Only I Know the War Hero’s Secret Chapter 10

Her heart pounded wildly, and cold sweat gathered in her palms.

Her instincts were screaming.

Something about the situation unfolding around her was seriously wrong.

Just as Mona was about to ask Benny for more specific details, Jake spoke first.

“For our noble, virtuous hero to cause such a fuss over one woman. That’s quite something.”

“Exactly. Sir Richard Cronell is famous for never having been involved in a single scandal with a woman.”

“But why is he looking for her? If the war hero so much as called, there’d be a line of women willing to rush onto a battlefield for him. Don’t tell me she owes him money or something?”

“Senior! Do you really think a great hero like him would be so petty over money? That’d ruin his image.”

“Then what’s the reason?”

“Well, I don’t know the exact reason, but apparently the woman was wearing a mask to conceal her identity.”

“A mask?”

“Yes. They say he met her in the Luna District, and the only clues are her mask and white hair.”

“Hic!”

Mona, who had been listening intently to Benny, was so startled that she even hiccupped.

White hair.

A white mask.

Those were an exact match for how she’d looked that night.

She was doomed.

“Mona, what’s wrong with you? All of a sudden?”

Benny looked at Mona, who was hiccupping, with a puzzled expression.

Mona clamped a hand over her mouth to stop the hiccups and frantically shook her head.

“Mona, don’t tell me……”

Jake narrowed his eyes.

“?!”

“Are you a huge fan of Richard Cronell, too?”

“……Pardon?”

“Your reaction just now gave it away. You were shocked because you heard that he’s chasing after a woman.”

“…….”

“Mona, get your head out of the clouds and live in reality. Do you really think someone as extraordinary as him would ever spare you a glance? There must be a whole line of beautiful women throwing themselves at him.”

Jake clicked his tongue and continued lecturing her.

“Good grief. You’re so distracted by your fangirling that you’ve neglected your research. Go splash some cold water on your face and get back to work on those overdue research logs. Got it?”

Still suppressing her hiccups, Mona nodded and staggered back toward the laboratory.

 

***

 

She had no idea how she’d managed to finish her research and return to the dormitory today.

‘……He’s definitely going to kill me.’

She had witnessed a war hero, a member of the Imperial Family, turning into a monster. There was no way he would let her live.

The image of her neck being cleanly severed by his sharp sword kept haunting her mind.

“Gah……! Ugh, hic…… Sir Richard, please…… Please……”

At the same time, she remembered the desperate screams she’d heard in that dark alley.

It was something she should never have seen, let alone heard.

“Ugh……”

Mona pulled the blanket over her head, her teeth chattering.

It was bad enough that she’d witnessed something she absolutely shouldn’t have. But the unfinished perfume she’d made had also inadvertently produced an aphrodisiac effect.

She had intoxicated a member of the Imperial Family with an aphrodisiac.

It hadn’t been intentional, and she herself had been under its influence, too, but there was no way such excuses would work.

What if she were arrested for possessing an illegal intoxicating substance and sentenced to rot in prison for the rest of her life?

With the news that Richard Cronell was looking for her, haunting her thoughts, Mona imagined one horrifying scenario after another. In the end, she didn’t sleep a wink that night.

 

***

 

“Your Grace, we’ve found a young woman among the inn staff in the Luna District whose appearance resembles the description you gave us.”

“……Bring her in.”

A short while later, a woman entered the office with a nervous expression.

The moment Richard saw the woman his subordinate had brought in, his lips tightened.

He vividly remembered the woman’s hair, which had been as white as her eyes.

She had even left a single strand of white hair on his bed, almost like evidence.

But wasn’t that woman obviously silver-haired?

‘And the woman in my arms was smaller than her.’

Richard immediately shook his head.

“Captain, is she not the one again!?”

As soon as the woman left, Dominic, a member of the Black Knights who had been waiting behind him, asked wearily.

Dominic was a handsome young man with fresh green hair and neat features. But after several days of intensive searching, his face now looked as haggard as wilted spinach.

“It’s obvious she’s not.”

“Are you sure you didn’t hallucinate? No matter how thoroughly we’ve searched the Luna District, we haven’t found a single person who claims to have seen a woman with hair as white as the eyes you described.”

In their efforts to find the woman, they had turned the entire district upside down. Instead, all they’d uncovered were people distributing illegal tobacco and drug addicts.

As a result, rumors had begun circulating that Richard’s real objective was to cut off the funding of the criminal organizations operating behind the scenes in the Luna District, and that the woman was nothing more than an excuse.

“Do you really think I can’t tell the difference between a hallucination and reality?”

“W-well, it could be a side effect of Chaos……”

Dominic lowered his voice and whispered.

The four elite members of the Black Knights, including Dominic, knew that Richard was suffering from side effects after being caught up in that enormous, unidentified chaos.

There was no way they couldn’t know.

Dominic hadn’t even been caught inside that vast Chaos. He had merely brushed against its boundary for a brief moment.

And yet he was still suffering from the aftereffects. That said enough about Richard, who had actually gone inside and come back out.

“……It can’t be a side effect.”

Remembering the hot, sweet warmth of the woman who had quieted the monster inside him, Richard replied coldly.

All the while swallowing down the anxiety beginning to churn in his stomach.

Truthfully, he had assumed he would find the woman quickly.

The number of women who frequented the Luna District was limited, and her hair was so unusual that she should have been easy to identify.

Yet despite searching every salon, entertainment establishment, and even gambling den, they hadn’t found a single person who knew of or had even seen a woman with pure white hair.

‘……I’m starting to get stubborn about this.’

He was running his tongue along the inside of his cheek, his eyes growing cold, when—

“Sir Richard!”

Bang!

The door burst open, and Hugo, the deputy commander of the Black Knights, hurried into the office.

Richard’s neatly shaped eyebrows rose slightly.

“What is it?”

“There’s been a report of monsters rampaging along the western border.”

“Another monster has gone berserk?”

“Yes.”

It hadn’t even been that long since they had exterminated Baelmos, the Black Dragon consumed by Chaos. And now monsters were rampaging along the border again.

Richard’s lips tightened coldly.

 

***

 

For about three days, Mona had lived in constant fear.

Whenever someone knocked on her door, her heart would sink. Even the sound of footsteps passing through the corridor made her hold her breath.

But as nearly half a month passed without anything happening, her fear gradually faded, and she was finally able to regain some composure.

‘If he hasn’t found me by now, I doubt he’ll ever find me…….’

Come to think of it, Richard had probably been just as out of his mind as she was because of the perfume’s side effects.

There was no way he could clearly remember what she looked like, especially since she’d been wearing a mask.

Besides, the salon Professor Thomas frequented was in a pleasure district Mona had never once set foot in throughout her life.

No matter how thoroughly he searched the area, he would never find any clues about her.

Calmly reminding herself of all the reasonable grounds why he wouldn’t be able to find her, Mona headed to a hair dye shop.

‘It was lucky that all the dye washed out that night.’

She always dyed her hair ash-gray, but everyone seemed to think the woman he was looking for had white hair.

Now that she thought about it, the reason the dye had come off was simple.

Because of that man, her mana had been twisted in reverse. As a result, the cheap hair dye made with low-grade alchemy couldn’t cling to her hair and had fallen away like dust.

‘I should switch to something more expensive.’

This time, she’d get one that didn’t shed powder.

It was a bit of a waste of money, but not as much as losing her life……

Mona was standing in front of the premium hair dye display with a serious expression, clutching her emergency savings, when—

“Did you come to buy white dye, too, young lady?”

The shopkeeper casually approached and asked.

“……Pardon?”

“But what a shame. We’re sold out of everything from white and silver to platinum and pale blue. If you came looking for something to turn your hair white, you’ve wasted your trip.”

“Why would anyone buy that……?”

“Why else? White hair is all the rage these days. Apparently, the war hero has a preference for white-haired women……”

“…….”

Mona was briefly at a loss for words.

Absurdly, it seemed everyone had mistaken a criminal investigation for a romance.

‘It must be because of that man’s unrealistically handsome face.’

He certainly didn’t look like the sort of man who would search for a woman just to eliminate evidence.

Clicking her tongue, Mona bought some ash-gray dye, which was still well stocked, and left the shop.

Now that she paid closer attention, she began noticing one or two young noblewomen with white hair among the people walking down the street.

‘Even if someone happens to notice my white hair, they’ll probably just laugh at me for dyeing it to follow the latest trend.’

It was ridiculous, but not entirely bad news for her. Scratching her head, Mona headed to the research institute.

 

***

 

However, once her fear of Richard had eased, the reality right in front of her turned out to be a horror story in its own right.

“……There won’t even be an interim professor for the time being?”

“That’s right. Professor Thomas hasn’t been dismissed, only suspended. And there isn’t anyone qualified to fill in for such a short period.”

The administrative clerk from the Department of Monster Studies answered indifferently.

“Then when exactly will Professor Thomas be reinstated……?”

“Who knows? If it’s a short suspension, perhaps around three months.”

“Three months!?”

“It could take even longer.”

She needed to get her first thesis approved before the end of this year if she wanted to attempt early graduation next year. But now there wasn’t even a professor available to approve it.

‘What am I supposed to do?’

Mona was spending her time writing research logs with a vacant expression, barely able to focus on the words in front of her, when the research department clerk suddenly called her over that afternoon.

“Miss Mona.”

“……Yes?”

“The Dean of Academic Affairs wants to see you.”

“Me?”

“That’s right.”

The Dean of Academic Affairs held a fairly high position within the Academy.

Puzzled, Mona headed to the grand, glittering main building where the dean’s office was located.

And there, the Dean of Academic Affairs made her an unexpected offer.

“You want me to join a project team?”

“That’s right. It’s a top-secret project that only a handful of people within the Academy know about.”

The dean continued in a serious voice.

“However, we need a researcher with extensive knowledge of monsters for the team. Professor Emil, your former supervisor, strongly recommended you.”

“Thank you for thinking so highly of me, but I have to write my graduation thesis, so I don’t have the time to participate in outside work.”

Even from the sound of it, the project seemed like a troublesome undertaking, so she immediately refused. But the dean dangled a tempting offer.

A temptation she simply couldn’t resist.

“Ah, in that case, there’s no need to worry.”

“……?”

“If you achieve meaningful results with the team, you won’t need to write a separate thesis for your degree. Naturally, early graduation will also be possible.”

“!”

Early graduation.

At those words, Mona answered as though she’d been bewitched.

Never realizing that she was digging her own grave.

“I’ll do it.”