Anastasiy could feel his head hurting again. A strong smell of fruit had invaded the room, making him want to vomit as the air was unbreathable. He didn't understand how the other occupants of the room were able to stay focused on that letter with that scent.

"Veronica, could you open the window please."

"Huh? Of course! Are you having hot flashes again, young master?" Asked the valet as he opened the window closest to Anastasiy.

"Am I the only one who smells this odor?"

This question had the effect of drawing everyone's attention to him, looking at him without understanding.

"What are you talking about Stacie?" Ewald questioned, his eyebrows furrowed.

"I don't smell anything in particular, except for the smell of the fire in the kitchen," replied Serafim, who had an excellent sense of smell for heat sources.

"Doesn't anyone smell that fruit scent? It looks like a mixture of strawberries, apples, and kroseil."

"A scent of-! Calogero! Bring me a jar! Something that closes! Hurry!" Ewald ordered. "Veronica, open all the windows! Kasey! Go get Jason and bring back the items from shelf M7!"

Neither one nor two, the valets obeyed, while everyone watched with concern as the young man's gaze became more and more murderous. When Calogero returned with a jar, Ewald violently threw the envelope in, before sealing the container. Jason and Kasey arrived soon after, a tray of cups in the hands of the valet, who distributed them to everyone. Meanwhile, the old doctor walked over to Anastasiy, a suspiciously colored vial in his hands.

"I'm sorry, young master, but I'm going to have to ask you to drink the contents, all of it."

"I prefer the tea."

"No doubt, but for your sake, it will be the vial."

"Perhaps an explanation will make me more inclined to cooperate on that statement."

"Or a pastry?" Veronica offered with a big smile, a plate of sweets in his hands.

Giving his valet an evil look, Anastasiy accepted the potion, before drinking it in one gulp, ignoring the worried look on his family's face as they traveled between him and Ewald. Immediately after, he grabbed the plate, gulping down what was on it to get rid of the foul taste in his mouth.

"So? What was the poison?" He asked, accepting the glass of water Veronica handed him.

"Poison wouldn't have made me react like that, Stacie," Ewald replied, his gaze still on the jar, that same murderous glow present. "However, I'm not entirely sure, and I prefer to conduct some tests before giving a definitive answer. Especially because of the hotheads."

Ignoring Serafim's outraged cries, Anastasiy searched in his memory if anything could match the scent he had smelled. He had spent his entire convalescence reading the books that made up his library, relearning the world around him. Of course, he was far from knowing everything, but as a nobleman, he had to know a certain number of poisons. However, the mixture of scents was unfamiliar to him, despite the presence of kroseil, a strange fruit that grew on apple trees. Without warning, he was seized with a headache, as a paragraph came to mind.

"It is the kroseil. It's because of this fruit that you're not sure."

"... Yes. But... Stacie... from where did you get this information?" Ewald asked.

Information on the use of certain plants was restricted, reserved only for magical circles. The kroseil was one of them, because of its effect on people's will. Numerous researches had been conducted on this fruit. No remedy would completely release the effect of the kroseil, as the poison continued to exist even after death. During his years of training at the Magic Tower in Draehion, Ewald helped treat a group of children who had been rescued from a slave trader who had drugged them with the kroseil.

To this day, the image of those boys with no willpower, blank stares, and obedience to the slightest orders remained etched in his memory. But what continued to haunt him was another child, who had preferred to kill himself rather than live with the fear of obeying another. Jason had shown him the full horror of the kroseil, ordering the shattered body on the ground to stand up. The image of the bloody flesh, pierced by its own bones, moving like a puppet with iron wires kept running through his mind.

In addition, the yrkroseil, the shrub from which this fruit originated, caused numerous poisonings each year. It only parasitized apple trees and then produced fruit identical to its victim. The only way to spot the kroseil was to burn the tree. Under the action of the flames, the branches released an extremely sweet perfume. That's why each apple farm had a magician who had to check for the presence of yrkroseil and eliminate them if they were present. It was also for this reason that the apple trade was extremely controlled, while information about the kroseil was kept as secret as possible. Every person in possession of this knowledge had to be interrogated to prevent the leakage, and while ordinary people were given a rather gentle questioning, slave traders and other miscreants received no mercy from the magicians. After all, to take away the free will or freedom of living beings was one of the greatest sacrileges in the eyes of those who walked the path of Knowledge...