7.
***
The office was quiet, as it always was.
In that silent space, Gerald was battling excruciating pain.
He had hung black curtains across the hallway to serve as a boundary, signaling for no one to approach. However, he could not draw a line outside the estate.
The sound of servants’ footsteps as they hurried across the soil. The sound of a dish falling and shattering. The clamor of noisy conversations. The chirping of insects. The whinnying of horses. The sound of the wind. Kay’s low, labored breathing.
Every noise was sharpened like a needle, piercing his ears and tearing through his head.
A terrible headache surged.
“…….”
Gerald picked up a long, thin, silver letter opener from his desk and stabbed it into his ear without hesitation.
“My Lord!”
He felt Kay—who tried his best not to open his mouth due to his condition—calling out to him urgently in a low voice.
“I punctured exactly the eardrum.”
“…….”
Only after forcibly wounding the inside of his ear did the headache subside slightly.
However, as his hearing was paralyzed, his sense of smell now began to run rampant.
The scent of Kay’s sweat made his head throb violently.
“Kay. Stay away for a while.”
He felt the vibration of Kay shaking his head through the air.
Gerald commanded firmly.
“Immediately.”
Kay bowed his head in silence and vanished.
The stagnant air floating inside the office stung his nose. Nausea rose, and he held his breath.
“Damn it.”
Gerald closed his eyes and struggled to suppress his other senses, which were running wild.
***
“Excuse me? Go home?”
Defying the resolve she had made the previous day, Marin immediately faced an employment crisis.
At the shocking words, her lime-green eyes trembled.
She had arrived in front of the office right on time for her shift, only to be told to go home.
“I am sorry.”
“You’re really telling me to leave?”
“Yes. Please go back for today.”
Olive awkwardly avoided her gaze.
“Is it really just for today?”
Marin asked, seeking confirmation.
“That is……”
Olive glanced at the office door with a troubled expression, his words trailing off.
“I can’t go! How hard did I work to get here? How can you fire me after just one day? I’ll die here before I leave!”
Marin plopped down onto the red carpet covering the hallway. She grabbed the fabric and went into survival mode, her face set with determination.
“Um, Miss Marin. I think there has been a bit of a misunderstanding. You’re not being fired, it’s just……”
Flustered, Olive held out his hand as if urging her to get up.
“You said to go home, didn’t you?”
Marin looked up at Olive with eyes full of resentment.
She couldn’t be fired after just one day; she had worked so hard to land this job.
“No, that’s not it……. Let’s talk about this somewhere else, not here.”
It was right when Olive kept glancing nervously toward the office that—
“Come in.”
A heavy voice, radiating a chilling aura, flowed from inside the office.
As the unexpected voice of the Duke cut in, Marin’s eyes widened like a startled rabbit.
*Was the Duke inside? Was my voice too loud?*
Olive frowned in distress and let out a deep sigh.
“Haa, let’s go in first.”
Marin stood up, feeling as dejected as a frightened puppy.
Olive lit a candle and stepped into the office. Marin stuck close behind him, trying to hide her body as much as possible as she moved.
Then, her footsteps came to a sudden halt. Even as the back of Olive—her only shield—drifted further away, she couldn’t move an inch.
Her instincts were warning her: Danger.
Marin looked around the office slowly, her face tense.
Thick black curtains drawn over every window. A mahogany desk. A thick red carpet. The Duke, exuding presence even in the darkness.
The office was just as dark and bleak as the day before.
Yet, something subtly bothered her.
She flinched. Her shoulders stiffened as she realized one thing that was different from the previous day.
The faint smell of blood drifting in the air, unventilated and stale.
Marin felt a sudden wave of dizziness, and a retching sensation surged.
The whinnying of a horse. The smell of hazy dirt. Drops of blood falling before her eyes.
*No. I can’t collapse here.*
Marin took a rough, deep breath, trying to chase away the remnants of the past floating in her mind.
She clenched her cold, numb hands into fists, forcing them open and shut to restore warmth. As if the effort paid off, the dizziness soon faded.
Marin steadied her trembling legs and stood close behind Olive once more.
*Why is there a smell of blood?*
Because of her past trauma, she could smell blood as well as a ghost. It was faint, but it was definitely the smell of blood.
Her lime-green eyes moved busily, inspecting her surroundings.
*Did someone die here?*
Her imagination ran wild.
She had thought the job was just reading reports to the Duke as if reading a book.
*Do I have to risk my life? Should I run away now?*
She wanted to turn around and flee immediately, but her body, frozen with fear, wouldn’t budge.
“You seemed determined.”
The predator’s low voice drifted from the darkness.
“I, I am sorry.”
Marin apologized with trembling lips.
“You said you would die here?”
“N, no.”
She hurriedly denied what she had said. She didn’t want to die.
This place, with its subtle scent of blood, felt more like an execution ground than an office.
The swords decorated on one wall flickered in the candlelight, flashing even larger and sharper.
Marin forced her gaze away from the swords and stared at the Duke, who was submerged in darkness.
“As expected…… are you a spy?”
“Pardon? Ah, *hiccup*. No.”
The back of her neck felt cold.
Marin, who had forced herself to grab her hand before it could reach her throat, answered, terrified.
“Then why are you so desperate to die here?”
The Duke’s deadpan tone sounded even scarier.
“Th, that’s not what I meant. It’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. I meant that I really wanted to work. *Hiccup*. I really don’t want to die. *Hiccup*.”
Because of the hiccups that popped out whenever she was nervous, her words sounded incoherent. If she were to be executed for being a spy like this, she felt she would die twice from the sheer injustice of it.
“Olive.”
The target shifted.
Olive bowed his head with a gloomy expression.
“I apologize. It was difficult to speak of Your Grace’s condition, so when I told her to go home without explaining the reason, she seems to have misunderstood it as a dismissal.”
At those words, Marin’s lime-green eyes shook as if they had been struck by an earthquake.
*No, if that was the case, you should have explained it better. To tell me to leave the moment I arrived…*
“Miss Marin, I am sorry. His Grace’s condition is something only a few should know about. I couldn’t judge quickly whether I should tell you, as you had only just started working.”
“Ah……. Yes.”
Hearing Olive’s explanation, it made sense.
Who was the Duke?
He was like a king ruling the Western Region. And generally, the condition of someone in such a high position was a top secret.
“So you decided to be noisy?”
The Duke’s voice rang out coldly.
“I apologize.”
Olive bowed his head deeply.
“I apologize.”
Marin also followed suit, apologizing in a small, shrinking voice.
“The report.”
“Are you sure you are alright? You haven’t even received treatment yet……”
There was concern laced in Olive’s voice.
*Treatment?*
Marin widened her eyes, glancing back and forth between Olive and the Duke.
*The smell of blood wasn’t because he killed someone, but because the Duke was hurt?*
“Olive, are you a doctor?”
The Duke asked sluggishly.
“I am a Secretary Assistant.”
Olive corrected him calmly.
“Then assist. The report.”
“I will go fetch it.”
Olive bowed slightly with a somber face and stepped out of the office.
She and the Duke were left alone.
The fact that no one had died here caused her body, which had been tense to its limit, to relax slightly.
She carefully peeked at the Duke, but his face was not visible in the darkness.
Marin parted her lips and carefully called out to him.
“Your Grace……”
“…….”
There was no reply from the Duke.
“I am truly not a spy.”
Marin squeezed her eyes shut and gathered the tiny shred of courage remaining within her.
“Have you ever seen a spy say, ‘I am a spy’?”
A trace of mockery seemed to color the Duke’s low voice.