Chapter 87

Thud.

After entering the room and closing the door, Alexander felt his strength drain from his body.

He had just been walking around the city with Julia.

There hadn’t been any particularly productive conversation either.

They had briefly discussed magic tutoring but quickly veered off into trivial chatter.

It all felt like a dream or reality, indistinguishable.

Despite the bewilderment, Alexander thought, “This is definitely a good turn of events.”

Though it seemed incredibly hard to believe that this had happened by sheer coincidence, it was undoubtedly beneficial. After all, Julia had been the woman they had long suspected of being the Holy Maiden.

However, as long as Julia remained under the protection of Duke Dragania, Alexander had no chance to even attempt contact. All he could do was observe her from afar: knowing when her days off were, figuring out her usual shopping routes, and which stores she frequented, planning a potential kidnapping if the opportunity arose.

But now Julia herself had approached him, closing that distance voluntarily, which was baffling.

Julia must have been wary of him, he thought.

“I have a lot to prepare.”

Looking around the room, Alexander let out a sigh. This was the guest room to be used starting the day after tomorrow. While it was fairly clean already, it didn’t meet his own standards. He quickly got to work tidying up the bookshelf and desk.

“What are you doing, Priest…?”

“Wha…!”

At the unexpected voice from behind, Alexander jumped.

A young nun holding a candle tilted her head curiously while peeking through the crack in the door.

“Uh… perhaps my cleaning wasn’t to your liking?”

“Not at all. It was done well, it’s just that… I suddenly became self-conscious…”

“Hmm. What’s this? Is the one who never cared about the state of the room expecting a female guest?”

“How did you know?”

“E…?”

The playful nun froze in surprise at her own words.

The thought of this devout, ascetic, and gentlemanly priest receiving female guests was hard to believe.

For his part, Alexander was purely curious as to how he had been found out.

“Did you just suspect, or… did you really think…?”

“Does it show on my face?”

“Yes indeed. Your face looks a bit flushed…”

Hurriedly checking himself in the mirror, Alexander was surprised to see how unusual his appearance truly was. Was he really this agitated over having just one guest?

His mind grew slightly restless.

“Shall I prepare the bed for you?”

“No, thank you. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it myself. You may retire for the night.”

“Yes, Priest. Sleep well.”

…

Once the door clicked closed, Alexander waited until her footsteps had faded before locking it. Only then did the full extent of his nervousness become apparent. His anxiety manifested in pacing the small room as his thoughts ran rampant.

“Could this be some kind of green light?”

A completely unexpected angle, given his lack of interaction with women. After all, why would he and Julia, who had barely gotten along since their first meeting, end up chatting aimlessly for over an hour as they walked around the city?

Moreover, Julia had essentially invited herself to a room where a man lived alone.

At first, Alexander hadn’t thought much of it, but reflecting on it now, her approach was incredibly bold—almost reckless.

“She wants to learn magic from someone as inexperienced as me…”

A rather half-hearted excuse. There were so many others she could have approached to learn magic—Duke Dragania, the hero, even the butler of the Dragania summer home was said to be quite skilled.

Yet she had insisted on choosing him, for reasons unknown.

Realizing this, Alexander felt a sudden, intense heat rising in his body.

Opening the window to cool himself in the night breeze, he muttered:

“This doesn’t make sense. She has a child…”

Though technically this was not entirely illogical—she had a child, but no husband. Women, instinctively, often sought out strong, protective males. Still…

“Damn it… I’m going insane…”

Denying it as he was, Alexander couldn’t fully suppress the subtle expectation growing within him.

Lying back on the bed, he tried to reason with himself. “As a person of faith, I mustn’t fall prey to such temptations.”

He repeated this softly to himself like a mantra, rationalizing that Julia was simply feigning interest in him to test the waters. No matter her feelings, he couldn’t possibly reciprocate them. Using her romantic inclinations would only serve the church’s purposes.

Thus resolved, Alexander tried to calm his rapid breathing, convincing himself that he was being logical and rational. Meanwhile, he continued indulging in wild fantasies about her.

*

“Have a good trip.”

“Hmm, can’t Mom come with me?”

“If you come along, we’ll have to hold hands all the way to the classroom.”

“No! Cancel it! I’ll go alone!”

“Good. You can go alone, right?”

It took forever to bid Tia farewell at the main gate. She kept throwing tantrums asking her to come along—despite them agreeing that going alone only on the very first day was enough. From now on, Tia would handle going and coming back by herself.

“Give me a hug before you go.”

“Ugh, when will you grow up?”

“Never. I’ll never grow up.”

With a shake of her head, Tia made her protests, which Alexander embraced tightly. The growing changes in her made him feel strangely emotional. Her body had grown more with every passing day, and her chest had started to fill out nicely.

She must be developing faster than most of her classmates.

‘Lately, growth has slowed though.’

Compared to her explosive growth earlier, where she grew into an eight-year-old’s body within months, the last three months had seen her grow at a snail’s pace. Whatever the reason, Alexander thought it was a good thing. The slower she grew, the better.

“Mmm! Mom, that tickles!”

“…”

She had lost a lot of baby fat. The plump little Tia he used to know seemed to have disappeared, replaced by a leaner version. It was disconcerting enough to make his eyes well with tears.

“Coachman, take good care of Tia.”

“Do not worry, I will hold on tight.”

“I’ll be back, Mom!”

Sending off Tia in the carriage, Alexander returned to the villa to find he still had twenty minutes of break time left. He wondered if he should return to the accommodation to extract some milk.

“Ugh. Umm, hmm…”

The amount of milk wasn’t anywhere close to what it used to be. Previously, he would fill the bottle entirely, now not even half of it could be filled. Considering how Tia gulped down milk like water daily, this was far from enough. That’s why, recently, he’d been supplementing with similar milk that he’d sourced.

“Hmm… you left it all again?”

Tia refused to touch the bought milk, despite it tasting quite similar. Was this a change in her palate as she grew up?

“Ah, break time is over.”

Now it was time to get back to work enthusiastically. Today, he was expecting one person to visit. Sure enough, they’d probably stop by soon, which made him hum a tune as he worked.

“But they’re not here…”

After finishing the morning cleaning, helping out in the kitchen, having lunch and tidying up, all while folding laundry, it was now break time again. He kept glancing towards the main gate from the window. It was getting close—or past—the time Leopard usually showed up.

“It’s strange.”

A true stalker, Leopard must have been around when Alexander had met Julia at St. Sophia’s. Even if that were not the case, spending over an hour walking around the city with Julia would have been easily noticeable to Leopard. Alexander had expected her to stomp in, fuming with jealousy, yet there had been nothing.

Something was definitely off.

“Is she sulking?”

Maybe Leopard was staging some kind of protest. Perhaps his actions had upset her, or he had offended her somehow. Such behavior was so girl-like. Right. She was a girl.

“She’ll come eventually.”

Certainly, Leopard’s visits had become less frequent lately, suggesting she was preoccupied. Though he’d asked what she was up to, she had evaded answering him. Was she preparing some surprise for him?

That would actually be problematic. Alexander didn’t like overly enthusiastic or reckless girls like Leopard.

His cheeks heated up at this thought.

He fanned himself as he entered the study. Even after the Duke’s departure, he had taken on complete responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the study. Initially, the butler had resisted but, seeing him manage the office cleaning adeptly, had resigned himself and handed over the duties.

Given how he was the only one allowed access to sensitive confidential documents and the only one knowledgeable about the correct methods for preserving the Duke’s various book collections, his authority over the study had become absolute.

“Hmm…”

The Duke had evidently had many hobbies, evidenced by the simple chemistry equipment in the study. He took some of those tools out, arranging them on the wide table and drew from between his breasts a small vial.

It contained saliva that Tia had drooled in her sleep.

Putting on his goggles, Alexander started his usual quiet experiments.

“Hmm. They all think I’m absorbed in my studies.”

While studying was great, he had chosen a faster route to gaining power. Until now, he had been completely vulnerable, swaying to the whims of others. Thus, it had become necessary for him to obtain a weapon—something powerful enough to eliminate anyone, even a Holy Maiden destined for eternal life.

He had been utilizing Tia’s saliva to attempt the creation of poison. Her saliva was already a potent toxin, but the problem was it quickly lost its potency with time. By separating the pure toxic component and storing it separately, the rate of degradation could be slowed.

Using his modest knowledge, Alexander was trying various methods to isolate the purest toxic substance possible from Tia’s saliva.

“If I succeed with this… If I succeed with this…”

If this experiment were successful, he would gain a weapon. A weapon capable of killing anyone—even an eternal Holy Maiden. Although he had swallowed a great deal of Tia’s saliva while kissing her and yet survived, it must be because the toxic component had been mixed with others.

This meant that by purifying the toxin, he could potentially use it to kill himself at any time, which filled him with excitement, making his heart race.

“Evaporation isn’t working. I can only remove water… Then other separation methods could be…”

He was manufacturing poison using Tia’s saliva. While it was strong poison in its natural state, it degraded too quickly. To solve this, he was attempting to separate the toxic element from her saliva to preserve the strength of the poison longer.

He continued working on this, hoping to perfect his creation of the ultimate weapon.

“Once this is complete, once this is complete…”

With the completion of this weapon, he would finally possess something capable of eliminating even the Holy Maiden who was thought to be destined for immortality.

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