The butler Bayern entered along with a man with a dignified impression. The man with a monocle slowly looked around.

‘Is that the doctor they said was coming from the Imperial Palace?’

Leah recalled the rumor that the Emperor was personally sending his personal physician to care for the Duke, his cousin.

But why? This inexplicable uneasiness rising from her core. It was then that Leah was looking at the two with wary eyes.

“Why is Miss Leah here?”

Bayern asked sharply, raising his eyes.

“The Duke suddenly fell ill. I was examining him.”

“The Duke?”

At Leah’s words, the Imperial doctor next to the butler approached the Duke’s side. After checking the Duke’s condition, the doctor shouted at Leah.

“What on earth has the so-called personal physician been doing while the Duke became like this?!”

Carefully slipping the empty medicine bottle she was holding into her sleeve, Leah replied.

“I apologize. It seems the Duke’s chronic illness has worsened again. I was about to go get the treatment…”

“What treatment? Who’s to blame for the Duke becoming like this when he was fine for a while?”

Bayern, who had approached close by now, cut off her words.

“For now, since we have the Imperial doctor sent by His Majesty the Emperor, you should withdraw.”

As Leah reluctantly took a step back, the Imperial doctor Jacob began his examination.

“Hmm. As you said, the Duke’s chronic illness has worsened. The butler said his health had improved recently, so I was relieved.”

Clicking his tongue, he took out a blue-tinted potion from his bag.

“What kind of medicine is that?”

“It’s a treatment made from catmint. It’s my special secret remedy.”

“If it’s catmint…”

“The Duke’s chronic illness is a vascular problem. It’s a chronic disease caused by poor blood circulation. So I specially made a new treatment with catmint.”

Jacob answered in a confident tone.

“You may not know, but the main ingredient of this treatment, catmint, is a precious medicinal herb found only in the East that cleanses the blood vessels.”

But unlike Jacob, Leah’s eyes filled with shock.

‘Impossible! Using catmint as a treatment!’

Because it was such a rare herb, people didn’t know well, but it was too toxic to be used as medicine.

It not only cleanses blood vessels, but can even dissolve them. Yet the Imperial doctor brought it as a treatment.

‘Is he out of his mind!?’

Leah said in an urgent voice.

“Wait! Catmint is no different from a poisonous herb! How can you use that as medicine? The Duke could become even more endangered!”

Jacob’s eyebrows twitched at her outcry.

“Tsk tsk. To be so ignorant as an apothecary.”

Despite Leah’s protest, Jacob fed the treatment to the Duke.

Leah tried to stop the doctor’s actions, but was thwarted by Bayern who blocked her way.

How many minutes had passed since giving the medicine to the Duke? The Duke, who had been lying on the bed like dead, began to look even paler.

And then.

– Cough.

Akkia began to convulse while coughing up bright red blood.

“Look, the Duke is now having a seizure…!!”

“Oh my! This is merely a healing crisis!”

‘What? Healing crisis?’

It was outrageous and maddening. To say the Duke coughing up blood and convulsing was just getting better.

Unable to bear it any longer, Leah finally shouted at the doctor.

“Don’t say such nonsense! You’re killing the Duke right now!”

But Leah could no longer resist. Because Bayern, who had been blocking her, struck her cheek.

– Slap!

With the sound of flesh colliding, a chilling silence fell over the bedroom.

“How impudent! Who do you think you’re lecturing in front of?”

Leah’s cheek, her head turned by the butler, instantly turned red.

Bayern, who looked at Leah with contemptuous eyes, wiped the hand that struck her cheek with a handkerchief.

“I don’t know who you’re trying to blame after driving the Duke to the brink of death. Don’t let the apothecary into this room until I call for her!”

At Bayern’s words, the servants outside dragged Leah out. And even as she was being led away by their hands, she could not take her eyes off Akkia.

Leah paced back and forth in the apothecary room. After much deliberation, she had subtly asked Rikel to come to the apothecary.

‘What if Rikel doesn’t come?’

She thought Rikel would have understood her intention, but given the urgency of the situation, she couldn’t help but worry.

“What a quack.”

Leah swallowed a bitter laugh, still incredulous that the Duke’s seizure due to incompatible medicine was called a healing crisis.

Without taking the treatment medicine after the seizure, the Duke’s life couldn’t be guaranteed. Leah’s eyes trembled helplessly as she gazed at the moonlight slanting through the window.

Catmint is not classified as a poisonous herb. This is because the herb itself is not toxic.

‘Even alpharadia has no effect on catmint.’

Since it wasn’t toxic, it was difficult to hope for alpharadia’s detoxifying effect.

“To think that a so-called Imperial doctor would use such an herb.”

As she was pacing by the door again, biting her innocent lips at the rising impatience, that’s when.

– Knock knock.

A knocking sound cut through the quiet silence. Leah opened the apothecary door before even asking who it was.

“Rikel!”

“Looks like you’ve been waiting for me a lot?”

He entered, closing the door behind him, and smiled slyly as usual, narrowing his eyes.

“Why are you so late?”

“Me? I had no reason to visit the apothecary when I’m not sick, you know.”

When she had gone to the kitchen to pass on the message, she had asked him to come to the apothecary as soon as the sun set. Considering the urgency of the Duke’s condition, she had expected Rikel to come right away.

As he sat down nonchalantly in a chair at the table, Leah’s heart began to pound. ‘Could it be… did I misjudge?’ she wondered.

‘No.’

Her keen sense, honed from her previous life, was telling her this was a gamble worth taking. Leah hoped that her choice was not wrong.

“Tell me. Was it because you wanted to see me, as the head chef said, or.”

“……”

“Or did something happen that you need to report to me?”

Rikel’s lips curved crookedly as he stated the two possibilities. Leah, who had been staring at him blankly, slowly opened her mouth.

“As you know, Rikel, the Duke is in critical condition right now.”

“Hmm. I heard about that. I also heard that you were kicked out after arguing that the Imperial doctor’s prescription was wrong.”

He replied, gesturing towards Leah’s swollen left cheek. Leah gritted her teeth, recalling the Imperial doctor and Bayern who had thrown her out of the bedroom.

‘At least I’m not playing with someone’s life.’

They probably brought the rare Eastern herb as a treatment considering her inadequate medical skills as a new apothecary.

They must have thought she would inevitably acquiesce if pressured with plausible words.

However, they didn’t know that Leah was so well-versed in herbal medicine that she had the entire herbal medicine book memorized.

After all, the reason Leah, an orphanage graduate, was able to get an apothecary license was because she had practically memorized the herbal medicine book.

An Imperial doctor prescribing a poisonous herb. She didn’t know the exact details, but the Duke was in danger now.

‘And I’ve become endangered too.’

It wasn’t just a matter of money.

If anything went wrong with the Duke, she would be held responsible.

‘They intended to pin it on me from the start.’

That’s why the Imperial doctor could act so nonchalantly even after giving the wrong prescription. Leah was not the naive twenty-two-year-old apothecary.

She was sick of such political exploitation after experiencing numerous incidents in her previous life.

“Listen carefully, Rikel. The doctor’s prescription is indeed wrong.”

“……”

“The Imperial doctor said the Duke’s seizure was a healing crisis, but it’s not! If we leave it like this, the Duke will really be in danger.”

Rikel, who had been indifferent, frowned at the mention that the Duke could die.

“Catmint doesn’t help with vascular diseases, it will dissolve all of the Duke’s blood vessels. And if that happens…”

“If that happens?”

Leah swallowed the words she couldn’t bring herself to utter. She felt dizzy thinking about the death looming over the Duke.

Rikel was silent for a while after Leah’s lengthy explanation. How many seconds had passed? After a long silence, he opened his mouth, seeming to gaze at her intently.

“Leah. Listening to what you’re saying…”

A low voice calling Leah’s name was heard.

“It seems you didn’t call me for a report, but to ask for help in treating the Duke.”

Rikel’s deep purple eyes, which had suddenly intensified, stared at Leah. She swallowed hard under his piercing gaze that seemed to see right through her.

“That’s right.”

Leah barely steadied her voice that was about to tremble. It was Rikel who had been making her agonize breathlessly since the morning.

Though she had been playing a double agent for him on the Duke’s orders, Leah was still confused whether Rikel was an enemy or ally to the Duke.

‘If he wanted him dead, he would have assigned me something other than receiving reports as an apothecary.’

Like poisoning. Or causing intoxication by using small amounts of poison in the treatment. Leah was in the most suitable position to kill the Duke.

However, there were no such special orders.

So Leah thought. Perhaps the high-ranking person who was paying such an enormous sum and assigning her a surveillance role might be an ally of the Duke.

It was reckless, but this was the only way now.

Bayern had blocked entry to the bedroom so that no one except the butler and the Imperial doctor could enter that room.

The only way to save the Duke’s life now was through ‘that person’ backing Rikel.

“The report starts now, Rikel. The high-ranking person you serve told me to watch over the Duke, right?”

“……”

“The Duke is in a critical condition now. If that person wishes for the Duke to die, I will stay still here.”

Rikel’s face showed no emotion at Leah’s following words. He was just listening silently. This was no less than a gamble for Leah.

“But if he must be saved, I need to treat the Duke right now. So please decide.”

Leah’s leaf-green eyes sparkled with determination.

‘So that I can treat the Duke.’