A Mad Dog Needs a Leash (2)

"Who went in after him?"

"The Grand Duke himself, of course, along with the other selected operatives."

Alchemists were a problem in this respect. Owing to the nature of their profession, they were always stationed at the rear, which meant they had no way of knowing precisely what was unfolding at the front.

"Has a rescue team been dispatched yet?"

"No. From what I heard, they're still gearing up to leave."

Daisy had no intention of letting this round of her life go to waste.

Even if it killed her, she needed to know exactly what had happened to the Grand Duke.

"Then I'm going too."

At those words, Ludgar stared at her in surprise.

"Isn't that getting yourself into something far too dangerous?"

Ludgar had known for some time that Daisy took an unusual interest in the Grand Duke. He had even suspected she might harbor some special feeling for the man, but watching a alchemist with next to no physical prowess chase after him still struck him as reckless.

"It's just a search operation. It shouldn't be all that dangerous."

After all, if he died, so did she — dangerous or not hardly mattered.

Ludgar worried, but in the end he reasoned that a missing-person search posed little real risk.

"Don't overdo it."

She gave a light nod and followed after the rescue team.

Fortunately, Daisy managed to join the search for Amy without much delay. The trouble was that the trail to find her ran far deeper than anyone had expected.

The further Daisy descended into the dungeon, the stranger her feelings grew.

Had the Grand Duke truly stumbled into some absurd trap like this and run into trouble? Or had she herself misread the situation? If the Grand Duke was dense enough to miss a trap this obvious, then this world had no future worth saving.

Just as her mood was sinking into gloom, a distant shout reached her ears.

"We found something of Amy's over here!"

At those words, the searchers converged on the spot. As luck would have it, the item had been found near a cliff's edge, and a heavy, funereal silence settled over the group.

The Amy Daisy remembered was not the type to stage a scheme at the cost of her own life.

Is there some other intention at work here? Or was it genuinely an accident?

With a conflicted expression, she looked down at the bloodstained, dark-brown bag.

"This may end up being a keepsake, so we should take it with us."

Someone said this and lifted the bag. Daisy, watching the dark-colored bag steadily, noticed that its underside was tearing ever so slightly.

"Wait — don't touch it!"

The moment the words left her mouth, the bottom of the bag split apart completely and the bottles inside plummeted downward.

With a sharp shatter of glass, the liquid within spread in every direction.

The effect was immediate.

"Wh-what is this? Why am I so dizzy……"

The first to collapse were the mages, whose bodies had never known the discipline of combat. The warriors and knights belatedly clamped their hands over their mouths and noses, but they too had no choice except to fall in their turn.

Daisy, for her part, always carried an antidote in her pocket against precisely this kind of situation.

As she waited for the medicine to take hold, a leisurely woman's voice drifted from somewhere far away.

"I never expected things to go this smoothly."

The woman — Amy — picked out the Grand Duke from among the fallen. Gazing down at him, still unconscious, she clicked her tongue briefly.

"It does feel like a shame, cutting short the line of a man this handsome…… Don't blame me too much, Your Grace the Grand Duke."

Having played her part like a heroine swept up in tragedy, she drew a small vial from her breast.

A poison?

Judging by the kinds of poisons used so far, it probably wouldn't threaten his life. Most likely it was a drug designed to ruin his reproductive function, nothing more.

Still, the psychological damage would be real.

Given the Grand Duke's prideful temperament, it would have been stranger if it hadn't thrown him into an uproar.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

To pull a stunt that would shake the mind of the single most important figure, at a time this precarious — did this woman have ten lives to spare?

Daisy felt a deep fury and murderous intent rise toward that client she had never once laid eyes on.

But she couldn't afford to stop at exasperation. If the Grand Duke's composure was about to crumble, then protecting it was only common sense.

Once the poison wore off and her body obeyed her again, Daisy rose quietly and closed her hand around a stone lying at her side.

Meanwhile, Amy, looking down at the Grand Duke's handsome face with his eyes closed, clicked her tongue shortly and stepped forward.

"Ahh, what a waste. Still, it's not as if anything stops working — there just won't be any seed, that's all."

She ran her tongue lightly over her lips and reached boldly for the man's clothes. She stripped off his light armor, undid the buttons of his shirt, and a wall of firm chest muscle was revealed.

Watching all this from a distance, Daisy's face went deathly pale. Living as a beautiful person was, truly, no easy business.

Daisy swung the stone in her hand with all her might.

With a meaty thunk, Amy crumpled on top of the Grand Duke's body and did not so much as twitch, as if dead.

Shoving Amy aside, Daisy muttered under her breath.

"That's a frightening woman."

Then she trussed Amy up tight and dumped her in a corner, laid the fallen searchers out properly, and finally approached the Grand Duke.

She stole a brief look at the magnificent body revealed between his loosened clothes, then collected herself and sat down beside him.

First things first — I should cover him up.

The way things looked right now was practically begging for a misunderstanding. After a moment's hesitation, she cautiously reached out to straighten his clothes.

That was when it happened. The Grand Duke's lashes trembled faintly, his eyelids lifted, and hidden blue eyes were revealed.

Their gazes locked at exactly the same instant, and his eyes flew wide open.

"You. What did you do?"

"No. No, it's — that is—"

Cornered in a situation that admitted no excuse, Daisy could only open and close her mouth before finally averting her gaze.

A strange silence flowed between them.

The one to break that silence first was the Grand Duke.

"You. What exactly did you do to me?"

Color returning to his face, he clutched his clothes closed with one hand and glowered at her.

"I asked you a question. What did you do?"

"Nothing! I was only trying to help you."

The Grand Duke silently glared at her, raising one eyebrow as if to say, go on, try me.

And then—

With a deafening roar, the cliff they were standing on collapsed.

Startled, Daisy flung out her arms and pulled the Grand Duke into an embrace.

Daisy opened her eyes with a groan as pain wracked her whole body as though it might shatter.

From the stalactites hanging in clusters from the ceiling, they were evidently inside a cave. Daisy tried to move so she could take stock of her surroundings.

"Ugh."

Every part of her felt like it was coming apart. But she wasn't dead. She was attempting to roll over when a hand pressed down on her shoulder, and she came to her senses.

"Stay down."

The low, rough voice was unfamiliar. Only then did she remember — she had wrapped her body around the Grand Duke as they fell. Daisy hastily looked him up and down, checking for injuries.

At least on the surface, there wasn't a scratch on him.

Seeing her fuss over him like that, the Grand Duke laughed in sheer disbelief. From the outside, he was hardly a man who needed protecting by a woman a head shorter than himself. And the two of them had only just met — yet she would risk her life to shield him?

"I never dreamed the day would come when I'd be protected by a delicate little alchemist."

She'd gone to the trouble of saving him, and this was what she got. Swallowing the flare of temper rising in her chest, Daisy turned her body away.

"Ah — don't roll over. Your leg is—"

"Aaagh!"

The pain was excruciating, and Daisy's scream tore out of her.

"Your leg is broken."

Ezra clicked his tongue at the sight of Daisy, tears streaming from her eyes at the agony. Come to think of it, plenty of people had been willing to risk their lives for him.

This was simply the first time he'd actually watched someone do it.

With that thought, the Grand Duke drew closer to her.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

"If we don't want the bone setting crooked, it needs a splint."

He fetched a branch from somewhere in the dungeon, set it against her broken leg, tore his own shirt into strips, and bound it firmly in place.

Every time his hands made contact, Daisy screamed out from the pain.

"Endure it, unless you'd rather suffer for it later."

Daisy couldn't help suspecting he was treating her roughly on purpose.

"Drink this too."

"This is……"

"A potion. You made it, so you know better than anyone how well it works. Drink it, sleep like the dead, and the bone will knit and the internal injuries will heal on their own."

When Daisy glanced around, she saw several empty bottles already rolling about. She nodded and drank the medicine.

She grimaced at the stinging heat of her internal injuries being mended. She'd swallowed no small number of these over her previous regressions, but she never did get used to the sensation.

Watching the color return to her face, Ezra draped his discarded shirt over her and spoke.

"Get some rest. I'm going to scout the area and come back."

With that, he walked out of the cave. Not long after he left, Daisy drifted into sleep.

Daisy stared blankly at the potion set before her.

Drink up.

The hand extended toward her looked somehow familiar. Without a word, Daisy nodded and took the warm cup in both hands.

Is it good?

She nodded again. The sensation of the thick liquid sliding down her throat felt vividly real.

Once she'd finished the drink, her body grew heavy and languid. The large hand she'd seen earlier came to rest on her forehead.

At the gentle warmth of his palm, an involuntary smile rose to her lips.

You like it, don't you? I made it with special care. I knew you would.

At that tender voice, somehow, she felt as though she might cry.