I Decided to Kidnap the Male Lead - Chapter 114: Forever and a Day (VI)

No matter how much the Marquisate of Neir’s power had grown, even seemingly to pierce the sky, it couldn’t dare to shake its head against the imperial family.

It was even more so when Cooper, who was not just a messenger from the imperial family but one of the crown prince’s aides, appeared in person. So the marquisate was in an emergency.

“Bring the lady.”

“Bu… butler.”

“Can’t you hurry? Whatever you do, bring her!”

“What… Are you saying it’s okay to use tricks?”

“Okay!”

The butler hurriedly nodded and headed towards Cooper.

The servant left behind blinked anxiously, then moved on as if he had made up his mind.

A few minutes after Cooper stormed into the Marquisate of Neir.

A servant swallowed dry saliva in front of Raisa Neir’s door, closing his eyes tightly.

Now that he was in this position, his family would be able to live without fear of starvation for the next few years.

“It’s okay even if I die. It’s okay.”

The servant who repeated to himself that it was okay to die in order to take a step forward finally raised his hand.

—Tok tok.

Permission did not come after the knock, but the servant grabbed the doorknob and turned it.

Behind the silently open door, black darkness opened its mouth.

No, it was just the servant’s feeling.

There was light everywhere, so as a whole, the room was considered bright.

But deep inside.

A terribly cruel and grotesque monster resided. The servant’s eyes dimmed.

His jaw trembled and his back bent, but the servant forcibly moistened his parched lips and squeezed out his voice.

“Lady.”

In the dark, gray eyes glittered like those of a snake.

Goosebumps rose on the nape of the servant’s neck, but he quickly thanked God that his neck was still there because he could feel it.

“His Highness’s aide came… Aaaaagh!”

Before he could finish his words, the servant was grabbed by the shoulders and forced to kneel on the floor.

—Chack!

Shortly after the sound of a whip cutting through the air, Raisa finally left the room, leaving behind the intermittently squirming bloodied servant.

Around that time, the general butler, who was sweating and blocking Cooper’s way, was bowing with a pensive expression at the cold warning that fell on his head.

“I was ordered to check with my own eyes if the marchioness is not feeling well.”

When it was said that it was the order of His Highness the Crown Prince, the general butler couldn’t even dare to stop it.

If the crown prince’s aide in front of him put his mind to it, he could get rid of the general butler and all the servants right here and now.

Giving such a warning would itself be the least human consideration.

“Guide me.”

Eventually, Cooper arrived in front of Marchioness Neir’s room.

He frowned.

He didn’t come to the Marquisate of Neir often, but he had visited a few times as a messenger.

Each time, he was guided to the drawing room or the study of the marchioness.

But…

“She’s not feeling very well, so she’s lying down most of the day.”

As if he had read his thoughts, the general butler said so and quietly advised him to turn away.

But Cooper shook his head. There was only one reason why he came to the marquisate today.

“Check out Marchioness Neir.”

“Is there anything I need to look out for?”

“Is there a reason for her to stop everything she has been doing, and if so, what is it?”

Richard glanced at the pile of papers piled to one side.

“These are the things that have accumulated since she started living in seclusion without any explanation. His Majesty is fed up with it.”

As Marchioness Neir’s affairs suddenly stopped for no particular reason, applications for intervention flooded not only within the empire, but also from other countries.

“I have to check. If she is not feeling well, His Majesty the Emperor is willing to send an imperial doctor.”

The general butler just lowered his head, unable to part his dry lips. Then he walked away.

This attitude of not knocking or saying that someone had come deepened the gap between Cooper’s brows.

But he raised his hand without any further arguments.

—Tok tok.

Cooper, who would normally have waited, raised his hand again.

—Tok tok.

There was no answer to the second knock, so Cooper looked back at the general butler, but he still bent down and averted his gaze.

Cooper immediately grabbed the doorknob.

—Tachak.

He deliberately opened the door loudly, but there was no response from the inside.

The moment Cooper stepped into the room of Marchioness Neir, leaving behind the butler who seemed resigned with his face now blue.

“Ugh.”

He had to pinch his nose right away.

“This…”

The smell of drugs that was strong enough to sting his eyes was overwhelming.

It smelled the same as the room where he found his brother’s dead body long ago.

A look of astonishment soon spread across Cooper’s face, which was stained with bewilderment and confusion.

“What is this…”

Because he found Marchioness Neir lying on the bed with her eyes half open.

He first doubted that the person he was seeing in front of him was Marchioness Neir.

However, the general butler would not have guided him to a place where someone other than Marchioness Neir was present.

A pale face, sunken eyes, and tied-up withered limbs.

“Addiction? Marchioness Neir is addicted to drugs…”

The thoughts that flowed without his knowledge were cut off before it could even conclude.

“It’s rude even though you’re an aide to His Highness the Crown Prince.”

Upon hearing the voice coming from behind him, Cooper slowly turned his head.

Leaning against the door, Cooper opened his mouth.

“The daughter of the Marchioness of Neir.”

Raisa Neir stared at Cooper with gray eyes akin to a dead fish’s.

Even when she was looking at Cooper, she didn’t seem to notice him.

She took a step toward Cooper, her eyes glazed over, and Cooper instinctively took a step back.

It wasn’t that Raisa Neir was intimidating.

Just…

The smell of blood poking through the tip of his nose was just disgusting to the point he had goosebumps and paralysis on his cheeks.

Through Cooper’s frowning vision, he saw dried drops of blood on Raisa’s cheeks.

Scars on that Raisa Neir’s face? Cooper thought about it for a while.

Realizing that it wasn’t her blood, but someone else’s, he shut his mouth.

From Marchioness Neir to the daughter of Marchioness Neir.

He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it was by no means an ordinary seclusion.

Raisa walked over to Marchioness Nair and brushed her frizzy hair from her wrinkly cheek.

“She would have declined all visits.”

“His Majesty is in a bad mood because a request for intervention has come in for all the affairs that the marchioness handles.”

“Ah, if that’s the case.”

With her twisted mouth forming an even stranger smile, Raisa pointed at Marchioness Neir.

“As you can see, the marchioness is in no state to do anything anymore.”

There was a hint of laughter in her voice, and Cooper couldn’t find the words to answer.

Raisa had no intention of hiding it.

If she was still aiming for the throne and intending to slit her mother’s neck there, she would have prevented this from happening in the first place.

But with her own hands, she decided that she would burn the village, which was the biggest weapon she had prepared for the throne and the key to her mother’s downfall.

As there was no need for her to put the tools brainwashed with fanaticism into servants through human trafficking into a family friendly to the imperial family, kill the head of the household or the successor, and expose the crimes in detail, blaming her mother and taking control of Neir.

Because now there was something she was greedy for, more than the throne.

Survival.

Greed for life was all that moved Raisa now.

As long as she lived, she would be able to aim for the throne or whatever.

“If you have checked everything, please go back. Oh, yes. In terms of work, I would like myself, Raisa Neir, to represent the Marchioness of Neir.”

She paused for a moment, as if savoring her own words, and grabbed and pulled at the chains that bound Marchioness Nair.

“Could you tell him to give me until the end of the week?”

It would take about a week to take care of the village.

If only that village disappeared, she would be able to come up with a solution by repeatedly regressing.

“A week should be enough.”

Having received that reply, Raisa immediately let go of the string as if she lost interest and headed for the door.

“The butler will guide you on the way out.”

She disappeared like Cooper’s answer didn’t matter anyway.

A gasp flowed from Cooper’s mouth as he stared at Raisa, who was moving away.

“Representing the marquis family? How… Why is the marchioness like this…”

The Marchioness of Neir, who he checked with his own eyes… There was a mountain of things he wanted to ask, but one of those who could answer it had left, and the other was breathing so slightly that he couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.

“And… a week.”

She was confident that everything would be sorted out in just a week.

“How?”

It was a problem that even His Majesty the Emperor shook his head at.

The damage caused by the halt of what had to be done was not a penny or two, and because of the way Marchioness Nair had worked so far… there was no way the client would pass it over generously.

Questions continued to bite, but Cooper eventually had no choice but to turn away from the Marquisate of Neir.

Ame: I was ready for Cooper to stomp around Neir, but all I get is… well, at least he made it out of the ‘mansion of horrors’ alive!

Dea: I was half expecting him to die in there….poor Cooper