NOMAMWTM Chapter 37

The white rabbit blinked its golden eyes very, very slowly.

As the golden glow swirled, it returned to the form of a small boy.

In the pitch-black space where nothing could be seen, a boy with platinum hair and white eyes that sparkled.

Originally, his eyes had been golden like when he took rabbit form, but at some point, they'd faded to white when he appeared this way.

Today, as always, he stood firm against the darkness that swarmed and lunged at him and what he protected, then closed his eyes.

He saw the child—who'd collapsed into sleep after saving a child destined to die—returning to her bedroom.

A child he couldn't judge—was she human, something that would harm him, or perhaps a noble being that vastly transcended him?

A child that the vengeful spirits of this place instinctively feared and worshipped.

Yet a child who unmistakably held warm light.

The child felt different from anyone in Cardium, anyone who had ever been in Cardium. From her, he felt hope.

'...I want people to clear up their misunderstandings about me. I want Mikhael to clear up his misunderstandings, to let go of his suspicions. I want the horrors to disappear, for no one—including me—to die, and for everyone to escape this estate safely.'

Hope beyond comparison to the small hope he'd felt from the child who'd previously protected Cardium. True hope that an ending might actually come.

The intuition that this child could embrace even the weak current heir of Cardium and bring them together to an ending.

His power had become so corrupted and faint that it was hard to gauge how many more years he could protect this place.

Though he had no strength left to spare, he decided to believe one last time in this hope he'd never felt before.

So that the power he carved away—even at the cost of drastically shortening his lifespan—might bring that child the trust of people.

Since she might be the child who could end all of this, so that she wouldn't wither before blooming, simply because of people's instincts.

Feeling the cracks spread through his already heavily fractured arms as if they might finally shatter completely, the boy smiled faintly.

It was alright.

Even giving away that power, it was only that much.

He'd been created to protect this place, and he could definitely hold out for about two more years.

In that time, if that child stopped the deaths, learned the truth together with the current Cardium heir, and finally reached this place—

[saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme saveme]

Then he too, and Cardium itself, and everything—it could all end.

So it was alright.

The boy embraced the roots of this place with his charred black arms.

They still shone brilliantly golden, but more than half was covered in dark purple.

With each passing moment, they thrashed more violently, trying to break free.

He could only hope the children would arrive before it was too late.

Waiting for the day he could return to Katrina's side as a handful of earth's dust, the boy curled up in the darkness.

The servants of Cardium, familiar with death's shadow.

Among them, who rarely stirred with gossip, strange rumors recently began to spread.

It started with the strange words of Daisy, who'd lost three partners.

"I'm scared. I'm scared."

After losing her third partner, Daisy had become so psychologically fragile that she'd barely been able to work for a month.

"What's wrong, Daisy?"

Since Daisy having nightmares or being scared had been happening all month, Luna—who'd become her new partner—asked with practiced ease.

Daisy's condition had somehow worsened after she'd recently visited her younger sister in the annex—when they'd thought she'd be better.

Daisy hiccupped and showed tears.

"The Madam, she saved Hannah, my little sister."

"...What?"

"Hannah apparently snuck into the main house secretly. She got trapped in a room, and at night when she almost died, the Madam saved her. The Madam—Hannah says she's an angel. How is that possible?"

Daisy bit her nails anxiously.

Having knocked the Madam down and screamed that she was a monster—it remained a terrible horror for her.

All the more so because the Madam had given no retaliation or punishment.

"Is it, is it because of me? Because I called the Madam a monster...? How did she know about that child...?"

"...Who knows."

"What do I do, what do I do, what do I do..."

Daisy trembled violently.

The annex children were nothing less than sacred to the main house adults.

The Madam was an object of terror, and regardless of how the child entered the main house, the very fact that the monstrous Madam had saved a child sounded extremely strange and frightening.

Until that point, not just Daisy but Luna who'd heard the story, and other servants too—they all thought it was strange, that the Madam must have manipulated the child's memory about being saved, or else the child was remembering something that wasn't real. One of the two.

And probably the latter.

Memory confusion in the main house was more common than one might think, and a child who'd seen the Madam's horrifyingly beautiful form—so terrible to even look at—couldn't have been in her right mind.

Above all, that Madam might kill people, but she'd never save them.

But then, the next day.

"The Madam saved me..."

Servant James, who'd nearly fallen to his death from the third-floor corridor railing due to the horrors' voices, spoke stupidly.

Around sunset, while cleaning the west wing, servant James and his partner had both been entranced by the horrors.

His partner kept insisting there was something at the railing, urging James to go there, and James had willingly leaned over the railing, hanging there.

And when his partner, thoroughly entranced by a horror, tried to push him over—the Madam appeared.

'Let go!!'

With that single scream, James's partner snapped out of it, and James, about to fall straight down from the railing, barely caught his balance and survived.

If he'd fallen, it was a height where his head would have cracked open and killed him.

Next was maid Maria, who'd nearly died after getting separated from her partner while leaving the storage supply room.

Then servant Jewick, who'd nearly stabbed his own throat with vividly sharp scissors while cleaning the garden gazebo.

Then another servant, a maid, a servant, another maid...

All of them had destroyed even their last-resort necklaces, unable to use their knives, about to die to the horrors—and the Madam appeared and they barely survived.

Someone asked.

"Why?"

The Madam was supposedly on the horrors' side, a terrifying monster who'd come to kill them. But why?

That she saw and handled the horrors, that she called them "lumps"—this was already well known.

They agonized over it, then shook their heads.

"...It must be a whim."

"Right?"

A monster's whim.

For reasons unknown, maybe she just didn't feel like letting them die that day.

The Madam was a monster under the Master's surveillance. The terrifying woman who'd toppled this place's precarious peace in one stroke.

She'd never act for humans' sake.

"Aren't the ones who survived being controlled by the Madam?"

"No, but they seemed fine."

"They just seem fine. Let's tell the head maid."

"Yeah."

Those who claimed the Madam had saved them were isolated for several days to watch for abnormal symptoms.

Even those who'd been saved doubted their own sanity, so they all submitted to isolation willingly. Afterward, showing no symptoms, they were released—but still, no one could understand the Madam's intent in going around saving servants.

It became another reason for the servants to tremble.

Charlotte fondled the small golden orb proudly.

More than a week had passed since she'd had that terrible nightmare and that incomprehensible conversation with the white rabbit, since she'd received this orb.

Because of the nightmare, she hadn't been in her right mind then—the rabbit had felt entirely negative. But after recovering from her fatigue, the white rabbit was clearly an angel.

She should have realized it when it led her to the child. This orb scattered light whenever someone in the estate faced mortal danger, guiding her to that endangered person.

The rabbit had asked out of nowhere to speak her wish, and while escaping the estate wasn't possible, a method had popped up for her other wishes—for the deaths to stop and to find a way to clear up suspicions.

"How is something like this even possible?"

This morning, having already saved her seventh person and returned proudly to her room, Charlotte murmured while fingering the orb.

[It's his power, obviously.]

Nero responded indifferently.

She briefly wondered what the white rabbit's identity could be to make such things possible, but Charlotte soon erased the thought.

What did it matter?

She'd been getting headaches over how to stop the horrors anyway, and now she had a definite way to save people.

The problem was that the more people she saved, the more the lumps tried to kill someone at least once a day—but she could handle that much. It was fine.

If she kept saving people like this, eventually the estate's servants, and even Mikhael, would let go of their suspicions, right?

Charlotte glanced at the man beside her.

Michael, who'd been by her side every time she saved someone, had his eyes darkly sunken again, as if thinking some strange thought.

...Mm, of course it would be hard to make him believe right away.