Chapter 139
After that horrific day, the two of them grew noticeably closer.
They weren’t as intimate as they had been before she learned he was a monster, but she no longer looked at him with open contempt. For Kuinan, that alone was enough. As long as she didn’t glare at him with those sharp, triangular eyes, he was satisfied.
At this rate, he thought, perhaps he wouldn’t need to drag her away by force. Perhaps she might even follow him to the swamp of her own will.
And beyond that—just as he and his kin had originally planned—perhaps she could serve as a useful card.
Ever since encountering that nameless monster in the imperial dungeon, Kuinan had made up his mind. He would uncover the secret of the monsters’ lethal poison and strip it entirely from human hands. And for that, he genuinely needed Sylvia’s help.
From the beginning, he had approached her with the intention of using her.
“Hey… there’s something important I need to tell you.”
He spoke cautiously as they walked through the garden. She turned to look at him.
His heart thudded.
Her upturned face was simply too beautiful.
He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles nearly cracked, suppressing the instinct to pounce on her, forcing himself to remain still.
“…What is it?”
“Huh?”
“You said you had something to say. Don’t stall. Just say it.”
She no longer even bothered to use proper honorifics. It was as if she had discarded both fear and hatred toward him.
And he liked that.
The longer he stayed in the Empire, the more fluent he became in its language—its nuances, its tones. Hearing her speak so casually made him feel, absurdly, as though they were a real married couple.
“Well… you see. There’s something I need to get from the Emperor.”
In any case, she was going to leave with him.
She could no longer survive without him. She couldn’t marry another man. And once they fled together, she would no longer have to fear imperial retaliation.
Even if she assisted in a monster’s crime, she would lose nothing. That was the conclusion he had reached.
Still, she was unpredictable. Even after telling him not to stall, he hesitated for a long while, unsure how she would respond.
Only when she finally turned her head away in irritation did he let the plan he’d hidden spill out in a low murmur.
“You know, right? Monsters are losing the war because of that poison.”
She watched him quietly, indicating she was listening.
“The same thing you almost swallowed. I survived twice because I’m… well, me. But if a weapon is coated with pure poison, there isn’t a single monster who wouldn’t die from it.”
He emphasized both his own strength and the horror of the poison’s effects. To a woman whose identity fundamentally opposed his.
Sylvia listened without visible emotion.
He was deeply mistaken, of course. She had not grown fond of him again. She still dreamed of a future with her family. She had not abandoned her plan to escape when the opportunity arose.
She simply couldn’t let him know. And right now, this was that opportunity.
He was asking her for something. He was explaining with exaggerated gestures, clearly nervous in a way that didn’t suit him.
It must be something important. She felt hope welling up in her chest.
“So, you have an official right, don’t you? The right to access the imperial treasury. When you fled to the Empire, you offered countless treasures to the palace. You’re allowed to request entry to see them.”
Technically, she didn’t have direct access, but she had the right to request the treasury be opened for her. It had been granted personally by the previous Emperor. Whenever she wished to view her homeland’s treasures, she would be permitted to see them.
She had never intended to use that privilege.
Now she understood. So that was why he had approached her. Why he had seduced her.
He had known. He had targeted her for this very reason. And somewhere along the way, he had genuinely fallen for her.
He was a sly and ridiculous monster.
“So, you’re planning to steal the poison from the treasury?”
Caught directly, the monster had no room to evade.
“…Yes.”
“While you keep it open, while you buy me time, I’ll sneak it out.”
He decided then to tell her everything.
What was the point of keeping secrets from the female he would spend eternity with? Whether she liked it or not, they were already bound together.
At least, that was the truth as it existed in his mind.
Sylvia fell silent, thinking. Then she spoke evenly.
“You know the probability of failure is overwhelmingly high, right?”
It didn’t take long to reach that conclusion.
The imperial treasury wasn’t merely a storage room. It was vast, divided by sections and floors, housing more than ten thousand cataloged artifacts.
The current Emperor’s morbid tastes weren’t enough to place something inside it. Only items officially recognized for their value could enter.
Nothing unverified set foot inside. And retrieving a specific weapon from among thousands would be no simple task.
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