The Devilish Duke Can’t Sleep

Proofreader: somnium

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Encroach

“Uh? I was going to go up and get it now.
The butler told me to do this in the future.”

The maid in the laundry room said as she took the basket with an apologetic expression.

“Oh no! I will just do it.”

“What? But the butler’s words ..….”

“You didn’t forget about the servant who went into treatment a while ago, right?”

At those words, all the maids in the laundry room shut their mouths.
It was clear whom Lena was talking about.
Because the only servant who was being treated in the Luave family was the one who had been possessed by Kahel’s devilish power.

“Of course, that doesn’t always happen just because you are by his side.
He just wasn’t feeling well that day.
But there’s nothing wrong with being careful.
Right?”

“Well, it should be, but…….”

“I’m not doing the laundry anyway, I’m just bringing the laundry basket here.
So don’t worry too much.”

Lena came back from the laundry room with a grin……She quickly hid behind the wall.
Arder was on his way to his office to discuss something with the maid chief.

‘Good! Will the butler and maid chief be over there for a while?’

Lena, who had been creeping through her wall, tiptoed her feet as soon as the door slammed shut, and headed for the kitchen.
She then took a kettle of hot water from the maid in the kitchen and went back to Kahel’s bedroom.

She put a kettle on the nightstand by the bed and put a tea cozy on it.
Lena opened the window a little to ventilate, and she organized the things scattered around the bedroom.
The bed had been cleaned a while ago, but it was wrinkled a little because Kahel had sat on it once.
She tapped the area to spread it out, and when she touched the position of the pillow again, it was definitely cleaner than before she touched it.

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‘Sleep tea! Sleep tea!’

Kahel, who has frequent nightmares, always drank sleeping tea before going to bed.
Even though he drank sleep tea didn’t mean that he didn’t have nightmares.
And Kahel said that the sleeping tea Lena brewed was more delicious than anyone else’s.

Smiling as she recalled the day she heard that, Lena took out a teapot and a teacup from the bedroom closet and prepared the sleeping tea.
Actually, Lena had a reason why her sleeping tea was delicious.
It was thanks to Lena’s development of her own secret brewing technique while serving it several times.

Lena spread another sheet of clean-boiled cotton cloth over the sieve with sparse holes.
Then she put dried sleeping tea on top of it, and slowly poured hot water into the long, slender kettle to make the tea.
It wasn’t difficult, but it required sincerity.

She poured the hot, neatly brewed sleeping tea back into the teapot, and placed another tea cozy over it.
A hot teapot and a teacup were placed on the side table as usual, while Lena put the rest on another tray.
She closed the open window and looked around the room one more time, where everything was in order, she quietly tried to get out of the room.
If only Kahel didn’t come back then.

“Lena…… ?”

“Your, Your Excellency Duke…… !”

Her heart pounded at the sight of Kahel she had not seen in a long time, and her tongue stiffened.
He had just finished his bath and his hair, still wet, gleamed, and the darkness inside his eyes was suffocatingly dizzy.
His neckbone, which was connected to the sharp jawline, stretched below it sharply and met his collarbone.
His bulging chest muscles peeked through the front of his shirt.

She did not understand herself how she could be indifferent to that look before.
Even after giving him a massage, her whole body seemed to be burning when she remembered that she had rubbed his naked back.

‘As expected, the devilish power is encroaching me’

Then, one day, she would go out of her mind and fall into the absurd thought of wanting to monopolize Kahel.
She recalled the image of the servant pointing the sword, asking Kahel to die together.
She thought she should get away from Kahel before her ailment got worse, but somehow her feet didn’t come off the floor easily.
She just wanted to stand like this and stare at Kahel endlessly.

However, the world always flowed differently from Lena’s wishes.
After not saying anything for a while, Kahel clenched his fists and loosened them, and said indifferently,

“I told Arder to let the other maids do this.”

It was quite shocking to hear from Kahel that he didn’t need her, even though she had already heard it from Arder.
Lena was desperately trying to find something she could say in her shattered head.

“Well, I will try my best not to be noticed by your Excellency…….as much as possible”

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“…… .”

Kahel sighed a little, was about to say something, then bit his mouth all over again.
Lena was shocked once more as she thought it meant that he had given up on her.
Her fingertips were trembling.

“I’m sorry.”

Lena realized that she was selfish once again.
For Kahel, he must not want to see the traumatic presence in front of his eyes.
Moreover, it was quite dangerous for his own safety and for her own safety to continue to run into Kahel like this.
She never knew when her eyes would overturn and she pointed a sword at Kahel.

“The maids were busy, and I have time to spare, so I was going to do it right away and leave…….”

She hated her tongue for making excuses.

But Lena was happy to meet him by chance, and Kahel was also thinking the same thing.
He thought that Lena would be uncomfortable with him, so he should leave quickly, but he was happy to see Lena’s face again after a long time.

To be honest, he wanted to shut all the doors to this room and not have Lena leave him forever.
Whether Lena was scared or not, whether she cried or not, he wanted to use his strength to lock her in and covet her.

Kahel added his self-loathing on such a subject, and he uttered hypocritical remarks with his tongue.

“It’s not that you were wrong.
It’s just…… because I’m afraid you’ll be uncomfortable.”

“I, I don’t mind! It really is!”

Kahel sighed once more, looking at the distance between him and Lena.
She was trying, but she didn’t seem to realize that she used to come much closer than this before.
Lena, who had always been within his reach, was hesitating, as if she couldn’t come any closer, two steps away from him now.

“If that’s the case, then…… Be careful not to run into each other.”

Leaving those bitter words behind, Kahel walked past Lena towards the bed.
Lena bent her back the whole time he passed her, and then she quietly walked out of the door.

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Kahel followed Lena’s traces until it disappeared, then shifted his gaze to the sleeping tea that Lena had prepared.
When poured into a teacup, the tea at the perfect temperature to drink gave off a familiar scent.

Kachel quietly put the tea in his mouth.
Lena was keenly aware that he hated the tea debris, so she always brewed and prepared only this clear tea.
He felt sorry for bothering her as she endured the troubles for him alone, and he wanted to pamper her infinitely in his heart.

‘You’ve become more beautiful again…….’

He had only been away for ten days or so, but he couldn’t stand the time between it, and Lena looked a little prettier in front of him.
Even with a single glance, staggered his resolve to keep his distance from Lena.
Kahel emptied the tea to the end, wondering how he would be able to watch Lena without her knowing.

Meanwhile, Lena, who came out of Kahel’s bedroom and went back to her room, was controlling her miserable heart.

“Be careful not to run into each other.”

Those words echoed in her head.
At first it felt like her heart was breaking, and then a familiar self-blame followed.
However, humans are selfish and cunning animals, so the only thing left of her mind was ‘I still want to see you.’

‘As long as we don’t run into each other, it’s okay.
I won’t make the same mistake today.’

She got a little upset.
It’s not that she was not going to do anything, she just wanted to show him her face…….

In the end, Lena made a plan that, while she could be inconspicuous to Kahel, she could figure out his movement so that she could spy on his back.
If Lena was really a bunny, she would have pounded the floor with her hind legs full of willpower.

* * *

The news that the Sage’s village was attacked by a group of monsters quickly spread throughout Hildebrunn.
This is because the Sage’s village declared that they would cut off all medicine supplies, citing the village’s reconstruction as a reason.
What’s more, they made it clear that the attack was caused by Ragdrill.

There was an uproar in the territory, which had been receiving much help from the medicines manufactured in the Sage’s village.
Still, they were always dependent on the Sage’s village because they lacked medicine, but the damn prince made the job even more difficult.

“What on earth did the Crown Prince have in mind to attack the Sage’s village!”

“Are you sure he summoned monsters? It’s one of the world’s forbidden black magics! If that’s true, it’s an issue that can’t be overlooked even if it’s the Crown Prince!”

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“No, aren’t the Sage’s summoned by His Highness in the first place? Then instead of coaxing them to cooperate, he was making people’s lives difficult in this way!”

King Astold of Hildebrunn’s head throbbed at the daily appeals of the nobles.
Although he knew that his eldest son, Ragdrill, was unwise, Astold, who did not want a dogfight for the throne, merely grounded his eldest son, Ragdrill, as the Crown Prince according to the custom.

He simply wished that he would not commit such a foolish thing until his death, but Ragdrill did not grant even that small wish.

It’s a monster.
As the nobles said, if he really had summoned monsters, Ragdrill could never be safe.
Ragdrill explained that he didn’t summon the monsters, he just knew a little earlier that there were going to be monsters there, but he couldn’t reveal the exact details, so he continued to be suspicious.

The most urgent problem above all was the supply and demand of medicine that had been discontinued from the Sage’s village.
Since the creation of the Sage’s village, the people of Hildebrunn have become accustomed to the medicines the Sages create.
General pharmacists could not follow the formulation or production of medicinal herbs, and the effect was also great.

Even the royal family was the biggest consumer of the medicine.

“What do we do about this?”

Astold sighed and rubbed his throbbing head, the chief attendant next to him cautiously opened his mouth.

“Why don’t you bring back the Second Prince, Your Majesty, and have him negotiate with the Sage’s village?”

“Luahalla?”

“He is a master negotiator enough to persuade Duke Luave, so he may get a good result this time as well.”

“Hmm…….”

It seemed a little risky to have Luahalla unmask what Ragdrill had done, but he couldn’t think of any other alternative right away.
In particular, Luahalla, who was close to Duke Luave, was definitely the right person, hearing that Duke Luave helped the Sage’s village defeat the monster that attacked the village.

“There is nothing I can do about this situation.
Send a letter to Luahalla.”

When Astold ordered the chief attendant, he immediately wrote a letter calling for Luahalla and handed it.
And that night the chief attendant quietly made a secret visit to Ragdrill’s bedroom.