Chapter 239: The One Who Urged the Poison

It was not true that I lacked memories “only” of the day I purchased and ingested the poison. The truth was that I did not have memories of that day either. Still, the reason I went around acting as if only a single day’s memory had been carved out, misleading those around me, was for this reason:

‘I had to apologize to Reysir on behalf of the owner of this body, and to do that, Karbaldr couldn’t be an amnesiac.’

Of course, the lie about partial amnesia was something I let slip long after the apology. I couldn’t exactly reveal later, ‘Actually, I don’t remember anything, but based on the information I received, it seems I bullied you. I only apologized to settle the grudge.’

So I had to do it.

The explanation was somewhat long-winded, but the point was simple. The fact that Karbaldr lost only the memory of the day he took the poison was not what Author Senna intended, but a setting I had made up.

‘So if Karbaldr really did get the poison himself and eat it… I guessed that he had already made up his mind and carried it out on the day he went home…!’

It was merely a story I had made up for my own convenience. However, thinking back, it was a story that Senna’s readers might see as a kind of foreshadowing. Especially since Reysir, Senna’s protagonist, was putting all his effort into influencing me.

‘Judging by the probability based on the remake version of Nas-e, it’s only natural that there was someone who egged Karbaldr on, just as Pret said!’

In reality, Karbaldr taking the poison happened much further in the past than when I went around talking about partial amnesia. But this was not a problem.

If my readers had read many novels, they would have seen the philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics at least once: “Reality that is not observed is not determined.” This was a subject that many creators enjoyed using.

And what happened on the day Karbaldr took the poison existed in the unknown. Since I, who possessed his body, did not know, my readers would not know, and since the original author would not have described it, Senna’s readers would not know either.

As long as this world existed within a novel. Unless the author decided never to change it, I believed that the past settings not observed by the readers could be changed as much as they wanted.

So the conclusion was…

“…I think you’re right.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?”

If Karbaldr bought the poison on the way back to his capital house after the closing ceremony, he must have been egged on before the ceremony started or immediately after it ended. Then there was a high possibility that the culprit was someone associated with the Academy.

Since they wouldn’t have urged Karbaldr to try taking poison in front of others, they must have been close enough to meet him one-on-one.

‘And they must have been able to influence Karbaldr with their tongue.’

There was no way a person satisfying those conditions would not have caught my eye by now. Considering the probability, the culprit would be one of the people I met after I possessed him. From a narrative perspective, I didn’t think it would be an extra whose name had never even been mentioned.

And very coincidentally.

In chapter 21, in order to lessen the hostility the original protagonist felt even a little, I had blamed the misdeeds of the original villain, Karbaldr, on Tridric. At that moment, it became official for Tridric to be a person who pushed Karbaldr the wrong way for his own fun, pretending to give him advice.

The day Hailga was kidnapped. Tridric even revealed his malice toward Karbaldr.

‘Was that all? Tridric even controlled those who approached Karbaldr, with his silent consent.’

In every way, there was only one person who could egg Karbaldr on to take poison.

“It must be Tridric.”

“I think so, too. But what kind of words did he use to egg you on? I don’t think he would have told him everything about your family history…”

“Of course not. But he’s a man whose intuition is sharp in a bad way, so he might have guessed something by the way I was obsessed with Vigdis. Or he might have laid out a hypothesis that if one’s life is threatened by poison, the latent Aether Attribute would wake up, and while a detoxifying action occurred, the poison attribute ability could be awakened… There’s a possibility he breathed vain hope into me.”

The fact that Karbaldr could not use poison abilities became public knowledge after I possessed him. If it was Tridric, it wouldn’t be strange for him to have known before that. Given his personality, there was no way he hadn’t told Karbaldr to try using those abilities when he was bullying Reysir.

Karbaldr, who had a severe inferiority complex about his “defect,” would have reacted sensitively to that statement. If Tridric saw that, he would have naturally realized it. The fact that Karbaldr could not use poison abilities.

“Do you happen to know what kind of poison you were poisoned with?”

“I don’t know. After my body recovered and I just heard that I bought the poison myself… I suspected that the family might be deceiving me because they didn’t want to make things big and wanted to just bury it without finding the culprit. Even if I asked, I thought they would give me the name of a poison I could easily get…”

That’s what I said, but in fact, I just wasn’t very interested. For convenience, I had been telling others that someone might have tried to kill me. But when Hard came to slap his son, he seemed completely unaware of the amnesia setting.

By using the fact that I had no memory, they weren’t deceiving me that I had bought and taken the poison myself. Since the conclusion was that Karbaldr had really done such a thing of his own free will.

“I didn’t think to ask for the name of the poison, but is it necessary information?”

“It’s easier to investigate if I know, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t. If the goal is to confirm whether you really bought the poison yourself, that is.”

I hadn’t even said I would place a request, but the other person seemed to have already decided to start the investigation.

“If you bought the poison for yourself to eat, not for the purpose of killing someone else… and if that decision was impulsive, you wouldn’t have used an unofficial route. There’s no need for that, and there’s no time to find out how to use it. You probably bought a ‘poison that can also be used as medicine’ sold at a medicinal herb shop on the way home. That’s the easiest to get.”

“It’ll be impossible to find records of purchases or information that I stopped by a medicinal herb shop now. The family must have covered it up long ago.”

“Still, I’ll be able to find traces of the information being erased.”

I didn’t feel like I should stop him. Since he was doing that because he was curious, it was obvious that he wouldn’t listen even if I told him not to dig into it. And since he was investigating secretly, he wouldn’t share the results with me anyway. It was better to just keep quiet.

“I’ll also check if you ever had a one-on-one conversation with anyone that day.”

“Whatever.”

“Oh? Are you thinking of framing this as an investigation to satisfy my personal curiosity, rather than a formal request? Because that way, the cost will be cheaper?”

“Isn’t it true that you’re investigating because you’re curious?”

“I can’t say it’s not.”

After Pret admitted it with an embarrassed expression. Instead of starting to haggle over the price for the new investigation subject, he brought up the question he had passed by earlier.

“By the way, what happened with the Duke?”

“Nothing happened.”

“You said you were hit. But how can nothing happen? If he laid a hand on you because he was angry that you consumed poison yourself, you could see it as being because he was upset, couldn’t you? Not that it’s okay to use violence just because you’re upset. But still, it’s an expression of interest, even if it’s in a wrong way…”

I guess he thought that if it were Karbaldr, he would have even welcomed that kind of interest. The reason for that must be because he knew how desperate the original owner of this body was and that he had never received his father’s interest even once. However, since I had shown antipathy beyond the level of giving up hope for Hard, he couldn’t help but ask.

“It’s a cliché expression, but they say it takes two hands to clap, don’t they? My father had no intention of talking to me at all. After hitting me out of the blue, he looked down at me for a moment with eyes that asked if I was satisfied now… Before I could even react, he turned his head and spoke a few words to the Head Physician, then left immediately, saying he would receive a report later, as if even that time was a waste.”

“……”

“He didn’t even deal with me, so what could possibly happen between that man and me?”

“………”

Since Pret knew about Karbaldr’s family history in great detail, I couldn’t find a reason to pick and choose my words. There was no need to pretend to be a precious youngest son. So I spoke without hiding anything, but for some reason, the other person’s face was filled with shock.

“It’s not like you didn’t know what kind of person my father was, so isn’t it a bit late to react like that?”

“This isn’t a matter of whether I knew beforehand or not…!?”

“If not? Then what’s the problem?”

“……”

Now Pret had a face with added embarrassment to his existing expression, and he even gaped while looking at me with trembling eyes. Then he suddenly closed his eyes tight, let out a deep sigh, and showed a sense of absurdity.

“Look, I’m not a psychopath who lacks empathy. And what you just said…, it was very, well… huff.”

He couldn’t finish his sentence and just kept sighing, but it wasn’t hard to understand what he was trying to say. He wasn’t shocked by the fact that Hard acted like Hard. It meant that his reaction came from empathizing with the shock I must have felt at that time.

“Isn’t it forbidden for an informant to empathize with the emotions of the subject of investigation?”

“That’s true, but that’s not something you can control as you wish, is it?”

“You’re quite confident in saying that, after preaching about the importance of objectivity while bargaining for the price of information about me earlier.”

“Do you know how many times I told you today that I like you? After getting into someone’s heart like that, you tell me to accept what you say objectively! How can that be possible? Informants are also people with emotions! And I care about my people a lot!”

“……”

The one who lost his words this time was me. Because I didn’t expect Pret to completely erase the smile from his face and be truly angry.

‘I accidentally succeeded in an Influence Event, but I shouldn’t ask if we’re close enough for him to lose his objectivity as an informant, right…?’

Honestly, I was a little… No, I was very embarrassed.