Guards, peacekeepers, errand boys, laborers, and even laundry maids. And their families—the elderly and children too.

“Cough!”

“Mom… I need water…”

From every home came sounds of coughing and fever-induced delirium. Women with children pounded on the closed doors of pharmacies.

“Open up! Open the door!”

“I don’t care if it’s fake medicine, I need to buy something! My child is dying!”

Servants in noble households were equally exposed to the disease.

“Whoa there—hack!”

When even the coachmen started coughing, the nobles grew anxious.

“This doesn’t seem likely to subside quickly…”

“I’ve dismissed employees who are coughing. But some hide their illness, so we can’t feel secure.”

Leah was anxious too.

Her anxiety was different from other nobles who worried about catching the disease themselves.

‘Hurry!’

With cold medicine distribution blocked, people’s suffering was intensifying. They needed to act before the arrows of resentment pointed toward the Piert Trading Company and the ducal family.

“Come on! Hurry! Quick!”

“Oh my, young lady, if we go any faster, we’ll be the first to die!”

“That, that wouldn’t be good.”

After holding back briefly, Leah began running around the laboratory herself.

“Hurry! Time is of the essence!”

“Young ladyyyyy!”

Helix urgently tried to stop her.

“Leah, you’ll hurt yourself running around like that!”

“No, that’s, that’s… well, that may be true!”

Leah, who had experience with this, stammered, unable to deny it outright. Though she had become healthier, her motor skills, which had deteriorated over time, couldn’t keep up, causing her to stumble occasionally.

Helix sighed.

“If you keep running around, I’ll take that to mean you want me to stop working and stick by your side treating your ankles.”

“That, that wouldn’t be good!”

***

While Leah was running around shouting “hurry, hurry” like the reincarnated Korean she was, Count Trow and Lord Yan Trow were also fretting.

“Damn Piert!”

The Count slammed his fist on the desk.

“After all that effort spreading fake medicine, they halt sales entirely?”

The Count was absolutely livid, ready to jump out of his skin.

While the Trow family was faltering, Rikeil Piert’s information network was aggressively expanding and becoming more intricate.

‘Either expand or operate tightly, not both at once! The man’s a monster!’

Though he drew less attention by working in relatively quiet areas, what Rikeil did was terrifying.

How could someone expand so enormously while leaving no gaps? It defied common sense!

Being tracked and surrounded by that information network made every day feel like walking on thin ice.

If those accursed Snake Knights hadn’t been so actively helpful for whatever reason, they would have been exposed, captured, and hanged long ago.

Count Trow admitted with a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘They may be ill-mannered commoners… but those Snake Knights are certainly capable.’

Of course, even those Snake Knights had spoken with pale faces:

‘That bastard Ruyan Piert isn’t human!’

Being a Sword Master, he certainly wasn’t an ordinary person.

‘Even a Sword Master should make mistakes like a normal person! That bastard only makes mistakes when he’s pretending to, while actually destroying things!’

‘Last time he sliced through three buildings with one horizontal strike—I thought I was going to die!’

Just mentioning Ruyan Piert’s name made their hair stand on end.

But what Count Trow feared most wasn’t the brilliant-minded Rikeil or the genius Sword Master Ruyan.

It was Duke Piert, who commanded them both.

‘To completely halt sales because fake medicine is circulating.’

It was an inconceivable idea, both as a merchant and as a noble.

‘While running a trading company, why would he do something so unprofitable when it doesn’t even benefit a major client?’

What could he possibly gain by doing this for ordinary citizens?

Even thinking like a noble led to the same conclusion. What did the Duke care if some servants died because of tainted medicine?

‘What could he possibly be thinking?’

The Count groaned.

An unpredictable opponent was always the most difficult. The Count never dreamed that the idea had come from Leah Piert, and continued to worry.

“Father.”

Lord Yan Trow, who had been quiet, opened his mouth.

“What do we do now?”

“…”

“With medicine sales completely halted, we can no longer distribute fake medicine. But the Oken prince wants us to escalate this situation…”

“We have no choice.”

Count Trow said gravely.

“We must take more aggressive action, even at the risk of exposure.”

“More aggressive?”

“Yes.”

The Count’s eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Don’t we have that special poison from the Empire?”

***

“Cough! Cough, cough!”

At a tavern near the river.

When a barmaid carrying beer began coughing frantically, customers turned with frowns.

“Hey, why are you coughing like you’re about to die? Ruining the taste of my drink…”

“Innkeeper, use a different girl! I’m going to choke on my beer every time she coughs!”

The innkeeper replied gruffly.

“Where would I get money to hire someone else? If you’re choking, it’s because our beer is so refreshingly cold you’re drinking it too quickly!”

Some laughed at the innkeeper’s retort, but regular customers exchanged uneasy glances.

It was well-known among regulars that the innkeeper had taken in his niece with nowhere to go and was exploiting her as a barmaid.

From what they could see, he didn’t seem to provide her with proper food or clothing.

‘That cough doesn’t sound good.’

‘Is he going to let a perfectly healthy young girl die?’

“Cough!”

The barmaid coughed again.

Feeling the customers’ gazes, the innkeeper pushed her toward the kitchen.

“Anna, go inside and rest a bit, okay?”

“Cough!”

As soon as she entered the kitchen, the barmaid Anna clutched her chest and coughed. It was a cough that seemed to shake every organ in her chest.

“This girl, I told you to tone it down! How unlucky!”

Her uncle, the innkeeper, glared at her and struck her back hard.

“Cough, cough!”

“This is ridiculous!”

Thinking she was protesting, the uncle’s face reddened, and his hand—as large as a pot lid—rose.

‘Go ahead, hit me, hit me.’

Anna thought through her cough-shaken head.

Being afraid of her uncle’s large hands seemed like something from the distant past.

Before suffering from this cursed cough, his violent tendencies had been the scariest thing in the world. But now, experiencing worse pain, this violence meant nothing to her.

‘I might as well die from being beaten.’

A liberating feeling born from desperation washed over her mind like a drug.

“Cough!”

Anna coughed and lifted her head, daring him to strike her again. Her uncle faltered in the face of her defiance.

“Y-you girl!”

But only briefly—he soon swung his hand with an even redder face.

He was embarrassed by his hesitation and felt insulted by the niece he treated like a slave.

Slap!

“Ugh!”

The force, stronger than usual, sent Anna’s thin body crashing into the kitchen corner. The sound was louder than expected, making the innkeeper swallow hard.

‘Could she die from this?’

Where would he find another barmaid who cost so little?

Worried, the uncle fabricated a gentler tone.

“…Why did you have to cough so obviously in front of customers?”

Backing away slightly, he closed the door and said:

“Rest a bit and then come out.”

Anna stared at the closed kitchen door from where she lay sprawled.

She didn’t even feel sorry for herself anymore. She didn’t want to do anything—everything was just sickening.

‘I wish everything would collapse.’

Who?

She didn’t know.

She just wished that not only herself but also those happily eating and drinking beyond that door would collapse too.

Her uncle who exploited and beat her.

Her aunt who dumped all the tavern work on her while only caring for her own children and not feeding her properly.

Her young cousins who treated her not as their cousin but as a maid.

Feeling liberated by her thoughts, Anna continued:

‘I wish they would all die.’

She felt momentary guilt at such thoughts, but it passed quickly.

When no one worried about or cared for someone like her, what harm was there in such thoughts?

‘I’m going to die like this anyway. It’s unfair if only I collapse and die.’

With this sudden realization, Anna’s lips moved.

“I wish they would all die.”

“Oh really?”

Someone casually responded.

Anna only raised her eyes to look at the speaker.

A man with an unremarkable face, looking like a mercenary, was looking down at her. Anna was about to tell him to leave but changed her mind.

“Yes.”

She said, “I wish they would all die… cough!”

“My, my.”

The man placed several bottles next to Anna.

“I feel the same way.”

“…Huh?”

Leaving only those words, the man rose and left the kitchen.

“Wait, just a moment…!”

There wasn’t even time to ask what these were.

Dumbfounded, Anna examined what the man had left. They were bottles of red cold medicine.

“…”

In that moment, her mind filled with conversations she had overheard from customers.

‘Someone’s been imitating Piert Trading Company’s cold medicine, I hear.’

‘You mean that red cold medicine? That was the most effective one, though.’

‘That’s not all. They’re not just imitating it—they’re putting poison in it too.’

Anna swallowed.

She had an intuition that these bottles contained poison.

She reached out with trembling hands. Though she thought she might die, it didn’t matter.

“Cough!”

If she could forget the pain and sleep.

If she didn’t have to suffer from this cough, spend nights burning with fever with no one to care for her, or get beaten just as she was beginning to feel safe in the morning sun.

What did it matter whether this was cold medicine or poison?

Anna suddenly stood up and locked the kitchen door like someone possessed.

Click.

That terrifying sound her uncle made when locking the door before beating her now sounded incredibly refreshing.

Anna’s hands opened a beer barrel. She opened a large barrel where water was stored. She lifted the lid of the pot where soup was boiling.

Splash.

And she poured in the red cold medicines.

“Die, all of you.”

Her eyes glowed red with fever and madness.