Wait, so when I woke up feeling fresh, it was all thanks to him?!

“……Pervert.”

“What?”

“How could you touch a sleeping woman?!”

Innocently, Diana crossed her arms over her chest. Roderick’s lips quirked up slightly.

This woman. She was the one who flung herself onto me, yet reacts like this to being wiped down.

Roderick lightly bumped their foreheads together without hurting her.

“You touch me even when you’re awake, so why can’t I?”

“Well, when you put it that way, I have nothing to say.”

“Don’t worry. I let the maids handle the intimate parts and the underwear.”

His words sounded alarmingly suggestive.

“Even the secret depths of your mouth were thoroughly touched by my hands.”

Her face flushed crimson at his soft whisper.

Watching her, Roderick’s eyes deepened. The temptation to pop her perfectly ripe, white skin was overwhelming.

His tingling fingertips grabbed her soft cheek.

“Mueyo?(What?)”

Struggling against his desire, Roderick played with her pliable cheek before letting go.

“I’ll get the washcloth.”

His voice sounded strained. Diana nodded, and he hurriedly disappeared into the bathroom.

Roderick returned from the bathroom long after her cold sweat had dried.

“Are you sure you weren’t rolling around battlefields? A noble lady behaving like that?”

The word ‘vulgar’ reached her ears after leaving Roderick’s bedroom.

Strange. Even after Nathan revealed her as Beatus, their attitude hadn’t changed much.

“Nuna.”

Noel, who had come to meet her, firmly held her hand. Looking down at his call, Noel smiled brightly.

“Shall I kill them?”

His body hadn’t fully returned to its original size since he refrained from using magic, still resembling a 5-year-old. But his eyes sparkled fiercely. Yes, he could kill them in one strike.

“No, why bother?”

His disappointed reaction suggested he thought he could help her. Diana stroked his gray hair.

“Noel, listen. It’s a loss to deal with every chattering mouth.”

“Is it?”

“Either overshadow the rumors with a bigger scandal.”

Her pink eyes narrowed slightly.

“Or deal with the instigator causing the disturbance.”

Right. Noel nodded with bright eyes.
“So, that unpleasant aura. It’s a curse, right?”

“Yes, but it’s a bit different from what you absorbed from that man’s body.”

Diana, who had been training to read magic power with Noel’s help, could now fully see even the faintest traces of magic.

Finally, she could read the thin, red magic power spreading everywhere. It flowed in the form of a curse.

“That. It looks like a curse of fascination.”

“Huh?”

“It makes you only listen to the words of the person you like and hate those disliked by them.”

That explained their behavior.

But how did Noel know this? Does becoming a magician mean understanding everything?

Her doubts about the child kept creeping up. And he only shares information when it suits him. It would be nice if he spoke up without being asked. Noel.

“Nuna? What’s wrong?”

Noel, finding her fixed gaze odd, took her hand and waved it.

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. My Noel is just too cute.”

At this, the child shyly smiled and lowered his head.

“How do we get rid of that curse then?”

The sachet that the maid had carried was already disposed of. Yet, the pervasive aura, like a contagion, had ensnared the servants throughout the castle.

“To break the curse, you must eliminate the person who wished for it or the medium that serves as its conduit.”

“The medium, like the stone fragments in that sachet?”

“Yes, probably something bigger than that.”

The culprit behind the current situation was obvious. Diana nodded, contemplating where the medium could be hidden. She needed to eliminate this ominous aura quickly, concerned it might affect Roderick.

But before she could act, the erupted situation took an unexpected turn.

It was the day of joint training between the First and Second Knight Divisions. Usually at odds, it was one of the few chances for the two groups to openly clash.

However, their skirmish was overshadowed by an unwelcome intruder.

“Ouch! Be gentle, please!”

“Stop whining, Roderick’s brother. You’re obviously holding back and dodging!”

Felice, crying out while dodging, was up against Nathan, who wielded a massive sword like a madman.

Felice, usually busy with administrative duties and not seen on the training grounds, was adeptly countering Nathan’s attacks.

A future Duke’s moves against the renowned Nathan’s sword skills.

Half the spectators watched intrigued, while the other half, having completed their training, lay resting.

Some were sipping from water pouches in the shade of trees.

“Did you hear? The lady we guarded, she’s Nathan’s sister?”

“What? That woman’s a Beatus?”

“Yeah, from the capital. The reclusive youngest one in the mansion.”

“Wow, I thought she’d be gloomy or something.”

Those who had taken turns guarding whispered, glancing at Nathan.

“She looks like a seductress.”

“Right, so she’s even fooling around with someone like Sub-Captain Daren?”

“If she can seduce Captain Roderick with her body, Daren must’ve been easy.”

“Right, so she’s not going out just because she’s rolling in bed every day with men…”

Crack-! They could say no more. A huge tree they leaned on exploded, scattering debris.

Amid the deafening blast, the tree shattered and flew upward.

Amid the splintering debris, Roderick emerged, radiating a suffocating murderous aura.