23.

Strong arms wrapped around Elze, holding her tightly.

Elze appeared somewhat perplexed at first but soon reciprocated the embrace.

Their kiss deepened further. Lucian’s closed lips parted, and a soft tongue slipped between them.

Unconsciously, Lucian opened his mouth to welcome it.

A lukewarm liquid flowed into his mouth.

“Swallow.”

Elze whispered gently as their lips met.

Lucian swallowed, as if under some spell.

Elze kissed him even more passionately, and during the kiss, the liquid in his mouth traveled smoothly down Lucian’s throat.

“Ugh…”

Lucian shivered slightly.

The sensation of their breath mingling, tongues entwining, and Elze’s lips against his, it was electric and intense.

It felt amazing.

“Haa…”

After a while, Elze let out a long breath and pulled her lips away from his.

Lucian blinked his eyes.

With a blurry vision, he could see Elze gazing at him with an unreadable expression.

Perhaps this wasn’t a dream.

If that was the case, maybe he could be a little more honest.

“Sorry.”

An unexpected apology slipped out.

“For causing you trouble every time…”

Lucian pushed himself deeper into Elze’s embrace.

“You’re in a similar situation as me.”

“My lord.”

“I think I’ve been too harsh on you…”

After a moment of hesitation, Elze slowly ran her hand down his back.

Sensations that had forcibly awakened due to the drug were gradually returning to normal.

But still, the tiny hand comforting him felt incredibly affectionate.

“Stay by my side, alright?”

Lucian leaned against Elze’s knee like a child, touching his forehead to her.

He never wanted to lose this gentle touch.

* * *

‘Hmm?’

After finishing the antidote-dosing kiss, I slightly stiffened my shoulders as Lucian urgently clung to me.

“Sorry.”

A damp voice echoed.

“For causing you trouble every time…”

I was well aware of that.

Though my thoughts were somewhat cynical, I comforted Lucian. His day had been quite exhausting.

“You’re in a similar situation as me.”

Lucian mumbled softly.

It seemed like this increased sensitivity was a side effect of Nyx.

‘Well, it’ll be really embarrassing to remember this later.’

But since Lucian was the one accumulating this dark history, not me, I decided to accept his grumbling.

“I think I’ve been too harsh on you…”

Wait, what did he say?

For a moment, I blinked my eyes.

Why would we need this drug in the first place for the inter-organization war?

It was probably to obtain information.

So, that meant, Nyx was meant to elicit a person’s most innermost and honest reactions.

“Stay by my side, alright?”

With those words, Lucian finally fell asleep like a child.

I rapidly tapped my calculator-like mind.

And in the end, I came to a conclusion.

Finally, it seemed like Lucian had opened up to me just a tiny bit.

* * *

The next morning, Lucian desperately tried to recall what had happened the day before.

‘What happened yesterday?’

Lucian couldn’t bear it as Victor, that bastard, kept getting on his nerves. So he ended up drinking the mysterious shot Victor gave him.

After that, his memory became very hazy, and he felt like…

‘That woman… she was here.’

The memory of Elze’s unique vibrant hair lingered in his mind.

‘And it was painful.’

He whimpered, feeling like his whole body had turned into a soggy piece of paper.

Amidst that, his stomach was churning as if he had swallowed a fireball, to the point where he felt he might turn to ashes.

Lucian reflexively touched his lips.

The moment Elze’s lips touched his, the pain had completely disappeared.

Lucian couldn’t hide his perplexed expression.

‘Did I really kiss that woman?’

Sensations felt unfamiliar. The soft and moist touch of her lips, the feeling of her tongue confidently pushing into his mouth.

Running her tongue across his palate and tapping his gums, goosebumps had erupted down his spine.

With every swallow of her lips, his throat grew even drier, like he was drinking seawater.

Yet, he couldn’t stop.

A little more, just a little more…

A relentless and intense sensation.

But then…

Knock, knock, knock.

Startled, Lucian took a deep breath and turned to the door.

There was only one person who knocked before entering this dormitory school.

Elze Lepherian.

As the name crossed his mind, his stomach felt hot.

Click, clank, click.

The sound of unlocking and the door was gently pushed open, and Elze entered.

“Hello. Did you have a pleasant dream last night?”

As usual, she greeted him this way. But as soon as she looked at Lucian, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Um, it seems like you’ve had trouble sleeping.”

“Suddenly, what’s with that remark?”

“Your eyes are really red.”

Answering like this, Elze added calmly.

In an instant, Lucian’s face changed abruptly.

“Mirror, mirror, where is it?”

He quickly tried to get up but staggered and sat back down.

“Ugh.”

His vision blurred momentarily.

Startled, Elze approached Lucian, saying, “You shouldn’t move so hastily. The effects of Nick’s drug may still be in your system.”

“Nick’s?”

“It’s the drug that Victor administered to you yesterday.”

“Oh, that.”

Lucian wrinkled his face.

“What is that drug exactly?”

His mind was foggy, and his rationality was loose.

It felt like he was floating through a dream.

Barefoot in the snow, consumed by hellfire, suffering from a piercing pain throughout his body.

Opposite sensations torturing his body intensely.

In addition to that, the unnaturally heightened sensations.

“I felt really awful.”

Lucian summarized all of it with a single sentence.

“Well, that’s what the drug does.”

“That’s the drug? Why would anyone create such a dreadful drug?”

“That… it wasn’t originally meant to calm students.”

Elze calmly added, “The Lord knows that too, right? The Marquis of Offenheir crushed the Empire’s underworld families to establish his power.”

“Yeah, no one can deny that.”

Dante De Offenheir.

In a good sense or a bad sense, he was an extraordinary man.

Dante was originally a bastard child of the royal family, and they tried to hide his existence since having him was an embarrassment to the royal family. The reason being that his existence itself was a disgrace to the royal family.

The Empress, Dante’s mother, was famous for her stunning beauty. It was said that she had such a dazzling beauty that her fame extended not only throughout the Empire’s aristocracy but also to foreign royalty.

However, that beauty was a curse for the Empress.

On the night of the imperial banquet, which was attended only by the most prestigious dignitaries, the Empress was touched by an impure hand.

At the time, the Empress was too shocked by the event to even remember the assailant properly.

Nevertheless, the Empress didn’t receive any protection from the Emperor.

Instead of protecting the illegitimate child of Dante’s mother, he chose to quietly cover up the problem because the political burden was too high to gather all high-ranking dignitaries in the empire and punish the guilty.

Ultimately, the Empress took her own life.

And the Emperor turned his back on Dante, the illegitimate child.

However, after enduring various hardships, Dante, who grew up alone, eventually gained power over the Empire’s underworld families.

The Emperor couldn’t ignore his existence any longer and included him among the nobility.

That’s the commonly known story.

But Elze revealed the hidden truth behind it.

“One of the elements that allowed Marquis Offenheir to reign over the underworld was this drug.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. At the school, it’s diluted and used to calm people down, but it was initially developed to extract information.”

Lucian made a disgusted expression instead of answering.

Having grown up as the sole heir of one of the most prestigious families in the Empire, he had no immunity to such immoral substances.

“Of course, even without this drug, I think the Marquis of Offenheir would still be able to gain control over the underworld.”

Elze shrugged.

“But it might have been a bit late for him to grasp power.”

Lucian kept silent, feeling a bit annoyed by Elze’s high estimation of the Marquis.

But the most twisted thing is…

Lucian couldn’t deny the fact that the Marquis’s abilities were extraordinary.

“Anyway, from now on, I think the Marquis should be a little more careful.”

Elze offered her explanation carefully.

“I’ve been looking after the Marquis so far, which was fine, but others might hope that the Marquis remains a bit more discreet.”

“Wait a moment.”

Lucian urgently interrupted Elze’s speech.

“You detoxified me? How?”

“Well, you were already in a poisoned state, and you couldn’t exactly take the antidote on your own.”

Elze glanced at Lucien as if wondering why he was asking the obvious.

“I administered the antidote orally.”

Simultaneously, Lucien’s face turned bright red.