CH 98

The lukewarm night breeze brushed the knife-cut wound.

I grabbed my trembling left hand tightly with my right hand and took a step forward as if threatening.

Blood drops stuck to my bare feet and made a creepy sound.

‘I’ve never tried it before, but… I have to do it.’

I was about to turn into a monster; the moment Benny attacked me even a little.

I wouldn’t be able to overcome him, but at least I wouldn’t die without making a sound.

As I desperately made up my mind, Benny broke the heavy silence like a lead ball.

“Then when do you like to do it?”

I didn’t understand him for a moment.

“…What?”

Benny approached me, who was in a daze.

I pulled myself away because I thought it was a mistake, but it was already late.

He gently wrapped my left hand and pressed my palm as if blocking the wound.

“The plan to go to the real world.”

Benny placed his fingers in my left hand.

The crushed wound stinged as if it had been stabbed by a rose thorn.

“When do you want to run?”

His hand, held together with mine, turned black. It was a momentary change like flipping a piece of paper.

The liquid flowing from his fingertips covered the affected area.

Then my skin changed color, too.

The two black hands rubbed and created a strange sound.

After a while, Benny loosened his fingers.

I looked at my palm and bit my lips hard.

My left hand was smooth. The knife wound disappeared without a scar.

‘Is it possible to treat other demons too…?’

To be exact, I felt like my hand reacted to his ability.

The regeneration ability of the demons, which Hugo called black magic, seemed to be much greater than I imagined.

“Are you okay, Princess?”

Benny led me gently and made me sit on the bed.

He put one knee on the floor and pulled out an unknown handkerchief with no embroidery. And he carefully wiped the blood off my feet.

I lost all my strength by the very kind touch.

It was still hard to believe.

I couldn’t believe that the perfect helper who I had been believing in like iron for four years was actually the son of the enemy’s family.

‘It’s strange when I think about it. To help me, who is a total stranger.’

Benny was strangely devoted to me. If it was someone other than him, I would have been suspicious from the beginning.

Nevertheless, there was one reason why I trusted this boy.

‘Because I’m of the same kind.’

I fiddled with the sleeves of my pajamas that were stained with blood.

Without Benny, I would have thought I was the only strange one until now.

I was not a loner monster because Benny was next to me.

‘Now that I see it, I liked him unconditionally because he was of the same kind.’

I was too complacent.

A sense of shame came up, but I raised my head after recalling Benny’s last name.

This was not the time to let my guard down.

In front of me was a vengeful demon with a strong grudge.

…Although it didn’t look like that at all.

“Your feet are cold.”

Benny wrapped my heels and looked up anxiously.

His eyes contained no feelings other than affection.

I looked into those clear eyes and asked straightforwardly.

“Is it you? The one who poisoned the potion?”

Benny answered without even thinking.

“No.”

I didn’t think he’d admit it, but he was so firm that I somehow lost what to say.

Upon hearing the following words, my nerves, which had been loosened for a while, were kept on the edge.

“Even if I have malice against the Princess, there is no reason to poison you.”

“….Why?”

I grabbed the hem of my pajamas tightly. Sweat came out of my hand, where the wound disappeared from.

There were a total of three things I wanted to ask Benny.

The first was the whereabouts of the letter, the second was whether he poisoned me, and the third was…

“I don’t know if you know… but poison doesn’t work on the demons.”

…He knew that poison doesn’t work on me?

Knowing the fact would remove Benny from the list of suspects.

“You knew everything.”

I was dispirited.

If I were standing, I might have slumped to the floor.

I pressed my eyes with my clenched fist.

“…Why are you doing this to me?””

“What do you mean?”

Benny rubbed my cold feet and looked up at me.

His sincere gaze was overwhelming. The unexpected kindness had caught my breath.

It was such a familiar pain to me.

“You’re the son of Count Albrecht. My dad, to your family….”

I couldn’t say ‘killed’, so I hesitated, but Benny replied first.

“Yes. The Duke killed my parents.”

The cold truth popped out.

Benny continued casually.

“I saw my mother’s death with my own eyes.”

It was a terrible story.

I covered my lips and asked with the volume of a mosquito.

“Dad… the Duke, don’t you hate him?”

Even though it was a natural question, Benny was lost in thought.

“Hate, huh…? That’s right. My mother told me to get revenge, so… I think so.”

Somehow it was an ambiguous answer.

He suddenly tilted his head like a child who got his homework wrong.

“Did you think I would take revenge on the Duke family by killing the Princess?”

He hit the nail on the head.

I swallowed my breath and nodded slowly. There was nothing to hide now.

I found out that Benny was a descendant of Count Albrecht.

We made a promise to run away, so if I kept avoiding Benny, one day he would notice that I was acting strange.

‘It’s better to interrogate him before things get bigger.’

I was fed up with the snowball of lies.

“Hmm…”

Benny looked like he really didn’t understand what I was saying.

For me, Benny’s reaction was more suspicious. Until the moment I cut my left hand with a knife, I thought he might suddenly change and attack me.

“I think it’ll be enough revenge to take the Princess to the real world.”

Benny suddenly hit a point.

Well, whether he killed me or we fled, it was like taking me away from Alan.

“In addition, didn’t you say you are a fake?”

“That’s… that’s right.”

“Why will I take revenge on someone who had nothing to do with them?”

The unexpected blind spot made me speechless.

‘What do you mean why?’

That’s what revenge was. People could commit anything if they were blinded by anger.

Just like how Alan killed me at once in the original because I was on the side of the kidnappers.

It didn’t seem to be a natural thought process for Benny.

Even when he put the word ‘revenge’ in his mouth, he was dry as if he was carrying out an order issued by others.

“Even if the Princess was real, I wouldn’t have dared to kill you.”

His gaze at me was more serious than ever.

“I can’t harm the Princess. Never.”

Benny couldn’t hurt me. The reason was probably the reason why we first became close.

“Because we’re of the same kind?”

“Because it’s you.”

Thud, thud. 

The footsteps of the knight approaching from outside the door were heard.

It seemed like they were trying to make sure I was in the room safely.

Benny headed to the terrace as if he knew they were coming.

I got up in a hurry and grabbed his shirt.

“H-Hold on, Benny.”

Benny looked back at me through the wide open glass door.

I courageously asked,

“Who do you think tried to poison me?””

There was a heavy silence.

Benny took a long time and gently lifted his index finger.

And he pointed to someone in the room.

“Huh?”

Looking around, I had no choice but to spit out a strange sound.

“Me?”

Benny’s finger was clearly pointing at me.

He was claiming that I took poison myself.

Benny blinked as if my reaction was rather unexpected.

“No?”

“Of course not!”

I spoke loudly without realizing it then swiftly covered my mouth with both hands.

Tok tok.

The guard knocked on the door.

“Are you sleeping, Princess? I heard something.”

“Yes, yes. I had some nightmares.”

“Shall I call the Duke?”

“No! I’m going to sleep soon. Please leave now.”

I went out to the terrace with Benny after confirming that the knight’s footsteps had disappeared.

Security could have seen us, but that wasn’t important now.

“What’s the point of taking poison on my…?”

The moment I looked back at Benny, I stopped talking.

His expressionless face was crumpled harshly.

“…We need to find the culprit.”

Black energy rose from his fingertips.

I quickly grabbed his arm as there was a risk he would do something dangerous.

“Benny, why did you think so?”

“….I thought you framed Prince Michael to increase the chances of success in fleeing.”

Benny calmed down the power of the demon and answered calmly.

“Frame?”

“Yes. Then, the Duke will mistakenly point out that Prince Michael is an accomplice… and you’ll have time to run away while they’re ‘questioning’ him.”

I got chills down my spine. It was a torture no matter how I tried listening to it.

“…But still, there’s no way I’d do that.”

“Really?”

Benny shrugged his shoulders.

He didn’t seem to think his plan was cruel.

I felt weird.

He felt more like a stranger than when I realized that the boy in front of me was Albrecht’s descendant.

He looked at the gray moon and touched the railing.

“Then when are you planning to run away again?”

“…I don’t know yet.”

“Okay, I’ll be waiting.”

Benny simply accepted it, even if he was promising to run away at night without knowing when it would be.

Benny climbed onto the terrace and turned his body into a monster’s.

I had a lot to ask, but I couldn’t come up with words.

I asked one last question before he completely disappeared into the shadow.

“How can you be so sure? That we can run away.”

Thanks to the chaos on the day of the debutante, elite units were now all over the Duke’s Castle.

No matter how strong Benny was, it would not be easy to escape the castle’s boundaries.

But Benny wasn’t afraid of anything.

As if there was no one to stop us in the first place.

“…….”

Benny did something rare — he avoided my gaze while choosing his words.

“I think that’s a question you can ask on the day we leave.”

Benny fell under the terrace without saying goodbye. The black shape disappeared silently, buried in the dark.

I stood for a long time on the terrace, alone.

Suddenly, I thought of this.

What I saw might be a very small cross-section of the opponent.