#8. Clyne Liden

Hughgray couldn’t get proper sleep all night.

His head was throbbing as if Clyne Liden’s body scent that rose from his nose had penetrated his brain.

Finally, in the early dawn, giving up on sleep, he headed to the Second Archive to see if there might be any unknown facts about side effects in the records about imprinting.

The Second Archive was a secret archive within the First Archive, where records about the Wulfaz Duchy of wolf beast-people were kept.

The beast-people, who were few in number to begin with, had continuously mixed blood with humans over the long years, and now most were extinct except for the apex predator species.

Humans believed that beast-clan emperors and kings only existed in history or legends.

Not knowing that the bloodlines of the imperial family, royal family, and highest nobility were still maintained purely by beast-people.

It was all too clear that if humans found out their rulers were the few remaining beast-people, they would rebel.

That’s why the remaining beast-clan members agreed to leave humans’ misunderstanding about their extinction alone and even went further to promote and strengthen such beliefs.

Even though they never agreed on anything else in any other area.

Therefore, in the Wulfaz family as well, records about beast-people were treated as secrets, and entry to the Second Archive where the records were kept was strictly prohibited without the head of household’s permission.

However, even after thoroughly examining the documents in the Second Archive, there was nothing new that he didn’t know.

More precisely, there was nothing to be found about side effects causing confusion about body scents with non-imprinted people, especially men, after imprinting.

Reading the records only increased his self-loathing.

In that state, on his way back to his room, he saw the protagonist of his troubles.

The new source of problems who was adding fuel to the fire when he was already troubled enough about the imprinting, Clyne Liden.

He had been watching from the end of the corridor.

And more carefully, because his actions were strange.

It was quite peculiar how he took out two large bags and then spent several seconds closing his room door, so focused on whatever he was doing.

He was so concentrated on closing the door, it looked like he was praying while holding the doorknob.

So much so that he didn’t even notice when he stood right behind him.

And then what?

Leaving this early in the morning?

It was laughable how he was spouting such nonsense, but he no longer needed an attendant who could speak Tigrium, and keeping him around for his lack of body scent had become meaningless.

Since this guy was now emitting the strongest body scent of all.

He had kept him as an attendant because he had no scent, but now he was emitting the most powerful scent.

It wouldn’t be enough to just chase him out right now.

So it didn’t matter whether he left in the morning or evening.

He should tell him to go. Rightfully so.

The problem was…

Why had his previously non-existent body scent become so intensely strong?

And why, of all things, was that scent not unpleasant?

That was it.

Far from disliking it, he wanted to drink in that scent…!

Was he crazy? Drink?

In fact, he was overwhelmed with the desire to bite Clyne Liden’s neck right away due to his burning thirst, making it difficult to take his eyes off the man’s neck.

Enough to make him step back in fear of himself.

He must be crazy.

The side effects of imprinting had to be extremely serious. To show such deranged physical responses to a man.

He needed to find a woman, and that male should be sent away from the house quickly.

So he told him to go.

And that guy finally left.

Without looking back even once until the end.

He really left.

Well, that’s… whatever.

One strange side effect was physically resolved.

Since the abnormal reaction only came from that guy.

Now he just needed to find a woman to resolve this severe thirst that made his throat feel like it was cracking painfully.

The problem had become very simple.

That’s fortunate. Yes, fortunate.

Hughgray stared blankly at the stairs where Clyne had disappeared, nodded slowly like someone who had accepted his situation, and finally turned toward his own room.

He paused.

However, his feet returned to that spot, and his eyes turned to the doorknob that Clyne had been holding.

Why had he closed that door so carefully, as if he was handling a glass artwork?

With that thought suddenly occurring to him, he grabbed and turned the doorknob that Clyne Liden had been holding so preciously just moments ago.

“Hah!”

The moment he opened the door, a strong scent that filled the room hit him enough to make him dizzy.

It was a powerful fragrance that made his consciousness blur.

But strangely, far from feeling repulsion at the overwhelming scent, his body was being drawn into Clyne’s room as if pulled by a strong magnet.

It was an empty room.

No belongings remained, only a bed, bedside table, and small wardrobe.

Other than that…

His eyes scanning the room settled on the bedding on the bed.

He approached the bed before he knew it, and picked up the pillow as if entranced.

The pillow had an even stronger scent.

What is this? This strange feeling?

He couldn’t tell if it was thirst, longing, or heat.

“I’ve completely lost it.”

Muttering as if grinding the words, he unconsciously gripped the pillow tighter.

To fall into such an incomprehensible state in the room used by a male servant who had worked beside him for months…

There was no other way to explain it except as a side effect of imprinting.

Clearly, these symptoms had appeared the day after imprinting.

So once he found his imprinting partner, this deranged state should improve.

It had to be so.

The damned heat that comes after imprinting not only occurs monthly, but its intensity is much stronger than before imprinting.

If he couldn’t find his imprinting partner before the next heat came, he could fall into quite a dangerous state.

Yet to react this strongly to a man’s scent in this situation…

The pillow in his hands was completely crushed by now.

The pillow’s state looked exactly like his current physical and mental state.

“Damn it!”

He threw the pillow onto the bed.

“……!”

But his fierce glare suddenly widened the moment the pillow hit the bed.

“What… is this.”

Words unconsciously escaped his mouth as he discovered something on the bed.

He picked up the pillow again.

He hadn’t seen wrong.

It was really there.

Several strands of golden, shining threads.

No, he had only thought they might be threads.

He carefully picked it up and held it before his eyes.

As expected, it wasn’t thread.

“Golden hair.”

It was long golden hair.

Hair that could never have come from Clyne Liden with his short brown hair.

Clyne Liden had stayed in this small room for three months.

There were no other servants who cleaned the servants’ rooms.

So how did this appear in this room?

He brought the golden hair in his hand up to his nose and smelled it.

As expected, that scent came from the hair.

So identical that he couldn’t tell if it belonged to Chloe, the woman he had imprinted on, or to Clyne Liden.

Powerful enough to penetrate from his nose straight to his brain in an instant.

Gripping the golden hair tightly, he headed straight for the mansion steward Wilson’s room.

* * *

Chloe went straight to the Information Guild after leaving the Duke’s mansion.

“Chloe, long blonde hair, blue eyes, height 168, Arne, The Night of the Dog and Cat.”

The guild member recited back the information she had provided.

“Yes!”

“And the client is Duke Wulfaz.”

“Yes!”

“Why is the Duke looking for this woman?”

“Pardon?”

Chloe was at a loss for words.

“Shouldn’t you tell us exactly what happened there? Did she sleep with Duke Wulfaz?”

“P-pardon?”

Chloe’s voice cracked at the guild member’s accurate guess.

“Why are you surprised? When a man looks for a woman, what other reason could there be? Either she’s a woman he slept with or a woman he wants to sleep with, one of the two.”

“That’s not it!”

Chloe raised her voice in protest.

The mindset that assumed those were the only two reasons a man would look for a woman was absurd.

But her raised voice cracked because the Duke’s reason for looking for her was indeed one of the two reasons the guild member had suggested. Frustratingly so.

“Hmph! What do you mean it’s not? Anyway, I understand. We’ll visit the Duke’s mansion when we have results.”

The guild member said with a sneer at Chloe’s reddened face.

She felt sick as the guild member seemed to see right through her, as if saying ‘You slept with the Duke, didn’t you.’

She hurriedly left the Information Guild building.

She would finally be able to return home now, escaping this emergency situation caused by one night’s mistake.

“……!”

If only Duke Hughgray Wulfaz hadn’t been standing outside the guild building, watching her.

The moment she turned around after leaving the building, Chloe’s legs became stiff as poles at the sight of the Duke.

No wonder it seemed too easy to leave.

The Duke was standing still at the entrance of the Information Guild alley.

Like a guard.

As if he’s saying ‘Try to pass if you dare.’

To leave the Information Guild alley, one had to pass through that entrance.

So as long as the Duke was standing firmly in the middle of the alley entrance like that, Chloe could never escape this alley.

So the Duke’s intention was clear.

He had been waiting for her.

More precisely, it seemed he had come to catch her.

But why?

Anxiety swept through her entire body.

Why was he standing there so menacingly, like someone who had come to catch a fugitive?

“Your Grace…”

A sound like that of a starved mosquito escaped her throat.

“Clyne Liden.”

The Duke only called her name.

Though it felt like the words ‘Come to me right now’ would follow.

Is this how a cow feels being led to slaughter?

Chloe approached the Duke, taking reluctant steps one at a time.

“Your Grace, what brings you to the Information Guild alley…?”

“Well, since it’s the Information Guild alley, I must have come with a request, right? As for what that request is, why don’t you tell me?”

The Duke’s voice that cut off Chloe’s words was piercingly cold.

As if her upper and lower lips had frozen and stuck together from that cold energy, Chloe found it difficult to part her lips.

“If it’s about the woman you’re looking for, I just…”

“Woman? No, no. That’s not it.”

“……”

To Chloe’s answer that she barely managed to say, the Duke said ‘no’ three times.

Chloe gulped.

“This time I came to inquire about a man, not a woman.”

“A man…?”

Her head was spinning.

Had she been found out?

She thought everything would be fine if she just made it home, but was it already too late?

Should she have run away immediately that day, several days ago, when the Duke said ‘I need to find a woman’?

The Duke was staring at Chloe, glaring at her.

Chloe found it difficult to meet the Duke’s eyes and slightly averted her gaze.

Though she had to look at him again when the Duke called her name, Clyne Liden.

“I think I need to make an inquiry about a man named Clyne Liden.”

“……!”

Indeed, the man the Duke spoke of was her.

The woman the Duke had been looking for was her, and now the man the Duke wanted to inquire about was also her.

“Didn’t you say you had no sister? But you do have a sister. Why did you hide that fact? Will you tell me yourself, or should I request the Information Guild?”

“……!”

Ah! A sister. So that’s what he had discovered?

At least it meant he hadn’t discovered she was a woman. Though he had discovered she was lying about her family.

“For now, we’re returning to the ducal mansion.”

Leaving Chloe with a storm in her head standing in the alley, the Duke turned sharply, mounted his horse, and rode away.

Should she just run away now?

The impulse surged through her.

Though it was truly an absurd and reckless impulse, Chloe’s body was already turning toward the opposite direction from where the Duke had disappeared.