Chapter 80

Chapter 80

“Haha, listen to me ramble. Must be the fatigue. Talking in my sleep, I suppose.”

As I hesitated, biting my lip, he looked up at me and spoke. I quickly shook my head. After all, hadn’t I also shared personal things with him during the hunting festival? So I understood. He too needed someone to confide in.

“No, young marquis. I also… told you a bit about myself during the hunting festival, didn’t I? That… personal lament. And I think there’s comfort in speaking to others. If you feel the same way, you can always unburden yourself to me. I’m not good at offering comfort, but I am good at listening.”

“Is that so. Thank you for saying that. Then, when I need help, I’ll borrow your ears, Laura. Is that alright?”

He looked at me, the corner of his mouth lifting in a faint smile. Then he stretched his hand toward me.

“Could you help me up? I’m tired, I need a hand.”

I grabbed him and pulled him to his feet without a moment’s hesitation. The whole time, the Young Marquis kept his gaze fixed on me. He watched me like that until he was fully upright, and only then did he speak again.

“Let’s go inside.”

After that, the Young Marquis said he wanted to see the Duke and headed for the study. I went back to my room and lay down on the bed. Drowsiness washed over me in an instant, blurring the edges of my vision. Lately, I’d been falling asleep as soon as dusk settled. Maybe it was because I’d gotten into the habit of retreating to my room the moment I was off duty.

Clatter-bang-bang—

My eyes were just drifting shut when a sudden racket erupted from outside the door.

‘What’s that?’

I felt a flicker of curiosity, but I didn’t bother getting up to check. It was obvious Shion was throwing a tantrum again.

Clatter-bang—

‘Shion, you little… why are you so ornery today?’

I frowned faintly to myself. But whether from exhaustion or not, I was fast asleep in no time. The noise from the corridor gradually faded into the distance, swallowed by the haze of sleep.

* * *

The next day, I clocked in at the Duke’s study and stepped inside. There, the Duke and the Young Marquis sat slumped on the sofa with hollow eyes. Both of them had their shoulders sagging, as if utterly drained.

“What… happened?”

A pang of unease hit me as I spoke to them. The Duke lifted his head slowly to look at me. On closer inspection, dark shadows hung beneath his eyes—traces of fatigue that had long since vanished from his face.

“This one.”

The Duke raised a hand languidly and pointed at the Young Marquis. I followed his fingertip and turned my gaze to the Younger Marquis.

“There’s something on this one. A soul of a kind I’ve never seen before, clinging to him.”

The Duke’s voice followed right after. The Young Marquis, with equally thick dark circles under his eyes, met my stare. I just blinked, baffled, and blurted out,

“Huh?”

Come to think of it, back on the day of the Hunt Festival, I’d felt an eerie chill from him. Maybe that had been the trace of a ghost.

Good heavens…

For a moment, a sense of helpless dread crept over me. If the ghost clinging to him turned out to be an evil spirit, it would be a serious problem.

“That ghost… what did it look like?”

I shifted my gaze to the Duke and asked. The Duke rubbed his forehead as if nursing a headache, then opened his mouth again.

“……Multiple animals, tangled together.”

“What? Tangled together? You mean the souls were fused?”

“Yeah. The head of a stag and the head of a bear were stuck together, side by side. Below them, a torso matted with dark red fur, and near the ribs, a rabbit’s head hanging upside down. It seemed to walk on two legs, and where its forelegs should’ve been, there were wings with snapped feathers…”

“…….”

What in the world was that thing?!

I’d seen countless souls in my time, but never anything like that. Even just imagining it was terrifying and bizarre — it made my skin crawl. I counted myself lucky I hadn’t seen it in person.

“Hold on a second.”

And right then, the Young Marquis cut into our conversation. He stroked his chin as if pondering something in that state. Then, nodding to himself, he added,

“……I think that’s the same being I’ve seen in my dreams.”

“Huh?”

I could only parrot back at him with a stupid tone. A horrible suspicion was rising in me — one I’d rather pretend not to notice. The Duke had likely thought the same, his face tightening into a grim mask. But of course, I had to ask. If my guess was right, we needed to act on it right that instant.

“Young Marquis. When you say dreams… you mean that nightmare you’ve been having?”

“That’s right. Honestly, I don’t remember the shape clearly. But I’m sure of this — what chased me in the dream was a mix of different animals. And they were far more terrifying than any normal beast. In the dream, I believed I’d die the moment they caught me.”

“Then that…”

An evil spirit. It had to be. If a soul went beyond simply existing and started harming people, it was an evil spirit.

I turned to the Duke quickly. He answered with a nod — he’d contact the temple immediately.

* * *

That evening, a familiar-faced priest arrived at Cuvershaiden. And I was banished to my room on the grounds that running into ghosts would do me no good.

‘Tch. Leaving me out of it… Honestly, a curfew at my age is way too inconvenient! And I’m practically a semi-expert in this field, aren’t I?!’

Not that I wanted to run into any scary ghosts myself. I was just curious whether the soul clinging to the Young Marquis would be properly exorcised. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I saw that bizarre soul scatter into pieces and vanish.

‘Should I sneak out to see what’s happening?’

I sat on the edge of my bed, mulling it over. But then I shook my head and changed my mind.

‘No… forget it. Honestly, I don’t want to see that weird-looking ghost. It’s bound to be terrifying… Anyway, the priest is here, so I shouldn’t worry too much. By the time I wake up, the evil spirit will be gone….

I let myself collapse onto the bed with a soft thump. Then, praying in my heart for the Young Marquis to be safe, I squeezed my eyes shut.

The next day, when I entered the office, a scene unfolded that was far from what I’d expected. The Duke and the Young Marquis were sprawled on the sofa, looking even more exhausted than the day before. Seeing that, I naturally slipped out of the room and headed to the kitchen. I prepared some tea and returned to the office.

As I set the teacups and teapot on the table, the two men, who had been lying there like wet seaweed, stirred groggily and sat up. Then, with faces drawn and haggard, each reached for the teacup in front of them.

“…That soul. We couldn’t exorcise it.”

A moment later, after taking a sip of tea, the Duke was the first to break the silence.

“And the nightmare hasn’t ended either.”

The Young Marquis added.

“What? Why?”

I sat down in the empty space on the sofa and asked them. For my part, I couldn’t understand why a priest had failed to exorcise that spirit.

Could it be that it wasn’t an evil spirit after all?

I had heard that beings which weren’t evil spirits couldn’t be exorcised. But that couldn’t be the reason. What had attached itself to the Young Marquis was clearly an evil spirit. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have slipped into his dreams every night to torment him.

Then, was that soul simply too strong to be exorcised?

No, that didn’t seem right either. An animal’s soul is pure; it usually ascends the moment it dies. That also meant it had no lingering attachments to the land of the living. What’s more, such a soul isn’t particularly powerful. There was no way it would have been difficult to exorcise.

“…He said there were too many.”

The Duke answered soon after. And I nearly dropped the teapot.

“Pardon?”

“Too many souls tangled together for an exorcism, one by one. He said he could try, but it might take months, or even years.”

At those words, I recalled the appearance of the soul the Duke had described yesterday. All kinds of animals jumbled together, this way and that. But even then, weren’t there only just five or six of them? It wouldn’t be easy, but that was a number you could reasonably exorcise.

Then, surely not…

I was struck by an unsettling thought. So, in a cautious voice, I ventured a question to him.

“…Then, were there more souls than what was visible? Were there ones without clear forms, all fused together as well… something like that?”

“Yes, he said there were at least over a hundred souls crammed inside that thing.”

“What? Over a hundred?!”

“And he said not every one of those souls was an evil spirit. They’re just small grudges, fused together into a single large form.”

Good God… The situation was worse than I’d thought. I turned to look at the young marquis, feeling a knot of dismay tighten in my chest. And then I saw it—the exhaustion carved into him, plain as day. If we left him like this, he looked liable to keel over and collapse at any moment. Naturally, pity began to well up inside me. There was no way I could just abandon him like this.

“…Isn’t there any other way?”

I turned my gaze back to the duke and asked him. He seemed to mull it over for a moment before slowly opening his mouth.

“Well… now that you mention it, a priest did say something about this once. He said that souls, by their very nature, push each other away. So even though they might pass straight through objects or people in the land of the living, they can’t mingle among themselves. That’s why he reckoned there might be some entity that had grabbed hold of them and forcibly fused them together. Perhaps that could be the clue we’re after…”

“Hmm… So the key, for now, is to find that entity.”

“Right. I think the best place to start is to trace back to the moment when that soul first latched onto Benat.”

If the soul had latched onto the young marquis, that moment had to be during the hunting festival. And given it was in the form of an animal, it had likely followed him from the forest where the festival was held.

“Then we’ll have to go back to the hunting grounds. That’s when my nightmares started—from the hunting festival onward.”

The young marquis added quickly. It seemed he’d had the same thought as me. It appeared we now had a reason to head back south once more.