Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I didn’t even know how I slept. I just begged and begged, please sleep, please. I didn’t know how many sheep I had counted or how much time had passed. But I ended up sleeping.

And when I woke up again, it was early in the morning, but as soon as I woke up, the now familiar face and eyes met mine. Bleon got up first and lay on his side, looking at me. And he still had his hand wrapped around mine.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes. I woke up quickly. Did you sleep well?”

It was a normal conversation that I asked as soon as I woke up, but it was hard to make eye contact with him because the events of last night kept coming back to me.

“Yes. Did my wife sleep well?”

“Hmm…”

But he was looking at me with a face that knew nothing. I looked at Bleon and thought it was obvious that he didn’t know I woke up briefly during the night. Then there was no need for me to panic or be embarrassed.

‘Yes. I didn’t see anything yesterday.’

With that thought in mind, I returned to my original calmness. And after trying to erase only that part from my head, I thought of what I was going to do with Bleon from today onward, step by step.

“First, let’s take the antidote.”

Right, first of all, solving the drug problem was the top priority. It’s all about the antidote.

I picked up a red bottle lying on a night table next to my bed, thinking that if he took the antidote, something like yesterday would never happen again. I handed it to Bleon.

“Didn’t you feel much better after drinking this yesterday?”

I asked him as if nothing had really happened.

“…Yes. I think so.”

But as he answered, there was a look on his face.

“Why, do you think it doesn’t work?”

“Actually, I don’t know yet…”

“Is that so? I think it’s because you’ve only drank it once.You have to take the antidote regularly for it to be effective.”

Although it happened yesterday, I was relieved inside that I had possessed Astell before Bleon turned twenty-one. Looking at Bleon so far, there were times when I was confused because it wasn’t the reaction I expected. However, when I thought deeply about the point in time when I came here, I could understand why.

It wasn’t until a year after Bleon became an adult that Astell’s severe sexual abuse began. From then on, she said, she increased the dose of the drug so that Bleon couldn’t think of anything other than really sexual things. And she began to torment Bleon’s body and mind with all sorts of things, so it was written in the novel. But luckily, I came here a few months before Bleon turned twenty-one.

Of course, it would have been better if it was before I met Bleon…

‘If I could choose that, I wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble now.’

So, about half a year after Bleon turned 20, that was when Astell started teaching Bleon about adult pleasures. Astell used the drug to artificially expand the senses, both herself and Bleon, and then ate the antidote alone, leaving Bleon addicted to the drug.

Still, looking at Bleon’s condition, although something happened yesterday, it didn’t seem like he was deeply addicted. Perhaps Bleon thought that if he continued taking the antidote, he would soon return to normal. I motioned for Bleon to drink the antidote. Bleon took the bottle from me and drank the antidote at once.

“Take it every morning, even if I don’t give it to you. Understand?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Yes. You’re doing great.”

I got out of bed after stroking his hair.

“For a week, you couldn’t do anything just to take care of me. Isn’t it?”

“That… Yes… Forgive me. But I was afraid that something would happen to my wife, so I couldn’t handle anything else.”

“You’ll have to work hard from today.”

I replied with a smile as an encouragement to him. Bleon’s expression became strange as if he was unfamiliar with me.

“Okay, then, Lord Duke, go back to your room and wash up.”

“…Let’s wash together. I will wash you.”

“No! Go quickly.”

Perhaps my words were too firm, so Bleon looked at me once more with a sullen expression on his face and left the room. After confirming that he had left, I rang the bell and called the butler.

“Did you call me, madam?”

“Summon all the servants in the mansion.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes. I have something to say, so not one of them should be missing.”

“All right.”

Then I went straight into the bathroom to wash up. The maids had already come and prepared it.

‘I want to look in the mirror.’

Before taking a bath, I went to the mirror in the bathroom. Whatever Astell looked like, it didn’t really matter to me. But now that I was convinced enough that I’d have to live as Astell, I wondered what she looked like.

But…

She wasn’t as bad as I thought. Although she wasn’t quite as stunning as Bleon, it wasn’t to the point that she’d get teased or persecuted for her looks. In the mirror stood a person with wavy red hair and black eyes. I raised my hand and touched my face and stroked my hair.

‘I think this is pretty good.’

It’s not like there were only beautiful women in the world, and it’s not like they made a living out of their looks.

‘This body has a lot of money.’

Wasn’t money the best wherever you go?

Of course, this was a classist society with nobles and emperors, but my appearance did not have much of an impact on me before, living in a world where capitalism ruled the world. But anyway, this was not the world I had once lived in.

And looking through her memory, it seems that Astell’s family was the first to step forward and lash out at her with abusive language, which made her feel inferior and embarrassed. Also, Astell’s family could have been more comparable because they were all beautiful women.

[‘Are you an ugly duckling or what?’]

No matter how hard she tried. The family that should have embraced her became a family that ridiculed her and pointed fingers at her. So Astell was teased and bullied a lot from her birth because of her appearance. It was too much contempt she had suffered just because a Marquis’ Lady wasn’t pretty.

‘I’m not going to leave it alone.’

It’s not revenge, but I vowed that I would never let it go if I met Astell’s family and those who tormented her.

After washing up, I went out alone, and as I told the butler earlier, all the people working in the mansion were gathered there.

‘There’s really not much.’

And most of them were men, and all the women looked very old. Astell replaced the Duchy’s servants twice in ten years.

The first time was when they had just gotten married. She fired all the employees who were originally working at the Duchy’s mansion. Her judgment was that those who failed to protect their master from outside had no need to exist here. She filled that void with the minority she trusted. Since then, she had been raising Bleon, feeding and washing, all these things Astell has done exclusively for him. Bleon was her husband, her family, and the one and only by her side.

It was the same with Bleon. When he was distraught by the sudden death of his parents, none of his relatives, who rushed in like hyenas, cared for him. Their interest was solely the material property of the Duchy. So, when he lost everything and was left alone in the world and was unable to do anything, Astell reached out her hand.

In the novel, Bleon was unable to let her go despite Astell’s abuse, perhaps because she, his savior at the time, was still vivid in his memory. But Astell changed. It was around the second time the Duchy’s employees were replaced.

By the time Bleon was twelve, Astell took very good care of him. Although he was her husband, she only spoke beautiful words to him and did not abuse him. She cared for and supported him like a brother and lived together. But things happened at the prince’s birthday banquet. Astell rarely attended banquets.

When she went to such a place, her family always came first and insulted her, so the other nobles also treated Astell with contempt. Even though she was the youngest child of a Marquisate, she was always alone because no one would approach her.

So, afterwards, she made the excuse that she was sick and did not go to places where nobles were gathered. Her family liked it better when she said she wouldn’t go because they were embarrassed of her and always left her alone.

However, this time the prince’s birthday banquet had to be attended by all nobles. She had to go there because it was the birthday banquet of the first born prince, and the Emperor had no heirs for a long time. And as soon as that day went, her older sister approached Astell first. And she was not afraid to say words that were insulting to Astell.

[‘Oh my, it’s been a while, Astell. You’re worse off.’]

[‘Astell, do you like playing house with small children?’]

After that, the nobles who were around began to gossip at Astell and Bleon.

[‘She can’t marry a real man because she’s ugly, so I guess she married a young kid who doesn’t know anything.’]

[‘Anyway, when the Duke grows up, his wife will be ugly and will be thrown away.’]

[‘So that’s it. She will be thrown away anyway.’]

[‘That’s right. The Duke has eyes too, but his wife is ugly, so where can he take her later?’]

After going there that day, Astell did not come out of the room for ten days. When Bleon begged her to open the door, she never opened it, and she stayed in the room without eating anything. Astell wept day and night for ten days. Her own plight was pitiful and cursed. She wondered why she was born like this and she didn’t even want to live like this anymore.

‘Bleon will eventually abandon me.’

‘Who likes an ugly woman?’

In the end, Astell lost consciousness due to dehydration and later woke up in bed. When Bleon could no longer hear her voice from inside the door, he became worried, so he opened the door and came in to save her.

The first thing Astell did after she woke up and got up was to fire all the young maids in the Duchy’s house. After he blocked Bleon from seeing other girls his age or younger, she started mentally abusing him from then on.

You’re ugly, dirty, useless, if you don’t listen, I’ll throw you away…

Astell’s crooked heart, wounded and broken by the world, was directed to Bleon, and it began to eat away at both her spirit and Bleon’s.

‘First, let’s put everything back in its place.’

She once again made a firm resolution and told the employees gathered in the hall.

“From now on, I will never forgive anyone who treats Duke Bleon Einer badly. And in the future, all the work of the Duke will be done by the Duke himself, so keep in mind that if there is someone who is lying behind his back, it will not end with just a dismissal.”

Up to now, almost all of the Duke’s work had to go through Astell’s hands. Bleon could not buy anything as he wanted. And since the servants were all hands and feet that Astell hired, they obeyed only her orders.

So it was natural for them to ignore Bleon, the Scarecrow Duke. But now I couldn’t let it go. I was planning to put Bleon back as the full-fledged Duke. After saying that, I called the butler to my room separately.

“Hire employees as much as they used to be.”

“The employees?”

“Yes.”

“In the past, as they used to be… You mean…”

The butler looked into my eyes and asked.

“Make sure you put it back to before I came in here. We need to recruit more people to attend the Duchy, people who will repair and tidy up the old house, and more knights for the family.”

“Oh, understood.”

Although the butler answered, he looked very bewildered at my unconventional actions.

“All new arrivals will be interviewed by me, so prepare them.”

“Yes. Understood.”

“And if you serve the Duke properly, the people below will follow you well, so behave yourself. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“From today on, you will have to do what you can with the Duke, not me, as the master. From now on, you should report everything to the Duke instead of reporting to me. I believe in your ability and loyalty that you have shown me so far.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

“You can go.”

“Yes.”