Chapter 34

Chapter 34

“Ugh…”

Adrein let out a pained groan. At the same time, the drawing-room door creaked open.

“Aaah—!”

A servant who had been about to enter the room spotted Adrein collapsed on the floor and let out a sharp scream.

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She shouted something more, and her voice drew others running to crowd the drawing-room.

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They saw their master covered in blood and burst into pandemonium. Some screamed wildly, others broke into sobs. A few shouted at me in accusatory voices. Everyone was in chaos.

Too loud…

There was nothing I could do in that situation. I just stood there blankly as the manor’s knights, fully armed, strode into the drawing-room. They radiated a fierce atmosphere, drew their swords, and aimed them at my throat.

Huh? Why me?

It suddenly hit me—I had been left alone in this room with Adrein. And now Adrein lay bleeding beside me, collapsed.

Ah… So this is what being suspected feels like…

“It… wasn’t me.”

I mumbled the words. But no one was listening to me. The sharp edge of the blade only pressed closer.

“What is the meaning of this!”

At that moment, the Duke barked out in an urgent voice. I turned my eyes and saw him striding swiftly into the drawing-room. He must have been passing by and gotten caught up in the commotion.

He reached me in a flash, grabbed one knight’s sword arm, and pushed it downward.

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Then, still holding that position, he turned and placed himself in front of me. His back blocked my view. It was only when the knights vanished from sight that my heart finally began to pound wildly.

{─── ───

The Duke spoke. The knights hesitated, then stepped back a pace. But they didn’t sheathe their swords.

“Your Grace…”

“It’s fine. Stay still.”

At my call, he didn’t turn to look at me, only whispered in a low voice. All I could do was clutch tightly at the hem of his coat.

{─── ─── ────

{─── ────

The people were still clamoring like a swarm of crickets.

{─── ──────

But at some point, Sir Dylan’s voice began cutting through the noise. I peeked around the Duke’s arm. Sir Dylan was right there in front of me, pressing his own knights.

Clang—

The knights dropped their swords in unison and bowed their heads to us. It seemed to be the result of Sir Dylan’s influence.

“I apologize. My knights were out of line.”

Sir Dylan spoke to us with as much courtesy as he could muster.

“……First, tend to the young marquis.”

The Duke replied. Only then did Sir Dylan turn his steps toward the fallen Adrein.

Sir Dylan soon lifted Adrein and moved him onto the sofa, propping a low cushion beneath his head. Then he looked down at him, struggling for breath, with a face full of utter misery. It was a visage that betrayed an indefensible sorrow. But moments ago, he had clearly prioritized apologizing to the Duke over his own father’s well-being. I found that deeply disconcerting.

After a while, people who seemed to be Adrein’s personal physicians hurried into the room. They immediately began examining the condition of Adrein, who lay on the sofa.

{─── ───

“He says he’ll be fine.”

When the doctor said something, the Duke relayed his words to me. I gave a small nod.

“What in the world is going on?”

The Duke turned back to Sir Dylan and spoke.

“It seems to be… poison.”

He answered in a voice that had sunk low.

“Poison?”

I flinched, my body trembling. Poison. Come to think of it, the cause of the maid ghost’s death had also been poison. In her memory, she had collapsed after drinking tea given by the Emperor. And it had contained poison so potent it burned the tongue….

Could she be trying to kill Adrein? In the same way she had died?

No. That can’t be… Could she really harm a person so directly…? That would mean she’d already become an evil spirit….

I turned my gaze blankly toward the maid ghost. She stood there expressionless, merely still. Then, at some point, she vanished without a sound.

“Laura. Is this your cup?”

The Duke passed by me and approached the table, then asked. I turned my head to see my teacup dangling from his fingertips.

“Yes.”

I nodded, alternating my gaze between him and the teacup. The Duke then lifted the cup and poured the remaining tea entirely into his mouth. He frowned briefly, as if lost in thought. He turned around and began examining the cup Adrein had drunk from. Soon, he spoke again.

“The poison is on the rim where the lips touched. Start by finding whoever prepared that cup.”

It wasn’t long before the maid who’d brought the tea on Sir Dylan’s orders was dragged before them. She dropped to her knees the moment she saw him, folding at the waist. She started to speak—but Sir Dylan didn’t let her get a word out, for or against. He just signaled a knight, who cut her down. Thud. She crumpled to the floor. Blood pooled beneath her, spreading into a blackish stain.

A soul, round and dense, slipped from the maid’s lips—she hadn’t even managed a death-cry. One stroke, and she was gone. The Duke’s brow furrowed hard at a situation he couldn’t easily understand.

The servants, for their part, moved in silence. They carried her body out right away. I watched the maid’s corpse being dragged through the door and clutched the Duke’s sleeve tight.

“I’m scared…”

“Laura. You should go back. Get some rest.”

The Duke carefully pried my hand away. Unlike me, he wasn’t afraid of the death in front of him. The ghost was terrified of so many things—but apparently, this situation was the exception.

I excused myself to the people in the room and slipped out of the drawing room. Then I went back to the room I’d been shown to earlier that day and sat on the edge of the bed.

Poison on the teacup, they’d said?

If it was real poison, the maid ghost couldn’t have done it. So she probably hadn’t become an evil spirit either. A small mercy, at least.

But still—poison on the cup meant for the head of this house? And one of their own maids had done it? How dare she? What could she possibly have stood to gain?

I flopped back onto the bed and squeezed my eyes shut.

What the hell is going on?

That night, I couldn’t sleep properly. I just lay there with my eyes half-lidded, practically staying up all night. Then I noticed the maid ghost sitting by my bedside, gazing out the window. She’d reappeared without my noticing, just sitting there, letting the moonlight streaming in through the glass fall fully over her.

Red hair, a small and slender frame, pale skin. Without realizing it, I found myself studying her back intently.

Yes. It was my mistake. I couldn’t know what kind of life she’d lived from just a stolen glimpse of her memories. I’d thought she and Adrein had fallen in love. And that was completely wrong. She’d just been unhappy. An unhappy woman.

Blink. I closed my sleep-heavy eyes, then opened them again. This time, the maid ghost was right in front of me, looking down. But I couldn’t offer her the spot beside me like I usually did. I just looked back at her in silence.

Then, suddenly, she gave me a bright, clear smile. It was a strange smile, tinged with something almost like sadness.

‘Huh?’

The maid ghost’s form began to blur. She condensed, shrinking inward, until she folded into a small sphere.

What the—she’s ascending now?

I shot upright in bed. My eyes chased the fading trail of her soul, but she was already gone.

She’d ascended.

Why?

A cold thought jolted through me—I had to check if Adrein was all right. Still in my nightclothes, I bolted out of the room. I didn’t know which direction to find him, so I just ran down the corridor, pumping my legs. I’d been sprinting for a while, about to turn at a corner, when a ghost passed through the wall beside me.

Faded blond hair, blue eyes, a tall, sturdy old man. The chill in his features was familiar.

……He…… was Adrein.

In an instant, all noise around me sank away, like I’d plunged into deep water. His movements in my vision slowed, stretched like a tape reeled too slow. Crimson blood poured from his eyes and mouth. Drops of it fell to the floor in his wake, each one vanishing as it soaked in, over and over.

Ah…… So that’s it. He was dead. The poison he’d drunk with his tea had led him to death. And every hole in his face had bled—clearly, it had been a painful death. It was a wretched end for a hero.

From the wall he’d emerged, I saw five or six ghosts poke their faces out in succession. The very same ones that had clung to Adrein during the day. But they no longer clung to him. Instead, their pupils fixed on the spot where Adrein had passed.

What are those things doing?

{─── ────

{──────

Then, in a single instant, a clamor of voices and footsteps echoed loudly down the corridor. I snapped to attention. Soon, people poured around the corner in a rush. Their faces were full of confusion, their voices choked with shouts. A few of them had blood wetting the hems of their clothes.

I moved my steps in the opposite direction from where they’d come. Among the many brushing past, I spotted a room with its door cracked open. Walking slowly closer, I saw through the gap Adrein’s body lying on the bed. His face was a mask of blood.

Beside him, Sir Dylan clutched the edge of the blanket.

“Uhnn……”

He was crying like an animal growling in pain.