Doctor Resignation

“Huh?”

“Diel, give me the bag I brought from the lab earlier.”

“Okay.”

Diel quickly handed me the bag in the corner of the parlor without any questions. I was busy putting the red reagent in each of the two vials.

Everyone who was waiting for the next test had their attention on me.

“What, what are you doing?”

Diel, who knew the next test procedure, whispered, but I raised my eyes as if to tell him to be quiet. Of course, Diel closed his mouth quickly.

I grabbed Hans’ arm who was panicking when I picked up the syringe.

“Hans, I’ll get some blood.”

“What?”

Hans rolled his eyes, unable to hide his restless expression.

“But the next paternity test…”

“I know. It’s a mana secondary test, but before that, I’m currently working on a way to quickly check it. It’s still an unknown method.”

I tied his arm tightly with a rubber band and slapped it.

“Would you please loosen your arm?”

Before Hans could say anything, I punctured a syringe in his exposed veins. Because the vein was not properly checked, the syringe needle went very deep.

“Ouch!”

In fact, I didn’t look at it carefully on purpose. Whether it hurts or not. I couldn’t care less.

“You’re not going to die.”

After extracting Hans’ blood while he was screaming, I took out another syringe without hesitation and took out my blood in a similar procedure.

I put Hans and my blood in two bottles of pink reagent, respectively.

“Now shall we see?”

Everyone looked at the two reagents with puzzled expressions.

Hans’ eyes trembled nervously. The pink reagent with my blood turned blue, and the pink reagent with Hans’ blood turned yellow.

“As expected.”

In silence, I smiled and shrugged.

“You should take back the letter and the handkerchief. Oh, don’t forget the cherry baskets and walnut pies, too.”

“…What?”

“I’m not Mary Smith.”

Everyone in the drawing room was surprised by my calm words.

The Duchess and Joaquin only blinked at each other, and Esther stood blankly.

“Wha- what’s this…”

Hans was also sitting still as if he couldn’t accept the results, and in the meantime, only Diel seemed to have accepted the situation quickly.

“Lise, you said you were developing a new paternity test these days, is it this one?”

“Yes, I did a great job with the dragon’s claws you got me, thank you. But can you do me one more favor?”

I proudly crossed my arms and continued.

“I think that’s a wig, take off his hair.”

As expected, Diel nodded quickly without asking why. Apparently, he was thrilled to obey in this dramatic situation.

“Yes.”

Hans jumped in surprise.

“Come on, hold on!”

Diel simply overpowered him and pulled his hair mercilessly. With a sound of ripping, brown hair fell down at once. While everyone was dumbfounded by the ridiculous situation, I kept a calm expression and asked for the next favor.

“Search around his chest. If you look well, you’ll find a magic item.”

“Yes.”

Diel’s hand went into his chest without hesitation, and soon, a round-shaped magic item came out of his shirt pocket.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but…”

I jumped up and told Joaquin.

“Would you please hold back that man and Esther?”

The Duchess’ eyes widened in surprise.

“Maybe you wanted me out of this castle. Or you have another purpose.”

“What?”

“And Esther can bite her tongue, so hurry up and gag…”

Blood flowed between Esther’s lips without any second to spare. She bit her tongue or took poison that she always had.

The last maid also did that, and it was clear that only those who were really loyal were put in. As I watched the corpse fall, I touched my forehead.

Hans’ brown hair was a wig, and of course, it was made from my hair. And the magic item he had near his heart had a lot of my nails in it. So, of course, the degree of compatibility was bound to be high.

Somehow, I thought that the hair test had too much of an ideal result. Such a degree of concordance was at the level of being a perfect best practice in the book.

My alertness was blurred by hope, but as soon as I saw the name Aaron Krillso, I was awakened from my daydreaming.

When Baron Ishid seemed to be silently doing nothing, he has been planning this for five years. I’m sure it bothers him that I’m sitting in the position of Viscount Perelman’s ever-changing assistant.

Besides, how annoying would it be that he couldn’t do anything to the Duchess because of me? It was also me who sent Erhan to the far south, out of their reach.

They were in a hurry to reach out to the Duke’s Castle as the time for the uprising approached.

I’m a commoner, and once they got me out of the Duke’s Castle, they didn’t have to worry about me.

‘Probably, if I left the duchy and went to the remote village to follow Hans to see my sick mother in person, the mice and the birds would have died without any sound.’

It would have been difficult to directly touch me, who is favored by the Duchess, since I’ve only spent almost all of my time inside the castle, in my room, or in my lab. And then they would take advantage of the time to plant their own people.

“Let’s try it again.”

Diel forcibly placed Hans’s hand on the magical test stone. Of course, after removing the magic item, it didn’t shine at all when we touched the magical appraisal stone together.

Even though it was expected, my heart hurt.

Maybe all of this is because of my delusion, and that I couldn’t give up the expectation that I really wanted him to be my father. So I didn’t tell anyone until I checked it with my own eyes…

“There is something that people can touch, and there is something you can’t.”

I sighed with my arms crossed. I’ve been on guard for five years, but I didn’t know I’d go over this ridiculous situation.

However, the fact that “they could be my birth parents” stabbed deeply in my heart.

“Are you cheating on a lonely orphan while faking to be a birth parent?”

I thought I had a cool and objective personality, but this was a weakness that I didn’t even know about.

Diel also helped as if it was absurd.

“They’re real human trash. By the way, Lise, why the hell is Esther…”

“Because she was able to remove my hair and nails.”

Nails contain the signature of the magical powers of certain beings. That’s why I bought the dragon’s claw for an expensive price.

Apparently, they made magic items with my nails, completely hiding Hans’ unique magical signature. To erase a person’s unique magic, a lot of nails were needed.

It wasn’t worth picking up one or two. Esther, who was always in charge of my grooming, was the only one who could collect that amount of nails.

‘Not long ago, Esther cut my hair.’

However, if the ends were trimmed a little bit, it would not have been a perfect wig, but only on a level to be attached to the bald head.

“And the food I like and my favorite colors…”

I calmly said, looking at the cherry basket and the yellow handkerchief lying on the chair.

“It’s something that has to be known for a normal maid.”

The Duchess contemplated and instructed Joaquin to arrest Hans for interrogation.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone directly because of the thought of respecting life as a doctor, but when I looked at the Duchess’ expression, I couldn’t predict his end anyway.

“Take him out. Get rid of the body.”

The servants rushed out with Esther’s body. Blood dripped on the rug.

“P-please wait a moment!”

Hans seemed to have no loyalty in him enough to bite his tongue.

In that instance, the expectation that I could learn even more of the background of this disappeared as he said that he did not know anything.

“I was just doing what I’m told. I’m…”

“Yes, wait a minute.”

I calmly packed a medical cotton pad in the box, pressed the remaining injection marks on Hans’ arm, and put tape on it.

“Please stay like this for 5 minutes. It’s better if you press it firmly, but it’s going to be difficult.”

No matter how much he pretended to be my father, I had to do something as a doctor.

“After all, I’m a professional.”

Finally, I felt a little relieved. I did the same thing on my arm and turned away.

Eventually, when Joaquin struggled and took Hans out, shouting that he knew nothing, only me, the Duchess, and Diel were left in the parlor.

“Lise.”

The Duchess looked at me hesitantly.

I smiled and shrugged.

“It’s all right.”

I really thought so, but even I was embarrassed when I felt tears in my eyes for a moment.

“Really… I’m going to be an adult soon. Even if I can’t find my parents, I’ll live well because I’m so popular, you know.”

I looked at the cherry basket for a while and eventually dropped my head. The Duchess hugged me tightly.

“I know, Lise.”

I was stupid.

I knew from a long time ago that they could target me, and kept living on high alert. But I noticed it only after the magic test was done. I should have been suspicious when I first saw a stranger, but I lost my mind for a while starting from the hair test.

The price for indulging in a dream was quite harsh.