Time to Take Your Medicine, Young Master

The scattered fragments of her confession, when pieced together, were enough to reveal a terrifying, monstrous truth. And Anne’s current behavior was a stark, final confirmation that she was far, far from the harmless, devoted maid Ewan had always known.

She was infinitely more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.

“Rest assured, my dear Young Master. I will not harm you for the time being,” Anne said, her voice as gentle as ever. “As long as you stay here, quietly, and be a good boy.”

“Stay here… quietly?”

“That’s right. Stay right here.” A look of profound, ecstatic joy, so intense it was almost painful to look at, bloomed in Anne’s eyes. “And be with me forever.”

“Together forever? How is that even possible?” Ewan understood her words, and it was precisely because he understood that he couldn’t accept them. “Are you planning to imprison me for the rest of my life?!”

“I have no other choice,” Anne said, a look of genuine, theatrical regret on her beautiful face. “If the plan had proceeded smoothly, and your body and soul had become mine as they were meant to, I would not have had to resort to such… extreme measures. But the plan failed, you see.”

“…”

“I truly do not understand why it failed. For ten years, everything was perfect. And then, suddenly, it was as if you had become a completely different person, Young Master.” Anne’s eyes widened, her gaze boring into Ewan, as if trying to peel back his skin to find the truth hidden beneath.

“You became brave, ambitious, humble, and polite. You showed concern for a sick maid, you greeted guests with respect, and you even spent an entire day in the library, a place you had never once glanced at before. Tell me, my dear Young Master, what caused such a drastic, and unwelcome, change in you? Could it be… that you are not my Young Master at all?”

Ewan’s heart hammered against his ribs. His instincts screamed at him that if the truth—that he was not, in fact, the original Ewan Campbell—was revealed, Anne would probably kill him on the spot. He forced his lips into a tight, strained smile. “Perhaps… this is just what it means to grow up. Isn’t that how it is for all men? We just suddenly… grow up overnight.”

“Is that so?” Anne tilted her head, a gesture that should have been cute but was now deeply unsettling. “Well, no matter. You are indeed the true Young Master. That much, I have already… confirmed.” She licked her lips, as if savoring a pleasant memory.

“So,” she continued, her voice dropping to a low, possessive whisper, “since I can no longer have your body and soul completely, I must settle for the next best thing.”

She stared at him, the dark, obsessive desire once again swirling in her eyes, threatening to swallow him whole.

“At the very least, I will have you, Young Master, by my side. Forever.”

…

“Let me go!”

“You can’t do this! This is kidnapping! It’s a crime!”

“I am the son of a duke! Anne, you had better understand the consequences of your actions!”

“Even if you have my body, you will never have my heart!”

Realizing that she was completely, terrifyingly serious about imprisoning him for life, Ewan began to struggle in a raw, primal panic. He roared at her, threatened her, tried to bribe her, and even begged her, but she remained completely, serenely unmoved.

“Give it up, Young Master. Your heart… from the moment you spoke those foolish words about letting me go, I have long since stopped hoping for it. Everything I am doing now is simply to possess your body, completely and forever,” Anne said with a placid, beatific smile.

“You think you can have my body?” Having exhausted all other options, Ewan decided to go for broke, his voice a cold sneer. “Let me tell you something. I will never, ever feel a single ounce of desire for a wicked, evil, twisted woman like you!”

“Is that so?” Anne smiled faintly.

Then she stood up, her smile vanishing, her expression once again becoming prim, proper, and coldy detached. But her hands… her hands were slowly, deliberately, unbuttoning the front of her dress.

As the buttons came undone, the magnificent, pale, and rounded treasures of her chest, which were in no way inferior to Celicia’s, burst forth like caged beasts finally freed, storming into Ewan’s field of vision.

“Hiss—”

Ewan sucked in a sharp, ragged breath.

A maid.

Expressionlessly undressing.

An imprisonment scenario.

No, this was too much. Too many powerful, forbidden elements. It was too stimulating… no, too infuriating! Was this something a prim and proper maid was supposed to be doing?!

“Oh, my. Young Master, it seems you are not being entirely truthful with me.”

Anne looked down, her gaze fixed on a certain, very traitorous part of Ewan’s anatomy, and suddenly let out a soft, musical giggle. She leaned forward, slipped one of her feet out of its polished leather shoe, and then, lifting the hem of her skirt with both hands, slowly, deliberately, pressed her black-stockinged foot against a certain part of him.

“Ngh…”

“Well?” she whispered, her voice a silken caress. “Does it feel good?”

“It feels… no… damn it… I will not submit!”

Although the scene was indeed making his blood boil—especially the black stockings, he never would have guessed she was hiding such a powerful, ultimate weapon under her long maid’s dress! A maid in black stockings! What mortal man could possibly resist that?!—Ewan was determined not to yield! He had already been forcibly pinned down and conquered by Celicia; he would not allow his dignity as a man to be trampled upon like this again!

“Say whatever you want! I won’t give in so easily this time!”

“By the power of the Jade Emperor, Gaia, the Buddha, and Jesus Christ, I command you: shrink! Shrink! SHRINK!”

Ewan squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to look at the sinfully stimulating scene before him, and began to chant a series of bizarre, nonsensical mantras to drown out Anne’s seductive voice. At the same time, he tried to imagine the sensation of that part as the painful, agonizing chafing of too-tight underwear during a thousand-meter run in gym class.

Under this multi-layered assault of self-hypnosis—visual, auditory, and sensory—it seemed to actually be working, a little?

“I have underestimated your willpower, my dear Young Master.”

Feeling the distinct change in the sensation beneath her foot, Anne’s eyes narrowed in displeasure.

“It seems I will have to resort to a more… special method.”

Hm? A special method?

Ewan curiously cracked one eye open and saw Anne pull two small, crystal vials from the deep, shadowy valley of her cleavage. How she had managed to store fragile glass vials in a place like that, he had no idea. That elasticity… no, now was not the time to be thinking about that.

He looked at one of the vials, which was filled with a familiar, ominous red liquid, and a terrible, sinking feeling of pure dread came over him.

That thing… looked awfully familiar.

“Thankfully, I did not use all of it before.”

Anne swirled the vial, watching the blood-red liquid slosh around, a smile of absolute, terrifying confidence on her face.

“That… that doesn’t have Evil Dragon’s Blood in it, does it?” Ewan asked, his teeth beginning to chatter.

“My, my. I didn’t know the Young Master was so knowledgeable about such things,” Anne replied, her voice dangerously sweet. “That’s right. This is a sleeping potion mixed with it. It’s the same one that was in your black tea.”

“Then… that other one… that’s not powdered Dragon’s Tongue Herb, is it?” Ewan looked at the white powder in the other vial, his voice trembling so hard he could barely speak.

“The Young Master knows about that as well?” Anne licked her lips, her eyes glinting with a playful, predatory light. “In that case, you should know exactly what I am about to do, shouldn’t you?”

With deft, practiced movements, she mixed the two substances together, creating a pink, and very, very ominous-looking, potion.

She brought the potion to Ewan’s lips and whispered, her voice a sweet, silken, and utterly inescapable caress.

“Come now. It’s time to take your medicine, my dear Young Master—”