Chapter 26

Euphrasia, who had collapsed to the floor, stared at Leopold with wide eyes.  

Her gaze demanded an explanation.  

Her face reflected embarrassment and confusion, mixed with a fear that perhaps her judgment had been wrong.  

However, Leopold, before offering any explanation, hurriedly unbuttoned Eric’s shirt.  

Suddenly, Eric’s well-built upper body was revealed.  

Even amidst the chaos, Euphrasia instinctively turned her head away.  

Her flushed cheeks grew redder.  

She blamed her reaction on the audacious lie she had told earlier—something she would never have imagined saying under normal circumstances—and still, she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at Eric’s exposed torso.  

Meanwhile, Leopold was meticulously examining Eric’s revealed chest.  

His gaze, scanning carefully, stopped near Eric’s heart.  

Thin black lines intertwined, spreading like a spider’s web, constricting his heart.  

The lines were gradually moving toward his heart in real time.  

“Hmm.”  

Leopold swallowed hard upon seeing the distinctive, all-too-familiar spiderweb pattern.  

‘Arachne’s Prey?’  

Arachne’s Prey. It was a colorless, odorless poison created using the power of the earth spirit, Gnome.  

Leopold’s suspicion was correct.  

This poison had been sent by none other than his half-sister, Princess Isabella of Kettlin.  

In the Kingdom of Kettlin, only Isabella could wield the power of the earth spirit.  

Additionally, Isabella was not only a candidate for succession but also the kingdom’s foremost alchemist.  

‘Is this fortunate?’  

The movement of the lines was proceeding quite slowly.  

The emergency treatment he had administered was highly effective.  

The antidote Leopold always carried with him happened to be specifically formulated for Arachne’s Prey.  

After all, the poison Isabella crafted had appeared on his dining table more than once in the past.  

‘I’ve bought us some time at least.’  

Having succeeded in administering first aid, the next step was to proceed with a proper antidote.  

Leopold sighed in relief and drew a dagger from his waist.  

The blade, finely honed, gleamed under the drawing room’s light.  

“W-wait! What are you doing now?”  

“Treating him…”  

“Don’t lie!”  

Startled by the gleaming blade, Euphrasia shot to her feet.  

Forcing strength into her weakened legs, she approached Leopold desperately.  

This caused the tip of his dagger to hesitate in mid-air.  

“Don’t touch him. Look carefully at who you’re about to harm. Do you think you can handle the wrath of the Herrington family? Are you planning to make enemies of us?”  

Her trembling lips moved on their own, bombarding Leopold with accusations.  

Her words were threatening, but her expression was desperate, as though she was on the verge of tears.  

‘This was a mistake!’  

Euphrasia’s face twisted in despair.  

The person she thought would be her lifeline turned out to be a reaper from hell.  

Since escaping the suffocating cage of the Count Olden family, she had been entangled in a series of intense events with Duke Herrington. She had endured unjust treatment, fought back in small but satisfying ways, and even learned to raise her voice when necessary.  

Through it all, she believed she had grown stronger.  

She had thought she had gained a better understanding of the world and developed a keener eye for people.  

But her arrogance had led her to make the wrong choice, resulting in a fatal mistake.  

She hated Eric, but she had never wished for his death.  

“If you harm even a single hair on him, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life!”  

Her final shout was almost a scream.  

If Eric were to die, the guilt would weigh entirely on her shoulders, clouding her judgment further.  

“Lady Euphrasia.”  

That’s why she didn’t notice.  

Leopold’s dagger, which had hesitated for a moment, had already made a deep incision near Eric’s heart.  

“Calm down, it’s almost…”  

“You, you!”  

Dark red blood gushed from the split chest.  

The metallic scent of blood made Euphrasia sway as if she might collapse.  

Clutching Louis tightly, she barely managed to shield the child’s eyes.  

Her face turned pale as she struggled to maintain her composure.  

Despite her protests, Leopold’s hands didn’t stop moving.  

Drip.  

Leopold poured the remaining antidote directly into Eric’s body.  

He pressed firmly on Eric’s ribs several times, ensuring the antidote spread.  

The dark red blood, mixed with the antidote, gradually turned a bright crimson, eventually restoring its natural hue.  

“It’s… it’s my fault. Because of me… I… I was so stubborn…”  

Disjointed murmurs escaped from Euphrasia’s lips.  

“He’s not dead.”  

“I killed him…”  

“He’s not dead.”  

“I killed him…”  

“You’re impossible to reason with. At this point, it seems you just want to kill me instead.”  

“I… huh?”  

The voice addressing her was far too familiar to be Leopold’s.  

Euphrasia turned her head toward the source of the voice, her pupils dilating in shock.  

Eric, his face scrunched in pain, was staring straight at her.  

One hand clutched his barely healing chest, while the other gripped Leopold’s collar tightly.  

“Haa.”

Leopold, now firmly caught in Eric’s grasp, raised his hands slightly, a clear gesture of surrender.  

“Lady Euphrasia, I understand it’s hard to trust me given the circumstances, but could you at least hear me out to the end?”  

Leopold, lowering his gaze awkwardly, began to explain in an attempt to clear Euphrasia’s doubts.  

“Arachne’s Prey. It’s a poison made exclusively in the Kingdom of Kettlin. Just one sip causes the heart and all internal organs to constrict and burn…”  

“You, shut up. I already have plenty to discuss with you, so don’t waste your breath talking to my wife.”  

Eric growled, exuding a genuine sense of menace. For some reason, Leopold silently nodded in agreement.  

Eric, standing up abruptly, dragged Leopold by the collar as he passed Euphrasia.  

Each step sent sharp pain through his chest, but it was bearable.  

The poison that had felt like it would crush his heart had dissipated, leaving him able to move without issue.  

“Duke?”  

“Bwa! Ah, ba!”  

Euphrasia, watching in disbelief, reached out toward Eric as he passed by her.  

Louis, too, stretched his plump little arms, brushing against the open collar of Eric’s shirt.  

The child, no longer crying, seemed in high spirits, smiling brightly at Eric.  

“Ah, ba-ba!”  

At the baby’s babbling, Eric’s fierce demeanor softened momentarily.  

However, when Euphrasia reached out to him, he instinctively turned away.  

“…You must have been very startled. You should rest as well. I’ll call for you once everything is sorted.”  

For some reason, the tips of his ears seemed to redden.  

It also felt as though he was avoiding her gaze.  

Eric quickly exited the drawing room, dragging Leopold along with him.  

Their figures disappeared down the corridor.  

***

The rhythm of Euphrasia’s hand patting Louis’s back gradually slowed down.  

The events of the morning had been exhausting, and as soon as they returned to the room, the child had begun to nod off. His breathing soon became steady and calm.  

Euphrasia carefully laid the peacefully sleeping child into the cradle.  

For a while, she gazed down at him with a complicated expression.  

Just as the child had been worn out, Euphrasia was also mentally drained from the chaos that had unfolded in the drawing room.  

She couldn’t even remember how she had managed to clean up the bloodstains and walk back to the room.  

The First Prince of the Kingdom of Kettlin had sent poison to her, and her stubbornness had nearly cost Duke Herrington his life.  

Through the series of events, Euphrasia felt a strange sense of déjà vu.  

The sight of Eric collapsing after drinking the poison strongly resembled her own experience of being poisoned on her wedding night in the past.  

Could the poison I had consumed back then be the same as the one Eric drank today?  

“Arachne’s Prey. It’s a poison made exclusively in the Kingdom of Kettlin. Just one sip causes the heart and all internal organs to constrict and burn…”  

The information Leopold had revealed earlier swirled chaotically in her mind.  

A poison crafted in Kettlin, clearly targeting Euphrasia.  

If her assumption was correct, and the poison that had taken her life in the past was indeed Arachne’s Prey…  

Then the identity of the person who had sent the poison to her wedding chamber and taken her life…  

The fragments of her scattered thoughts were converging toward a single conclusion.  

“Duke Herrington didn’t kill me.”  

She muttered blankly, her steps faltering.  

Euphrasia’s eyelids trembled.  

The scream that had been about to escape her parted lips was stifled by her hands, which she pressed tightly over her mouth.  

Her heart began to pound violently.  

The new hypothesis that had surfaced shattered all her preconceived notions about Eric.  

***

“Of course not.”  

Eric, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, glared at Leopold standing before him.  

“I never imagined someone as vulgar and lacking in dignity as you could be the First Prince of a kingdom, so you can rest easy on that point. What I want to know is…”  

“Yes, I am Leopold Kettlin, the First Prince of the Kingdom of Kettlin. Allow me to formally introduce myself.”  

“What?”  

Leopold nodded smoothly.  

He even mentioned the royal family name of Kettlin, which was rarely spoken aloud, officially confirming his identity.  

Eric’s eyebrow twitched slightly.  

“I wish to stay by Lady Euphrasia’s side. I ask for your permission to remain at the Herrington estate for the time being.”  

Leopold immediately dropped another bombshell.