“How did you take them? Raw?”
“At first I drank them as tea. I’d pull them out roots and all and boil them until they became sticky, or soak them in strong liquor.”
He had tried every method to extract the maximum amount of poison. That’s why, no matter how knowledgeable Rou was about plants, he couldn’t kill himself with the poisonous plants in this greenhouse. He needed new knowledge that Rou possessed.
“Then have you tried using two together?”
“What?”
Rou went beyond Brukisel’s expectations as always.
In the early days, wanting to see which poisons worked well, Brukisel had tried various poisons he could obtain within the imperial palace several times. Growing tired of waiting for his body’s reaction each time, Brukisel had consumed multiple poisons at once.
Sometimes it was effective. His heart would thrash, blood would flow backward making his vision turn bright red, and relief would come—but more often than not, it didn’t work that way. Instead, his senses would sharpen and his thoughts would quicken, only making him more on edge.
“Actually, the efficacy decreased.”
“Even when you combined poisonous plants that support each other’s functions?”
“You know about such things?”
“Some poisonous plants prevent blood from being made, while others interfere with blood clotting. If you take both types of poisonous plants at once, the blood dries up, so people die much faster.”
Rou spoke of matters of life and death with his usual clear face. The words were so unsuited to Rou that even Brukisel paused for a moment, but ultimately, it was new knowledge he needed.
“And you know such things.”
“Yes. Of course I know everything.”
Rou looked around. Monkshood that looked as pure as lily of the valley but actually contained deadly poison. Digitalis that could stop a heart in an instant. Belladonna that made the heart race as if running. It was safe to say that all the flowers visible right now contained poison.
Had he been eating this much poison? Rou’s chest felt a bit tingly. His heart area stung as if a thorn had been stuck in it.
‘There wasn’t any fish in the dishes I ate this morning.’
Rou thought it strange, but now wasn’t the time to worry about his own physical condition. He wanted to do anything if it could help Brukisel.
Since Brukisel had been hoping to die for several years now, the poisonous plants he had collected were too numerous to count with the eye. At this point, it was safe to say that all the poisonous plants growing on the continent were living here.
However, there was something else Rou wanted to confirm. Brukisel said he had built up tolerance to poisons. That meant even if Rou knew good combinations, they might be less effective. He needed to know to what extent Brukisel had tolerance, and to which types he had particularly strong resistance, in order to properly combine them.
“Brukisel. Come here first.”
Rou advanced, stepping on the softly spread clover. He plopped down onto the lushly grown grass and pointed at the spot in front of him. It meant for Brukisel to sit down.
It was a bit absurd that Rou was asking the Emperor to sit on bare ground, but even that seemed very like Rou. To act like that with a face that looked like it would only sit down gently if someone laid out a handkerchief. Brukisel briefly thought of the handkerchief in his back pocket, but gave up on it since Rou’s bottom was obviously already stained with grass.
He let out a small laugh as he settled in front of Rou. The pure white ankles sticking out beyond the long tunic kept catching his eye, but thanks to Rou immediately starting to speak, he could easily look away.
“That monkshood over there. When you eat it, does your vision spin around and around, and does it feel like the ground is rising up to your eyes?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then do you feel your heart constricting or difficulty breathing?”
“Ah. When I eat it and pick up my sword, my chest does feel tight.”
It seemed he had tolerance to monkshood. Rou continued asking questions about various flowers visible around them. Brukisel found Rou’s unusually serious face refreshing. It was the first time seeing him without a smile.
“Good. Wait just a moment!”
With that, Rou suddenly stood up and began pushing through between the overgrown grass. Sure enough, on his bottom were faint light green marks along with leaves stuck to him. Brukisel couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the sight.
“Haha!”
To think the one and only High Priest of the great continent looked like that. It was a sight far too distant from dignity or majesty.
Brukisel laughed showing his teeth, then immediately hardened his face after recognizing that he was laughing. Laughing at such a trivial thing. What was so funny about clover stuck to a bottom that he would laugh like this?
He hadn’t even been mockingly sneering that the High Priest’s dignity had fallen to the ground. Just moments ago, he had been genuinely amused. Brukisel touched the corners of his mouth. Just how long had it been since he’d laughed like this?
One thing was certain—since the Shadow’s power had run rampant, occasions for Brukisel to laugh had been extremely rare. Perhaps because he was moving his facial muscles in an unused direction, it felt incredibly awkward.
While Brukisel was touching his chin like that, Rou appeared clutching a handful of fresh grass.
“Here.”
A pure white hand approached Brukisel’s face. Brukisel accepted it since he was offering it.
“Monkshood and digitalis?”
“Yes. Cold steep it at a ratio of about five spoons of digitalis to one teaspoon of monkshood.”
Although he had tolerance to monkshood, among poisons obtainable from nature, few were as strong as monkshood. Rou was curious whether monkshood would produce the desired effect when combined with something else.
Brukisel clutched the flowers and sat dazed for a moment. Was he just told to brew tea? Since ascending to the imperial throne, no one had ordered him to do anything. Menial tasks like brewing tea, even less so. It seemed like it had been a long time since he’d even held a teapot.
“Hurry up!”
“Ah, yes.”
At Rou’s urging, Brukisel found himself standing up and bringing down the teapot that had been placed on the tea table. Brukisel cut the leaves and branches to an appropriate size and peeled the bark off the branches so the poison would seep out better.
“You’re good at this.”
Brukisel, who had been silently concentrating on peeling, was dumbfounded to see Rou’s hands idle. To think there was someone who would order the Emperor to run errands. And rather than looking apologetic about it, his expression was matter-of-fact, as if it were natural for Brukisel to get his hands wet doing work.
‘Why am I obediently doing as told?’
It was absurd, but in the first place, Rou had come all the way into this greenhouse filled with poisonous plants everywhere to help him. Moreover, this tea was for himself, so it actually made sense for him to make it.
Brukisel rationalized it that way—that he wasn’t moving because Rou told him to, but simply for his own convenience.
When suitable leaves and branches emerged, Brukisel carefully placed them into the long teapot. When he filled it with cool water, green-colored water began to slowly spread starting from near the leaves.
“You might need it when steeping poison, so next time prepare some strong liquor. Ah! Oil too. Not fragrant oil, but something with nothing added, please.”
“……I will.”
Cold steeping had the advantage of not destroying the toxins, but the drawback was that it took some time. Rou half-raised his body to check if it had steeped sufficiently, peering into the teapot.
Because he crawled on his knees to open the teapot lid, Rou’s bottom was placed in Brukisel’s field of vision. Brukisel cleared his throat, hoping Rou would realize his embarrassing posture on his own, feel ashamed, and back away. Unfortunately, though he was sensitive for a bumblebee, as a human he didn’t really understand embarrassment or shame.
Each time he lowered his head to peer into the teapot, his bottom moved. The slender emphasized waist, the smooth line leading to his pelvis. And the bottom faintly stained light green was quite eye-burning to look at.
Partly because a single clover was still stuck to his bottom.
He could simply reach out and remove it, but somehow it wasn’t easy to touch his body. It felt like he’d be making advances, deliberately wanting to touch him. He didn’t want to seem like someone desperate to touch.
‘Should I just mention that it’s stuck? Then I wouldn’t have to touch him myself.’
Brukisel was about to tell him, but then closed his mouth thinking that would make him seem like someone who had been observing Rou’s bottom the whole time. Not realizing that having such thoughts itself meant he was thoroughly conscious of it, Brukisel decided to just ignore the scene before his eyes.
But it was difficult to endure not looking at the beautiful human vividly moving before his eyes. Because of that, Brukisel only turned his eyes to glance at whether the clover was still stuck to Rou’s bottom.
“I think it’s ready to drink now.”
So when Rou suddenly turned his head to deliver the good news, Brukisel startled like a child caught doing something wrong. He held out a teacup as if nothing had happened.
Rou tilted his head wondering why Brukisel looked so reluctant, but unable to find the reason, poured the deeply steeped poisonous plant into Brukisel’s cup.
Brukisel didn’t add a single word about how it smelled. How it tasted. He emptied the cup in one gulp.
Rou carefully observed whether Brukisel’s pupils dilated, whether there was any change in his lip color, and such. While observing like that, he leaned his face in close.
“How is it? Does it seem to have some effect?”
When he asked that, Brukisel drew back a little.
“I’m not sure. I can’t really tell……”
His vision turned pitch black. It felt like his consciousness was becoming faintly dim. Brukisel, who had been swaying, collapsed in Rou’s direction just like that.
