I Became The Wife Of The Cursed Grand Duke Chapter 111

“Okay.”

 

Conversation would come later.

 

The two moved forward, their footsteps muffled, picking off enemies as they went.

 

Leon would stop time when he spotted a monster, and Evelyn would deploy her offensive magic.

 

For a first-time combatant, they worked well together.

 

Leaning against the wall and peering around the corner, Leon whispered.

 

“There’s a doll at the end of the hall. If you blind it with light, I’ll stop time.”

 

The dungeon adjusts the difficulty of the enemies based on the number of people in the room.

 

Since there were only two of them, Evelyn had no trouble grabbing the doll and throwing it into the fireplace.

 

Just in case, she made sure to gouge out the eyes and heart as per the original strategy.

 

‘I would have been in trouble if Kalian hadn’t given me the dagger…’

 

When the puppet was completely destroyed, the door to the second floor of the dungeon finally creaked open.

 

As they stepped onto the stairs leading to the first floor, the atmosphere quickly changed.

 

Instead of a stately mansion, their view was of a stone staircase with a chilling aura.

 

The stone steps were flanked by golden balustrades, which were wrapped around the roots of a bloody tree.

 

‘Blood roots,’ she thought, ‘like a tree that feeds on blood.’

 

It was creepy and eerie, but they were too tired to go straight to the first floor of the dungeon.

 

Evelyn turned to Leon, somewhat wearily.

 

“Do you think we should stop here and rest for a while?”

 

As soon as her words left her mouth, she felt a sickly discomfort in the pit of her stomach.

 

Leon noticed and nodded vigorously.

 

“Yes, that would be great, I think we have a story to tell and… Put this on first.”

 

He took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.

 

Evelyn was about to refuse, but she was too weak to do so, so she accepted his favor.

 

“Thank you. Let me know if you’re cold, and I’ll take it off again.”

 

“Okay.”

 

They huddled in the stairwell between the first and second floors of the dungeon, catching their breath.

 

Inside, the dungeon door opened by pulling a lever.

 

Evelyn didn’t have to worry about demons poking their heads out, but she couldn’t understand why she was here in the first place.

 

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Evelyn asked the first question.

 

“I really didn’t think you were a wizard. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

 

What Leon had shown her earlier was a far more robust binding spell than the one she’d witnessed in the village of Litchev.

 

Leon scratched his head and replied.

 

“It’s no big deal, it’s just a rear-guard action.”

 

As far as she knew, binding magic was a high level of magic, above healing and offensive magic.

 

She had heard that wars could be won or lost with or without mages who could bend time or space.

 

But she didn’t feel like prying. She knew Leon must have his own reasons.

 

And she had deceived him, too.

 

‘I kept telling him that I wasn’t the one who made the miracle happen. I think Leon already knew that, but…’

 

She shrugged uncomfortably and bowed her head in gratitude.

 

“Anyway, thank you, it would have been really dangerous if it wasn’t for you.”

 

Leon furrowed his brow as he watched Evelyn say that. He looked like something was bothering him.

 

“It was the right thing to do, of course. More than that…”

 

He paused for a moment, then sighed, as if there was no reason to keep secrets any longer, and locked eyes with Evelyn.

 

“Is something wrong with Lord Dante?”

 

A chill ran down her spine as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped on her head. Doubt flashed across Evelyn’s face.

 

How on earth did Leon know that her maternal grandfather had come to see her?

 

“Leon, how did you know that…”

 

“Oh, you jumped to conclusions.”

 

Leon scratched his head as if to say that she was rash, then continued with a dark look.

 

“The truth is, I’m the one who found Lord Dante, and I’m the one who brought him to the Empire because he wanted to meet his granddaughter.”

 

“What?”

 

Evelyn remembered Kalian’s words that an informant from the Magic Guild had assumed Dante’s identity to gain access.

 

“So you are…?”

 

Evelyn’s mouth dropped open as Leon nodded.

 

“Oh, my God, how could you?”

 

Surely, even with a magic stone, there was no way he could stop time.

 

Evelyn, who had been trained by Ines, was speechless at the realization.

 

And she realized that perhaps Leon would be able to answer some of the questions she had about Dante.

 

Remembering Dante’s death, Evelyn shook her head to clear the pain.

 

Then she gripped Leon’s shoulders tightly and locked her gaze with the ferocity of a beast.

 

“Did you happen to know what my grandfather was going to tell me?”

 

“No, Sir Dante only said that he had something to tell his granddaughter in secret.”

 

That answer made Leon wary of his surroundings for a moment, then he spoke cautiously.

 

“It is rather I who would like to ask what you and Sir Dante talked about, if you would care to tell me?”

 

Evelyn hesitated for a moment.

 

She hesitated for a moment, for she suddenly remembered Dante’s words, that her existence was of use to both those who worshiped Babel and those who sought to destroy it.

 

At the time, the words were so abrupt that she was baffled, but the more she thought about them, the more meaningful they became.

 

“This is no safe zone, and there’s only one reason the grand duke wants to keep you around, and that’s because you’re the one who’s going to make Babel… curb!”

 

“What was Dante trying to tell me?” That was her only question at first.

 

But in retrospect, it meant that she could help destroy Babel anyway.

 

‘I can’t keep my mouth shut, though, because if Leon is an informant, there will come a time when I’ll be needed.’

 

Evelyn decided to tell Leon the rest of her conversation with Dante, except for the important details.

 

“Leon, do you remember the story Mrs. Allen told me? That my mother was kidnapped by someone and came back with no memory?”

 

“Yes, I remember.”

 

“According to my grandfather, both her being taken and brought back and having a child with the Lawrence family were intended outcomes.”

 

Leon was speechless for a moment.

 

It wasn’t as if he was thinking about what to say, but rather whether he should share what he knew.

 

After a few moments of reflection, he answered.

 

“You do realize now that you are a descendant of the Lindbergh family, don’t you?”

 

Evelyn nodded. His brow creased slightly as he fixed his gaze on her glittering green eyes.

 

“I’m a mercenary on commission, too, so I don’t know all the details, but I can only assume that Louise, the foster daughter of the High Priest, was given a mission of some sort and abandoned your mother at the Lawrence estate.”

 

Louise’s mission was to conceive and give birth to a vessel that would most likely be her own.

 

“So you’re saying… they dragged my mother into this to forcibly take and use my blood?”

 

Evelyn gritted her teeth.

 

Fire rose in her chest at the thought of all the humiliation and suffering her mother and she had endured over the years.

 

To think that they had used her for their own ends.

 

Evelyn wished she could drink their bodies if she could.

 

“How could they do such a thing in human form…”

 

Leon’s arm around her shaking shoulders held her pale cheeks as if he understood what she was feeling.

 

“Get a grip, we have to move fast if we want to get back at them.”

 

Evelyn’s mind quickly snapped back into place. Evelyn turned to face Leon with refocused eyes.

 

“But Leon, how did you get here? It’s not like you expected me to be in danger.”

 

“I told you, I’m a mercenary for the Magic Guild. You do know that recently, the land near the Bellatra Dungeon has begun to become contaminated, right?”

 

Leon removed his hand from Evelyn’s face as she nodded. Then he continued.

 

“I was investigating the area around the dungeon to see what was causing the explosion of magick, and I sensed an abnormal flow of magick inside the dungeon.”

 

“You were just following the flow of magic, and you ran into me?”

 

“Yes, I was wondering if you could explain how you came to be here?”

 

Evelyn told him that today was her wedding day, and that she had been swept through a gate that had suddenly opened and brought her to the southernmost reaches of the Empire.

 

“That’s strange, now that I think about it, if I was swept through a gate, why did I end up in a dungeon?”

 

“I guess we’ll have to find out why now, won’t we?”

 

Leon, with his trademark laid-back smile, paused to peer over the railing before calling out to her.

 

“Would you like to check this out?”

 

Evelyn jumped to her feet. He pointed to a marker embedded in the roots of a blood-red tree.

 

Evelyn frowned.

 

“This is…”

 

She recognized the mark.

 

The same mark on Louise’s vial, the key she’d found in the temple’s processing room, the one on the mutated creature that had appeared in the camp.

 

There was only one conclusion, then.

 

“Someone must have placed some kind of substance or spell inside the dungeon that triggers the gate.”

 

And if her assumptions were true, the culprits were most likely the High Priest and the Empress.

 

“It makes sense if you consider that the supreme beasts that have come to the north to destroy the holy relics in the past were summoned using it.”

 

But why would they go to such lengths to endanger the Empire?

 

Evelyn’s doubts still lingering, she pulled down the lever and swung the door to the dungeon’s first floor wide open.