‘It’s already gotten this late.’

After focusing on making nutritional supplements for a while, when Leah came to her senses, the sun was already setting. She gazed at the red-tinged sky and then leaned back deeply in her chair.

As her busy hands stopped moving, suddenly the events of yesterday flashed through her mind.

‘Fortunately, it seems the Duke is trying to cover up that incident…’

Perhaps sensing that what she had said was credible, he did not reprimand Jacob and Bayern. Since the Duke let it pass without saying anything, they probably wouldn’t take any other action either.

“But who could it be?”

Someone high enough to use the Emperor’s personal physician for the Duke’s assassination.

‘Surely… it couldn’t be His Majesty the Emperor?’

Suddenly, the Parthian merchant group flashed through her mind.

All goods in the Duke’s residence come through the Parthian merchant group. Also, the servants in the Duke’s residence were people sent by the imperial family.

The most plausible guess was that the Duke had fallen out of favor with the Emperor, but…

‘No way. Surely His Majesty wouldn’t target the Duke.’

Leah shook her head at the continued flights of imagination.

“It’s complicated.”

Let’s put aside other people’s family affairs. Leah refocused her mind as she looked at the piles of cornstarch powder and herbs in front of her.

‘I don’t have time to be doing this.’

Leah needed to make as many nutritional supplements as possible before evening.

When night fell, she had to develop an antidote with the Duke in the annex.

The production of nutritional supplements was finishing quickly, perhaps because she had become quite skilled at it. Moreover, the money earned from selling the supplements was more lucrative than expected.

‘How much is all this?’

Leah smiled contentedly as she looked at the stack of order forms in front of her. It seemed she would earn at least as much as an apothecary’s monthly salary.

‘Should I just sell supplements instead of being a double agent?’

If she made and sold supplements all day, it seemed she could soon earn the apothecary’s penalty fee. Plus, if she supplied them to merchant groups for sale in each city…

‘It could be a huge business!’

The bottles of nutritional supplements laid out before Leah’s eyes began to look like gold coins.

‘Yes, let’s quickly make nutritional supplements, earn money, pay the penalty fee, and leave with dignity!’

Just as Leah was indulging in her happy circuit while absorbed in making supplements, there was a brief knock. Before she could give permission, the door swung open.

Who’s barging in like this without manners?

Leah quickly raised her head to see who had such poor etiquette. Then she abruptly stood up from her seat.

“D-Duke?”

A look of bewilderment spread across Leah’s face. She hadn’t expected the Duke, whom she thought she’d only meet in the annex, to visit the apothecary room.

“What brings you here?”

As the Duke stepped inside, the sound of the door closing echoed.

“I thought as much.”

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

He glanced at the messy table with his eyes and said:

“Instead of making the antidote, you’re making strange nutritional supplements again.”

“Strange medicine? Do you know how many people are looking for this these days!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! Not just people in the mansion, but even villagers have acknowledged these supplements!”

The nutritional supplements, which were initially sold only in the mansion, had gradually gained word-of-mouth popularity and were now being sold to villagers as well.

Apparently, eating the supplements strangely filled one’s body with strength or something. Looking at Leah’s confident face, he curved the corners of his mouth loosely.

“Well, let’s say that’s true.”

Then he brought a chair and sat behind Leah.

“…Are you going to keep sitting there?”

“Who knows if you’ll be doing something else again while claiming to make the antidote?”

So he’s going to monitor me now? Leah gritted her teeth as she looked at the man sitting with a noble air, smiling shamelessly.

But what could she do? The owner of the house said he would sit there. Soon resigned, Leah cleared away the supplements she was making and began to work on the antidote.

How much time had passed since she started making the medicine? The Duke, whom she thought would leave soon, showed no signs of going out.

‘It’s making me nervous.’

It felt like a workplace supervisor standing behind, monitoring what work was being done.

Because of this, Leah muttered to herself to emphasize that she was diligently making the antidote.

“First, I should try combining evening primrose and corel.”

Corel, like evening primrose, had effects opposite to lily of the valley.

Evening primrose alone could delay the side effects of poralium, but it couldn’t fundamentally detoxify the poison.

So she planned to create a treatment based on evening primrose.

Leah found the herbs in question from a display case in a corner and began combining them enthusiastically.

The start was clearly good, but then.

– Bang!

With that sound, the herbs exploded as if it were a lie. A pungent smoke filled the room along with the burnt smell of herbs.

“What is this…! Cough, cough.”

Before her exclamation could end, Leah coughed repeatedly as the acrid smoke penetrated deeply. The pungent smell made her eyes sting. Had the combination gone wrong?

Leah smiled ruefully as she looked at the herbs that had exploded so easily.

‘What exactly went wrong?’

Just as she was checking what had gone wrong while frantically flipping through the hastily written papers.

“Why don’t you just blow up the entire apothecary room?”

Leah was startled by the low voice.

‘Right. The Duke was here too…!’

How pathetic must he think her now? Leah turned around with an embarrassed expression.

There, the Duke was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, far away from her side.

He looked her up and down with an exasperated expression.

“Were you making an antidote? Or an explosive? Looks like you’ve changed your approach from treating me to assassinating me?”

“Th-That’s not it! This was just a mistake!”

Good heavens, assassination?

Of course, she hadn’t predicted it would explode like this at all. Leah bit her lip in panic.

“Make two mistakes, and you might blow up the entire mansion.”

He clicked his tongue briefly as he looked at the blackened test tube.

“I heard you were the youngest person in the empire to obtain an apothecary license, but I guess that was all lies.”

“…That’s!”

“To think they dumped such a quack on me.”

It was quite irritating to be subtly called a quack again, following the last time. Hearing the word ‘quack’ for the second time, Leah flared up.

“A quack? I have a proper apothecary license…!”

It happened in an instant. The Duke approached Leah as she raised her voice argumentatively.

Along with the strong scent of lily of the valley emanating from him, Leah froze mid-sentence.

‘Was the Duke always this tall?’

The Duke, who seemed at least two spans taller than her, was looking down at her intently.

“More importantly, what are you going to do about these?”

Following his gaze, she turned her head to see the ruined clinic. Not only the tools needed for making medicine, but also precious medicinal ingredients had all burned up.

‘This is bad.’

It would clearly take quite some time to procure those things again. Leah looked up at the Duke cautiously, as if unsure what to do.

“I’m sorry, I’ll go down to the village right away and try my best to…”

“With whose money?”

“Pardon? Well, that…”

It was quite awkward.

She wanted to shout, ‘Of course you should pay, Duke!’ But she couldn’t be so brazen in her demands, as her mistake was all too clear.

“Even at a glance, the herbs you’ve wasted seem to easily exceed your monthly salary. Let’s see. These manufacturing tools also seem unusable now?”

He began to sort through the ruined apothecary room one by one, picking out the damaged items.

“Even though the mansion looks a bit shabby, everything inside is filled with high-quality items.”

“Excuse me?”

“The desk looks old like this, but it’s made of walnut, not ordinary wood, so it’s quite valuable. But you’ve burned it all like this, tsk. I think it’s better to replace it.”

“What?!”

The more the Duke spoke, the more Leah was screaming inside.

“And you should know well how much the herbs you burned today cost, without me having to spell it out.”

“Wait, just a moment!”

“Oh my. All these broken medicine-making tools here are Horenlen products that are only produced in limited quantities. The price for these would probably be…”

“Duke!”

The Duke, who had been pricing each item one by one, tilted his head as if asking what the problem was.

“What is it?”

“Surely, you’re not saying I have to pay for all of this… are you?”

Please say no!

Leah looked up at him with desperate eyes, as if begging him to say it wasn’t so.

“That’s right. Of course, the person who broke everything should restore it all, shouldn’t they?”

“Pardon…?”

But as always, the Duke betrayed her expectations.

‘Good heavens. All of this?!’

Leah examined the items the Duke had pointed out with a pale face.

Then she made excuses to the Duke, who was looking down at her with an even more arrogant gaze than before.

“This accident happened while doing the work you ordered, didn’t it? Strictly speaking, it’s an industrial accident! Of course, this could easily happen during experiments.”

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of an explosion occurring while making an antidote.”

“That’s…!”

“Don’t worry too much. Surely, I wouldn’t charge you the full price for these things.”

But he cut off her words, as if there would be no further compromise.

“I’ll specially charge you only half.”

“Half the price?”

“Yes, half.”

Should she be happy about this or not? Leah’s gaze wavered uneasily.

“So how much is it…?”

“A total of 70 silver coins.”

‘What?’

Leah stared blankly at the Duke, unable to even think of closing her gaping mouth.

“First, there will be no contract money until you pay off this debt. Of course, you can’t leave the mansion either.”

“…”

“Oh, and it’s better not to think about running away secretly. I can be quite persistent.”

He smiled as he watched Leah’s face grow increasingly pale.

It was a rather kind expression he had never shown her before. And looking at the Duke like this, Leah thought:

This bastard might not have any money.

Inside Bayern’s office. Someone was quietly whispering to him as if telling a secret.

“What did you say? The apothecary and him alone?”

“Yes! I saw them together with my own two eyes!”

Bayern’s eyes widened upon hearing the maid Jane’s words.

Jane had just happened to pass by the apothecary room earlier and discovered the Duke and Leah together.

It was strange enough that the Duke had left his bedroom, but to meet the apothecary of all people.

She wanted to watch what they were doing, but because the Duke came out of the apothecary room right away, she couldn’t tell what the two had been doing in there.

However.

“The other day, someone else saw that on the night the Duke was severely ill, the apothecary secretly left the Duke’s room at dawn.”

“What?! From the Duke’s room?”

“Yes! But that was the day you told the apothecary not to approach the Duke, sir. So they thought they must have seen wrong.”

Bayern slammed his fist on the desk at Jane’s words.

‘To think that apothecary was the one who treated the Duke!’

No wonder something had seemed strange. The Duke, who had been on the verge of death, had become perfectly fine overnight.

Bayern nervously chewed his nails as he unfolded the letter he had received this morning again.

[I’m as disappointed as I had trusted you. If you want the position you desire in the upcoming regular personnel changes, it would be better to put in more effort. – I.R]

Finally, as if unable to contain his anger, Bayern crumpled the paper mercilessly. He couldn’t stay stuck in this rural backwater forever.

“I absolutely can’t stay still like this.”

A sinister light flashed in his eyes.