NOMAMWTM Chapter 40

"...Mich—."

Charlotte reflexively started to call out to Michael, then froze.

At some point, the golden orb she'd kept in her pocket had begun to float, drifting upward while scattering its soft, ethereal glow.

"Oh—"

Someone was in danger.

The moment she shot to her feet, the orb streaked across the room in a blur and vanished into the corridor.

Her face drained of color.

The orb had never moved that fast before. Someone must be in terrible danger.

"Ngh, ah, ngh...!"

"...Hah, hah, stop!"

She ran like mad and arrived at a room on the third floor. The masses writhed and squirmed, swarming in a black tide around a maid collapsed on the floor.

Charlotte frantically drove back the entities wrapped like a suffocating shroud over the maid's body.

But today, the entities refused to listen.

"Ahhh...!"

The maid pinned beneath them let out a terror-choked moan.

"Move, won't you?!"

Charlotte's face went white as she groped around, seizing a feather duster and swinging it wildly.

Only then did the masses retreat with a soft, sibilant hiss.

"Are you o—?"

As the writhing things dispersed, Charlotte's gaze immediately met the eyes of the maid sprawled on the floor.

A familiar face. The maid stared up at her, deathly pale, gasping for breath in ragged bursts.

...It was Daisy.

'You monster!!'

The memory of Daisy's anguished scream flashed before Charlotte's eyes. She hesitated for a moment, then forced an awkward smile.

"...Um, are you all right?"

Daisy stared at her without blinking, tears pooling in her eyes, her shoulders visibly trembling.

Well, that was the universal reaction from every servant Charlotte had saved.

Fear directed at her—always arriving before relief at being alive.

Charlotte swallowed the familiar bitter taste and carefully extended her hand toward Daisy.

Trying not to startle someone terrified, someone who had just nearly died.

"Are you all right?"

She asked again, but Daisy only continued to tremble as she looked up at her.

Charlotte awkwardly withdrew her outstretched hand.

She knelt down beside Daisy.

Daisy flinched violently, sucking in a sharp breath.

Charlotte waited for Daisy's breathing to steady, for her to calm down a little.

No matter how many lives Charlotte saved, the servants still thought her a monster and trembled all the same—watching that from beside them was a bitter thing, but if she left immediately after rescuing them, the masses would sometimes notice and swarm back.

"...Um, Daisy."

After a long while, once Daisy's breathing had settled somewhat, Charlotte spoke.

Daisy's shoulders jerked upward.

Usually at this point, Charlotte would stay silent to avoid further misunderstanding, then leave once they could stand on their own—but perhaps because it was Daisy, her mouth opened of its own accord.

"...Listen, I'm sorry for scaring you."

Daisy's eyes were like a frightened rabbit's.

Charlotte scratched awkwardly behind her ear.

"But I'm... not a scary person. I know you all think I am. I'm not in league with the entities, and I don't control them. I'm just a person."

Perhaps the word monster that Daisy had used had stuck with her more than she realized.

"That time, that day I approached you—it was because I could see that ghost too... and I wanted to comfort you."

Since the opportunity had presented itself, Charlotte simply said everything she'd wanted to say.

Daisy's eyes wavered for a moment.

But her shoulders still trembled.

Charlotte hadn't expected to be believed just because she said it.

After all, there was a man right beside her who wouldn't listen no matter how honestly she spoke.

Hah. Charlotte sighed inwardly.

Seeing that neither Daisy nor the other maid collapsed nearby appeared to be in serious condition, Charlotte rose to her feet.

"Ah."

Just before leaving the room, a good idea suddenly occurred to her, and she turned her head.

"Next time you see me, would you greet me? Normally."

Charlotte smiled brightly at Daisy, who stared at her blankly, and made her request.

No answer came, but since she hadn't expected one, it didn't bother her.

Charlotte found meaning in having said it, thinking she should add this request every time she saved a servant from now on, and turned to leave.

She hadn't said anything beyond asking if they were all right before, but adding a bit of explanation and a small wish didn't seem like a bad idea.

No, it might even be more effective.

After all, she was saying it while saving them. Perhaps everyone would start to believe her a little faster.

And once people started greeting her, the likelihood of Michael believing her would increase too.

Satisfied with having saved another life today, Charlotte stepped out of the room and stopped short.

Whether he had followed her or not, Michael stood right in front of the room.

"How long are you going to keep this up?"

The moment she thought about the possibility of belief, a question brimming with distrust struck her.

...There was still a long way to go.

"I'm sorry for suddenly running off."

Charlotte sighed inwardly but smiled brightly without showing it.

The bolt on memories buried and locked away for ten years had come undone without warning.

Michael had followed Charlotte, telling himself it couldn't be—even though the direction she was walking and the mention of his father's room made it all too clear where she was headed. For a moment, he stared blankly into the briefly opened room.

The study his father had used separately, claiming the office with the artifact connecting to the imperial palace made him uneasy—the place where Michael had learned to wield magic as a child.

The room, sealed for a decade, appeared far more cramped than the endlessly vast space he remembered from childhood.

The moment he looked around, memories from his childhood poured in unbidden from every corner.

At the bookshelf, his younger self standing on tiptoe, searching for books behind his father's back with the determination to sweep away all the entities, mistakenly believing dangerous grimoires might be hidden there.

On the sofa tucked in the corner, his father holding him, covering his ears.

On the floor, his younger self drawing magic circles and playing.

By the window, riding on his father's shoulders, vowing to his mother that he would one day break through that barrier.

Before misfortune struck—days when precarious coexistence and peace with the entities had been achieved—memories of childhood brushed past him with an aching sting.

'Here too, it keeps saying he's sorry, that he wants to leave.'

Only when Charlotte spouted nonsense about a book stained pitch-black being his father's diary did he come to his senses.

The monster was toying with him again.

Following the memories of Lotte, the woman's detestable words and actions trying desperately to drag out his vulnerable parts—barely regaining his reason, he tried not to let his gaze rest on anything else in the room.

There had been a reason for burying it all.

He tried to keep his sharp watch fixed only on Charlotte.

But when Michael spotted the picture frame on the desk, he froze again.

Perhaps he heard the heavy thud of his heart dropping.

Charlotte showed him the pitch-black book beside him, claiming to have seen his father's diary, pulling out and opening his father's books one after another—but his vigilance toward her scattered and drifted away as if suddenly growing distant.

Michael reached out and lifted the frame.

Inside was a portrait painted by a talented servant from his childhood—a scene of him, Adin, and his parents all together.

Even as he tried to tear his gaze away, it lingered on the face of his father, Antonio Cardium, smiling brightly.

The father who had gifted him hell by taking his own life.

But before that, the person who had been the most tender father in the world.

Facing that face after ten years, an indescribable emotion welled up inside him.

At some point, Charlotte had rushed out of the room with that detestable pretense of needing to save someone.

[...diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie]

As if they had been waiting, the entities began to stir up a commotion again.

He needed to chase after her since there was no telling what she might do—but the emotions that had begun surging refused to stop.

Before his father had hanged himself in the bedroom Michael now used, before his life had tumbled into the abyss—the things that had happened before all that kept brushing against his hardened heart.

He stared at the frame and desk for a long while, then suddenly recalled Charlotte mentioning in passing that she should open all the drawers too.

He didn't know why that particular comment stood out among all her nonsense or the cruel words meant to provoke him.

But he opened them.

And the moment he found a note inside one empty drawer, he regretted having opened it.