Tamed A Blackened Slave Man

“Are you out of your mind right now?”

Damian asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m perfectly sane, thank you for asking.”

He huffed incredulously, not denying my claim that he was handsome.

“Milady. Do you think I’m going to believe you after all you have done?”

“……”

“Why don’t we stop the obvious tricks here? They’re difficult to listen to.”

“Is that what you really think? If I was going to do so, why would I have come all this way?”

To my objection, Damian quietly leaned forward toward me. His angled, sharp eyes, and the emerald-colored irises inside of those eyes seem to be glittering especially brightly in the evening sunset.

The knuckles that supported his chin seemed a lot thinner than I remembered. His bones seemed thicker than in my previous life.

They seemed more like the hands of a pianist than those of someone who wielded a sword. Just how many people did he deceive and lead to their deaths with those hands?

When Damian’s eyes met my intent stare, he spoke with a small sneer,

“Well, then. Milady. Let’s hear the important reason why you came all the way here.”

The way he crossed his legs as he spoke, and his bored tone were all so incredibly arrogant. So in order to shake off that attitude, I decided to lie.

“I came to apologize.”

Damian’s face crumpled at my response, as if he had just heard the despicable.

“Are you joking with me right now?”

As I expected, what returned was a cold response. An expression of clear disbelief.

“A joke? It’s nothing of the sort.”

I rubbed my arm, making a slightly bitter smile. Damian watched all of my actions with an indifferent face.

Looking at the handsome face that I once loved, I smiled faintly, thinking back to the days when I had truly loved him.

It was an act combined with both truth and lies.

Would you not fall for the act even when it was able to trick my own self?

“There has been a time when I was awake all night thinking of Your Grace after all.”

There had been a time like that. Those foolish times when I, who fell for you at first sight, followed you around.

“But, when Your Grace insulted my younger brother, I became so angry that the words just blurted out of me. I shouldn’t have done that, no matter how angry I was.”

If it’s you whom I know, then you should know that what I did was planned. Because you’re too smart for your own good.

“A late apology.”

Damian leaned back as he muttered to himself. Just then, servants pushed carts with platters of food into the room.

“Please wait a moment for the table to be set up.”

Various sorts of dishes were placed on the table, from steak that still had its juices retained in the tender meat to a salad comprised of fresh vegetables mixed with a fragrant sauce.

When the servants bowed and left the room after finishing their job, Damian extended an arm and encouraged me to eat.

“Here, eat as much as you wish.”

As soon as I raised my knife and fork after a long moment of hesitation, Damian’s lips curled up.

Seeing his expression, I put the utensils back on the table. Then, his smile sank back down into a frown.

“Why aren’t you eating? Is the food perhaps not to your taste?”

“…No, it’s nothing like that.”

“If that isn’t so, why not eat? I’ve only treated you like you have asked me to.”

Then he glared at me with a dissatisfied expression. Taking a glance at the face of the man staring at me with his arms crossed, I asked him,

“Won’t you be eating with me, Your Grace?”

“I’m not feeling that hungry.”

It was strange that he wasn’t touching the food. Did he really do something with it? Just as I was debating whether or not I should eat, a voice unfitting for this environment sounded from behind me.

“If I may be permitted, is it alright for me to taste the food first?”

Tuule carefully spoke up, having both of his hands gathered politely at his stomach. On the contrary, Damian snapped back aggressively at the man,

“How dare you speak out of your place. I would recommend you keep your mouth shut if you don’t want that tongue of yours cut out again.”

That damned attitude of his.

‘Seeing as how he is showing me his true colors, is he not suspecting that I will expose his personality to the public?’

No. Nobody would believe me even if I told them that Damian was such a man. He always made sure to establish a positive reputation outside, after all.

The evidence of that came out just a short while ago. Though news about Damian’s heart condition became widespread, there were more opinions of sympathy than criticism for hiding his condition.

“This proves that he is worthy to be of such high status. He managed to be the winner of the Swordsmanship Competition even with his heart disease. He will be the man who leads the empire to success!”

On the carriage ride to the north, I heard countless voices outside praising Damian through the window. Almost to the point where I suspected he bribed some to spread the positive word.

It was because he was aware of this that he came out like this. Because he knew nobody would believe me even if I said something.

But just in case, he only let in the bare minimum of people and sat me down here to satisfy his curiosity.

Done organizing my thoughts, I took hold of the knife and fork I put down, then called Damian,

“Your Grace.”

Hearing me, he combed back his black hair with his hand and opened his mouth.

“Why did you call?”

“I will tell you. What Your Grace is curious about, all of it.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed even further after hearing that. And seeing him watch me, I smiled brightly as I cut a small portion of the tender steak and brought it up to my mouth, then stopped to add on,

“It’s my fault. I apologize.”

“……”

“So let us conciliate. Please?”

I smiled like a naïve child. My expression was a harmless smile, but Damian continued to look down at me with a frigid expression.

Checking his expression, I forced the suspicious steak into my mouth.

When I chewed on the steak and swallowed, a chilling smile crawled up Damian’s face.

Damian’s promise not to do anything to the food was a lie. Even knowing that, I swallowed the food. I ‘pretended’ to swallow the food, to be exact.

Drumming my throat with my hand, I reached out to the napkin on the table.

With the napkin in my hand, I pretended to wipe my lips as I spit out the food. Oblivious to this fact, Tuule grabbed my shoulders with a startled expression.

“Miss Aren! Are you alright?”

“Tuule…..”

“Spit it out right now!”

“I’ve already swallowed it.”

Hearing that, Tuule glared furiously at Damian. On the other hand, Damian smirked while looking down at me like I was pathetic.

Using the moment that Tuule had Damian’s attention, I placed the napkin back on the table.

“Wait.”

With a voice that seemed frigid enough to freeze everything it touched, the air in the room went still.

“Why haven’t you eaten the food?”

Eyes glinting like a serpent about to pounce on its prey, Damian asked coldly.

‘Got you.’

There was no way Damian wouldn’t have realized I didn’t swallow the food with his smart head. He’s outstandingly observant, so even if he wasn’t sure at first, he should have noticed right away that I didn’t swallow.

As if to prove that, Damian was switching his gaze between my face and the napkin that I placed on the table.

“Milady. I ask that you answer when I’m still asking nicely. If you don’t want to leave this mansion as a corpse, that is.”

I was positive that from the moment I didn’t eat the food, Damian no longer considered me his guest.

With a calm voice, I raised my head high and answered,

“The reason why I didn’t eat the food? Your Grace, do you ask that because you really don’t know?”

Damian flicked up his chin, telling me to continue.

“Your Grace has done something to the food.”

“Oh. Are you accusing me, even after I have treated you to all of this?”

As if revealing his confidence, he crookedly curled up his lip.

“I… was going to cure Your Grace’s heart disease as a means for our reconciliation, but how could you…?”

To my small muttering, Damian’s eyes, which had been consistently indifferent, suddenly shot open.

“What did you just say?”

Barely managing to hold in the laughter threatening to leak out of my mouth, I asked him like I didn’t understand what he was saying.

“That Your Grace has poisoned the food?”

“Not that.”

“Then what are you…”

Now leaning completely towards me, Damian grabbed my chin and asked me.

“What you have said about curing my heart disease.”

---

Meanwhile, Cassadin was currently conversing in an abandoned building with Kindel.

Well, it was questionable whether it could be called conversing.

Kindel’s uniform, which had always been neatly ironed, had several missing buttons and seemed nothing more than rags, and there were bright red marks on his wrists where a thick rope constricted them.

Wearing a black robe, Cassadin grabbed the collar of the man kneeling in front of him and murmured ominously,

“It will be after the Founding Day when I send you back to your master.”

“……”

“Do you understand?”

There was a gag in the old butler’s mouth, preventing him from speaking, though he didn’t have the strength to speak either. On his way out to uncover Aren’s weakness under his master’s orders, he was struck by something on the back of the head and passed out on the spot.

When he woke up, he was here. For the past two days, Kindel has gotten neither a bit of food nor water.

He had taken the lives of others countless times. There were many times that those who held a grudge attempted to kill him.

But the one who died was always not Kindel, but the opponent who tried to kill him. After all, Damian’s swordsmanship teacher in his youth was Kindel.

Having innate talent with swordsmanship, his master had surpassed him, his teacher, in the year he had barely turned ten.

So, he didn’t hesitate to use this old body for his master. It was the old butler’s dream that his master would ascend to the highest throne.

But the man in front of him was as strong–no, perhaps even stronger than his master.

The woman called Aren, who managed to take in this monster as her younger brother, was also no ordinary woman.

Kindel’s uneasy feeling had become a reality. He deeply regretted that he had not stopped his master, even if it meant he would die.

Cassadin untied the gag in Kindel’s mouth. Glaring up at Cassadin with bloodshot eyes, Kindel spoke.

“Do you think that I will speak if you untie my gag? You will learn nothing from me.”

“…I admire your loyalty.”

Cassadin smiled faintly. In the evening light, Cassadin’s small smile seemed to resemble both an angel and a demon. The man with the face of an angel and the actions of the exact opposite.

He rummaged through his black robe, then took out something and dropped it on the ground.

Clack.

Squinting without his glasses, Kindel checked the object that Cassadin had dropped.

It was the small vial of the commoners’ blood he carried around for his master and his cracked monocle.

At the same time, a cold shiver ran through Kindel’s spine. A voice that seemed to emanate from the depths of a ravine rang out,

“Would your master have also thought that after seeing this?”