Forgotten Juliet

Chapter 201:

* * *

A day before.

On the night when Juliet’s butterflies sent her to the Duke’s castle.

Not far from the castle, on the riverbank, knights from the north were gathered around a large bonfire in front of a tent.

“It would be nice even if a corpse comes out.”

The knights peeked at the tent lit by the fire.

They were searching through the mountains like hunting for a rat.

But although they found a stone chamber built of rock at the bottom of an abandoned mine, Juliet wasn’t there.

Even if she had died in the mine, her body should have come out. Juliet Monad had evaporated without a trace.

It seemed like they were bewitched.

Even magicians were deployed, but for over a month, Juliet’s whereabouts remained a mystery.

When everyone lost words upon seeing the empty underground space, one engineer cautiously offered an opinion.

‘She might have been swept away by the underground water.’

It was a discussion about the possibility of being swept away by a stream running through the mountains. Solely based on this slim chance, Duke Carlyle began scouring the rivers in the North from that day.

Lennox Carlyle desperately investigated the tributaries of the rivers running through the mountains.

Still, almost two months had passed, but not only Juliet but even her body wasn’t found.

All the nobles in the Duchy had the same thought.

They both wished and didn’t wish to find Juliet.

It was painful to see the insane Duke, but they were worried that if a corpse really came out, he would take his life without hesitation.

Young Duke Carlyle was single, with no successor.

All the direct heirs had either run away or were exiled, so if something happened to him, the wealthy North would truly turn into a hellish place.

But nothing reached the ears of a man out of his mind with guilt.

‘I should have never let go of her.’

Inside the lit tent, the man who was glaring at the map placed on the table lifted his head.

He rubbed his tired eyelids for a moment, then Lennox hesitated as he looked back at the table.

-Hello, Lennox?josei

Surely, just a moment ago the seat across the table was empty, but now a woman was sitting there resting her chin in her hands.

With her pale hair tied to one side, wearing a flashy red dress that revealed her shoulders with a black choker necklace, her elegant face, unlike the fidgeting of her blue eyes, she was the woman he had been desperately looking for.

Juliet.

She was Juliet, but she was not Juliet.

Lennox, turning his gaze, momentarily noticed a small incense burner placed sneakily at the entrance of the tent.

Then he spat out harshly without even looking at the woman in front of him.

“Get lost.”

-Oh, I’m hurt.

The woman, gleaming her eyes mischievously, was nothing but a hallucination taking the form of Juliet.

His hallucination symptoms had begun ten days ago.

Lennox hadn’t slept properly and not taken care of himself, so his secretary, unable to bear it, started secretly burning strong sleeping incense near him from that point, which matched the timeline precisely.

From the standpoint of his secretary Elliot, it was a desperate measure to make the Duke rest, even forcibly.

Indeed, the strong sleeping incense was effective. He had been able to catch some sleep for the past few days.

But the problem was the side effects.

He had nightmares even without falling asleep. Lennox easily figured out the cause.

There was white thorn, a hallucinogenic substance mixed in the strong sleeping incense that Elliot brought.

-I’m already dead, it’s futile. You just won’t listen.

The hallucination whispered with a playful smile, Lennox clenched his teeth.

“Quit the nonsense and disappear.”

-Oh? Then why don’t you tell your secretary to stop?

The phantom taking the form of Juliet laughed as she held her chin with both hands.

-Or you could just remove the hallucinogenic substance from the sleeping incense, right?

“…”

-I know. You, you want to see me even if it has to be like this.

He stared at her coldly instead of responding.

He knew in his mind. This was nothing but a shadow of Juliet created by a mix of hallucinogens and his guilt.

-It’s disgusting. Do you now wish that after killing my baby?

The Juliet he created mocked him with her red lips.

-You left me to die twice. Yet, you asked if I loved you?

She poured out cruel words that the real Juliet would never have said.

-It couldn’t be. It was just a lie to survive.

Appearing as vibrant as he remembered, all that the fake Juliet did was pour out harsh words.

In his nightmares, Juliet smiled prettily and whispered harsh criticism, blaming him.

-Is sincerity feasible from a person like you?

Though everything the hallucination said made sense, Lennox couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

Just as she said, he could have gotten rid of the sleeping incense whenever he wanted.

But he did not.

As time went by, what drove him anxious was that his memory of how the living Juliet laughed, talked, and moved, was also fading.

“So just a little more.”

Although it was a mind-consuming act to pretend, reviving memories like this made it a bit more bearable.

What he really couldn’t endure was the fact that even such mockingly laughing fake disappears cleanly when daylight comes.

Not knowing where the real Juliet was, he was left alone.

-If you really like me, prove it with death.

White anemone didn’t have addictiveness but often caused hallucinations. Depending on the person, it could induce suicidal impulses in severe cases.

Perhaps because of that, the illusion of Juliet leaned towards him and whispered in his ear.

-You say you love me? Then die with me.

Lennox smiled faintly.

“I can’t do that, not yet.”

-Aha, look at that. Hypocrite.

Juliet’s illusion burst into laughter.

-You killed me twice. It was all talk, wasn’t it?

“It means I can’t die yet.”

The illusion of Juliet stopped laughing. Her head tilted slightly.

“Wait until I find you.”

Knowing it’s futile, so Lennox became crazily hung up on finding Juliet.

Until he found evidence of her death, he couldn’t do anything.

-Humph. How boring.

Lennox carefully observed Juliet pouting her lips. Seeing this would also be the last time today.

“It won’t take long.”

Lennox extinguished the flame of the incense burner. Then the image of Juliet he remembered disappeared without a trace.

When Lennox stepped out of the tent, it was already dawn.

“Master.”

The knight who found him reported. They had searched every corner of the Alichi river, but to no avail.

“It’s better to return to the castle first. We’re short on supplies.”

At Hadin’s words, Lennox nodded vaguely. As the return to the castle was decided, the knights hurriedly prepared to leave.

Holding the reins, Lennox called his adjutant.

“Elliot.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Stop secretly burning sleep incense.”

“Y-Your Highness…”

Elliot seemed flustered. He thought he wouldn’t get caught.

But Lennox had no intention of reprimanding him, so he just mounted his horse.

So they returned to the Duchy a week later.

As soon as they arrived at the castle, Lennox moved habitually. The place he stopped wasn’t his room but a bedroom on the 2nd floor of the east wing.

Thud.

When the locked door opened, a bedroom with someone’s traces vividly left appeared.

The bedroom, preserved intact without touching anything, was the only space where he could sleep.

Lennox buried himself on the couch and closed his eyes.

Clatter.

After a while, Lennox opened his eyes at the small noise.

Afraid the furniture might get discolored by sunlight, the room was dark with curtains down.

Nonetheless, Lennox instantly found the perpetrator of the disturbing noise.

A human silhouette rummaging around in the dark room.

There wasn’t a sense of reality as if he was still half-asleep, he just stared blankly.

It wasn’t unheard of for uninvited guests to sneak into the duchy.

From the faintly visible silhouette, he just thought it seemed like a woman.

The unidentified woman hesitantly roamed around Juliet’s bedroom, touching the walls. Too amateur for a spy or a burglar, too clumsy for a thief.

With an expressionless gaze, Lennox tracked the silhouette of the woman, not knowing what she was up to.

The woman approached the dresser, rummaging through the drawers, then carefully took out something like a jewelry box.

‘A thief, perhaps.’

The woman muttered something to herself, then familiarly opened the curtain by the bedside.

Swoosh.

At that moment, Lennox was completely awakened from his drowsy sleep, irritation bubbling up.

The uninvited guest who barged into Juliet’s bedroom, recklessly tossing around the items Juliet touched, felt unbearably unpleasant.

Grabbing a knife from the table, Lennox stood up and approached the intruder in a few large strides.

The clumsy thief didn’t even notice his approach.

“You seem to have a death wish.”

He spat out as anger boiled within.

“Ah…”

But the moment the unidentified woman was dragged into the moonlight,

He doubted his eyes.

Wide-open blue eyes in surprise, slightly parted lips.

Round forehead and soft facial lines, flowing dark hair.

“…Juliet?”

For a moment, he was stunned but then regained composure. It couldn’t be the real Juliet, could it?