NOMAMWTM Chapter 4

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

Time crawled by, feeling like an eternity.

Charlotte could barely manage to breathe.

"...Miss Charlotte."

She finally snapped back to her senses only when Michael Cardium spoke. Creak. She turned her head.

Michael, the man who had become her husband, stood there with an angelic face—expressionless yet composed.

'Am I the only one seeing this?'

Charlotte wondered if this might be a dream and rolled her eyes to glance around at her surroundings.

But filling the chapel was exactly what she'd seen before, not a single thing different—black masses with glossy white eyeballs... Oh, Sornia.

She felt faint.

Any place with freedom would have been fine, but that didn't mean a place crawling with ghosts like these was acceptable.

She'd already gotten married, and going back to the Baron Ethel estate would only mean being locked up again, so she had nowhere to return to now—but the difficulty level of her new home was far too high.

"Miss Zelova."

Just before her mind went hazy, Michael called her by the wrong surname again.

Charlotte barely managed to tear her gaze away from the masses.

Looking at the man's face—like a work of art a craftsman might have spent decades carving—seemed to calm her pounding heart somewhat.

"My name is Charlotte Ethel."

Even in the dizzying midst of something she couldn't believe was real, Charlotte corrected the mistaken name, then immediately locked eyes with another eyeball.

"......"

She finally reached her limit.

Her mind went blank.

...For now, let's sleep and think about it later.

Her body and mind, exhausted from traveling all day and unable to accept the unacceptable truth, turned away from reality beyond fear.

Charlotte asked Michael with empty eyes.

"Is there anything else we need to do?"

He flinched, perhaps embarrassed about getting her name wrong, then shook his head.

She requested.

"Then could you show me to my room?"

Michael stared at her silently for a moment, then obediently left the chapel and guided her inside the estate.

They arrived at a luxurious bedroom.

"The marital bedroom isn't ready yet, so this is a temporary bedroom I've prepared. Please stay here for a few days."

She nodded without really listening to what he was saying.

"Then, please rest."

Click.

When she was left alone, Charlotte tried to head straight to the bed to pass out, but her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

She saw ghost-masses clinging densely to the ceiling and walls that had been clean just moments ago—whether they'd followed her in or not.

There were many, and even more disgusting than what she'd seen in the chapel.

"...Wow."

What should I do about this? Charlotte let out a hollow laugh as she looked at the ghosts.

Maybe because she was so exhausted, her sense of reality had dulled—rather than scared, her mind felt numb.

But then, through her hazy consciousness, a sense of incongruity suddenly crept in.

...Huh?

The expression vanished from her pale face in an instant.

Charlotte tilted her head, still sitting collapsed on the floor.

...This is strange.

Definitely, earlier

The silver cup fell.

The window shook.

The chair swayed.

But Michael had only watched.

Even if he couldn't see those things, he would have seen the commotion.

As if he were used to it.

If he were used to those things, or if he could see the ghosts, shouldn't he have reassured her, who had just arrived?

...Or.

Suddenly, that ticklish air similar to when she'd first stepped out of the carriage made its presence known.

Not once, not twice, but a third time.

Charlotte realized this was a 'familiar' energy.

She dropped her head with a thunk.

Silver light was rippling from her hands.

In her downward gaze, she also caught sight of her mother's slightly cracked necklace.

The magic of the silver cup. The energy that kept stimulating her.

Charlotte slowly turned her head and stared at the masses clinging to the walls without even blinking.

...Ghosts.

Or not?

"......"

Fourth floor, the study that generations of Cardium dukes had used.

The only place the aberrations couldn't enter, and therefore where Michael could avoid hearing their voices.

Michael slammed the door shut and gasped for breath.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

His heart pounded against his chest.

His pale brow furrowed.

When he first faced 'Charlotte.'

For just a fleeting moment, he thought she might truly be different from all the exorcists he'd brought in before—all of whom had died—someone who might actually free them from these aberrations.

After she set foot in the estate, the aberrations had suddenly gone quiet as mice, and in his 25 years of life, such a thing had never happened even once.

But that faint hope shattered as quickly as it had bloomed.

The one who entered the estate was not Charlotte Zelova, the exorcist he'd requested from the Imperial family and they'd agreed to send.

Michael stared unblinkingly at the floor of the dark study, boring holes into it.

As if seared into his mind, the moment he'd lifted the woman's veil remained vivid in fragments.

The woman was pale white.

Cleaner than anything else, yet a pure white that seemed like it would instantly wither any lushly blooming flower or ripe fruit placed beside it.

A face with no sense of brilliant life force—more fitting to call a wax doll sculpted by the gods themselves—was revealed beneath the veil.

The moment those highly saturated vibrant red eyes, impossible to consider human, gazed at him from between those thick black lashes drooping over a blank white canvas—

Even though he'd been raised in an environment where he had no choice and rarely felt shaken, he unknowingly trembled and dropped the veil.

As if crafted to enchant foolish humans, she possessed a beauty distantly removed from humanity.

...Eerie.

The daze lasted only an instant.

The moment he came to his senses, goosebumps crawled up his spine.

No expression showed on that pale white face.

Not a shred of emotion showed in those bright red eyes.

Nowhere could he see the flaws that signify the brilliant, vivacious life that comes with being human.

When her eyelids, motionless like those of a porcelain doll, trembled as if conscious of his gaze, and she began to blink.

When the all-too-certain intuition struck his mind that she was not human.

[Ah, ahh. Ahhh.]

[Ahhhhh, ahh!]

[Ahh, ahhhh...]

The aberrations that had been quiet until then

All at once

Opened their mouths.

[AHHHHHHH!]

[Ahhh, ahhh, ahhhhh!]

[Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful]

[Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful]

The things that would slip in at the slightest opening to kill humans, to kill his household, whose voices had been filled with viciousness and evil—mostly curses of die—now sang in chorus like fanatics witnessing their god and singing hymns.

What that fanaticism was directed toward was—so very, undoubtedly—

As if the phenomenon that would make any human faint was completely natural.

As if she should rightfully be welcomed so.

'Charlotte,' standing there with a serene face.

Her red eyes were directed at the empty air, subtly bypassing him.

His eyes saw nothing, but it was obvious what she was seeing.

The shrieks of the aberrations, writhing in ecstasy that she had seen them, pierced through his eardrums.

Much later, as if remembering him, she turned her head toward him and calmly stated—as if there was no particular reason to hide it—that she was not 'Charlotte Zelova'...

"......"

Michael squeezed his eyes shut and opened them.

The feeling of having brought another monster into this estate with his own hands while trying to stop the increasingly powerful aberrations was indescribably horrific.

So horrific... he wanted to let go now.

Tssss.

His trembling hands lit a cigarette.

How long must this continue? How long must he endure?

No, no.

Michael struggled to sweep back his sweat-drenched hair and drew deeply on the cigarette.

The hazy air he inhaled until his empty insides ached, then exhaled, slightly blurred the scene that felt maddening just to recall.

Though he felt like he might break rather than just bend, he soon stood up.

This was Cardium Estate.

A horrific place that had been crawling with aberrations yearning to kill humans since 36 years ago, when his great-grandfather, the previous previous Duke of Cardium, died under mysterious circumstances.

In this place where no one could leave due to the mysterious barrier that had been cast over the entire estate grounds when the aberrations appeared, what he needed to do now was not be crushed under this horrific weight of self-blame.

The eerily beautiful bride had already set foot inside Cardium.

Whatever her identity and purpose, she might destroy the precarious coexistence between the household and the aberrations that had barely been maintained.

He needed to prepare countermeasures.

If you're not dead, move.

Michael slowly left the study and headed for the marital bedroom that had been sealed since his father, the previous duke, passed away.

He'd prepared a separate bedroom because an ordinary human shouldn't be close to him, but the wife he'd received was not human.

Creeeak.

The marital bedroom door opened slowly, letting cold air seep in.

For a moment, feet dangling in midair came into view.

Michael blinked once to swallow down the bile rising in his empty stomach and stepped inside.

A magic circle that must have originally been brilliant gold rippled into view on the wall, now a deep violet-black.

It would take quite some time to repair.

Though he felt like he might collapse at any moment, he had to keep Charlotte close and monitor her.

Even if no one could get close because of the aberrations, it was his duty—carrying the lives of all his household on his shoulders.

However, Michael—a powerful mage, yet a powerless human before an unknown entity—

"Save... me..."

Could not prevent hell from beginning the very next day after Charlotte set foot in the estate.