None of the Febryan people stationed in Andis paid attention to Jane. But they would react sensitively to any messenger she sent to the court.

The probability was high that the document would be destroyed before the court even received the messenger.

Even if it arrived safely, the emperor who was busy groveling to the pope might excitedly tattle about everything in detail.

……Ah.

When Jane’s thoughts reached that point, a sigh burst out.

There was no way the emperor wouldn’t know that the Ompupus endemic disease was related to the priesthood!

Even though he acted like a scarecrow with dead fish eyes, he was living and eating well in his position as emperor. It was thanks to his way of life of sniffing like a dog and prostrating himself when it came to anything related to the priesthood.

He crawled before being told to crawl, and rolled before being told to roll.

In the end, the emperor had roughly promised her a position to send her to Andis while guessing all these circumstances.

Son of a b*tch.

Damn bastard.

Jane, who had been cursing the emperor for a while, suddenly sat up abruptly.

What if she didn’t send a messenger to the court?

Jane urgently checked the calendar dates while recalling the schedule of Haim, the court’s 1st pharmacist. And she immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Haim often returned earlier than scheduled, but even considering such variables, there was leeway.

Enough time for a messenger to reach him, roughly speaking.

Jane immediately sent a messenger to Haim.

Disguised as asking after Haim’s well-being, who had taken in her as an orphan, safely.

While waiting for his reply, Jane observed the movements of the priesthood knights, cardinals, and priests stationed in Febrya until her eyes nearly fell out.

Without sleeping, day and night.

Actually, it wasn’t that she didn’t sleep, but that she couldn’t sleep…….

Apart from deep sleep, the reason she conducted surveillance that wasn’t surveillance was clear.

It wasn’t common to spread poison this naturally.

There must be a common contact point.

And she discovered one contact point.

It was water.

The Febryan people stationed in Andis didn’t even go near Andis’s wells.

Especially the priests.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say they followed Andis people even to the outhouse to proselytize, but for some reason they didn’t even set foot near the wells.

What about the holy knights.

It seemed like they wouldn’t guard any gold or silver treasure in the world more preciously than the water warehouse that contained holy water.

Moreover.

— Since the priesthood has sent us holy water under Anaxionia’s protection, drink only holy water.

Mallen also supplied the Febryan people abundantly with holy water without giving it a chance to run out.

Even to Jane, whom he found so disgusting.

She stared at the water bottle Mallen had roughly thrown at her and thought.

Should I test it once?

She deliberately spilled the water from the bottle. Then she conspicuously went to the well, drew water, and drank it. While not missing any of Mallen’s minor actions.

A surprised expression.

A gesture of urgently trying to approach.

A face turning pale white.

At that moment, Jane was certain that the priesthood had definitely put poison in the well.

In the end, Jane, who had found both the cause of the Ompupus endemic disease and the route through which the disease had spread, had a smile blooming on her lips.

Until Kudkan came looking for her.

That evening.

***

“Pharmacist. Is that true? Am I……”

Jane answered indifferently without even looking at Kudkan.

“Yes. You have the symptoms of Ompupus.”

“……”

“Go to the hospital room. There are beds left.”

Kudkan’s gaze turned to his own legs.

They had been fine during the day. He finished his evening meal and was entering his room when his strength suddenly drained and he collapsed with a thud. He couldn’t walk.

It was a terrifying sensation as if his legs had disappeared.

After about ten minutes, sensation gradually returned to his legs. But they trembled several times more than usual.

Kudkan denied reality with a blank face as if he had lost his words.

“That can’t be…… That can’t……”

Then he suddenly grabbed Jane’s collar and poured out curses.

“What end! You b*tch who did nothing until I caught Ompupus! Damn b*tch! b*tch who should fall into hell and die!”

Surprisingly, even at that moment, there was no one around.

A thoroughly calculating human.

Jane chuckled while being grabbed by the collar.

“I knew this would happen.”

“What……? Then you knew from the beginning that I would catch Ompupus? Knowing that, you’ve been keeping your mouth shut wickedly until now……!”

“No, more than that.”

Kudkan almost lost strength in his hands without realizing it.

Because she burst into giggles as if something was so amusing.

“I’ve known from the beginning that you’re the type of human who would come rushing at me trembling like this.”

“……”

“I have good instincts.”

“……”

“You know what? Elder, you’ve probably had Ompupus for a long time. The symptoms are just manifesting now. So stop grabbing innocent people’s collars.”

It happened simultaneously.

The moment Kudkan raised his arm high to strike, Jane moved a little faster.

Poke.

Kudkan, who felt a stinging pain, turned his head while maintaining his posture of trying to slap Jane’s cheek.

And looked at the thick needle stuck in his forearm with a surprised face.

“Get some sleep.”

Along with Jane’s voice, his vision spun instantly.

“Because you’re noisy.”

Crash!

She moved Kudkan, who had fallen noisily, to the hospital room. Since she had stabbed him with a needle coated with strong sleeping medicine, he wouldn’t wake up for at least twenty hours.

Twenty hours…….

In the midst of all this, she envied Kudkan.

Jane always suffered from sleep deprivation, sleep disorders, nightmares, and sleepwalking.

Sleeping pills no longer worked because she had built up resistance beyond lethal doses.

Everything related to sleep was torture for her.

The only way Jane escaped from the torture of insomnia was through pain. The method for Jane, a pharmacist, to inflict pain on herself was simple.

Taking poison.

So it wasn’t just sleeping pills that she had built resistance to.

That was why Jane could drink from Andis’s well without concern, even knowing it was poisoned.

Jane smiled self-deprecatingly for a moment.

***

Lu came to Andis in the deep of night.

Finding an Andis person with traces of his power remaining was very easy. If only the thick smell of the boundary between life and death hadn’t been spreading.

The smell that could occasionally be encountered in places where plague was spreading had spread throughout Andis’s capital.

Plague.

It didn’t take long to realize that something similar was happening in Andis.

Lu entered a building where the smell of plague was thickly gathered.

He swept his gaze over the faces of people lying closely together while asleep, then stopped in front of a white-haired old man lying as if crammed into the corner.

What was his name…….

He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, then burst out with a delighted exclamation, ah.

Kudkan.

Kudkan Mahof Dnu.

Lu’s gaze fell obliquely.

Seeing him sleeping peacefully caused shallow displeasure. Naturally, the surrounding air began to distort.

Soon those who had been sleeping each made choking sounds and opened their eyes wide.

Here and there they staggered and fell as if being strangled. Making loud crashing sounds.

In an instant, it was filled with the smell of terror facing death.

“Kkeuk……!”

Kudkan also suffered, twisting his limbs as if dying.

Lu sat beside him and leisurely looked out the window.

How boring.

Meanwhile, a dagger fell with a thud from Kudkan’s chest as he writhed while clutching his neck.

Lu laughed quietly.

Weak things are always like this.

They sharpen their edges with their eyes and tongues, or carry sharp things like this in their chest.

It was when the scabbard of the dagger Lu had grabbed fell silently onto the bed.

The sound of urgent running was heard, then the door burst open.

It was a woman.

Her silver hair tied up high swayed and immediately sank down. The woman gasped for breath in the dense air, supporting herself on the floor, unable to lift her face.

Lu tilted his head.

Because he felt no fear from her whatsoever.

“……Quite an interesting thing has rolled in.”

Even when he approached closely and put his nose to her nape, he couldn’t smell fear.

Rather, some anger.

A little annoyance too.

Lu drew back his body as if pleased.

After making the rest of the humans lose consciousness, he lowered his magic power.

The moment Lu sat back on the bed where Kudkan had collapsed, the woman exhaled her blocked breath and lifted her head.

Ash gray.

That was the color of the woman’s eyes.

Lu examined the woman thoroughly. As if he wouldn’t miss a single strand of hair.

“You’re not from Andis, it seems.”

The woman glanced at Kudkan, then met eyes with him who was still holding the dagger.

“……Were you trying to kill him?”

For some reason, Lu was quite delighted.

He felt like he had encountered a fearless puppy.

“If you want to stop me, go ahead. I could take your life instead.”

The woman looked at him quietly, then shook her head, saying no.

Then she gave Lu something he hadn’t expected.

“If you were trying to kill him.”

For example, a small smile.

And curiosity.