COARV Chapter 34

At the end of that childhood summer, in the green mansion that remained beautiful still, somehow, however it managed it—his father—a haughty, perverted degenerate—shrieking for his life as flesh and blood sloughed from him, and his mother, taking her own life before his eyes. That sight.

They said a child was born when two people's blood joined. So Lesche, the legitimate heir of Berke, must carry the Grand Duke's blood and the Grand Duchess's blood in equal measure, running through him. Had that not been enough? Lesche had had no choice but to stare, numb, at the mingled blood of his parents where it had splashed across his own body.

How old had he been then—he, Lesche Berke?

The sentiment lasted only a moment before Lesche shifted his gaze to the green mansion. He had sought out and mobilized nearly every means available to him to be rid of the shadow of unknown origin.

The only thing that had shown even the faintest effect were the sorcerers from a distant foreign land. This was the last chance, too. If even they failed, one would begin to doubt whether any other means existed in this world at all.

"……"

Gazing at the green marble shining beneath the snow-covered scenery, he found himself, without meaning to, thinking of Seria—handed off to Masha like a piece of baggage.

What reaction would she have had, seeing the moving shadow inside?

She might have about died of fright. Or, unexpectedly composed, she might have nagged at Linon to clean it up properly. If it had been last year's Seria Stern, the reaction would have been easy to predict. Now, not at all. Not easy. Lesche let out a short laugh and moved on.

"There. Just for tonight, sleep here."

I nodded and let Masha lead me to sit on the bed. It was an extremely antique, imposing bedroom—the kind that would drop a faint-hearted commoner to their knees the instant they stepped in. Masha tied my hair back, speaking warmly as she worked.

"Once you're out of the manor, you really must drop the honorifics with everyone."

"I'll be sure to."

"So lovely. It'll only be a few days, sadly, but I'm truly glad and honored to serve a Grand Duchess like you, my lady."

Just a few days….

"I'll live up to it, Masha."

"Even your answer is warm."

Once Masha had gone, smiling warmly, I looked around the bedroom. Masha had spoken of it as though it were simply a room I was permitted to use, but I knew better. This was the Grand Duke's own bedroom.

The door's the exact same color as the Grand Duke's bedroom at the main castle in Berke. And the crest, engraved in nothing but silver, too.

The Berke Grand Ducal crest bore a sword worked entirely in pure silver. And of every noble house in the entire Gleick Empire, House Berke alone was permitted to use unadulterated silver in its crest. Pure silver drove off evil spirits, or so it was said. Perhaps that was precisely why people's reverence for House Berke had only grown greater. It was a very male-lead sort of detail, exactly the kind a novel would give him.

There weren't any flashy little furnishings in the bedroom. But every corner of it was deeply antique. Looking closely, one could see how much care had been taken, down to the materials, extending even to places no eye would ever land on. That kind of nobility, the kind no jumped-up new-money house could ever fake…. Right. Meaning Seria couldn't fake it either. I tilted my head and got up.

The Grand Duke's own bedroom—unless I'd lost my mind, there was no reason to refuse sleeping here on the grounds that I simply couldn't. I wasn't the sort of person who drew those kinds of lines between men and women. I wasn't especially conservative about that sort of thing, either. And sharing a bed, given that neither of us had feelings for the other, seemed perfectly fine to me.

That was how I'd felt, anyway. Right up until we'd set out from the castle today.

The nerve, licking someone else's cheek like that.

Was he really that careless, normally? Or was it fine because he held power? I shook my head slowly.

If I'd gone with my gut, I'd have stormed straight out of Lesche's bedroom.

But this mansion carried too much history. Hadn't I heard it from Linon? Why, in this manor filled to bursting with demonic energy, in this nightmare slowly turning pitch black as though it would one day swallow everything whole, Masha and the others still couldn't leave.

It's not even a story that appears in the original novel. Did it really need to be this miserable?

And besides, when you actually thought about it, this was the male lead's own past. Why had the original novel cut all of this out? Irritating. I muttered it uselessly to myself, but the unsettled feeling wouldn't clear.

I lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket all the way up to my chin.

Lesche, returning to the green mansion late in the evening, stood gazing at the black shadows spreading, little by little, across it. As always—and this time was no exception—they had grown more numerous still. Irritatingly so.

The supply cart had made it back safely.

"Your Highness. Linon's fallen asleep."

“Figured he’d somehow tag along even in that cold, but look at him.”

It was as expected. Ben, diligently unloading the cart, tilted his head at the sight of eight whole boxes stuffed full of cake.

"It seems the young lady's especially fond of cake? It's—quite a lot, isn't it."

Lesche answered a beat late.

"That's right."

"I'm glad, since there wasn't much on hand fit for dessert. I'll see to it she can have some starting tomorrow."

Ben was a butler by nature. A man whose very disposition was to manage a household and look after his master's people. But the household itself—the green mansion—had already crumbled past the point where a human hand could manage it. And the master's people were no different.

Which, put another way, meant there was no longer much for a butler to actually do.

So on days like today, when Lesche stopped by the manor, Ben—however much he pretended otherwise—noticeably regained some of his spirit. And though the wedding had been a strange one, a young lady had come at last, calling herself the lady of the house, and Ben was in genuinely high spirits over it. He acted as though nothing were different from usual, but his eyes were shining.

Lesche wiped at his half-damp hair with a towel as he climbed to the second floor. The second floor, too, was thoroughly blanketed in shadow. At first they'd assumed it was mold from the damp and brought in charcoal, fanned it all day, tried to draw in the sunlight. None of it had worked. Over those years, the pitch-black things had completely swallowed and overtaken the estate.

"This ought to be the last time, Your Highness. They say the land under the manor won't hold out much longer."

Lesche looked quietly at the shadow, stirring ominously.

Once this was over.

What would happen, once it was over?

The mansion had been swallowed by a shadow of unknown origin. No one could even say precisely when it had started, or from where.

Did it make any sense at all that mold could exist that never went away? No matter how thoroughly it was cleaned, it never vanished—it only spread, like moss. It even moved.

The instant the thought occurred to him that it might not be mold at all, he'd responded with reasonable speed. First, a temple priest was summoned. A common priest, then a high priest, and eventually, thanks to his rank as Grand Duke of Berke, even a High Priest.

But no one could say what had caused it. This was an age riddled with demonic corruption, and land was abandoned for it all the time. That it was something along those lines was as far as anyone got.

The people of the temple quietly overlooked the fact that House Berke's own manor was somehow connected to demonic energy. Anywhere else, they'd have said it needed to be burned to the ground at once—but no one pressed the matter where Laurel Manor was concerned. Understandable, perhaps, since doing so might have cut off the enormous annual donation House Berke sent the temple. A courtesy extended as a matter of course.

The shadow ate away at the mansion, little by little. And from some point on, nothing would grow properly on the grounds anymore.

Gold and marble corroded, slowly. The various treasures kept in the manor were carried off to the main castle, one by one. If an object was ruined, another could be found to replace it.

But people were not like that.

No matter how hard they struggled against it.

If only the former Grand Duke—Lesche Berke's own father—had never brought that bastard child and that woman home together in the first place. No—the premise itself was wrong. If that bastard simply hadn't been his father, there'd have been no reason to ever look back at this damned green mansion again. Lesche's expression darkened, recalling the eyes of the former Grand Duke, shot through with greed and madness. His mouth tasted bitter.

Lesche looked away from the shadow. He walked on.

Laurel Manor, where only the Grand Ducal family's direct line was permitted to stay. The second floor of the mansion belonged solely to the Grand Duke and Duchess. The central staircase had already been half-devoured by the shadow. The right-hand staircase had been sealed off the previous year, on account of it, and the only one still in any decent condition was the left.

Climbing the left staircase led straight to the Grand Duchess's bedroom. Continuing on brought one to the shared bedroom of the Grand Duke and Duchess, at the center. And past that great door, at last, came the Grand Duke's own private bedroom. Lesche stepped into the bedroom, familiar and yet never quite familiar. He shut the door and made his way to the innermost part of the room.

"……"

A strange breathing sound reached him.

Lesche walked to the foot of the bed. But contrary to what he'd expected, the bed was empty. Someone lay sound asleep on the sofa beside it. That greenish hair, which he'd wrapped in a blanket and loaded onto a horse not so long ago, caught his eye. Lesche stood for a moment, looking down at Seria without a word.

He lifted her, blanket and all, and moved her onto the bed. For a while, Lesche only gazed absently at Seria's face. He brushed aside the hair that had fallen across her white forehead with his hand, and then went back down to the first floor.

Only a few spots in the manor were lit. The dining hall—Ben the butler, Masha, and Joanna and Susan were there.

"Why is Seria sleeping in my bedroom?"

"Our apologies, Your Highness."

Masha immediately looked mortified.

"Properly cleaning and stocking the Grand Duchess's bedroom will take a full several hours yet. The young lady was terribly worn out, so I took it upon myself to have her rest there. I'll have her moved to the correct bedroom starting tomorrow."

"Then have her sleep in the bed. Why did you put her on the sofa?"

"I'm sorry?"

Masha wore a bewildered expression.

"I set her down on the bed myself, Your Highness."

Lesche's brow furrowed. He understood well enough. Masha had put Seria in the bed, but it seemed Seria had gotten up on her own and gone to lie on the sofa instead. Why?

Masha let out a small laugh.

"It seems the young lady must have given up the bed for you, Your Highness."