“Phew.”

Leah, who had just left the Duke’s bedroom, let out a deep sigh. She recalled the situation from moments ago, which was nothing short of being turned away at the door.

She had entered intending to give a simple examination along with her first greeting. But instead of an examination, Leah was driven out along with the butler.

She had heard that the Duke was too ill to speak. A single note that the Duke had handed to her before she was chased out of the room. Leah carefully unfolded the note in her hand.

[“No need for an examination, so don’t bother coming again in the future.”]

“It’s going to be a thorny path.”

She could clearly envision the difficult days ahead. Leah could tell his condition with her naked eye without even having to question him.

‘It’s more serious than I thought.’

She couldn’t tell from afar, but up close, the spots in the Duke’s bloodshot eyes were prominent.

‘His eyes were also trembling quite a bit…’

Not only that, but his chapped lips and hair, and noticeably pale skin.

It showed that he hadn’t even been taking short walks lately.

The Duke’s appearance suggested he could die at any moment. If things continued like this and the Duke were to die during her tenure as an apothecary…

‘It’s terrifying.’

Leah bit her lip at the situation that was all too clear even without seeing it.

‘Ah. This is driving me crazy.’

If the Duke, a member of the imperial family, were to die, her life as an apothecary would be as good as over.

She had only started this apothecary job reluctantly because she didn’t have the 50 silver coins for the penalty fee.

‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

This ominous feeling was something she had experienced countless times in her previous life.

If nothing else, she had an uncanny ability to sense the smell of money and dangerous situations. This feeling wasn’t just bad, it was downright awful.

‘If worst comes to worst, I’ll have to run away.’

She could either pay the penalty fee or run away. Feeling uneasy but seeing no other choice, Leah turned her steps towards the infirmary.

But when she arrived at the infirmary, Leah’s expression darkened even more.

“Is this an infirmary or a storage room?”

Leah looked around the infirmary where she was standing. Had the absence of the chief physician lasted for a long time?

The infirmary, devoid of any warmth, was covered in old dust.

“…It’s much worse than I thought. Is this really the mansion where the Duke lives?”

Even a lower noble’s mansion wouldn’t be this bad. When she first arrived, the Duke’s mansion had felt utterly gloomy.

‘Isn’t he a member of the imperial family? It feels too neglected.’

As expected of an old mansion, there was a musty smell, and there were more than a few rusted spots that hadn’t been repaired.

Clicking her tongue, Leah shook her head as she looked around the room.

“I don’t know.”

I’ll just do my job and quietly slip away when I get the chance. She opened the window for ventilation and examined the bookshelf.

Various medical books and herbs were messily placed together.

“No, how can you store herbs like this?!”

It’s basic knowledge to store fever-reducing herbs in a cool place away from sunlight. How could they be carelessly left by the window where direct sunlight shines?

“Cleaning will be a job in itself.”

It seemed like treating patients here would cultivate diseases rather than cure them.

Rolling up her sleeves to at least tidy up a bit, Leah began gathering the old herbs in one place.

“This one seems unusable. This one’s too old as well?”

After cleaning for quite some time.

“Whew. I wonder if this is good enough.”

Leah wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed and dusted off her hands.

“I’ll do this much for today and continue the rest tomorrow… Huh?”

Just as she was about to leave the infirmary with an armful of herbs to discard, she noticed a pile of white flowers in the corner.

“Aren’t these lily of the valley? Why are they here?”

Fresh flowers in an abandoned room. Leah tilted her head in confusion but then shrugged and placed the flowers back where they were.

Then, as if remembering her original purpose for coming to the infirmary, she began opening the desk drawers.

“It should be here somewhere… Ah, found it.”

Rummaging through the drawers that were as messy as the infirmary itself, she pulled out a bundle of old documents.

It was the medical record detailing the Duke’s condition over time. However, as Leah licked her finger and flipped through the pages, her expression gradually hardened.

“They call this a medical record?”

In a word, it was a complete mess.

The paper was so clean it was embarrassing to call it a medical record, as if no treatment had been done at all.

When it should have been filled with detailed records, the medical chart was as empty as a fill-in-the-blank test.

“This is pure robbery, just without knives.”

She could clearly imagine how the previous apothecaries had been working all this time.

“There’s a mountain of work to do…”

A sensitive and highly guarded patient, a medical chart with no proper records, and a messy infirmary to boot.

She had wanted to live as an honest apothecary this time, not a con artist. But it felt like things were going wrong right from the start.

“I think I’ve gotten myself into trouble.”

The few servants for a Duke’s mansion, the butler’s disrespectful behavior towards the Duke that she had glimpsed, and the messy medical records.

From what she had observed over the past few days, she could draw one conclusion: that the sickly Duke’s position was not very good.

She could roughly gauge his position not only within the mansion but also within the empire. Even for a sickly Duke, he was the empire’s only prince.

Leah tossed and turned in bed late into the night. Although she was tired from her recent appointment as the apothecary at the Duke’s mansion, sleep eluded her.

“Haah.”

Feeling like she might stay up all night with endless thoughts, Leah got up. She stared blankly at the bright moonlight streaming through the large window.

Deciding she needed a walk, Leah draped a light shawl over her shoulders and left her room. She hadn’t noticed during the day when it was bustling with people, but the Duke’s mansion was quite a spectacle under the night sky.

She walked along the winding path of pebbles, passing through the blue garden bathed in soft moonlight.

“The night view is worth seeing.”

She muttered, looking up at the beautiful night sky, unlike the eerie mansion. Perhaps because it was an estate on the outskirts far from the capital, the sky seemed to be showering stars.

After gazing at the sky for a while, she leisurely followed the path. The night road, devoid of people, was perfect for a walk with no one to mind.

The fresh night breeze seemed to make her mind clearer and clearer.

“Wouldn’t it be great if 50 silver coins just fell from the sky?”

Leah adjusted her shawl while entertaining such an absurd thought. Then, sensing the suddenly chilly atmosphere, she stopped in her tracks.

“Oh, wait… Where am I?”

Lost in thought, she had walked far beyond the Duke’s garden without realizing it.

The beautifully landscaped garden was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a field overgrown with wildflowers and weeds.

It seemed she was somewhere at the boundary between the Duke’s estate and the forest and fields. Just as she thought she should head back,

“Oh, oh!”

Another strong gust of wind blew away the shawl she was wearing.

She reached out to catch the shawl, but it narrowly missed her hand and disappeared over a wall.

“I really liked that one.”

The shawl was a gift from her hometown friends, congratulating her on becoming an apothecary.

Though not expensive, it was a very meaningful gift for Leah, an orphan with no ties. She walked along the wall, hoping to find it.

‘But what is this wall?’

She muttered, looking at the stone wall taller than herself. As Leah walked with her hand on the wall, she discovered a tiny entrance that let in a slight breeze.

It was an entrance hidden among densely overgrown bushes, not easily noticeable. If she hadn’t been feeling her way along, she would never have found it, so secretive it was.

Leah was about to push through the bushes when she hesitated for a moment.

She worried if it was okay to enter such a place alone on a pitch-black night. Her hand trembled as she placed it on top of the bushes.

“Phew.”

However, the thought of her shawl lingered in her mind, making it hard to just turn back.

‘It’s still within the mansion grounds, what could possibly happen?’

Leah squeezed her eyes shut and pushed through the bushes. Then, as the fresh scent of lemons wafted to her nose, she slowly opened her eyelids.

Wild flowers filled a space about the size of a small garden. Lily of the valley vines climbed the walls, their flowers in full bloom under the moonlight.

‘This scent…’

The lily of the valley, even more alluring and sensual under the moonlight. Moreover, the floral scent tickling her nose was strangely familiar.

“I feel like I’ve smelled this before.”

Pondering where she might have encountered it, Leah soon shook her head.

‘Well, it’s a common flower.’

Finding her shawl was more important right now. It was also about time she headed back.

Leah then approached the wall where her shawl might have fallen, feeling her way along.

“Found it!”

She spotted her shawl caught on a bush some distance away. Just as she reached out to grab it in joy,

“It seems a bit messy, but it should be fine after washing…”

She felt a breeze coming through the bushes she had thought was just an ordinary wall.

“What’s this?”

Why would there be wind here…

Could it be that it wasn’t an ordinary wall? Leah began to slowly push against the wall as if entranced.

– Creeeeak.

As she applied force, the rusty iron door moved with a chilling sound and opened.

In that moment, Leah froze with her mouth agape at the unbelievable sight.

“What on earth is this place for?”

Leah hesitated for a moment, thinking she should turn back. But knowing her personality, she felt she would likely return here again now that she had discovered it.

She couldn’t resist her curiosity, after all.

“Phew.”

Leah took a deep breath to calm her tensed body and carefully stepped inside the door.

A place shrouded in spine-chilling darkness.

Although it was hard to see clearly because of this, she found a candle and matches near the door and lit them.

As the room brightened slightly, a hazy figure caught her eye.

“Herbs?”

On a cluttered table full of signs of use. Herbs were strewn about as if someone had been making medicine.

What kind of medicine were they making? As Leah approached the table to examine the herbs, her face immediately hardened.

“Why is this…”

Mixed in with the herbs were the lily of the valley flowers she had seen in the infirmary. Feeling uneasy, Leah began to rummage through the table.

And there was a small bottle containing a white liquid and a mysterious drug composition log.

Just in case, Leah quickly skimmed through the composition log. Then she let out a sigh.

“Oh my god.”

She looked over the herbs again one by one, but nothing changed.

‘Hah.’

Barely resisting the urge to collapse as her legs weakened, Leah looked at the bottle placed beside her.

A bottle of medicine with the characteristic color of lily of the valley. It was poison.

“Who on earth made this?”

Looking at each herb here individually, there was nothing strange. But the key to herbs is in their combination.

If the lily of the valley was mixed with the herbs here, it would be nothing short of poison.

If consumed in carefully controlled amounts, it would only weaken the body, but…

‘Wait, a poison that weakens the body and deepens illness?’

At that moment, she thought of an absurd hypothesis.

‘No way.’

The sound of her swallowing echoed quietly. An ominous feeling, as if she had discovered something she shouldn’t have seen.

‘I need to get out of here quickly.’

Her instincts were screaming. To leave this place immediately. Just as she tightly gripped the bottle in her hand,

The moonlight that had been faintly shining through the doorway disappeared.

At the same time, sensing a presence, she turned around. Her eyes met two gleaming eyes in the pitch-black darkness.

Eyes glowing red like blood.

The person with the chillingly cold gaze was…

“…Duke?”

It was Duke Haidern.

And instead of answering her question,

– Click.

He locked the door. So that she couldn’t leave.