MPBAGS Chapter 93

This is truly shocking. I came along because Mrs. Totten asked for help, but I had no idea the situation would be this serious. It wasn't just a succession dispute - Diess, the dead marquis's brother, was holding an axe and trying to kill the child.

A single maid was hiding in the room, holding and protecting the child, while the butler, nanny, and everyone else in the mansion did nothing to stop the marquis's brother. Since there was no one in the mansion to rely on, Mrs. Totten, as a third party, sought help from me, an outsider.

"Now that I'm back, isn't that enough? You must be tired from coming to the marquis's house, so please go in and rest."

"Yes, I will. But you know... sister-in-law, isn't this strange? With all this commotion, my nephew hasn't blinked an eye and is sleeping deeply. He's sleeping like the dead, isn't he?"

"Didn't I tell you? He was sick for five days and finally fell into a deep sleep. He must have been so exhausted that he couldn't hear the noise around him."

The marquis's brother threatened to hand over the child, and Mrs. Totten tried her best to calm Diess down. But he wasn't someone who could be reasoned with. Diess shouldered his axe and behaved threateningly, demanding to check on the child.

"What's he doing with a dead child, really."

Jelly clicked his tongue in pity. What? Who said someone was already dead? Ryder?

"Mr. Jelly, what do you mean by that?"

Henna asked with a trembling voice. That's exactly what I wanted to ask. What are you suddenly talking about?

"Don't you know? There's no sound of breathing. Ah... can't you hear it? Then look carefully. The skin is pale and the hands are limp, but the jaw and neck are stiff."

I also hurriedly looked inside the broken door. Ryder was wrapped tightly in blankets, so I couldn't properly confirm what Jelly was saying. All I could see with the naked eye was his complexion. So the child's unusually pale complexion wasn't because he was sick? Henna turned pale and looked at Mrs. Totten with worry.

"Mrs. Totten is..."

Henna's murmuring was drowned out by a loud voice.

"Please open the door. Why won't you check? Sister-in-law, aren't you worried about your son? Let's go in and see together."

Diess deliberately provoked Mrs. Totten's temper. Even though he was stirring up trouble like this, Mrs. Totten didn't say a word about directly confirming whether Ryder was safe.

"Mrs. Totten already knows the child is dead."

Henna sighed. I thought so too. Mrs. Totten knows Ryder is dead, so she won't accept Diess's demands. As I heard before coming here, if Ryder dies, the right to inherit the marquis title would go to Diess, not Mrs. Totten.

Mrs. Totten is struggling to avoid that.

"That's why she came to find you in the first place. To bring the dead child back to life. If you search the whole world, you're the only one who's ever come back from the dead."

So that's why she came looking for me? That's why Mrs. Totten asked if I remembered what I had said. When we first met, I was briefly fooled by the old butler and said something similar when I was making excuses about how there was no way to fix it instead of offering comfort.

"Hey, your master is here, so what are you doing not coming out? If you don't come out quickly, you're fired. If firing isn't enough, I'll call the guards. I'll hand you over to the guards for kidnapping and confining the marquis's heir."

Meanwhile, Diess changed his target of threats. He bullied the maid, who had relatively lower status and seemed easier to persuade.

"Pl-please help me... Miss."

Mrs. Totten looked around anxiously. When she spotted me, she reached out her hand. She looked exactly like someone standing on the edge of a cliff. If it were anyone else, I would have pulled her inward to save her, but not me. I had no choice but to push Mrs. Totten's back.

"Mrs. Totten, do you want to revive the child?"

"Yes... yes."

"Even if what comes back isn't your son? Even if it's someone else borrowing your son's shell?"

Just like me. Mrs. Totten pondered my question, then gritted her teeth and answered.

"Yes. That's still fine."

The dead child cannot be revived, but the marquis house could be protected. At the crossroads of losing everything or saving at least one thing, Mrs. Totten chose the latter. Since Mrs. Totten had put aside her grief and steeled her resolve, I had no choice but to help her, even if it meant using a second-best solution.

"Jelly, quickly call Melech."

"Melech?"

I am a possessor. There wasn't a single grain of my own will in possessing this novel, and I don't know why I became one. Moreover, it's impossible to revive Ryder in the same way as me, since I don't even know the original work and am getting by on guesswork alone.

But coincidentally, there was another type of possessor next to me. Melech, who as a ghost could possess an empty body.

Melech was immediately summoned by Jelly. Now all I had to do was convince Melech.

"You called for me?"

"Melech, do you see that child? Would you enter that child's body?"

"What? But... I can't do such a thing."

Melech was very flustered by the sudden situation. It was amazing that his whole expression could be read even though his eyes were covered with a black eyepatch.

Come to think of it, didn't Melech say he didn't know how he possessed? I don't really know the method either... Shouldn't ghosts instinctively know how to enter human bodies?

But that wasn't the only problem.

"How could I do such a thing to a person? He's just a child. Using someone else's body without permission seems like committing too great a sin."

Well, he couldn't even eat animals and couldn't kill a single mouse, so if it's a human, he'd consider the weight of life even more heavily and respect it. It seems like he's just living attached to Melech's body by chance.

But isn't he basically throwing shade at me in a high-level roundabout way? I'm also using someone else's body without permission. Of course, it wasn't intentional on my part either…

Mrs. Totten looked at me with desperate eyes. I understand what Melech is worried about. He doesn't want to use someone else's body without permission because it seems disrespectful to the deceased. Then I just need to make him realize that's not the case.

"Melech. The child's mother wants this. If things stay as they are, Ryder will be remembered for the infamy of dying under a curse. No one will mourn the child, and they'll actually say it's good that he died. But if you take the trouble to help, Mrs. Totten will be able to protect the marquis house. Ryder will also be able to escape from disgrace."

Though I said it, it was too much gaslighting. It's been a while since I immersed myself in Evangeline and tried to speak like a villainess, so I think I went too far too quickly. But that actually had a good effect on Melech.

"Is that really true?"

"Look at that bastard over there. Even though he's blood family, he's desperate to devour his nephew."

While Melech and I were whispering, Diess was struggling desperately to open the door. Rather than mourning Ryder thinking he was dead, he seemed desperate to display Ryder's death and inherit the marquis position that had lost its heir.

"Bad bastard."

Melech spat out his anger while looking at Diess. Burning with a sense of justice and acting as if he would immediately enter Ryder's body, Melech hesitated again as if something had occurred to him.

"Miss. But... how do I act like a child?"

"You don't really need to act. Mrs. Totten knows the truth, and Ryder was a mature child. And you don't need to be perfectly the same. After all, Mrs. Totten just needs someone who can inherit the marquis position to maintain the marquis house."

Melech seemed to have steeled his resolve. Melech's body became hazy. So this is his ghost state. The fact that he only looks like black smoke is probably because I don't have spiritual sight to see the complete form of ghosts. I don't have spirit affinity, so I was a bit disappointed, but I'm not envious of spiritual sight at all. I'm glad I don't have it.

The black smoke swirled and then seeped into the child. Melech succeeded in possessing Ryder.

"The young master moved!"

Henna quickly shouted, drawing everyone's attention. As soon as Henna finished speaking, Melech began to move, wriggling his body. Seeing this, Diess was very flustered.

"What? Why is he alive?"

Diess asked in bewilderment. This bastard also knew Ryder was dead. That's why he was so persistent. Right, you bad bastard. Why would he be alive?

Melech soon opened his eyes and looked around confusedly.

"Mo-mom..."

The awkwardness of calling her mom was probably because Melech was from an orphanage.

"Mrs. Totten, move."

Mrs. Totten was stunned by the situation where her dead son seemed to have come back to life. I tapped her shoulder and advised her to quickly handle the situation.

"Weder, please open the door."

"Yes, yes. I will."

The maid holding Ryder opened the door in confusion. Oh no, from that maid's perspective, it must seem like a dead person suddenly came back to life. Judging by how Mrs. Totten entrusted her son to her, she must be a trusted maid. I'll explain to her separately later.

The door, half-destroyed by the axe, opened, and Melech, who had gotten down from the maid's arms, was embraced by Mrs. Totten.

"Did you sleep well...?"

Mrs. Totten's voice was full of moisture. Even knowing this wasn't her real son, seeing Ryder moving and alive again seemed to make her grief overflow.

"I was sleeping soundly for once, but I woke up because of strange noises."

His complaining was just like a child of that age. He said he couldn't act, but this was pure method acting. Isn't he acting better than me? No one would think his soul had changed.

Ah, except for that crazy bastard who was wielding an axe.

"You're lying right now, aren't you? You were definitely dead just a moment ago!"

Diess burst out in anger. He looked around as if searching for his axe again. For reference, when the axe Diess was holding rolled to Mrs. Totten's feet earlier, I had hinted to Jelly to get rid of it. I learned something from the Donau incident too.

"What trick did you use? Sister-in-law, after all this, have you finally resorted to evil deeds?"

Unable to find his axe, Diess asked with twitching eyes. He was so overly excited that spit flew when he spoke.

Since a ghost possessed the body, it was indeed evil if you think about it. Mrs. Totten couldn't make excuses, perhaps because she was crying, so I had no choice but to step forward instead. Since I decided to help, I have to take responsibility to the end.

"Why are you so certain?"

Diess, who had been momentarily distracted by Melech, looked at me and shut his mouth. Is he scared of me? It seems Evangeline's infamy is useful even against such street thug-like bastards. At times like this, I'm almost glad I possessed a villainess.

"You, what are you... This is a family matter, so outsiders stay out!"

"I'm not an outsider. Mrs. Totten is my chaperone."

Instead of the social and kind smile I learned from Dolly, I gave him a raw villainess smile for the first time in a while. For reference, this smile had the power to subdue Donau, make our household servants faint, and even make Gabriel, who was completely smitten with me, hesitate.

"You didn't directly check if his heart stopped, and you didn't see him up close. So how were you so certain that Young Master Totten was dead?"

"That's right..."

"I just thought he was sleeping."

When I deliberately listed plausible reasoning processes to express doubt, several servants who were watching agreed with my opinion.