SLDS 63

“Y-Your Highness! Why are you here!”

The marquis recognized the man’s identity and was terrified. Hadn’t they said it was the Imperial Knight Order!

Alexis narrowed his eyes as he looked down at Marquis Valerie, who was backing away in surprise at seeing him.

“You seem overly surprised.”

“N-No, I am not. How could you have come in person when the weather is so foul!”

The marquis couldn’t bring himself to face the crown prince and spoke with his back bent low. The marquis’s gaze, directed toward the floor, wandered back and forth in an anxious trajectory.

“I am looking for Cecil. Are you certain that he is not in the marquis’s house?”

“…Yes. I was feeling the effects of a cold today, so I was home all day. I did not even have the chance to see him.”

“I see.”

At the seemingly indifferent reply, the marquis barely managed to raise the corners of his mouth. As befitting a cunning man, a slick lie flowed out smoothly even in front of the crown prince.

“Your Highness, the weather is harsh. How about you come inside for a moment to take shelter from the rain and have a cup of warm tea before you go?”

Furthermore, he even invited the crown prince and his party into his mansion.

However, Alexis did not have the peace of mind to chat with the marquis over tea. He furrowed his brow slightly and scanned the quiet interior of the mansion.

“I appreciate the hospitality, but I must be going.”

“Yes, yes, if you are busy, it cannot be helped. Please be careful on your way. I hope Mr. Cecil is safe. I pray that you find him quickly.”

The marquis showed an extremely courteous attitude until the very end.

He saw the crown prince’s party off from the door until they had disappeared into the distance, and then, only when he felt relieved, did he slam the door shut with a bang and turn around.

Perhaps because he realized things were taking an unusual turn, the marquis’s eyes were opened wider and more fiercely than ever before.

At that moment, Cecil was struggling with all his might to undo his bonds. But his efforts were in vain; the ropes tied around his hands and feet would not come loose, and he only ended up wasting his precious energy.

“Hnngh, ugh, mmmph!”

“A-Are you alright?”

The head butler, who had been watching Cecil struggle, shuddered when he suddenly saw his breathing become ragged.

Cecil’s chest heaved noticeably, as if he couldn’t breathe properly because of the gag.

Not only that, but as his complexion also turned deathly pale, the old head butler didn’t know what to do and just waved his hands in the air.

“Mmph, huh, ugh!”

Finally, when Cecil’s eyes rolled back, the head butler, thinking something terrible was about to happen, hurriedly untied the gag that was fastened in Cecil’s mouth.

“Try, try to breathe! Slowly!”

He couldn’t bring himself to untie the ropes on his arms and legs, so he was standing guard in front of him. Cecil threw his head back and then, with all his might, screamed.

“Is anyone out there!! Someone is trapped in here!”

“Heeik!”

“It’s the second floor! I’m in the bedroom! Someone, please… Mmph!”

The head butler urgently clamped his hand over Cecil’s mouth, and Cecil struggled with all his strength. When he opened his mouth wide and bit into the flesh of the old man’s fingers, the head butler screamed, aaack, and fell to the floor.

“Damn it, someone save me! Someone, please!”

“You idiot! I told you to watch him carefully, and you can’t even do that one thing right?!”

The bedroom door flew open, and Marquis Valerie discovered the scene. He stomped over, his heavy weight behind each step, thump, thump.

In a single motion, the marquis got onto the bed and grabbed Cecil’s small chin as if to crush it.

“Do you still have hope that someone will save you? They have already left.”

“Mar, quis! I will make sure to kill you. I will tear you apart alive and throw you to the beasts as feed.”

“Pffft! This is it! This gaze! It’s so thrilling, I really like it!”

The marquis pulled Cecil’s chin up sharply and brought his own lips toward it. Just before their lips touched, Cecil spat in the marquis’s face, spit, but he licked it up as if it were sweet.

“I wanted to spend our first night together while you were of sound mind, but this is truly a shame. I suppose I’ll have to use a safer method.”

“What?”

“Head butler, go and bring more of the drug.”

The marquis sat on Cecil’s waist and forcibly poured the drug into his mouth. With his intense resistance, half of it was spilled and half was swallowed.

Not feeling reassured by that, he kept feeding him, switching out the vials. Before he knew it, the number of empty vials discarded on the bed had grown to three.

The head butler, who was watching, grabbed the marquis’s shoulder with trembling hands.

“Master, this… you can’t do this! What on earth are you thinking! One misstep and the man will be completely ruined.”

“You think I don’t know that? If the truth gets out, we’re all dead anyway! In that case, it’s better to hide it for sure.”

The marquis pressed down on Cecil’s mouth with his hand, watching to make sure he didn’t vomit the drug.

Marquis Valerie also knew he was overdoing it. Originally, he had planned to get him addicted slowly, but now, even the time to be meticulous was a luxury.

If the drug was consumed in a short period of time, physical abilities would rapidly dull, and one would even lose the ability to think and speak.

Its original purpose was to relax the body and greatly enhance sexual sensation, but anything in excess could become a poison.

The marquis intended to render Cecil completely incapable of cognition. He had seen countless people consumed by drugs in brothels. Every single one of them was simple-minded, docile, and pursued only desire. It would be perfect if Cecil Adrian could become just like that.

His anticipation was already rising. He might just get a top-grade toy to play with for the rest of his life.

“Huuuh, if I’ve fed him this much, the effects should appear right away.”

As the marquis wished, Cecil soon went limp. He made only faint, weak sounds, and his eyes lost their reason and became empty.

After checking his condition, the marquis smiled with satisfaction and gestured with his chin.

“Untie all the ropes. We’re moving him to the basement.”

“Yes, yeees…”

The head butler followed the instruction with a somber face. When the ropes on his wrists and ankles were untied, Cecil became much freer. But even after gaining his freedom, he just lay there like a doll.

The marquis hoisted Cecil over his shoulder and secretly headed to the basement. The dark, gloomy underground space had not a single window, and a musty smell had collected there.

He laid Cecil down on a bed that had become damp from absorbing moisture. Cecil, intoxicated by the drug, couldn’t move a single fingertip, but his eyes, staring into the air, trembled anxiously, as if a small part of his mind remained.

“That’s right, good boy. There’s no need to be so scared. This is a place I’m very fond of.”

“…Hnngh.”

“Yes, try to make even a small sound. If you behave nicely, this master will dote on you to your heart’s content.”

The marquis urgently thrust his head inside Cecil’s shirt. Perhaps because the crown prince and the knights had come earlier, he felt impatient.

Finding it a bother to even take off the clothes, he just pushed the shirt up to his chin and deeply inhaled the scent of his soft skin. At the same time, the marquis’s hands were busy pulling down Cecil’s pants and his own.

It was when he was breathing out hot breaths, huff, huff, and moving his hands busily. BANG! BANG! BANG!! As if to interrupt the excited atmosphere, the sound of someone knocking on the main door was heard again.

“Damn it! What is it this time!”

The marquis burst into a rage. Being interrupted repeatedly made his irritation soar.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!!

Where was the head butler and what was he doing, just letting that go on. Since he had strictly instructed the servants not to wander the mansion for any reason, there was no one to greet the uninvited guest in the middle of the night.

As the loud noise continued, he had no choice but to go himself. The marquis hastily straightened his clothes and went up to the first floor.

Could it be the crown prince again? The hand that opened the door was extremely rough.

But the man standing in front of the door still had bright, platinum blond hair. His cold, blue-tinged eyes stared dryly at the furious marquis.

“Your Highness. Why have you come again?”

“I was thinking about it, and it seemed strange.”

“Yes? What… do you mean?”

“I never said that Cecil was in danger, and yet you were wishing for Cecil’s safety.”

“That is… I only said that because it seemed so from the atmosphere…”

“I need to look inside the mansion.”

The marquis secretly rolled his eyes.

Moving Cecil Adrian to the basement was, in retrospect, a huge stroke of luck. But having the crown prince search his mansion thoroughly still made him feel uneasy.

Alexis, who was watching the marquis, spoke even more coldly.

“Move.”

Before the marquis had a chance to step aside, the knights stormed into his mansion.

Thump! Thump! Mud-covered boots roamed around, leaving dirty footprints, and at the commotion in the middle of the night, servants opened their doors one by one and showed their frightened faces.

While the knights searched the interior as if hunting for a rat, Alexis stood in the central hall and scanned the inside of the mansion.

No matter how late the hour, the marquis’s mansion was strangely quiet, and a gloomy atmosphere hung in the air.

Alexis’s gaze traveled up the spiral staircase to the second floor. There were numerous doors, presumed to be guest rooms, and all of them were firmly closed.

If Cecil were staying in this mansion, he would have come out at least once upon hearing the commotion.

Is he really not here? Or is he hiding because he knows I’m here?

At the frustrating thought, Alexis’s straight eyebrows furrowed. His feet naturally turned toward the stairs.

He went up to the second floor and opened the doors one by one. As expected, most of them were empty guest rooms.

Before he knew it, Alexis had reached the end of the inner hallway. A strangely bitter scent wafted from the front of the door.

He furrowed his brow and pulled the doorknob. That place was also a bedroom, but one thing that was different was that there were traces of someone having stayed there until just a moment ago.

The red ropes tied to the four posts of the bed and the blood-red wallpaper, so vibrant it hurt his eyes, came into view in sequence. The large bed in the center had its bedding in complete disarray, and on the floor, two naked men were asleep, tangled together.

“Ha, your filthy hobbies are still the same.”

Alexis thought this room was the marquis’s bedroom. It was because the signs of him having rolled around lewdly with his catamites could be seen everywhere.

A scornful laugh escaped him at the thought that the man had come out after doing something like this and shamelessly invited him for tea.

His mood sank indescribably. It was partly due to seeing the marquis’s dirty private life, but it might also have been because he couldn’t find Cecil even after searching everywhere. He had turned his back on the bedroom and was just coming back down the stairs.

“Your Highness, please take a look at this.”

One of the knights came running with something, saying he had found it in a pile of trash.

The clothes and shoes the knight held out were soaked, but they looked somehow familiar.

Alexis recognized at a glance that they were the clothes Cecil had been wearing the last time he saw him. For a moment, his grip on the stair railing tightened.