Chapter 116

Chapter 116

Noel began to wonder if Roxana simply didn’t like having to deal with unfamiliar dolls. He recalled hearing that she had hardly interacted with the first ones who had attended to her after she arrived at the Gold manor. So if she wanted them back, he would simply have to repair their faces, then attach their heads to different dolls since most of their limbs were interchangeable.

However, Roxana immediately refused his offer. “That’s all right. No need to trouble them.”

“But it’s not any trouble at all. Whatever my Luna wants, I can get for you.”

“No, no. I’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway, so it’s really all right.”

Noel’s face suddenly became grim, but Roxana pretended not to notice the change. She turned her attention to tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear instead. He seemed to be almost immediately captivated by her elegant gesture and simply followed her hand’s movement with his eyes.

“I presume all the workers here are puppets as well.”

“How could you tell?” His voice sounded genuinely surprised. “I mean... Is it that obvious?”

He spoke while pointing at the attendants surrounding them who awkwardly smiled in their direction. She found the puzzled look on his face somewhat comical.

“Well, all of their hands are ice cold.”

“Ah...” His reaction suggested that he hadn’t considered that aspect of his dolls. At that moment, the doll who was massaging Roxana’s arm immediately stopped, and the other dolls began to take extra care not to touch her.

The Vertium leader’s expression became sullen as he worried that her refusal to receive new attendants was due to their frigid temperature. “Th-Then... I shall work on creating puppets who retain a normal body temperature next.”

Roxana reached for her drink with a look of total indifference toward Noel’s fervent declaration.

Well, at least his tea isn’t poisoned.

* * *

It was abundantly clear that the Gold territory was indeed Noel Vertium’s kingdom. Thanks to her butterflies, Roxana was able to ascertain that the compound was divided into two areas.

The manor she was staying in was inhabited by Noel, his right-hand man Dante, and the puppets. Meanwhile, the human Vertium clan members resided in the building at the end of the rear garden path. The Gold Master evidently took no issue with treating his own relatives as second-class citizens.

She also learned that he was a significant source of anger and dissatisfaction to his fellow clansmen and that they had come to detest not only his menagerie of puppets but their young clan leader deeply. Their dissatisfaction seemed to lead to the occasional confrontation, which was surprising even to Roxana since their land seemed so idyllic and peaceful.

She also suspected that he was aware that she was a demon tamer and of her butterflies. The first giveaway had been his decision to have all the welcome banquet attendants wear masks in order to conceal his own identity. There was also the fact that both he and his dolls always exercised extra caution to not say too much at any given time, even when she wasn’t in the immediate vicinity. They did sometimes speak offhandedly to one another, but she presumed that was likely due to them not realizing just how dangerous her butterflies were.

It wasn’t until her walk in the garden with Noel that one of her butterflies returned to inform her about the exchange between Nix and Dante. She also learned that there had been an altercation in the rear garden between Nix and true Vertiums. The relationship between the two groups appeared far worse than she had first imagined.

Dante had approached Noel on their behalf to request an official audience with their young clan leader, but he essentially shrugged him away as if he was unwilling to bother even hearing about his relatives. So unable to change his master’s mind, Dante returned to his people dejected. And of course, hearing of the Gold Master’s lack of concern only served to infuriate the Vertiums even more.

The Gold territory was embroiled in an entirely different sort of mess from what the Agrece clan had gone through. Roxana supposed that she may not have even needed her butterflies to discern that there was confusion among its people. Having been sufficiently briefed on all the day’s events, she drew the curtains in her room to block out the moonlight.

The next day, she would be leaving the Gold manor as planned.

* * *

“It’s already your final day with us,” Nix said as he served an aromatic tea into the white teacup before her. “It’s a shame we don’t have more time to have more serious conversations.”

Just as he had on several occasions, the puppet made sure to appear innocent and bright as he busied himself with setting up the tea party for Roxana’s last day in the Vertium territory.

“I took special care in preparing today’s treats. I do hope everything is to your liking.”

She couldn’t help but sneer since his expression was so different from the one her butterfly had shown her after she had left him the day before. Although the master, his steward, and his puppet had exercised great caution with her from the very first letter right up until this final tea party, she could sense there was something lurking behind their efforts to appear as if none of these pleasantries were forced. However, between the blond doll’s icy gaze from the previous day and the fact that he was still trying to drug her, his true intentions were pathetically obvious.

As kindly as they were treating her at that moment by acting as if her departure was a sad matter, she could sense that they had no intention of actually letting her go. When the puppet finally handed her the teacup, she didn’t drink it right away and merely traced its rim with her finger.

He, in turn, smiled as though he thought nothing of it. There wasn’t a trace of anxiety or doubt in that smile, which she took as an indication that he was a more formidable foe than Noel. Then she reached for the sugar and slowly began to dunk cube after cube into the warm drink.

First one, then two, then three...

As the number increased, so did the silence between the two of them. The same Agrece woman who had bemoaned how sweet the tea had been over the last two days, was suddenly acting like a sugar fiend.

“Is there anything you wish to say before you go?” The puppet spoke sweetly while focusing on her every move.

“Like what?” She looked up from her cup to meet his gaze. “You mean something I’d like to say to you?”

“Well, I just thought that since I am, after all, Achille’s body.” His expression became even more placid as he babbled on. “It’s just that his death was so sudden, so I’m sure there must be things you wished you could have said. What I’m trying to say is that if you’d like, you could pretend I’m him and tell them to me...”

Then as an afterthought, he added the last remark in a gentle whisper. “...Like you did yesterday.”

The unwitting observer would have likely been taken in by his kind tone and soft gaze, but Roxana knew there was unabashed evil behind both. Not only that, she was certain the puppet was enjoying every second of his charade immensely.

On the one hand, he was merely doing his master’s bidding by trying to keep her from leaving the Gold manor, but it went beyond that. It was only then that she finally felt that she had found the pulse as to what had been causing her uneasiness.

From the beginning, Nix had been trying to trigger her emotions by using various ploys. He was almost behaving like a puppeteer trying to control the strings of a stubborn marionette. He was indeed a being who took great pleasure in toying with humans and their human minds.

At last, she intended to address the matter.

“Say, Nix… Do you know why I delayed my return trip to today rather than going back to the Blue fortress immediately after that banquet?”

Before the puppet could formulate an answer, she went on.

“I mean, do you honestly think it was because I had any interest in someone who is simply using my brother’s body? Do you actually think I would find even a modicum of solace in seeing a ‘living’ reminder of him?”

The hand she had been using to trace the rim of the teacup like a predator tracking its prey suddenly came to a halt.

“I didn’t.” The blond youth’s face became rigid as he found himself on the receiving end of Roxana’s icy glare. “I simply stayed in order to decide whether you should continue to live or whether you should die.”

There was a piercing certainty in her voice as she divulged that Nix’s life depended entirely on her decision to allow it to go on. The puppet felt the force of her words penetrate the depths of his very being.

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked in an attempt to feign playful ignorance once again. “Why say such a dramatic thing out of the blue like that? By any chance, did I offend you just now?”

“Yes, you did.” She didn’t offer so much as a polite hesitation in answering him. “So you can stop with this half-baked Achille act. You aren’t fooling anyone, and quite frankly, it’s annoying me to death.”

Her acidic tone seemed to slash deep into his psyche, and her chilly smirk only made the effect worse.

“An act? Why would you even think that? This is me. This is the way I always am.” The doll continued to try and defend himself by looking perturbed. In truth, he did almost sound sincere enough for a stranger to fall for his performance. However, her smile only grew that much more bitter.

“For an imitation, you sure have guts trying to make me drink this rubbish while gabbing on about such blatant nonsense.” Then Roxana tipped her cup over, and all three watched as its contents spilled onto the table.