IBFLS 09

The butler placed the vial on the table.

“Since you don’t remember at the moment, allow me to explain. You personally selected this poison, Master.”

By now, he had composed himself and was continuing his explanation calmly.

His attitude made it seem as though this sort of thing had happened more than once or twice.

“You have been building up your resistance by ingesting various kinds of poison. However, it seems you are still in the process of adapting to this particular one, which is causing temporary memory confusion. Even so, you have generally recovered within half a day.”

Speaking as though it were nothing out of the ordinary, he held out a glass of water that he had brought along with the tea.

“So please don’t worry. Your symptoms will improve as time passes.”

I accepted the glass of water and stared at him blankly.

His explanation was thorough enough, but that didn’t mean I could understand the situation.

Not even as the cool water trickled down my throat.

‘Why on earth would I need to drink poison…? Wait.’

Then, all at once, a sudden realization struck me like a powerful blow to the back of my head.

‘This is an opportunity!’

I deliberately contorted my face into a mess and shook my head.

“…No wonder my mind feels completely blank.”

“Could it be that you haven’t taken it even once since leaving the mansion?”

“I can’t even remember what I’ve been doing for the past few days.”

Five years of telling all kinds of lies, big and small, had thoroughly trained me to get myself out of difficult situations.

A possessor should never give someone even the slightest reason to become suspicious.

Especially when there was an opportunity to take advantage of the situation like this.

“Your symptoms have varied depending on your condition. I suspect you’re simply exhausted from today’s demanding schedule.”

“But tell me something.”

I clasped my head with both hands and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Why did I leave the mansion in the first place?”

“Fifteen days ago, you told me that you needed to leave the empire for a while.”

“I told you I can’t remember anything right now.”

“That, I… don’t know either. You said you had something important to attend to, and after spending several days making preparations, you left alone. You never told me when you would return, either.”

I already knew that the possessor had left the empire fifteen days ago.

The problem was that I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard the details. The butler knew just as little as I did.

‘This is a dead end. But he said the symptoms usually last, at most, half a day, right?’

If I pretended to have lost my memories until then, I could avoid arousing suspicion.

So I had to make the most of this opportunity.

‘What should I ask about first?’

I was doing my best to maintain a confused expression while leaning comfortably against the backrest when the butler spoke cautiously.

“Would you like to visit your study?”

“My study?”

I straightened up and looked at him.

“You were still organizing documents right up until the day you departed. It might help alleviate the side effects if you review your records yourself.”

His voice was composed, as though he had never been frightened at all.

A strange sense of trust washed over me, and I found myself nodding and getting to my feet before I knew it.

Come to think of it, even this absolutely rotten person had such a reliable ally. Was this some kind of protagonist buff?

‘There must be something useful in the study!’

As I followed the butler, who was leading the way, I walked with my head slightly lowered, trying to look like someone suffering from a headache.

He seemed to fall for my convincing performance, occasionally turning around to check on me.

“…My head feels a little dizzy.”

I then put the acting skills I had honed while living as the young lady on full display.

“You haven’t developed proper immunity yet. But just like the other medicines, you’ll adapt to this one soon enough if you give it time.”

He believed I had lost my memory because of the poison’s side effects.

But right now, I wasn’t suffering from memory loss, let alone any discomfort in my fingers or toes.

‘Then that means this body has already developed immunity to the poison I drank earlier.’

And with that came the biggest question of all, following close on the heels of the others.

I didn’t hesitate to voice it.

“Why did I start drinking poison?”

“It was to train your body by taking it regularly. You had already been building up your tolerance before I came to this mansion.”

“I asked why.”

I lowered my voice and replied irritably. Just as he had at the entrance, the butler was thrown into a panic.

“Y-you said it was to prepare for emergencies. You also said that as long as you developed a resistance to poison, you would never have to worry about being poisoned to death…”

“What?”

In the game, there wasn’t a single incident involving the female protagonist and poison.

So I had never told the possessor anything about poison, either.

And yet, being poisoned to death?

“Was someone threatening me?”

The butler seemed to hesitate for a moment before shaking his head firmly.

“Not as far as I know. Besides, I don’t see how such a thing could happen, considering how systematically this mansion’s security is managed.”

He had never been threatened, at least not as far as the butler knew. And yet, the mansion had a carefully organized security system, and he was taking precautions against poison far beyond what seemed necessary.

‘So even if nothing has happened yet, was there a chance that someone might try to kill me someday?’

Suddenly, the scattered pieces of information in my head began to connect, like puzzle pieces that had been thrown out of place.

‘Something isn’t right.’

This was on an entirely different level from being disliked simply because of a bad personality or a poor reputation.

The murderous look in my older brother’s eyes at the funeral. Baron’s icy warning.

And on top of that, the possessor had been drinking poison and paying close attention to the mansion’s security.

‘What on earth has that possessor been doing?’

He must have done something that made someone hate him so deeply that he felt his life was in danger.

I wanted to ask more questions, but we had already arrived at the study.

It was located in a corner of the mansion, beyond a long corridor.

“Please, go inside.”

The door opened smoothly, revealing five tall bookshelves positioned directly in front of me.

They seemed to have been deliberately arranged like partitions, as though their purpose was to keep anyone from seeing inside.

There was a narrow gap between the bookshelves, barely wide enough for one person to pass through. It looked as though I would have to sidle sideways to get into the room.

“Please call for me whenever you need anything.”

The butler bowed at the doorway as though this were familiar territory, then took two steps back.

Still bewildered, I slowly walked into the space beside the bookshelves.

The door closed immediately behind me. After squeezing through the narrow passage, I finally caught sight of the vast study beyond it.

‘Is this a darkroom?’

The study had a thick rug covering the floor and not a single window, yet a large lamp hanging from the ceiling illuminated the entire room as brightly as daylight.

A wide desk stood in the center, covered with neatly stacked documents.

“These are request forms. And these are… expense reports.”

Nothing seemed particularly unusual about them.

I rummaged through the papers for a while before lightly tugging on the handle of one of the desk drawers.

“Looks like there might be something in here.”

I pulled harder a couple more times, but the locked drawer merely rattled without opening.

“Oh, I need a key.”

I suddenly remembered the moment I had instinctively grabbed my throat right after swallowing the poison.

‘That didn’t feel like an ordinary necklace.’

I hadn’t been able to see it because of the frilled decoration that came all the way up to my nape, but I remembered something slightly heavy and cold…

I cautiously slipped my hand inside my collar and felt around.

“Here it is.”

My fingertips touched cold metal. It was a small key hanging from the end of a chain.

I pulled it out and let out a triumphant cheer.

It was my first successful discovery since possessing someone for the second time!

I unclasped the necklace and fitted the key attached to the chain into the keyhole beside the drawer handle.

Click.

The cheerful sound of the lock disengaging rang out.

“It opened!”

My voice rose with a strange sense of excitement.

Inside the unlocked drawer were two thick document envelopes.

‘So he kept these hidden while carrying the key around with him.’

I settled comfortably onto the sofa and opened one of the envelopes.

“Letters?”

Inside were numerous envelopes containing letters with nothing written on them.

“—I will never forget your kindness in protecting this precious secret.

—Thank you. The cooperation you desired will be arranged.

—Everything has been prepared as promised.”

Every letter was short and concise.

So much so that it was impossible to infer their purpose.

‘This makes things even stranger.’

A chill ran down my spine.

The fact that the letters contained no specific details, and that none of the envelopes bore a family crest in wax or a single seal, made it seem as though everything had been deliberately arranged to conceal something.

Judging by the marks where the envelopes had been torn open, it even looked as though someone had deliberately removed something from them.

‘It looks like he was conspiring with someone over something they absolutely couldn’t let anyone else discover.’

I took out a few more letters and read them, but they were all the same.

Concise sentences whose implications I couldn’t decipher, and envelopes that gave me no clue as to who had sent them.

“What on earth were you plotting…?”

My heart was pounding even faster than it had when I heard Baron whispering at the funeral.

I swallowed nervously and reached for the remaining document envelope.