Secret

Lucas, who had left for the Magic Tower in midsummer, could only return home in autumn when cool winds began to blow. Upon arriving at the ducal residence, he hurried inside. The butler, who hadn’t received any prior notice, approached him in confusion.

“Young master, you’ve arrived.”

“Where’s Lyrica?”

“Ah, Miss Lyrica is in Euphines’ room.”

“What? Euphines’ room? Hmm… I see.”

Lian must have fallen hard for Lyrica too. Among all the many rooms, specifically Euphines’ room—it seemed quite deliberate. With a hollow laugh, Lucas hurried up to Euphines’ room. 

When he knocked, he heard the voice he had been dreaming of every night. Unable to wait any longer, he flung the door open to find Lyrica, who had grown even more beautiful in less than two months, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Please come in… Oh? Lucas!”

“Lyrica!”

Lucas approached Lyrica and embraced her tightly. Lyrica also smiled softly and hugged him back, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Did you miss me?”

“I missed you. Why did it take so long? You said you’d be back soon.”

“I’m sorry. There was more work than expected. I had to catch up on delayed research and investigate some things too.”

Lucas’s lips pressed against Lyrica’s forehead repeatedly, gradually moving downward. Their lips met and their tongues intertwined. The increasingly passionate kiss made Lyrica’s mind grow hazy.

“…Mmm….”

This feels good…. Kissing him reminded her of their pleasurable times together. She wanted to feel good again… But her teacher will be here soon… Oh, the lesson! 

Lyrica snapped back to reality. Plus, after the lesson, she needed to organize the ledgers the Duke had entrusted to her. She pulled away from Lucas’s embrace and caught her breath.

“Huff… I can’t! I have etiquette lessons soon!”

“Haa… Lustful Lyri, what can’t you do? What were you thinking about? Did you miss my c*ck that much?”

“I, I don’t know!”

Lucas teased Lyrica with a mischievous expression. Seeing her still welcome him made his heart swell. He planned to thoroughly tease her in the evening, but not yet. Lucas beckoned to Lyrica, who was cautiously backing away from him.

“Lyri. Come here.”

“I told you I can’t!”

“I won’t do it now. It’ll only take a moment, I promise.”

Approaching Lucas hesitantly with a suspicious gaze, Lyrica noticed a necklace in his hand. A transparent blue-tinted jewel caught her eye.

“What’s this?”

“I brought it from the Magic Tower. They say if a bad person wears it, they turn into an orc, but if a good person wears it, nothing happens. Want to try it on?”

Lyrica doubted the truth of Lucas’s words, but thought it might be possible since he was a mage, and she moved closer to examine the necklace.

“What if I turn into an orc?”

“Cute Lyri, are you not confident? Even if you turn into an orc, I can change you back. Come here.”

After contemplating for a while, Lyrica lifted her hair to put on the necklace. Lucas felt a thirst at the sight of her exposed white nape. He wanted to kiss that delicate nape right away, but knowing it wouldn’t end with just an innocent kiss, he had to restrain himself.

He swallowed hard and put the necklace on Lyrica. Even after some time, nothing happened to her.

“Wow, so Lyrica really is a descendant of nymphs. They say there are still mixed races living beyond the continent, and it’s true.”

A nymph? Lyrica knew about the mysterious fairy nymphs from childhood fairy tales she loved.

Beautiful nymphs each possessed an ability resembling nature, and being mischievous fairies, they sometimes seduced human men for fun and then abandoned them. 

Human men who fell for the mysterious eyes of nymphs could never meet other women and lived their lives longing only for the nymph until death.

Every child in the empire knew the legend of a nymph who seduced a human man in jest but fell in love with him, and when he left, she cried until she turned into a tree.

But that was just a fairy tale! How could she be a descendant of nymphs?

“What are you suddenly talking about, Lucas?”

“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Lyrica. This necklace is a Nymph’s Tear.”

“Nymph’s Tear? What’s that?”

“You know the story of the nymph who became a tree? It’s made from a jewel found beneath that tree. Only nymphs or people with nymph blood can wear it.”

The Nymph’s Tear was a necklace made from a beautiful sky-blue jewel found beneath a tree that was once a nymph who, rejected by her human lover, cried sadly and transformed into a tree on the spot. 

The jewel, later named “Nymph’s Tear,” carried a curse that caused anyone without nymph blood to shed tears until their eyes deteriorated and they went blind, making it commonly used to curse others.

Although the curse could be lifted, the dispelling magic was very complicated, so the Magic Tower had purchased Nymph’s Tears for research long ago. 

Despite being prohibited from removal due to potential misuse, Lucas had secretly stolen this necklace while the tower master was away.

“Was that a real story? Not just a fairy tale?”

“Those who should know, know.”

Lucas recalled when he first discovered this necklace. His early research topic was about nymphs, and one day he found the famous Nymph’s Tear in the tower master’s room. 

Unable to resist his curiosity, Lucas tried on the necklace when the tower master was absent and was immediately cursed.

When the tower master returned to his room, he found Lucas shedding tears and lifted the curse, then scolded him severely. 

Lucas nearly got expelled from the Magic Tower for breaking the taboo, but after begging for forgiveness, he was pardoned only after serving as the tower master’s “assistant”—essentially a slave—for a year.

Every time Lucas licked the tears Lyrica shed while writhing in pleasure, he felt a sense of déjà vu. After thinking for days about where this familiar taste came from, he recalled the Nymph’s Tear. His own tears that flowed when he wore the Nymph’s Tear had exactly that taste.

Recalling Lyrica’s mysterious and beautiful appearance, her captivating eyes, and her self-healing ability, Lucas suspected she might have some connection to nymphs. 

Upon returning to the Magic Tower, he spent several nights learning the curse-breaking spell, tested it on himself after putting on the necklace, and then stole it.

“But… that can’t be true! The orphanage director told me my parents had brown hair and looked ordinary. She said I was just a mutation, born with pink hair…”

“Those people probably weren’t your real parents. They either found you somewhere or kidnapped you to sell for a high price, but when the situation became difficult, they abandoned you in that remote mountain village.”

“But if they kidnapped me, wouldn’t it have been easier to just abandon or kill me rather than leave me at an orphanage!”

“Haven’t you heard that incurring a nymph’s resentment brings a curse? It’s even in fairy tales. They must have feared the curse. Though it was probably too late from the moment they took you.”

“That’s absurd…”

Incurring a nymph’s resentment brings a curse? Though she denied it verbally, countless past incidents were flooding Lyrica’s mind.

When she was nine, Mr. Tom, who beat her severely while falsely accusing her of stealing gold, got his leg caught in a trap a week later and limped for the rest of his life.

Hans tried to seduce her but failed and disappeared somewhere, never to be heard from again.

A patient who forced Lyrica to touch his c*ck found his previously healthy wound rotting days later, requiring flesh to be cut away.

The slave traders who kidnapped Lyrica were eliminated within a day and paid for their crimes.

Thinking about it, people who approached Lyrica with bad intentions eventually suffered misfortune, big or small. Could all this be a coincidence? Lyrica couldn’t be sure.

“Besides, your healing power differs from that of priestesses. Unlike healing priestesses, you can heal yourself. That’s not ordinary healing power—it’s healing based on nature’s power, which you have because you’re a nymph descendant.”

Suddenly learning the secret of her birth, Lyrica was too shocked to speak. 

The Empire rejected mixed races. This was because of the doctrine that only humans, said to be directly created by the main deity, were the lords of all creation. In the Empire, the mysterious abilities of mixed races were dismissed as obtained through devious methods, and for a long time, they exploited these abilities while persecuting the races.

People with mixed-race blood became slaves, had their abilities exploited, or became experimental subjects to reveal mixed-race abilities. 

Even if lucky enough not to be captured, they had to live in hiding as the lowest class citizens. History lessons taught that after long years of persecution, these races were now extinct. And now she had nymph blood?

What if she had gone to the temple without drinking the aphrodisiac and displayed her healing powers? Not only would she have been expelled from becoming a healing priestess, but in the worst case, she might have been sold off or become an experimental subject. 

Lyrica felt a chill down her spine, and tears welled up. 

‘Now that everyone knows I have mixed-race blood, they’ll all hate me. What should I do?’

“Then… then what should I do now?”

Lucas sat the tearful Lyrica, whose mind was in complete disarray, on his lap and patted her comfortingly.

“Shh… It’s okay, Lyrica. Nothing changes. Haven’t you heard rumors that the Valter ducal family has werewolf blood mixed in?”

“But… Lucas, don’t you dislike me?”