Chapter 2 (Part 3)

It had been more than two days since Eden had risen to the rank of the best assistant, surpassing the best Slave Mate in Sienna’s heart. Recently, Sienna had been in a very good mood.

At first, she was awkward with Duke Felice, but she quickly got used to him, and his face and body made her eyes happy every day, and the experiments were proceeding successfully.

As per her hypothesis, the method of adding Mandrago’s sigh juices worked positively. Seeing the flask drip with the magical potion of light exactly as she had imagined in her mind, she nodded with a satisfied smile.

“Now, we just need to add a few more things and watch as it is. It must succeed this time.”

Eden stared intently at Sienna, who was biting her lip nervously. Over the past few days, his assessment of Sienna had been continuously revised.

At first, he thought Sienna was a perverted stalker lady targeting him. Judging by her impure attitude and strange exclamations when she blushed at his face, she seemed to be a pervert, but after observing her for a few days, she didn’t seem to be a stalker secretly doing shady things with him in mind.

Contrary to expectations, she adhered strictly to the contract without any sleazy advances, and she was so absorbed in the experiment that she was really treating him as if he were an assistant. Therefore, Eden’s wariness had now considerably eased.

“But, what kind of potion are you making?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

Sienna mumbled quickly, her eyes fixed on the flask while holding a pipette.

“This is a magical potion that shows the past.”

“Shows the past?”

“Yes. It doesn’t just show it; it lets you observe the desired scene from an observer’s perspective, as if you had returned to the past vividly. It helps you understand and face past situations more objectively.”

To do this, she had to extract only the specific information inputted into the brain through the optic nerve, excluding the subjective judgment of the person who had the memory. It was a task close to impossible, which is why it took such a long time. But Sienna had always wanted to create this potion since she was young.

“It can help with trauma treatment. There are emotions that improve just by understanding the situation objectively and convincing oneself that it’s not their fault, right?”

Sienna mechanically recited the words she used when persuading Professor Erba. Her gaze was busy moving between the pipette and the flask, so she didn’t notice Eden’s hardened face.

“…That it’s not their fault.”

He softly echoed Sienna’s words in a subdued voice. His red eyes, usually calm, were now darkly sunken.

As Eden, lost in thought, was about to turn his trembling gaze back to Sienna, a small explosion suddenly occurred with a puff from the flask she was holding.

“Ack!”

“Sienna!”

Eden paused as he was about to take out a handkerchief from his pocket when he saw Sienna covered in the suddenly blue liquid. Contrary to his expectation that she would be upset or uncomfortable, she was cheerfully smiling with her arms raised.

“It’s done! I did it! I did it!”

Sienna laughed towards Eden, bouncing with a desire to hug anyone. Although the administration experiment was still pending, it was undoubtedly close to success.

Her eyes, curved into a round shape with her white teeth showing, sparkled with a dark green hue like jewels, and her fine blue-gray hair fluttered like a chiffon dress with every bounce.

Eden thought that the sunlight, streaming thinly through the small window and illuminating her back, seemed somehow more dazzling today.

“Congratulations, Sienna Onyx.”

“Thank you. It’s thanks to your help, Duke.”

She playfully bowed her head to Eden while carefully closing her research notes. Now that the potion was complete, all that remained was to tidy up the laboratory and then proceed with the experiment. Since the magical potion needed a few more days to stabilize, there was no rush. She glanced down at her clothes, dirtied by the explosion of the potion.

“I should change these clothes first.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Sienna gently waved her hand to stop Eden, who was now accustomed to getting up to follow her.

“I can handle this on my own. I’ll be back soon, so please just check if the magical potion is stabilizing properly.”

Since there didn’t seem to be any constraints from the magical contract, it seemed that this much was indeed acceptable. Eden nodded once, indicating for her to go. Sienna confirmed that he had turned his attention back to the liquid, which was now slowly turning purple, and left the laboratory.

As soon as the door closed, silence descended upon the laboratory. With Sienna gone, who used to mutter magical formulas in a small voice or clumsily bustle about, dropping a few bottles in the process, only stillness remained.

The noisy sounds of the ongoing Ver-Arche Festival faintly drifted in through the small window, settling in Eden’s ears.

Feeling her absence anew, Eden blankly stared at the magical potion in front of him.

“A potion that shows the past….”

He had never imagined she would be thinking of a magical potion that could help with trauma treatment. He unconsciously let out a small laugh and murmured.

“It would be nice if it works.”

He slowly stroked his angular jawline with his fingers, recalling a scene from his past that had tormented him, then gently closed his eyes.

After organizing his thoughts, he reopened his eyes, his red pupils slowly scanning the interior of the laboratory. The laboratory was as disorderly as ever. Perhaps one could call it order within chaos. Some corners looked so messy that they were hard to look at.

His gaze turned to the bookshelf. The books were precariously piled up, looking as if they might collapse at any moment, and this tendency worsened towards the lower shelves. In fact, the books on the very bottom shelf were all inserted backward, with their spines hidden.

After pondering for a moment, Eden stood up. He intended to roughly tidy up the parts that were bothering him. A self-deprecating question crossed his mind about whether he had become accustomed to chores because of that strange contract as a Slave Mate, but since it was already bothering him, he had no choice but to do it.

He bent down and pulled out the pile of books from the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. The books, precariously stacked, wobbled on his large palm, maintaining a strange balance.

It was when he carefully placed them on the table and turned around to organize them properly. Only then did Eden’s eyes catch the titles of the books, and a look of bewilderment spread across his face. At that moment, a few books that had been precariously wobbling lost their balance and fell to the floor.

As he lowered his gaze, Eden’s body stiffened.

Thud, roll. Among the books that opened, displaying illustrations that made him doubt his eyes, the contents spilled out from a black box he had thought was a book.

Pink objects with short, curved shapes and strange suction cups, sky-blue rods that looked like a man’s from a hundred paces away, and other odd items, whose use could be guessed or not, rolled around here and there.

On the spines of the books remaining on the table, titles in letters as red as his eyes stood out prominently.

[The Princess’s Secret Night Journey]

[The Licking Baguette]

[The Countess’s Nightly Troubles]

[Prince and Prince X]

Having witnessed the book titles whose purpose was unmistakable, Eden felt dizzy and closed his eyes again.

Sienna, engrossed in the letter she held in her hands, was slowly walking down the corridor. She had discovered too late that the magical potion had splashed up to her head, so she ended up taking a shower while changing clothes, which made her later than expected.

As she hurriedly came out after roughly drying her hair, she found a letter stuck in the mailbox. Upon taking it out, she saw Montague’s signature on the sender’s line, so she opened it immediately and was reading it on her way back to the laboratory.

She was worried about why he couldn’t be reached, but seeing that a letter had arrived, it seemed he was alive, which was a relief. After all, he had to be safe first before she could hold him accountable for making her lose 300 million.

After reading the first part, Sienna nodded, finally understanding why Montague had disappeared.

On the day of the auction, after stopping by the restroom, he ran into his peers and was kidnapped to a pub booth, and then he was immediately mobilized for the Spring Monster Subjugation practice.

“The monster appearances have increased, so I guess they were urgently mobilized?”

Though she was annoyed, there was nothing she could do about it, so she was willing to consider it. She easily deciphered Montague’s seemingly hastily scrawled, disorganized handwriting and slowly read the rest of the content.

「……

By the way, who won the Duke? Before going out for subjugation support, I asked everyone passing by, and all I heard was the 300 million answer. I tried to contact you, but as you know, video spheres are prohibited in subjugation practice, so I couldn’t bring one.

Anyway, it seems certain that you didn’t win the bid. 300 million, I mean, there’s no way you have that kind of money, right? Honestly, at first, I was resentful that you didn’t win the Duke, but thinking about it, spending 300 million to win the Duke seems a bit crazy, so I decided to be thankful to you.

Even if I somehow managed to gather 300 million to win the Duke (since my saved allowance is insufficient), if my grandfather found out about it, I would have been shaved bald and abandoned at the southernmost part of the empire. If you find out who the winning bidder is, let me know. There’s no way you, who doesn’t know, would know, but just in case. Ah, I have to go out again now. Then.

-Hoping for progress in your ongoing research. Montague.」