NOMAMWTM Chapter 32

When a dead person appeared, aberrations might cling to the corpse, so they burned bodies immediately in the garden.

Charlotte sat dazed in the pool of blood for a long while. The estate's restoration magic reattached the chandelier to its original position as if nothing had happened. Michael used magic to clean up the chaos and disappeared somewhere with the corpse. Only then did she come to her senses.

She grabbed a nearby maid who looked ready to faint when Charlotte spoke to her and interrogated her about what happened when someone died. Then Charlotte limped toward the garden.

[This way.]

Nero appeared midway and guided her.

She walked deep into the garden, to a place she'd never visited before. Michael stood there in black clothes.

Fire bloomed suddenly on the corpse.

"...What makes you think you can come here."

As Charlotte approached weakly, he spoke coldly.

He grabbed her shoulder as if to prevent her from coming closer.

"Let go."

She tried to shake off the man's hand.

But perhaps because of where they were, he didn't release her easily.

The man's rough hand twisted her shoulder painfully.

"...How far will you go, you monster."

Monster.

It hurt quite a bit, the way he looked down at her with cold eyes and whispered.

"...I'm not a monster. I'm a person. Can't I even look?"

Charlotte asked weakly.

Her shoulder—the same one Daisy had grabbed earlier—hurt as if it might shatter where he held it.

Eventually Michael removed his hand from her shoulder very slowly and stepped back, though he absolutely hadn't allowed her out of trust.

A silver gleam rippled from her hand for a moment.

Michael's eyes widened slightly at the sight, but Charlotte didn't notice.

She just approached the burning corpse and stared blankly as flames licked up and devoured the dead person.

The smell of burning flesh stung her nose.

The magically lit fire consumed the maid until not even her shape remained, and only black, thick smoke rose long and long into the sky.

Charlotte feared fire more than anything, but in her mind only the scene of the maid dying beneath the chandelier remained vivid.

'You monster!!'

Lena's death in the dream, Lena's ghost, Daisy's wailing flashed before her eyes.

...Monster.

Charlotte watched for a long time, watched it burn bright red until the fire went out, then turned around.

"Must you insult even the dead."

"Shut up. I'm human too."

Michael's voice wasn't loud, but it mixed deep fatigue with disgust.

Charlotte had felt sorry for him until just before sleeping yesterday, but the word monster kept flickering through her head. Her words wouldn't come out nicely.

Michael said expressionlessly.

"You killed her."

"I didn't."

Charlotte clenched her fists.

She'd definitely thought she could be fine about it, but encountering death again made it hard to calm down easily.

"So you've finally decided to end your whims?"

"I said I didn't!"

Charlotte raised her voice.

She brushed past Michael with rough steps.

He followed her persistently.

"Where are you going."

She didn't want to answer, but bit her lip.

"...To Adeline."

"By whose permission."

A thin golden barrier blocked her path along with his low voice.

When her feet were blocked, Charlotte felt what she'd been holding back burst forth.

"Just!"

The tears she'd held back even while watching the flames flowed out.

Michael, who'd been glaring at her terrifyingly, stopped for a moment.

She kicked the thin, transparent wall erected by magic. Bang!

Bang! Bang!

She kicked again.

Silver magical power suddenly surged out.

Before Charlotte's eyes could widen, it shot toward the barrier she'd kicked and shattered Michael's magic into pieces before disappearing.

"..."

She was the type to panic first when magical power leaked out, but it had already disappeared.

For now, she decided not to care.

She walked with long strides.

At some point, for some reason, Michael stopped following her.

She flung open Adeline's door.

"Charlotte?"

Adeline, who'd been sitting on the sofa, widened her eyes.

Tears burst out.

"...Adeline."

"...Child."

Adeline's expression sank instantly. She opened her arms.

Charlotte ran into them.

Tears flowed uncontrollably.

She cried like a child in the only warm embrace in this estate.

Michael couldn't stop Charlotte from entering Adeline's room, and hesitated.

...The moment he faced her looking back, she'd seemed truly sad.

He mustn't be enchanted by a monster.

Even knowing this, for an instant she'd looked forlorn.

A true face that couldn't emerge from acting—he'd thought that for a moment.

But before his thoughts could deepen.

[diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie]

[don'twannabearcantbearcantbearhatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate]

[diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie]

The screaming that started again when Charlotte disappeared from view awakened his mind.

"...Ha."

Michael ran his hand down his face against the pouring fatigue.

He stopped in the hallway and closed his eyes.

He mustn't be enchanted by a monster.

He knew it, and he wasn't enchanted.

Yet he felt like he was sinking into a swamp.

More than ten days had passed since he'd removed his mask as Charlotte killed the maid and killed the servants sent from the imperial palace.

As his body recovered somewhat, the extreme thought of just letting everything go had faded to some degree.

The moment he saw Charlotte with his mother, his reason snapped awake as if some rationality remained to fulfill human duty.

Since he no longer needed to act, he had a bit more room to recover his reason to some degree.

Before today, when she'd earnestly insisted he believe her and repeated absurd actions, no one had died, and most importantly, the voices of the aberrations that had tormented him all his life were absent, so all the more.

Yet the tear-stained face came to mind again.

Michael tried to erase it while rubbing his stiff neck.

She was the master who controlled the aberrations. The woman who manipulated this estate's despair at will.

Had he forgotten yesterday's events? Had he forgotten what she'd talked about the past week?

Michael let out a deep sigh with his eyes closed.

She, just as he began adapting to peace, she gouged at his head.

She... talked about that child's past as if it were her own past.

He hadn't realized it at first.

Even while staying vigilant against her after she revealed her true nature, he stupidly only realized at the very end why his ears had been drawn to her story as time passed despite pretending otherwise.

She said with her mouth that she wasn't a monster while toying with him for a whole week.

Whatever method she used, she read and touched nearly the only thing in his mind that remained unstained.

Could he still say she wasn't a monster despite that?

Her story matched that child's story exactly.

A cabin somewhere in the countryside, a child living alone with her magician mother.

A child locked in her room when her mother went out, absolutely forbidden to leave the cabin otherwise.

A child amazed that her voice could be heard in water cups, basins, anywhere water existed.

That child who'd gone berserk, feared fire, and cried pitifully about hating being confined.

Though it had been ten years since he could converse with that child, he remembered each of the child's words clearly.

That child... had been nothing less than salvation that made the young him rise from despair.

Michael's eyes darkened.

Ten years ago, when his father took his own life and the aberrations killed Nero and those around him, he'd gone berserk.

Fortunately it wasn't a major outburst so it subsided quickly, but one maid and one servant caught in the rampage died.

Now he properly maintained all the magic circles, and everyone knew they wouldn't die just from speaking to or encountering him, so it was different, but back then all the servants wouldn't speak to him for fear of being killed by aberrations, and fled when he approached.

Only his mother didn't do that, but he'd avoided his mother first. If even his mother died, he felt like he himself would go mad.

Because he was a magician, all the estate's members who'd cherished and doted on him as the main building's only child treated him like a monster and avoided him within just a few weeks.

The young him couldn't understand why he had to bear the heavy responsibility of saving everyone in this situation.

Even knowing they didn't actually treat him like a monster, they were just afraid of death.

It was too hard an ordeal to experience at merely fifteen years old.

So as he gradually lost his will to live, as the act of opening his mouth itself gradually disappeared from daily life.

Suddenly a girl's voice was heard.

For months, whether he reacted or not, that girl's voice—crying or chattering cheerfully—was salvation to him.

The only person who spoke to him.

The only child he didn't have to worry would die if he spoke to her.

Without that child, he probably would have taken his life following his father back then.

"...Lotte."

He murmured softly the name of the girl in the memory Charlotte had stirred.