Chapter 2
My pride was severely wounded, but this was a hundred, a thousand times better than being branded a crazy woman and dragged off to be locked up or experimented on.
Sesia, who had been staring at me intently, slowly approached, patted my shoulder, and let out a faint sigh.
“Oh dear! I had a feeling something like this would happen eventually… and of course, it happens just when Lord Robencia is away.”
Question. Who on earth is this ‘Robencia’ person I’ve been hearing about since yesterday?
“By the way, who is that?”
“…He is Lady Hayley’s superior. He is His Majesty the Emperor’s personal pharmacist, but he’s currently away gathering herbs from the Western Continent.”
“Superior?”
“Yes. Lady Hayley is currently working as his assistant pharmacist.”
Assistant pharmacist. So that’s my job.
“Anyway, please don’t be too anxious.”
Sesia comforted me.
Right. The situation is a total mess, but I’m lucky to have an angel-like person helping me.
“Lady Hayley’s medicines weren’t particularly effective, so the effects of this one will probably wear off quickly too.”
I take it back. Angel my foot; judging by the way she talks, she’s a straight-up demon.
“Then I should probably tell you a few things first. If you stay in such a blank-slate state, you’ll likely lose your head before Lord Robencia even returns.”
“Thank you.”
No, wait, maybe she’s not that bad a pers—
“Don’t mention it. If Lady Hayley dies, we’d have to find a new successor, and wouldn’t that be even more tedious?”
That was the reason? And she’s smiling so innocently while saying that. At this point, I couldn’t tell if Sesia was a good person or a bad person.
I sat back down in the chair after having started to rise to express my gratitude. In the meantime, Sesia began her explanation.
“I’ll keep it brief. In the Clares Empire, a separate qualification is required to dispense medicine, and Lady Hayley is one of those professional pharmacists. Currently, you report directly to Lord Robencia, who assists His Majesty the Emperor.”
Sounds like a great job.
“Actually, Lady Hayley has only been here for three months. Many great pharmacists have held this position in the past, but none of them had a happy ending.”
A ‘not happy ending’… does that mean they were fired? Or that they died?
“That’s a brief overview of Lady Hayley’s personal information… Hmm. Anyway, if you want to live a long time in the Imperial Palace, there’s just one thing you must keep firmly in mind.”
“What is it?”
“Never, under any circumstances, go against His Majesty.”
I swallowed hard at Sesia’s words. I felt intimidated by the solemn expression on her face.
“By any chance… were there many pharmacists who died before?”
No matter how much of a king he is, is it really okay to just kill people like that?
“Many.”
“I-it wasn’t because they were bad at their jobs, right?”
I asked cautiously, worried that my head might be chopped off immediately if I couldn’t make medicine.
“I wonder. The suppressant Lady Hayley brought yesterday seemed to work quite well.”
“If it hadn’t worked, would I have died yesterday?”
“Hoho. He probably wouldn’t kill you just because the medicine lacked effect. Well… I can’t speak for other punishments, though.”
The word ‘just’ feels ominous. Come to think of it, did Sesia push me into the lion’s den yesterday knowing full well? And I just slept like a log there, thinking I was having a great time.
“Then did the people who died fall out of favor with the Emperor?”
“You can’t say it was entirely His Majesty’s fault. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say it was their own fault for betraying him in the first place…”
Sesia paused as if reminiscing about the past before continuing.
“After all, Lady Hayley’s position is a very important one, as she can observe His Majesty’s condition in detail or even administer unverified medicines, right? Because of that, there are often cases where people aiming for the throne or ministers asking for Guide connections try to bribe them…”
Hearing her words, I roughly understood the context.
It meant that this body was in a critical position that could influence the Emperor’s safety. But…
“Guide?”
My eyes widened.
“Yes. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Guide, Esper… That Guide?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Sesia’s expression was as if she were wondering why I was asking something so obvious.
However, the moment I heard her words, I couldn’t remain calm.
Guides and Espers… those were the tropes of the BL novel I had been reading before I fell asleep.
Why on earth did the keywords of the very last novel I read suddenly pop up here? What a coincidence.
With a feeling of dread, I asked Sesia one thing.
“By any chance… what is the name of this… country…?”
“The Empire of Blessing, Clares.”
“…”
It sounds familiar.
“And the Emperor’s name, by any chance…”
“His name is Demion Lucia Clares.”
A couple suddenly sprang to mind: Demion and Joshua.
‘The protagonists of <The Shackles of Obsession>.’
Now the pieces were falling into place.
“Holy shit.”
It seemed I had been reincarnated as an extra in the BL novel I fell asleep reading.
“Holy shit!”
And into a depressing Guide-verse story featuring an obsessive Emperor and a fragile protagonist.
To be honest, my memories of the novel were hazy, except for the… steamy parts, but one thing was clear: this place was destined to become a battlefield where blood rained every single day.
Furthermore, extras like pharmacists were treated as less than flies in this novel.
‘You cannot create the antidote?’
‘Cut off that thing’s head.’
‘You dare try to poison Joshua?’
‘Feed that bastard to the beasts!’
I vaguely remembered that they were frequently turned into corpses and hauled away, so that said it all.
“I’m screwed.”
“Oh, right. And all the imperial pharmacists, including Lady Hayley, are researching a rampage suppressant for His Majesty…”
Sesia’s explanation continued for a long time, even as my mental state crumbled into pieces.
She spoke passionately, explaining the overall inner workings of the Imperial Palace, but only one thought kept spinning in my head like a hamster wheel.
‘I’m dead. I’m doomed. I have zero knowledge of medicine, so how the hell am I supposed to make drugs and do research? If he asks for a stamina tonic and I hand him a laxative, I’ll be executed, right? It’s only a matter of time before my head rolls.’
Of all the bodies to possess, why this one?
They say that even when the sky falls, there’s always a way to survive.
After Sesia left to get back to work, I ransacked ‘Hayley’s’ room and immediately found her diary in a drawer.
Honestly, at first, my heart pounded at the thought of spying on someone’s privacy, but after flipping through a few pages, my face turned pale.
“What do I do? This woman must have been a terminal workaholic. Whether by choice or coercion, this workload is horrifying. Does her boss nag her that much?”
As if this woman’s entire day consisted of researching medicine, making it, and failing, the diary contained nothing but research-related notes.
It was filled with headache-inducing details, such as how long to dry certain herbs and for how many minutes to heat them.
“Ugh… what kind of nonsense is this.”
If it weren’t for the occasional psychological descriptions like ‘I’m scared’ or ‘It’s hard,’ I would have thought this was a lab log rather than a diary.
“Does this woman have no private life? No friends? No family? Why is it all about work!”
She was a truly formidable predecessor.
“Oh, the method for making the suppressant.”
As I hurriedly flipped through the pages, I fortunately found research notes related to the suppressant. The problem was that I had no idea what I was looking at.
Hah, and to think that the ‘suppressant’ was a drug to prevent an Esper’s rampage.
To explain briefly, ‘Espers’ are a small group of people who possess immense power, unlike ordinary humans.
As a price for using this power, they suffer from madness, and the only beings who can soothe that are ‘Guides.’
Guides can perform ‘Guiding’ to calm an Esper’s rampage through physical contact, and generally, the more intimate the contact, the more effective it is.
In particular, this world had a special setting called pheromones. The fact that the novel adopted such tropes naturally meant that the explicit content was quite intense.
It was great when I was reading it. Yes, only as long as it remained text on a page. But who asked to be thrown into a world like this!
“Sigh…”
I flipped through the diary to the end, hoping to find a reason why I had been reincarnated into this body, but I couldn’t find anything helpful.
Every recent experiment was related to the suppressant. Disappointed, I tossed the diary onto the bed.
Then, I sprawled out on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling.
“I wonder if I’ll go back if I bite my tongue and die.”
Of course, I had no intention of actually doing it. But the moment I curiously placed my tongue slightly between my teeth, suddenly—BANG BANG! There was a loud knocking at the door.
“His Majesty summons you.”
At the sound of the man’s voice from outside the door, I almost actually bit my tongue.
Why? They said the suppressant or whatever worked well! Why is he looking for me already?
