MHHC Chapter 105

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A chill crept down her spine as though ice itself had touched her skin.

Adelheid barely managed to lift her frozen head.

Before her rational mind could command her body to close the door, they forced their way through the gap.

Countless hands—too many to count. Fingers bore no nails, and each one stretched to abnormal lengths.

They squeezed through every opening in the room. Windows, the fireplace, door cracks, ventilation shafts... through any passage connecting to the outside world, truly anywhere.

"...Ah."

A thick malice, a terror that stole even the courage to breathe, slowly constricted her entire body. With her emptied mind, she could think of only one thing.

Those hands could not possibly belong to humans. And 'other people' would not be able to see them.

"Adelheid."

A voice calling her name came from beyond the open door. Adelheid knew the owner of that voice.

Crown Prince Mikhail. The avatar of Morig and Morig himself, an ill-fated connection that had clung to her with stubborn persistence from the past.

"I need to see you for a moment. May I come in?"

Even as he asked, the hands continued flooding into the room. They passed the doorframe, clinging densely to the floor and walls.

"Are you listening, my lady?"

That gentle voice, utterly incongruous with the horrific scene before her, made everything she witnessed all the more chilling.

"Hm? Adele."

The more she remained silent, the more impatient his soft urging became.

Only after sensing that urgency did Adelheid barely manage to recall—from her dreams and from the Princess's manor—that Valentin had been unable to cross the threshold before being invited.

Yes... it was a superstition commonly believed in the North since ancient times.

'The uninvited cannot enter.' The fact that even such a trivial belief could constrain a god's actions was, at least for now, a great comfort.

'It affected Valentin as well.'

Perhaps for something as 'wicked' as Morig, it might produce an even greater effect. Adelheid barely managed to gather her scattering thoughts.

She tightened her grip on Margaret and answered firmly.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible right now."

"Mm?"

"Please, it would be better if you returned another time. My head housemaid is very, very unwell at the moment..."

The moment she spoke her second refusal, the presence she'd felt from outside abruptly ceased.

The white light that had illuminated beyond the door, the hands that had been forcing their way in, the bone-chilling cold and malice—

All of it vanished in an instant.

'Did he withdraw just like that? Or... is even this a trap?'

She couldn't observe what was happening outside through the slightly open door crack, and the frustration weighed on her.

She listened anxiously, biting her lip.

After waiting for some time with no particular sign of movement, the moment she was about to lower her guard just slightly—

An unnaturally violent gust of wind struck precisely then.

The freezing wind burst the door open with a bang. It rushed in and coiled around her pale, cold nape like noxious breath.

"Ah..."

Just as Adelheid shuddered at that chilling sensation, a rustling sound whispered faintly in her ear.

At first, she thought it was the sound of rats or insects gnawing at something. Or perhaps someone scratching the wall with their fingernails.

Then it gradually became clearer.

"Hh, ahaha, ha..."

The moment she realized it was laughter produced by thousands of voices, Adelheid nearly let out a terrible scream.

A chill ran under her jaw as though a scraping blade had touched her skin.

Footsteps echoing through the corridor drew closer. Adelheid lifted her head toward the shadow cast from the doorway.

"I thought from the start that you wouldn't permit me."

When she raised her eyes to look at him, Mikhail was surprisingly in human form. A smooth face with a relaxed demeanor, dressed as though attending some ball.

The inhuman horror she'd imagined when his form had been obscured was nowhere to be found.

"..."

If not for the white hands being sucked into the Crown Prince's shadow, she might have thought she'd gone briefly mad and seen hallucinations. It felt that unreal.

Adelheid quickly lowered her head again, hiding her trembling eyes from Mikhail's gaze.

He had only barely reached the doorway. She wouldn't grant permission with her own mouth, so she should be safe.

"As you can see, the situation is such that..."

Adelheid continued speaking with forced composure, gripping Margaret so tightly her knuckles turned deathly white.

"If Your Highness would permit it, I shall visit you next time."

"Next time?"

"...Yes?"

"Next time, when?"

"Since my trial is currently in progress, I believe I can only spare time after resolving the present situation first."

Nothing could be more foolish than confirming anything in conversation with 'Morig.'

When Adelheid carefully evaded the question, Mikhail laughed briefly.

As though he had anticipated her refusal from the very beginning.

"Is that so?"

His lips stretched slightly, and the next moment he stepped across the threshold without any difficulty. Without seeking her permission.

At that unreal sight, Adelheid froze with widened eyes.

"You, why are you surprised?"

Mikhail wore a picture-perfect smile on his lips.

The moment she met the cruel gaze hidden within that gentle face, Adelheid understood instinctively that she needed to lower his raised guard.

"..."

Especially if she could hide the fact that she'd realized he was 'Morig,' it would be better to do so.

She couldn't predict at all how Mikhail would react if he noticed she knew.

'When I thought he was the Crown Prince, he at least maintained the pretense of surface courtesy.'

Adelheid forced her trembling body still with effort and spoke clearly.

"Your Highness must recall that this is the bedchamber of a married woman. Right now, Your Highness is committing excessive rudeness toward me."

"Ah, is that all."

He looked her over from top to bottom like a predator before particularly delicious prey.

His sticky, clinging gaze made her skin crawl as though leeches were attaching themselves.

The slowly descending gaze lingered a bit longer on her deathly white knuckles desperately clutching Margaret.

"My."

If until now he had at least imitated the attitude befitting a crown prince, as time passed, his human aspects increasingly disappeared.

What filled that empty space was a kind of derision, or perhaps ennui and malice, and... a sickeningly viscous affection. Shockingly and horrifyingly so.

"...Yes."

Mikhail suddenly lifted his head to meet her gaze. The eyes looking at her narrowed as though gauging something.

"Now I understand."

"..."

"You've remembered everything. This makes the gift I painstakingly prepared meaningless."

"Memories? I don't understand what Your Highness means."

Adelheid met him with a deliberately calm face. As though finding her effort admirable, Mikhail smiled and slowly knelt before her, sinking down.

The sound of her own gasping rang loudly in her ears. Mikhail's eyes narrowed for an instant.

"Mm."

Adelheid realized her heart was racing far too steeply.

The revulsion she'd suppressed from the moment she first faced that visage had now reached a horrific level.

Especially when that face resembled the half-brother who had once mocked the Princess...

He gripped her trembling wrist firmly and showed her a smooth smile.

"Actually, I came to give you this."

He forcibly opened her clenched hand.

Onto her barely opened palm, he placed something like a black and crimson tangle of thread. It was a bracelet made by layering thin threads multiple times. The problem was that this...

'Betitha.'

It directly recalled Betitha's hair, which had once shattered the Princess's mind.

Particularly the small ivory ornaments attached to the bracelet's center resembled the shape of a young child's teeth.

Adelheid barely swallowed the rising gasps and screams.

"...Ah."

These were the 'Princess's' memories to begin with. They weren't even events she had directly experienced with her own body. Nevertheless...

Just having the bracelet placed on her hand made her entire body tremble as though about to collapse.

Mikhail, who had been stroking Adelheid's thin shoulders as though they were something pitiable, let out a light sigh.

"Adelheid. I'm afraid you'll repeat the same mistake this time too."

In the gaze coldly observing Margaret lying with her head on Adelheid's knee, a weary tedium toward this entire situation seeped through.

"I've advised you dozens of times over your repeated lives not to keep humans by your side."

"..."

"How much more must you suffer before you acknowledge it? Other humans don't suit you."

"..."

"If you behave obediently until you've paid your full penance, I'll cherish you. Can't you even endure that much? Hm?"

Stories of lives she couldn't even remember poured out as though pitiful. Setting aside the unpleasantness, Mikhail's words were horrifically arrogant.

Only obsession was clear—viewing her not as an individual person but as property.

"..."

It was the moment she felt there was no point in continuing to feign ignorance.

Adelheid gripped the thread bracelet tightly. The ivory ornaments dug into her palm, delivering excruciating pain.

That was better. It awakened her to reality.

"How did you enter?"

Adelheid met Mikhail with eyes gone cold and sharp as a blade.

"I did not permit you to enter."