Shall I Save You, Duke?

Chapter 6

Duke Valige's words seemed to bring Lina to resignation as she closed her eyes.

'Well. Maybe it's for the best. Rather than being tied to that man, leaving the mansion might be better.'

Lina exhaled a soft breath. Looking at it positively, it wasn't such a bad thing.

No, rather, it might be a blessing.

A faint smile formed on her lips as she finished thinking.

'Smiling?'

Valige's eyebrows twitched as he looked indifferently at Lina's face.

The strange look of pleasure on the maid's face irritated Valige's nerves.

"Wait."

And that impulsively uttered word caught Lina's ankle as she was about to leave the room.

"Come to think of it, I may have been too harsh."

Valige leaned back in his chair, glancing at Lina.

"I almost falsely accused you."

"......Yes?"

"You don't have to leave the mansion. You'll work in the annex from now on."

The maid's face dramatically darkened.

"For the time being, without pay."

[This is the time separator]

"Uh, uh- uh."

In the dark room where a chilly aura lingered.

There were sounds of tossing and turning, and repeated painful groans.

The man's hand, clutching the sheet on the bed, was soaked with sweat.

After suffering for a long time, the man sat up as if bouncing from the bed, then drew in a harsh breath like someone who had been unable to breathe for a long time.

"Ha....... Hah."

Beads of sweat like pearls flowed down Valige's neck. His body was wet with cold sweat, like someone who had been caught in the rain.

He wiped his face with his hand, blinking his eyes rapidly as if trying to remember the dream he just had, but no slight memory or common image remained.

"It's starting again......."

Valige, kneeling with his head bowed, let out a low string of curses.

'It didn't end.'

Valige had been plagued by inexplicable nightmares every night since who knows when.

The resulting insomnia was tough, but what made him even more frustrated and tormented was the emptiness he felt after dreaming.

'Why can't I remember anything?'

He didn't even know what he had dreamt.

When he opened his eyes, only piercing pain and a dreadful loneliness, as if drifting alone on an empty sea, remained.

Initially, he thought the nightmares were some kind of trauma from fighting in the war at a young age.

The nightmares began when he participated in the war, and after returning to the empire, he resumed his peaceful sleep as before.

'No, precisely, it was after attending that party.'

He was reluctantly pushed into the party by the crown prince. Valige, who had no intention of enjoying the party in the first place, went outside looking for a quiet place due to the inevitable headache.