NOMAMWTM Chapter 12

The next morning, Michael rushed off somewhere the moment he woke up, summoned by a servant who'd come for him.

Charlotte, who'd safely returned to her room last night and slept soundly before waking, felt secretly proud of herself despite the commotion.

She still didn't really understand how she'd healed the madam, and she didn't quite understand how the rabbit on her lap had acted so intelligently either, but anyway, she'd saved someone who would have died if left alone.

"Ow."

Charlotte, who'd been recalling last night—which from start to finish had felt like she'd been possessed by something—suddenly looked down at a sharp stinging pain.

The black rabbit, which had been perfectly docile yesterday even when poked with tweezers, was now biting her finger, demanding she hand over the greens.

When she set down a plate piled with greens in front of him, he twitched his nose with an obviously extremely satisfied expression.

Charlotte laughed in disbelief, wondering if this was really the same rabbit.

When she'd woken this morning, the rabbit's fur and eye color had returned to black and red.

The bandage she'd wrapped and the wound from the tweezers were nowhere to be found either.

At first she'd wondered if it was a different rabbit, but no matter how closely she looked, it was identical, and there couldn't be another rabbit that looked exactly like this inside the estate—certainly not outside—so she decided to think Michael must have cast magic in his sleep.

Actually, none of it mattered, because someone had lived.

"I really hate it when people die, you know."

Stroking between the rabbit's soft ears, she murmured.

Of course everyone would be averse to death, but Charlotte hated people dying so much that if someone were dying in front of her, she could do anything.

Just thinking about it made her feel the quiet and eerie morning air of that winter day.

'Mom...?'

When she'd opened the door and come out, that bone-chilling cold...

Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter.

CRASH!

Charlotte flinched.

The sharp shattering sound pulled her consciousness back from where it had been sucked into the past.

When she turned her head, three or four teacups from the cupboard had fallen to the floor and shattered into pieces.

The blobs were swarming and clustering together in that cupboard.

She looked back and forth between the teacups and the blobs.

The blobs rolled their eyeballs round and round and round.

Her eyes narrowed sharply in no time.

"Hey!"

The blobs—which had to break something at least once a day to feel satisfied—fled whoosh up to the ceiling.

They really couldn't stay still for even a day.

"Hah."

But there was no point in saying anything, so Charlotte let out a deep sigh.

They'd break something again tomorrow too, no doubt.

She just wondered how the owner and his creatures could have such extremely opposite personalities.

"Charlotte."

Just then, a pleasant low voice filled the room along with the sound of the door opening click.

Life came into Charlotte's eyes.

She stood up quickly—had he been to see the lady?—and there was her beautiful husband again today.

Thoughts of her mother had completely left by now.

She was no longer confined, no longer living a life where she had so little to do that she chewed over a past she didn't want to remember.

She'd even managed to stop death from passing by her.

Charlotte beamed a bright smile at her approaching husband.

Despite the major incident, there was no change to Charlotte's life in the estate, and time simply passed peacefully.

On a day when rain poured down.

"Wow."

She let out an exclamation when she arrived at the estate's gallery.

It was a place Michael had suggested they visit together instead of their tea time, which had been canceled due to the rain.

The gallery, which looked exactly like an art museum from a novel, was unbelievably huge and magnificent for something inside a house.

Enormous paintings that seemed at least three times her height hung everywhere on the walls of the space decorated with white marble, and similar spaces connected in a row through doorways that had only frames.

It was a sight she'd never seen in her life.

"I'll be inside for a moment. Please look around comfortably."

When Charlotte—holding the rabbit she'd named Nero after her mother's familiar's name—was looking around in a daze, Michael asked for her understanding.

"Ah, yes."

When she nodded, he soon moved through to another room connected to this one, where more paintings hung.

Left alone with just Nero, she watched his retreating back for a moment.

Michael hadn't seemed to be in a good mood for the past few days.

Shadows lay over his impassive face, and unlike before, he'd only responded stiffly when she approached.

Today he seemed particularly bad.

Charlotte could easily guess the reason.

It must be because of his mother-in-law.

Though Michael visited to see his mother faithfully once a day, happy that she'd recovered, he always seemed to be in an even worse mood afterward.

Apparently she'd saved someone who, even after surviving a brush with death, was cold enough to hurt her son.

He seemed to have gone to see the lady this morning too—what had he heard this time?

She was concerned, but Charlotte let out a deep sigh.

These kinds of problems weren't something she could ask about or help solve.

In her experience, he'd feel a bit better if left alone with time.

She deliberately pulled her gaze away from Michael's retreating back and began looking around the gallery while holding Nero.

At first he kept circling in a corner of her mind, but once she properly started looking around, he quickly faded.

The gallery—a space where Cardium had collected art for generations—was full of fascinating things.

Countless paintings that must have been painted by incredible artists, sculptures so intricate it was hard to believe they'd been made by human hands, objects whose purpose she didn't quite understand but that definitely looked extremely expensive and old...

To her, who'd learned about the world only through print, it was no different from paradise.

She could tell just from the estate, but Michael's family had definitely been incredibly wealthy for generations.

Charlotte was passing by collections covered with small glass cases when she stopped in front of an old music box.

It looked like an ordinary antique on the outside, but beside the glass case was written that this was an artifact from an ancient mage.

An artifact.

Charlotte peered at what was inside the glass case with sparkling eyes.

She'd never seen an artifact before, except for her necklace that her mother had made for her.

An object made by condensing a mage's magic, activated by channeling magic into it.

What was this used for? It just looked like an old toy from the outside.

"...Hng."

Charlotte was peering at the artifact when she discovered silver light shimmering on the glass case—who knew how long it had been there—and was horrified.

"What, why...?"

The necklace was properly fastened around her neck, but magic was leaking out again. Nero squirmed uncomfortably in her arms.

"What do I do?"

She panicked and tried to pull the magic back in.

"Uh, um..."

But as if mocking her, the thin silver stream rippled and swept through the air once, then passed right through the glass case and seeped into the artifact.

...Into the artifact.

Charlotte went pale.

Of course, the possibility that the artifact would activate with such a small amount of magic was slim.

But still, if magic went in when she didn't even know what kind of artifact this was—

Tik, tak.

At that moment, at the very small sound, she froze stiff.

A faint light sparkled on the artifact.

At the same time, all the magic lamps lighting the gallery went out except for the candles on the candelabras hung between paintings.

...There were artifacts that could operate with very little magic, and she'd caused an accident.

As if toying with her, the magic vanished without a trace once the artifact activated.

Charlotte remained frozen, unable to even breathe, then slowly relaxed when nothing else happened.

It must have been an artifact that simply absorbed light.

Fortunate that it wasn't a major accident, but she glared at her palm.

She didn't even know how many times this had happened now.

Her magic, which had never leaked out once when she was at the Baron Ethel estate, had leaked more than three times already. The crack in the necklace must be the problem.

This was troublesome.

When she'd saved the lady, it had admittedly turned out well in the end, but she—despite being a mage—was congenitally completely unable to control her magic.

That was why she wore her mother's necklace, a sealing artifact.

When only a little leaked like this, it wasn't very dangerous, but if it gushed out like last time, it could soon lead to a rampage.

Charlotte let out a deep sigh.

The necklace's power seemed to have weakened—she'd have to ask Michael later when the time was right if he could take a look at it.

Since he was also a mage, she thought maybe he could fix it.

Not now, right after causing an accident, though.

"Michael?"

She raised her voice a bit to call Michael.

She thought he might have been startled too since the lights had suddenly gone out, but no matter how long she waited, she heard no sign of him.

She'd glimpsed earlier that quite a few rooms seemed to continue inside—perhaps the lights hadn't gone out where he was?

Charlotte waited a bit longer in the silence, and when he didn't come, with the heart of a child who didn't want to be caught having caused an accident, she took down one of the candelabras hanging on the wall.

The flickering candlelight was a bit unnerving, but there was no help for it.

Later when he came back, she'd just say the lights had suddenly gone out and ask him to turn them back on.

At least with candelabras hanging here and there, it had only become somewhat dim rather than pitch black.

She should just keep looking around until he came.

Charlotte tried to be leisurely about it.

But still, afraid something else might happen if she stayed near the artifact, she hurried to the next room.

There were far more blobs in the next room than where she'd been before.

Charlotte, who'd smiled unknowingly at them rolling around here and there as if welcoming her, stopped walking when she saw the painting visible straight ahead from the entrance.

The enormous painting strangely drew her gaze.

Half day, half night.

The contrast of black and white was vivid.

An incredibly beautiful woman in the bright space and a hideous old man in the dark space were glaring at each other.

The ground at their feet was entirely a sea of flames, and perhaps because of the candlelight flickering on the candelabras on both sides of the painting, she momentarily had the illusion that crimson flames were surging.

"Mythology...?"

Charlotte murmured without thinking.

It reminded her of a scripture passage from Sornia about vanquishing evil.

Thump-thump!

Just then, someone came running quickly.