29.
“Mandlesong. Investigate everything.”
Kay gave a slight nod and vanished without a sound.
Gerald fell into thought, inhaling the cool scent that clung to his face. He had teased her, tugging on the conversation’s thread simply because her reactions were amusing. *Help*, he thought. What kind of help could he possibly receive from her? He had let her do as she pleased, viewing it as the price for his taunts.
He had been slightly startled by the unfamiliar sensation of someone touching his hair, but he did not show it. Soon, he felt a cloth covered in leaves press against his forehead and eyelids.
It was the same cool scent he had smelled yesterday—mixed now with her fresh, natural aroma drifting closer. He found the fragrance eerily familiar, as if he had caught a whiff of it once before. Typically, anything touching his eyes brought searing pain, but he ignored the impending agony, considering it a repayment of his debt.
Before long, he was drawn into the fairy tale she was reading. It was a compelling story, leaving him little room to find fault. A crow that repaid a count for its kindness after having lied to survive. He listened until the very end, only to realize that as time passed, something was changing.
His eyes… were not stinging.
The leaves had seeped through the cloth, pressing against his eyelids long ago, yet the burning sensation never came. Gerald was swept up in shock. Since losing his sight, he had kept his eyes covered with a pitch-black strap because they were painfully sensitive. If his eyeballs had skin, it felt as though the raw flesh had been peeled away, leaving them in a constant state of agony. Whether closed or open, even the slightest stimulus made them ache.
Yet today, for the first time, there was no sting.
*Mandlesong. What on earth is that flower?*
He did not know how much time had passed while he pondered the plant. Suddenly, the scent of Kay reached him.
“So, it is a poisonous plant?”
With his eyes at peace, he found he could miraculously control the other senses that usually tormented him. With a clear mind for the first time in an age, Gerald listened to Kay’s explanation and fell into deep thought.
His body was immune to everything but the most potent of poisons. A poisonous plant. A spy. Was she truly a spy? It was a laughable notion. If there were a spy as clumsy as Imsi, he would have purged every infiltrator from the Duke’s Estate long ago.
“Call Olive and Zero.”
“…….”
Kay, answering with silence, vanished like the wind.
A short while later, the sound of Olive’s orderly footsteps and Zero’s rough, heavy tread—perhaps because he hadn’t bothered to transform into a child today—echoed in the hallway. As soon as they reached the door, Gerald spoke.
“Come in.”
The door swung wide, and Zero grumbled in a voice full of dissatisfaction.
“Duke. Even if you don’t sleep, I need to. Why are you calling us at this hour, making such a fuss?”
Zero brushed back his long, waist-length silver hair with a rough gesture and glared at the Duke, his expression sour.
“Mr. Zero. Please keep your voice down.”
Olive, standing beside him, quickly checked the Duke’s mood. Zero removed the glasses perched on the tip of his nose, wiped them roughly on his nightgown, and shoved them back on.
“That guy is the one who’s blind, not the one who’s deaf.”
“Mr. Zero!”
As Zero jeered, Olive cried out, his face turning deathly pale. When Zero took the form of a child, he possessed an angelic appearance and a gentle tone, but as an adult, he spat venomous words with that same angelic face, his bristles raised.
“Ah— alright. It’s always dark in here. You should just go live in a cave. This place or a cave, it’s all the same.”
Zero operated the bracelet on his wrist, and a bright light radiated from it, illuminating the room. As an alchemist, he possessed many wondrous skills.
“Are you finished yet?”
“Do you think I’m finished?”
Olive, watching the war of nerves, swallowed a sigh. The two, friends since childhood, seemed trapped in a relationship that was both intimate and caustic.
“Then I shall wait until you are finished.”
“Hey. Speaking as a very kind person, calling people up in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping is crossing the line, don’t you think?”
Zero stood lopsided on one leg, glaring at the Duke with icy blue eyes.
“And is it acceptable to call the Duke ‘hey’?”
Gerald, arms crossed, leaned back in his chair with ease.
“If you don’t like it, fire me.”
“I’m the Duke, in case you forgot.”
“I’ll inherit a dukedom when I go home, too.”
“Do you think they’d actually give that position to a runaway son?”
As Gerald gave a cold, mocking laugh, Zero’s eyebrows twitched in frustration.
“Want me to show you the letters flying in, begging me to just come back?”
Olive, who had been watching their childish squabble, let out the breath he had been holding.
“Why the sigh?”
“Why?”
The two asked Olive simultaneously. *They look so much alike when they’re like this,* Olive thought. He stepped forward to report on Zero’s status.
“Your Grace. Mr. Zero has been up for three nights straight, so he is currently quite on edge.”
“…….”
As the Duke listened in silence, Olive continued.
“He has been developing a new medicine to cure Your Grace’s eyes……”
“Olive!”
Zero hurried to cover Olive’s mouth, but Olive nimbly dodged his hand, smiling with his eyes.
“……so he has been pulling all-nighters and is a bit prickly.”
Even if Zero’s words were fierce, no one in the room was unaware of how hard he was struggling for the Duke’s sake.
“That olive-oil-for-brains fellow.”
Zero glared at Olive, huffing and puffing.
“Your dedication to your employer is impressive.”
Gerald praised him in an exaggerated tone, purely to goad Zero.
“Just ask what you want to ask, quickly. I’m going to sleep. I’m going to sleep right now!”
Zero, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, pretended not to hear Gerald and went to stand by the wall. He leaned against the stone, persistently glaring at the back of Olive’s head.
“Tell me about Mandlesong.”
If he had jumped straight to the point upon meeting, Zero would have acted even more bitingly. Gerald, having humored him just enough, threw out the question he most wanted to ask.
“Oh-ho. There are a lot of people curious about that weed lately, aren’t there?”
Zero pushed himself off the wall and adjusted his glasses, a glint of interest in his eyes.
“Who is that person?”
Gerald, likewise pushing himself away from the back of his chair, furrowed his brows.
“Why are you curious about Mandlesong?”
“Is it, by any chance, Imsi?”
The two, having answered a question with a question, paused for a moment. Zero, who had slightly crinkled his nose upon seeing the strap covering the Duke’s eyes, was the first to speak.
“Imsi, huh……”
“Why are you showing interest in Imsi?”
“So it’s true that you call her that?”
Curiosity flickered in the blue eyes of Zero, who had removed his glasses.
“…….”
Gerald hardened his jaw. Whenever he spoke with this man, the subject always wandered.
“Mandlesong.”
Gerald gritted his teeth and returned to the starting point.
“Ah, Mandlesong is just a common weed found everywhere outside.”
Zero replied readily, his face showing annoyance.
“I heard that weed is listed in the book of poisonous plants you wrote.”
“That’s both true and false. Do you need a laxative?”
Gerald frowned at the abrupt remark, and Zero shrugged.
“As for the poison of Mandlesong, no matter how much you eat, there’s nothing worse than getting diarrhea.”
“You said it was a poisonous plant?”
“Some unfortunate person might die of dehydration from it, I suppose.”
Olive, listening from the side, focused on the story with a serious face. He hadn’t realized that diarrhea could be such a dangerous illness.
“Is it possible…… for those symptoms to appear even without eating it?”
Gerald hesitated before adding the words.
“Puhahahaha. That is the funniest thing I have ever heard in my life.”
Zero burst into laughter, clutching his stomach.
“……Get out.”
At Gerald’s cold tone, Zero, who had adjusted his glasses back into place, grinned.
“By the way, I like her. Give her to me.”
“……Imsi is not an object.”
After a long pause, Gerald retorted in a displeased voice.
“You don’t even call her by her name, yet you say things like that so easily.”
Zero, a sardonic smile on his lips, taunted him while carefully observing Gerald’s expression.
“You’re not listening to what I’m saying.”
“There’s no way I, a genius, wouldn’t understand what you’re saying……”
“I’m saying that Imsi is already mine.”