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Lunaria: Reborn Of The Bloody Empress - Chapter 19
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After we had done the shopping, I happily grabbed Yunifer’s left hand and said, “Come on, Yuni, dear. Don’t waste our time in this shop anymore. Let’s check on the other stores!”
From far away, a powerful and delicious smell of cooking quickly filled my nose. It pervaded the road and had grown so strong that Yunifer tiptoed her feet, closing her eyes to sniff in the air.
“Luna, come here!” Yunifer suddenly pulled my hands and guided me to a shop. A sign hung on the top of the bakery and it spelled “Tartaria”.
“I’ve been waiting to take you here!” She said excitedly, pushing the door entrance and began to introduce it. ”This is Tartaria, one of the stores that are blooming recently! It’s quite famous for its taste! Many nobles love the cakes and you won’t believe it that they are so tasty like they are being sent from heaven !”
The corners of my lips tugged upwards. Yunifer loves sweets, especially chocolates and cakes. In the party, you could see her eat up all the cakes and sneakily bring them home. It was hilarious and I enjoyed teasing her a lot about it.
The store was not a wonder to me. Rather, I had become familiar with it due to my experience. In fact, in the past, I still remembered that Yunifer would take me here to eat sweets. I am not a sweet tongue person, so I rarely went there.
Maybe after I had always been dragged by her in the previous life, I had gradually become familiar with the shop so I knew the routes and the best-selling cakes. It was good too since I don’t need to confuse myself to choose among the desserts and just order right away.
Tartaria was so crowded with the nobles, especially noble ladies that we had to squeeze among the ocean of people. I edged amongst them, looking around and trying to suppress a laugh as I looked at Yunifer’s face.
She was grumpy and furious when someone took an order but her eyes sparkled and glittered like gold whenever she looked around the stores. It was filled with plenty of cakes and pastries.
There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of flavour beans and another vanilla cupcakes, the levitating sherbet balls that would seeped into your tongue the moment you eat it and along yet another wall were rainbow sweets.
I snorted. I had so much experience with these that I shook my head everytime Yunifer tried to make me eat them. They were indeed mouth-watering, but they contained too much sugar and were too sweet at the same time that I felt like I wanted to puke the next moment I tried another.
We soon made our way to the back of the room, where there was a large, vacant table between the windows. As soon as we sat on the chairs, a guy who was in his middle age, about 30 years old, came towards us, holding two menus. He placed them on the table and flashed a friendly smile to us.
“Welcome to Tartaria, ladies.” He bowed. ”Ah, and I see you are here, Lady Yunifer … and …?”
“Lady Lunaria is the name,” I answered when I saw his confused look. He must probably have seen my face for the first time.
“Oh! I see, t-that … Lady Lunaria? Lady Yunifer had always talked about you!” he said, looking impressed and admirable.
I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Yunifer. “Really? … Good stuff ?”
“Certainly. Good stuff. She always tells me about you, lady. She said you are her best friend and how dearest you are to her.”
Yunifer going brick red. “That’s … enough, Richie. We want to order our food. ”
The man called Richie suddenly realised that he was supposed to do his job. Realizing his mistake, he cleared his throat before speaking, “… Sorry. What would you like to eat, ladies?”
“I would love to order this raspberry cake and … these fruities cupcakes … also cheese muffins … and don’t forget the sundaes!” said Yunifer brightly, smacking her lips. “I will be taking all these, please!”
Richie nodded in response, then he turned to look at me, “What about you, lady?”
“I would love to try the mango jellies, apple juice, as well as the chocolate croissants.”
“Right away, ladies.”
After Richie made his way back to another table, Yunifer asked me, “So, what’s your opinion?”
“Great! So far I love the servings and the decorations. Right now, I’ve been itching to try the food!” I replied earnestly.
Yunifer giggled. “Anyway, have you heard of this new story that happened recently?”
“…What? There are too many.”
“The one about Viscount Dufour. ” The excitement rose and Yunifer jumped ecstatically.
“Oh … that …” I began to ponder.
“Don’t you think it was funny? From what I heard, he married a man ! I repeat , a man !” Yunifer cried, grabbing her hair and looked in disbelief. “He only realised his bride’s gender after they spent their first night together and what’s the most funny was when he divorced him immediately on the same night!”
“That’s karma for him.” I said indifferently and shrugged. “Who told him to have fun in the brothel and forget his wife at home? He should have done an investigation on his newly bride before he married her, I mean him.”
“That’s right, that’s right.” Yunifer nodded vigorously. “Anyway, aside from that, last month, his sister, Countess Olive Balmonte had cheated on her husband and had an affair with the newly appointed Baron Jaunarius! Can you believe that? They were caught making love in the garden during a party at the Balmonte countdom!”
“It was such a slap to the count, I must say. He looked so furious that he wanted to kill them when he found out,” Yunifer added.
“Don’t forget that they were being caught running away from the beehives, completely *****, ” I reminded and smirked.
Yunifer roared in laughter and almost wanted to cry. “Oh yes, that was the hilarious part! I will never forget their faces, though!”
My nose crinkled and I took a deep, steadying breath. “The lesson from the stories we could learn is that we should not cheat on our partners.”
“Precisely, I agree!” Yunifer pumped her fists in the air. “Anyway, move aside those things, now I want to talk about you.”
I lifted my gaze and raised my eyebrows. Yunifer’s face was serious. “I want to talk about your poisoning case.”
“Oh …”
“I haven’t heard the news that the perpetrator has been caught,” she confessed seriously.
“The duchy has worked hard to catch him,” I replied.
“Well, so what? It’s been two years for God’s sake, and there’s still no news?” At this point, Yunifer raised her voice and screamed hysterically, slamming the table with her fists.
Glancing around, the people around us stared at us uneasily and uncomfortably. They threw us a nasty look and glared. I hurriedly asked Yunifer to calm down, preventing her from creating a commotion.
“Er – sorry about that … Just … a bit emotional,” Yunifer apologized awkwardly.
I unconsciously let out a sigh. She must have thought the Lisianthus is incompetent. But the truth is we had been trying harder for the past few years to catch the culprit, even after my awakening, the efforts seem to increase.
“It’s rather difficult. Cervantes told me there were no hints and traces from the case in case the culprit accidentally left marks behind. They were confused,” I said.
“How could that be?”
“It’s not your normal and usual poisoning case, Yuni. It was being planned carefully, waiting for the right time to poison me.”
“…What?” Yunifer’s eyes widened and her pupils shook wildly.
I gulped, leaning forwards and lowered my voice, eyes darting from Yunifer to the other customers, afraid they might be eavesdropping. “Cervantes informed me they couldn’t detect any poison from my drinks or food. They also had investigated all the servants and nobles at the banquet but so far none of them seem to have the motives to poison me. Cervantes had suspicion of the nobles who had gone against me in the past or showed ulterior motives. But … until now, they still couldn’t get a hold on the culprit.”
I took a glance at Yunifer, her jaw dropped and she was looking horror-struck, pale white like paper.
“That was … scary … “ Her voice trembled.
My face hardened.
Just this news was enough to make her frightened, furious and cared about me at the same time. So what would she react if I told her I knew the culprit? Or if she knew the culprit?
I gritted my lips. No one else had thought of doing this kind of bold action to me, and it was none other than her – Karina Lagrange.
She was indeed cunning and sly as a fox, poisoning me without getting caught. Now, I had seen her terrifying abilities behind those pure, innocent smiles that fooled everyone.
Who would have thought she would apply the poison on the spoon and fork instead of in my drinks or food?
Karina had been stayed by my side before and after the effects. She also called the physicians immediately. By doing so, it would erase the people’s suspicions towards her and even increase their favorability concerning her friend.
Besides, it was quite hard to expose her crime since no one had seen her poison me. It was crowded with nobles since it occured in a banquet. Even the emperor and imperial family were there. Cervantes told me the banquet was such a fuss though. The people were confused.
Blaire told me some of them were cooperative enough but the rest of them found it was annoying and pissed them off since the investigation was troublesome. But they dared not to speak their voices as the emperor even ordered an investigation into my case immediately and asked everyone to be cooperative.
Yunifer watched me closely and asked timidly, “The person who did it must probably be close to you. Who do you think it was?”
“There were too many nobles at the crime scene at the same time, so it was hard to guess. But don’t worry, I won’t suspect you since you were away, traveling to another country.”
“I can’t help but worry … but there was something that I was so curious about …” Yunifer spoke timidly like a scaredy cat and hesitated.
I tilted my head side to side and questioned her.
“Er – that – was … what do you feel when you taste the poison?” She asked nervously.
A strange smile touched my lips. “Are you curious?”
She nodded in response with a determined look on her face.
“It was tasteless. I don’t remember what it was like but it bubbled in my mouth in a strange way and I felt my tongue was burning. I struggled really hard to scratch my neck like I was being strangled behind the back by someone.”
Up until now, I still could not figure out where Karina had bought the poison. It was not only tasteless, but odorless and colorless. The effects started to act immediately. That scared me because for a moment I felt I was barely alive and would die at any moment.
“Oops!” Yunifer choked. She was shaking all over.
“I remember that my sight was blurry and pitch black. And then I heard noisy voices erupted from the banquet and people screaming as I fell onto the ground, fainted.”
There was a brief silence.
“…”
“…”
Yunifer bit her lip, looking extremely worried. “… So … are you … definitely alright … now?”
“The physicians would regularly attend to check up on my health, so rest assured. So far … the poison has subsided and almost distinguished itself.”
“Luna dear,” Yunifer placed her hands on top of mine and squeezed them tightly. She was on the verge of crying. “Do you know how worried I was when I heard you were being poisoned? I was scared … I was scared to lose you …”
“…”
I said nothing.
“And …when I heard about your condition, I was horrified if the poison would spread out in your body … and you will … “
Even though Yunifer stopped in the middle of the sentence, I could guess the next word she might say. She looked like she was on the verge of tears and kept on fidgeting on her chair.
“It’s definitely alright, Yuni. Look here … I’m alive!” I calmed her down.
She chuckled. A look of enormous relief spread over her face.
“Next time, Luna, you should be careful around your surroundings and take a closer look at the people around you … I don’t want the same horrible thing to happen to you …”
“I know …”
“Promise me, Luna, that you will never ever involve yourself into something that brings harm to you.”
My heart sank. How could I promise to do that? If I do so, then what would happen to my revenge? Honestly, I did not care the slightest bit if I were injured on my journey to pay back those people, but I would be exceptionally glad as long as my people did not suffer any injuries.
“Luna!”
“…Yes?”
“Answer me!”
Do I have to? I groaned. But I did not have a chance so I half-heartedly responded, “… I … I promise.”
Hidden under Yunifer’s sight, I crossed my fingers under the table. Though I could not guarantee that I will be well, I’m sufficiently enough to ruin Karina and Rexiald. So do not worry, when they are unhappy, I can be happy, relatively.
I tried my best to hide the smile that almost formed on my lips.
Yunifer’s face twisted into a satisfying smile. She sighed in relief and whispered softly that I was the only one who could hear it. “…Thank you for fighting to live.”