“Could I heal him first, then you kill him after?”

Jane hadn’t come to this land just to reveal the cause of Ompupus. She intended to go further and end it completely.

Only then, when she sat in a historic position, would the nobles who were pharmacists in name only not chatter about this and that.

But the elder of Andis dying while suffering from Ompupus?

That couldn’t happen.

So her question of how about I heal him first before you kill him was natural for her.

It was then.

The man, beautiful to a savage degree, smiled.

Very languidly and ecstatically.

“The reason.”

Reason?

Jane found the man’s question a bit absurd.

She didn’t particularly want to know why a man who used strange magic that nearly burst her and the patients’ lungs was trying to kill Andis’s elder.

If it was a public reason, there were plenty of countries hostile to Andis, and if it was a private reason, the duplicitous old man must have done something to earn resentment.

Jane said.

“I didn’t ask you for your reason to kill, so do I really need to tell you my reason to save?”

“Do.”

“……”

She rolled her eyes around.

Suddenly, she thought that experiencing lungs nearly bursting once was enough.

So she obediently answered.

“……Because I was in the process of saving him?”

“Also.”

“……I want to get promoted by saving him.”

“And. Also.”

“……”

“Isn’t there more?”

Jane’s ash-gray eyes quietly sank.

The man had touched something in her. Whether it was intentional or not didn’t matter.

What mattered was that her mood was unpleasant.

Filthily so.

But the reason she had to answer was in the man’s hand.

“I hate it.”

A well-sharpened dagger reflecting moonlight.

“Someone dying in front of my eyes.”

The man laughed again.

The smile that had been only ecstatic until just before now felt wicked and dangerous.

He asked.

“If I don’t kill for you, what can you do for me?”

“I don’t know about that.”

Jane shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“I’m not good at doing things for others.”

It was true.

Revealing the cause of Ompupus and trying to end it, not letting Kudkan die at this man’s hands—all of it was actually for herself.

It was for her own promotion, he was a patient she had to save, and it was to avoid witnessing death herself.

Right then, the man bent his waist and met Jane’s eyes.

“You’ll have to answer prettily.”

“……”

“Didn’t you say you hate it? Someone dying in front of your eyes.”

Jane somehow pictured herself and him like a painting.

A mouse in front of a cat, exactly that sight.

She felt angry somehow.

To think she had to suffer this humiliation because of an old man who tried to slap her cheek.

Should I just not care.

Anyway, he’s the murderer, and abetting is……

……me.

Jane seemed to ponder with a somewhat dazed face, then lifted her gaze as if she had decided something.

Then the man looked at her with a gentle expression as if he would gladly wait.

Jane looked at him blankly again as if bewitched, then thought this isn’t right and shifted her gaze to the side again.

“You seem to want to play…… no, make a deal with me using the old man’s life.”

She brought her fingertips to her hair tied up high.

In an instant, abundant silver hair came undone, each strand holding moonlight.

The man made a puzzled expression.

It was clearly a fleeting moment, but it looked very slow.

“If something material is okay, how about this?”

The man’s blue gaze turned to the woman’s palm.

“This jeweled ornament is a sapphire. I bought it for about three hundred onts.”

What Jane said quite triumphantly was a hair tie with blue decoration.

“……Three hundred onts?”

The man found those words a little amusing.

The hair tie ornament Jane held wasn’t a sapphire, and it definitely wasn’t worth buying for three hundred onts.

It probably wouldn’t even be worth three periltz. Someone properly swindled that woman.

Or is she trying to swindle me.

“Yeah. Three hundred onts.”

“……”

For that to be the case, there wasn’t a grain of falsehood in the woman’s eyes.

Almost none at all.

The man’s gaze still remained on the woman’s hand.

Her hand looked unusually rough compared to other skin. There were large and small wounds here and there, and her fingertips were severely swollen.

Jane asked carefully.

“……Want to make a deal?”

Gentle moonlight illuminated the fake jewel.

Fake jewel.

There was nothing the man thought more pathetic than that.

He tilted his head slightly.

The white-haired old man.

He hadn’t come with the intention to kill in the first place.

But the moment he saw the peacefully sleeping face, his heart moved a little.

Should I kill him, he thought.

It was a trivial whim.

Whims easily became other changes of heart.

It was then.

“……Right? Three hundred onts is a bit little for a human life, isn’t it?”

Her triumphant mood from just before had gone somewhere and her voice was slightly dead.

Three hundred onts was definitely not a small amount of money, but it was an amount that would cause pangs of conscience to consider as the price of a human life.

Of course, even three periltz would be a waste for Kudkan.

Just as Jane was about to clench her palm and lower it.

The man smiled loosely and grabbed the hair tie she was about to clench in her hand.

“That’s right.”

“……Huh?”

“An appropriate price for this human’s life.”

The man decided to be deceived along with the woman who had bought a fake jewel that probably wasn’t worth even three periltz for three hundred onts, instead of telling her she had been swindled.

That this worthless imitation was a sapphire.

A sapphire worth three hundred onts.

At least, he had laughed more than three periltz worth in this place.

He then put the dagger in its sheath and placed it neatly on the bed.

So beautifully and prettily that it was hard to believe he had just tried to kill Kudkan with it.

The man passed by Jane just like that.

He smelled clean and good.

The moment Jane unconsciously turned around, the man who was about to open the door and leave looked back at her and spoke in an affectionate voice.

“Lu.”

The man told her that was his name.

Jane also told him her name. He called “Jane” briefly like talking to himself, then smiled.

It was a wicked enchantment.

***

Ompupus had ended.

Cardinal Mallen Rendman of Febrya could not believe that fact at all.

He thought.

It must be a dream.

It has to be a dream.

It had been a full six months since they had secretly executed Ompupus.

Adding the research period they had conducted to control appropriate symptoms and timing, it was a plan spanning over a year.

The plan was perfect.

And everything was proceeding smoothly according to plan.

Except for just one small homework.

The pope of Febrya considered the image of the papal court more important than anything. He didn’t take reputation or rumors lightly.

Therefore, when planning Ompupus, he considered not diminishing the dignity of the great empire dealing with troublesome vassal states and the status of pharmacists belonging to the papal court.

The result was the request for pharmacist cooperation sent to the court.

Showing magnanimity but not showing incompetence.

In conclusion, the pope’s purpose was for the papal court to take the former magnanimity by making the cooperation request, and push the latter incompetence onto the court.

However, the result this purpose brought flowed in an unexpected direction.

— What do you mean? The court sent a ship full of Malimahoni! We never sent or received such a message!

Mallen couldn’t forget that day.

— Well, that…… it came in the name of the court’s first pharmacist, Haim Bartzsen.

— What……?

— Haim Bartzsen requested the court to send Malimahoni to Andis, and the court approved it.

Mallen was flabbergasted.

Not because the emperor had approved it. That wasn’t something that could be called approval in the first place.

He knew well that for Febrya’s emperor, approval was about mindlessly grabbing a stamp and mindlessly stamping on documents.

The dim-witted emperor was famous for looking at documents with his nostrils instead of his eyes.

Who could he blame.

He was the one who had carefully selected such a guy from among the imperial family and put him on the throne.

Moreover, the court pharmacist who had been waving her arms and giggling happily in front of the big ship loaded with Malimahoni.

Even her pathetic behavior when she suddenly noticed him and greeted him while imitating a dignified noble lady.

Mallen could see it as clearly as yesterday just by blinking his eyes.

Still, he couldn’t easily believe it.

An end.

That Ompupus had ended.

All of that had been the plan of Febrya’s pope, Madrian de Kan. Her plans had never gone awry until now.

They had never failed even once.

But that mere girl had ruined things.

Daring without knowing her place.

It was when Mallen clenched his fist and ground his teeth.

“Cardinal, Her Holiness is looking for you.”

“……”

“Cardinal?”

“……Tell her I’m dead.”

“……Pardon?”

“No, I’m going now. Go……”

After the Ompupus endemic disease ended, Mallen, who had returned to Febrya’s capital, got up weakly from his seat and made a sharp resolution.

Someday, I will point a sword at that girl’s neck.

***