.

“Kaiel.”

“Thank you, Miss Averbit.”

“Kaiel.”

“Should I give you a reward for taking an arrow for me?”

Unable to hold back, Delia finally shouted.

“Kaiel!”

“Why, Delia…!”

A moment of silence followed.

While Kaiel had quieted down to suppress his emotions, she hadn’t.

My name.

My name…

‘Did he just call my name…?’

Delia’s face flushed. Even though she thought it was inappropriate to blush in this situation, she couldn’t control it.

‘The first time he calls my name, and it’s in anger…’

It was a strange timing, but Delia didn’t care. She was just happy that he called her name.

As they both stood there, unable to speak and only breathing heavily, a lively notification sound broke the silence.

[The villain ‘Kaiel’ feels anger.]
[Plausibility score increases by 15 points.]

Delia, whose heart was racing from hearing her name, widened her eyes as she looked at the status window.

‘It’s the first time the plausibility score has increased for a reason other than discomfort.’

It was a good thing that the plausibility score had increased, and quite generously at that. But she didn’t quite understand why he was so angry that it would cause the score to rise.

Of course, she wasn’t in the mood to ponder such things. Delia closed the status window and looked back at Kaiel.

‘He called my name, so who cares!’

Whether he realized he had called her name or not, the person who made her heart race was now taking deep breaths.

Kaiel, who exhaled deeply, looked at her again.

Delia was gazing at him with eyes like a startled deer.

Kaiel hesitated for a moment before running a large hand over his face.

“…I’m sorry.”

He was apologizing for raising his voice.

He had never gotten this angry at someone before.

Even when he was angry, he hadn’t acted like this…

‘It’s troublesome… Troublesome.’

His heightened emotions were also quite troublesome for him. The anger he had been suppressing since Fourpeak Mountain seemed to have grown while treating her cheek wound.

“It’s okay.”

Delia replied calmly. She really did seem unfazed. In fact, her face was slightly flushed.

“I was about to get frustrated, but when you called my name, I felt better.”

Kaiel, who had been silently watching her, walked over to the sofa and sat down.

His demeanor, as though he was deep in thought, matched the calm atmosphere on his blue-gray eyes. The anger he had shown moments ago had vanished, and he seemed to have quickly regained his composure.

When Delia cautiously approached him, he spoke in a low, subdued voice.

“I…”

He looked up and met her eyes directly.

“I hate it… when someone gets hurt because of me.”

Delia nodded slightly. She already knew this.

‘Because I wrote it that way.’

One surprising aspect was that for him to ‘hate’ it to the point of calling it ‘horrible,’ the person getting hurt had to be someone he considered his own.

His own person.

While Kaiel had many people under him, very few were those he considered his own. His mother, Lady Langte, and Ashlene were among them.

‘Then why me…?’

Considering that he mentioned it now, it must have included her injury.

‘Could I be one of Kaiel’s people too?’

Holding back the smile that was about to form despite the serious atmosphere, she spoke in a soft voice.

“I’m the same as you, Kaiel. That’s why I did it. I don’t want you to get hurt or die.”

Then she added,

“It seems we feel the same way, so let’s both be more careful from now on. And,”

Delia perched on the edge of the sofa.

“Thank you for treating me. If I knew you’d treat me yourself, I would have gotten hurt more often.”

“No.”

Delia smiled slightly and said,

“Then what about emotional wounds? Would you treat those too?”

Kaiel’s lips moved slightly. She continued,

“I heard somewhere that emotional wounds can be healed with love. What do you think?”

“…Nonsense.”

Delia laughed softly as if she had expected his response. The heavy atmosphere lightened a bit.

“Yeah, yeah. Dog nose and an unripe apple. How could I say human words? At best, I could just bark.”

At that moment, she heard a small laugh coming from beside her.

Thinking she might have misheard, Delia immediately turned her head to check him.

“…Did you laugh?”

The faint smile that lingered on his face momentarily vanished, but Delia, who had confirmed it in that brief instant, exclaimed with excitement.

“You laughed! You did laugh! Wow…!”

In all the time she spent writing, she had never described Kaiel as laughing. Yet, here he was, even if only for a fleeting moment, smiling at her words.

Delia, who had witnessed her favorite character’s rare smile firsthand, felt like throwing away the system’s mission and becoming a clown just to make him laugh again.

Until his sharp words pierced through.

“Anyway, rest for a while and do nothing.”

“Why, when everything was going fine…”

“It’s an order.”

Delia, who had been ready to argue further, eventually took a step back. Of course, she only pretended to back down in front of him. She planned to start developing the antidote in secret once she returned to the lab.

‘As long as I don’t get caught.’

“Alright.”

Delia nodded reluctantly.

“Alright, but call my name one more time.”

“……”

After a moment, he replied.

“…Delia.”

***

“This is the arrowhead they used. It’s an uncommon shape, so it should be easy to track.”

A high-ranking servant received the arrowhead from the Grand Duke.

Though the Grand Duke had been under constant threats of assassination, this was the first time he had given such a directive in response.

No matter how the assassins had attacked him before, the Grand Duke had always handled it as if it were nothing.

But now, he was giving orders so suddenly.

There was a rumor that the new researcher had been injured by an arrow shot by an assassin, and it seemed likely that it was because of that researcher.

“Send a letter along with the arrowhead to Sir Horn.”

He then handed a letter to the servant.

With Matisse, his aide, absent, the Grand Duke was handling many tasks alone. Even the servants could see that the workload he managed was immense.

It had been about a year, so it was time to fill the aide’s position again.

The servant who was holding the arrowhead hesitated before speaking.

“Do you think there will be a reply…?”

“I don’t know… But send it anyway.”

The letter, instructing to find and kill the assassin planted on Fourpeak Mountain, was sent along with the arrowhead to his aide, Matisse.

As the servant had predicted, there was no reply, and Delia would eventually have to step in to bring the stubborn aide, Matisse, back, but that is a story for later.

***

For a while, Delia was busy planning how to secretly retrieve the lapocia samples and herbs that Kaiel had confiscated.

The night she finally succeeded in getting maid Lisa to reveal the location of the samples and herbs, Delia snuck out of her room.

It was a bright night with a full moon.

After walking down the long corridor bathed in moonlight, Delia stopped in front of a door. The light from the corridor window illuminated the door handle precisely.

‘He must be asleep, right?’

Delia took a deep breath.

She didn’t really expect the samples and herbs to be in his room.

It was only today that she briefly despaired upon hearing from maid Lisa that all the lapocia samples and herbs were in Kaiel’s room.

It seemed he anticipated she might try to take them secretly and had placed them in his room.

‘So he knows me a little now. But he’s not there yet.’

Delia carefully placed her hand on the doorknob.

‘He wouldn’t expect me to sneak into his room while he’s sleeping.’

Delia wasn’t particularly keen on the idea either.

Sneaking into her favorite character’s room felt quite wrong and it made her guilty.

‘I know it’s a bad thing to do…!’

But it was all to help him. She was taking these actions to quickly restore Lady Langte’s health, so she silently asked for forgiveness for entering his room without permission.

As she gently pressed down on the doorknob, the heavy door began to open slowly.

Thinking about it, anyone could easily enter like this, yet Kaiel didn’t even have a guard posted. It was possible because no one was stronger than him.