I Thought I Was the Monster Duke's Fake Tranquilizer - Chapter 16
“Pardon?”
“What on earth is this clause?”
Edward’s pretty eyes narrowed, as if sulking.
His smile remained, but it had become what one might call a slightly pouting smile.
‘Even frowning, he’s absurdly handsome.’
Yet far from making her heart flutter, it only made her want to wrench her shoulder free of his grasp at once.
To anyone else, it was a face to worship, revere, and praise. But to Lucy, who knew his true nature, Edward’s beauty was no different from a bomb that could go off at any moment.
Edward felt the woman shrink into herself within his arms, yet her shoulders remained stubbornly set.
He looked down at her with eyes that said, “Well, look at this.”
This woman had fallen for him. So if he simply looked at her like this and smiled…
‘I thought she’d tear up this bothersome contract on her own.’
He hadn’t expected her to present something like this in the first place.
He had assumed that if he sweet-talked her a little and fed her well, she’d follow him like a pup.
But a contract. How troublesome.
‘She’s sharper than I thought.’
To maintain her reason even after falling for him, that was worthy of some regard.
Edward was not unaware that, although Lucy was indebted to him, he was the one who stood to lose if she left.
Even if he imprisoned her by force, if Lucy refused to perform purifications, he would be the only one at a disadvantage.
And so, rather than intimidating her with force, he had intended to coax her gently into tearing it up.
‘To think it wouldn’t work.’
It had never failed before.
A mere hint of a smile, and whoever he was speaking to would grovel with gratitude and move according to his will.
But this little mouse…
The woman’s large, round eyes darted about wildly.
It was a reaction that anyone could see screamed discomfort and wariness.
‘Uncomfortable?’
Wary?
When I, this pretty, have even gone so far as to put my arm around her?
‘Even though she likes me and has fallen for me?’
It displeased him immensely.
When the person you liked went this far for you, shouldn’t you be pleased?
In truth, it was Edward himself who felt good from touching Lucy, but Edward was under the impression that he was the one bestowing a favor.
After all, he frequently encountered people—regardless of gender—who risked their lives to throw themselves at him, desperate to be held in his arms.
Even as his pride prickled faintly, a cool, crisp sensation brushed through his mind from the point where their shoulders touched.
It was the feeling of the taint subsiding.
‘Merely touching is already this effective.’
What would a full, proper purification feel like?
‘And yet she proposes holding hands just once a week?’
There was no way he could be satisfied with such a paltry purification.
Unconsciously, Edward looked down at Lucy with the eyes of a predator.
Feeling inexplicably more chilled, Lucy answered while gauging Edward’s expression.
“Which part did you find unsatisfactory?”
“Are you joking?”
“No. Truly!”
As far as Lucy knew, Edward was an immensely powerful incarnation.
‘There’s no way the male lead, the sole remaining incarnation, could be weak.’
And that thought was not wrong.
Lucy didn’t know it, but the rampage that had nearly erupted this time was one that any other incarnation would have failed to withstand long before, reducing the world to ruins.
In any case…
‘Which is why once a week seems just about right.’
“…I thought it would be better to minimize contact, so I wrote it down that way…”
“Better?”
Lucy nodded in earnest.
‘Of course, this world is an R-19 one where purification is done through bodily dialogue, but…’
Lucy had absolutely, never, not even if the sky split in two and the male lead became a eunuch, any intention of entering Edward’s bed.
Edward was the very man who despised even his purifications with Sepina.
How would purifications with her be any different?
‘And besides, in these dark R-19 novels, the women who sleep with the male lead in place of the female lead are treated as…’
At best, they’d be cast aside the moment he realized, “The one I want is not this woman, but the female lead.”
Even Sepina had met a brutal death in the end.
It was only natural, for a fake who had murdered the real one to steal her place.
Lucy had no desire to follow in those exact footsteps.
‘I don’t want to die as some foreign substance that serves only to solidify the love between the female lead and the male lead.’
If she had at least transmigrated as a villainess young lady, some foreign substance with money, she would have had that much.
But Lucy was nothing more than a penniless fugitive, fresh out of prison.
And besides, in Edward’s current state, no matter how many purifications he received…
“Ahem!”
‘There’s no need to let on what I know just yet.’
Lucy cleared her throat and shifted her attitude.
“Hoho. While I was at the temple, I picked up a thing or two as well.”
“Such as?”
“That the purification sessions with Lady Sepina—you actually found them dreadful and endured them by force.”
“Aha.”
“It seems you aren’t fond of the acts required for purification, so if we limit the frequency and the contact…”
“Dreadful, was I.”
Edward took her words with a still-smiling face.
“So the temple knew full well and forced it upon me anyway.”
His red eyes were chillingly cold, a stark contrast to their vivid hue.
