Shadowless Night
chapter-19

Kairo and Rosaline flinched as Ricardis lifted the mug. They looked like they wanted to quickly hit the teacup away. Ricardis smiled and brought the cup closer to his face. He intended to smell the scent again to discern the poison, but to others, it looked like he was preparing to drink the tea. Rosaline quickly moved before Kairo, who was in a panic, could dissuade Ricardis. Her movement was as fast as the wind.

Tak.

“Sir Rosaline, what insolence is this now? Give me the cup! No, Sir Rosaline, put your hands away quickly!”

Rosaline’s hand covered Ricardis’ mouth tightly. Rosaline remembered that Kairo had already said that it was rude when she grabbed Ricardis’ wrist. ‘If it’s rude to hold his wrist, I’ll do something else.’ Her actions came out of a humble way of thinking, but it made the situation worse. Kairo was on the verge of grabbing her by the neck. Ricardis rolled his eyes and looked up at her like she was insane. Meanwhile, his mouth was still covered by her hand.

Rosaline took the teacup from his hand and released her hold on his mouth. Ricardis wiped his tingling lips. After losing her memory, her changes were so extreme that they couldn’t even be compared to before the accident. He was aware that Rosaline had become a little cheeky but decided to let it go considering the deed she had done earlier.

“Come here.”

“No.”

“No, Your Highness!”

“Don’t do it, Your Highness!”

Rosaline, Kairo, and the chief secretary Isserion countered him in turn. Isserion’s body had been rigid while watching Rosaline beating the assassin, but Ricardis’ actions brought him to consciousness. He strode over to Rosaline.

“Please give this to me, Sir Rosaline. I’ll investigate it.”

“No, it’s mine. Give it to me, Sir Rosaline,” Ricardis demanded.

“No! Why do we still need to coerce you? You’re already 25 years old, Your Highness! They already said the tea contains poison! Just give it to me, Sir Rosaline!”

There was a lot of uproar on both sides of Rosaline. She had excellent hearing and was now suffering from a headache. As she pondered for a long time to whom she should give the cup, Ricardis grabbed her wrist. His perpetually cold face became even chillier. His blue eyes sank low.

“Even a 3-year-old deaf child knows that poison does not work on me because it can be healed with my holy power. Still, they tried to poison me. What do you think this means?”

“I’m sure they did something to it.”

“Normal poison works for me too, just with milder symptoms, but it blinds ordinary people who look at it, and just the smell of it makes their brain rot. I haven’t been able to sleep lately, but that doesn’t mean my head has also become muddled, Isserion.”

“But why would you try to detect the poison with your noble body? Let’s leave it to the temple.”

“Those incompetent bastards who only believe in the divine power and telling people to pay taxes?”

“Your Highness!”

While Isserion and Ricardis quarreled, Rosaline observed the tea in the teacup. The slight movement that Ricardis made while holding her wrist shook the surface of the water. In the black tea that was moving as one body, something separated and trembled. It was invisible, but Rosaline noticed. She was well aware of this energy. The nature of the demon that makes up her own body, which is called magic. But it was a little different from the magic she had within her. If we had to compare it, hers was similar to the aggressive magic floating around in the bodies of beasts.

Rosaline blinked her stiff eyes as she contemplated quietly. It was such a weak amount that even she could not feel it if she didn’t concentrate.

A new substance that combines magic with poison. Holy power and magical power do not interfere with each other. Attempts using this formula of poison first appeared during the events of the hunting competition a few months ago. Before Rosaline left Radwiell County, she had heard a lot of information from Calyx.

Many knights died in the hunting competition. Despite the presence of priests, all those with very shallow wounds also died. They assumed that the assassination unit, ‘Black Moon’, had created a new poison.

There were several weapons of those assassins that Calyx had brought. Rosaline noticed magical energy subtly infused inside the weapons. She could feel it from the poison applied to them. Rosaline informed Calyx of the fact. He pondered for a moment, then immediately sighed.

[I see. Magical power and holy power cannot interfere with each other… If magic power completely assimilated with poison, no matter how hard you tried to heal with holy power, it wouldn’t have been able to interfere in any way. If it is really like that, I think they’ve created something extremely dangerous.]

And it was verified by the hunting competition that holy power could not damage the poison. The deaths of numerous knights proved it. Maybe that’s why their assassination attempts were rampant. Rosaline cut off their voices, which were still arguing.

“I think it was the poison used in the hunting competition.”

Ricardis and Isserion’s eyes turned to her. Ricardis looked at her suspiciously.

“How do you know that?”

Rosaline lifted her gaze from the teacup and stared into his blue eyes. Calyx thought that the Imperial palace would soon learn about the poison’s identity. Judging from the silence of the Imperial family, he assumed that they were already studying a cure for the poison… Unexpectedly, the Imperial family had not even been able to find even a small clue. It was truly beyond expectations.

But Calyx would not have known without Rosaline’s words. Only people with magical power could feel magic. Except for Rosaline, who is a collective of magical power, there were only a few people who possessed magical power.

Even then, magical power was said to be a product of Crean Tidanion, and those who possessed those powers were persecuted as sinister. Calyx said that in villages with a strong belief in Idelavhim, there was often a custom of burning demons at the stake. Beasts with magical power have always been the natural enemy of humans, so they thought it would be no different if the vessel of that sinister power that threatened humans would change from an animal to another human. Because of this, those ‘demons’ were killed, took their own lives, or hid. They gradually disappeared and are now as rare as the number of people with strong holy power.

[Sister, remember this: If you ever see the poison again in the Imperial Palace, or if you ever need to tell someone, say this…]

Rosaline’s voice overlapped with Calyx’s voice in the past.

“Magic and holy power do not interfere with each other.”

Saying these words was enough. Isserion’s eyes widened considerably. Ricardis raised one eyebrow. Even in the Imperial court, he had conducted investigations of the poison used in the hunting competition, but to no avail. It is a colorless, tasteless, odorless, and strong poison that guarantees a scarily low survival rate. There was talk that holy power didn’t work well, but he thought it was because the priests’ holy power was weak.

Magic and holy power do not interfere with each other. He couldn’t even recall learning the common sense that even children knew. As the saying goes, it is dark under the lamp. Isserion unconsciously spoke in a loud voice.

“Yeah, that’s right. It is much more intuitive to think that holy power was not applied in the first place, rather than the fact that those knights died because the poison had already progressed a lot before the holy power reached it. Why didn’t I think of that?! Awesome, Sir Rosaline! We will have to verify it first, but I think that is probably correct.”

Ricardis clicked his tongue. He also realized the moment he heard Rosaline’s words. The poison created by the Black Moon must have something to do with magic. ‘No, I’m positive it has something to do with magic.’

The 2nd Prince with the holy power to save even a dying person if they did not die instantly. Aside from the fact that the Black Moon is an elaborate group for intelligence research, the reputation of his holy power had already spread all over the continent. If no poison is determined to work on such a 2nd Prince, there will be no other choice but to find a formula in which holy power can’t interfere.

‘What’s more, they always wanted to bring down the greatness of holy power… There is nothing to brag about of a holy power that can’t heal poison. The authority of Idelavhim will fall to the ground. And that’s what the Black Moon has most wanted.’

“Yeah, that’s great. I mean, they made something like this. A kind of poison that holy power can’t heal and interfere with.”

It felt fucked up. When the poison investigation was in full swing, Ricardis had also poured in his holy power. But they only separated as softly as water and oil.

‘Perhaps?’ He had a thought. ‘Could this poison have something to do with magic? But is it possible to mix an invisible force with a substance called poison? If that’s the case… isn’t it an area that even Idelavhim can’t touch?’ At that time, Ricardis had only buried his doubts like that.

The feeling of powerlessness. The fall of Idelavhim. Those were the key elements that the Black Moon wanted to achieve. What the Black Moon fervently desired is what is least wanted by their enemy, Illavenia. So maybe that’s why they were so desperate.

It didn’t go through a perfect verification, but as of today, it has been confirmed by Ricardis. ‘The Black Moon created a new poison. Perhaps it will play a big hand in the control of this continent. Awesome.’ He even wanted to applaud the enemy.

Ricardis sighed and closed his eyes. He has never had a comfortable life, and he always thought he had been walking on a dirt road full of gravel, but it seems his full-fledged muddy path had just begun.