“Pl-please, save me.”

The woman’s eyes had lost focus. They were like those of someone who had seen hell.

Upon seeing Jasmine standing before her, the woman collapsed to her knees, grabbed the hem of Jasmine’s dress, and pleaded.

“Please save me. I-I don’t want to die…”

“What the hell is this?”

Jasmine frowned, her fair brow furrowing as she kicked the woman’s shoulder with her silk shoe without a moment’s hesitation.

“How dare you touch me with your filthy hands.”

Judging by the woman’s skin color, appearance, and attire, she was clearly a slave from a southern country across the sea.

The woman, already in poor condition, fell limply to the side from Jasmine’s rough kick.

Leaving the collapsed woman, Jasmine sprayed perfume on the part of her dress the woman had grabbed. Maids rushed over and quickly fixed her disheveled clothing.

Finally finished with her preparations, Jasmine opened the inner chamber door wide and entered.

Her face was adorned with the captivating smile she prided herself on.

Creak. Thud.

The door firmly closed behind her with a heavy sound.

“Nigel! I’m here…?!”

However, her bright smile soon vanished without a trace. And for good reason, considering the unbelievable scene unfolding before her eyes.

People lay collapsed, half-naked and covered in blood. They were all clearly slaves from southern countries, just like the earlier woman.

“Why are these filthy things in Lord Nigel’s bedchamber…?”

The terrible stench of blood assaulted her nose.

Frowning, Jasmine looked around and fell silent at the chilling sight.

From one side of the prince’s canopied bed, completely hidden by curtains, came a thud and a human arm dangled out from under the curtain.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Red blood dripped from that arm, which did not seem to belong to a living person.

Jasmine instinctively took a step back with an ominous feeling.

‘I need to get out of here.’

That’s when it happened.

“What’s the commotion?”

A familiar voice rang out.

The very voice that always made her heart flutter with gentleness and affection.

“Nigel?”

Jasmine called out to him, her face brightening.

That was undoubtedly the voice of her husband, whom she knew. Although she had an inexplicable bad feeling, like her neck was being pulled, she was certain everything would return to normal once Nigel appeared, as always.

“Nigel, are you there? Why is the bedchamber in this state? What on earth happened here?”

Nngh.

A groan that sounded like a beast’s came from behind the curtain.

Jasmine briefly considered immediately opening the door and fleeing, but mustered her courage and called out again.

“Nigel?”

“…You really are a thoughtless woman, aren’t you.”

Riiip.

Along with a cold, irritated voice, the curtain, its original color now indiscernible, was torn away.

Peeking through the torn, fluttering curtain was undoubtedly Nigel. He glared at her while sitting atop someone’s stomach.

‘It’s definitely Nigel, but…’

Jasmine’s eyes widened in terror.

No. That’s not Nigel.

That man, with demonic crimson eyes and a beastly body, looking down on her with contempt, couldn’t possibly be her perfect Nigel…

Thud.

Nigel swatted the torn curtain aside as if annoyed and slowly descended from the bed.

He wore no pants at all, and his shirt, either removed or torn, was stained with blood here and there.

He approached Jasmine, casually stepping on the limp bodies before him, then abruptly stopped.

“…Damn it. This is why.”

“N-Nigel?”

Phew.

With a look of genuine irritation, Nigel glared at Jasmine.

“Do you have any idea how disgusting you smell?”

“Wh-what did you say?”

At the insult she had never heard before in her life, the well-bred princess’s face turned pale.

“I gave you enough hints to stay away, yet you still don’t get it and shamelessly crawled here yourself? Why, do you want to end up like them?”

Nigel ranted furiously, the veins in his neck bulging.

Veins protruded all over his skin, and even the whites of his eyes were riddled with burst blood vessels. Jasmine shook from head to toe and barely managed to shake her head.

She wanted to run away immediately. She felt so terrified she thought she might faint at any moment, but even in this situation, she couldn’t bring herself to defy Nigel.

Come to think of it, it had always been this way since she first met Nigel. Jasmine fell in love with him at first sight and willingly let herself be swayed by him, following him all the way to a distant foreign land of her own accord.

For someone like her, who had always lived her life making others conform to her rather than the other way around, it was by no means easy.

Even when hurt by his selfish or excessive decisions at times, the reason she turned a blind eye was because she truly loved him.

But… were those feelings really love?

In this moment, realizing her inability to muster any proper resistance against him even in the face of the terror that turned her vision white, Jasmine wondered that for the first time.

“Tsk tsk. I’m sorry, Jasmine, but that won’t do.”

“…Pardon?”

“I told you, you reek. Just having you near me makes that stench so overpowering that I feel like I’m going insane. Understand?!”

Nigel’s eyes, now entirely crimson, were like those of a man in the throes of a fit as he shouted.

‘A demon. He’s a demon.’

Jasmine thought, feeling on the verge of fainting.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Suddenly, Jasmine felt warmth spreading under her pale dress and a pungent smell wafted up.

“Tch, unbelievable… The things you do.”

Nigel snatched the perfume bottle from her hand, looking at her as if she were the lowliest thing in the world.

He then sprayed the perfume all over her haphazardly, making spritzing sounds.

“From now on, just douse yourself in perfume like this and obediently do as I say. Got it? Don’t even think about coming to my palace again. That would be better for you too, wouldn’t it.”

Spritz. Spritz.

To Jasmine, who blinked vacantly, completely drenched in perfume, Nigel added with a sneer,

“Still, living in solitude is better than dying, isn’t it?”

As he said that, the corners of his mouth curved up in a bone-chillingly perfect arc.

Even frozen in a fear she had never experienced before in her life, Jasmine docilely nodded her head up and down as if hypnotized.

“If you understand, then get lost.”

At Nigel’s curt gesture, Jasmine slowly turned around like a broken doll. He returned to the bed and tapped on the person he had been sitting on. However, they remained motionless as if dead.

Giving up, he fumbled irritably by the bedside and found a folding fan, snapping it open with a flick.

“What a pity. I quite liked you.”

Flap, flap.

The artificial breeze from the folding fan dispersed the remnants of Jasmine’s foul odor from his nose, and his brow gradually relaxed. The veins that had bulged at his temples also slowly faded.

Snap.

Nigel slowly surveyed the room Jasmine had vanished from and suddenly muttered,

“How the hell did Leon, that bastard, endure this terrible curse?”

He lit a potent cigar, cursing under his breath.

“This is why I dislike him even more. It would be best if Anthony took care of him this time around.”

Surely, after borrowing the power of the Devil’s Stones, there’s no way he couldn’t handle that one guy.

Thinking that, he casually tapped the cigar ash on the floor when someone urgently knocked on the inner chamber door.

“Who is it?”

Nigel asked irritably, furrowing his brow.

Ever since this curse had returned to him, he was constantly annoyed and dissatisfied with everything. Even all the methods he employed to satisfy his lust could not completely quench this boiling desire.

He inevitably grew more and more violent, and the number of servants in the crown prince’s palace gradually decreased.

Of course, some had quit voluntarily, but naturally, they did not return home unscathed.

It was only natural, wasn’t it? There was no reason to risk keeping alive those who knew unnecessary information about the crown prince.

Anyway, for various reasons, the servants these days never dared to knock on the inner chamber door recklessly during the hours he told them not to disturb him. So for someone to dare break that taboo, it must be quite a situation.

“Enter.”

The head attendant who entered and bowed with downcast eyes had served in the imperial palace since Nigel was a child. When was it that he could no longer look Nigel straight in the eye?

Nigel recalled such facts with boredom and asked indifferently,

“What is it?”

“Your Highness, there is news that the Holy Knights have emerged victorious from their expedition and are returning to the capital.”

“…What did you say?”

Nigel couldn’t believe his ears.

“Victorious in the expedition? Not defeated?”

“Pardon? Yes. It is certainly a victory. A messenger sent by Sir Leon Aranias has just arrived. He says they have successfully repelled the monsters with overwhelming military strength.”

The attendant respectfully presented the letter on a silver tray.

“What the fuck is this nonsense?”

“Pardon?”

Clang.

The silver tray Nigel swatted away flew to the other side of the room and rolled weakly, while the letter on it absorbed the blood pooled on the floor, gradually turning red.

“Damn it!”

Nigel shouted, the veins in his neck bulging, and the whites of his eyes began to fill with blood vessels again. The head attendant crept out of the room, trembling.

“Is this… that woman’s doing again?”

A smile twisted by rage spread across Nigel’s face.

Kasha Lyuschino.

The very woman who had unsealed the Devil’s Stones that served as the stepping stone for Nigel to rise as the crown prince.

It had been months since she, whom he had considered an invaluable and harmless plaything, had begun hindering him at every turn.

The reason he still kept her alive was because he considered the possibility that she could be useful in many ways. For instance, if the existence of the Devil’s Stones were to be revealed, he could pin all the blame on her and make her a scapegoat.

But Kasha, that woman, was acting recklessly without any idea of the mercy Nigel was showing her.

His patience, which had been reaching its limit, had already hit rock bottom when the curse he had placed on Leon rebounded on himself.

“And now what? They’ve repelled the monsters?”

He had poured so much manpower and resources into creating those monsters!

Not only that, Leon Aranias was now set to become a hero who had protected the empire from monsters. Not a cursed knight consumed by lust.

“Hahaha, hahahahaha!”

Faced with an unacceptable situation heading towards a catastrophe, Nigel burst into a fit of manic laughter.