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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Chapter 7 Searching for the Corpse (3)
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A short while later…
Creak! Bang!
“Is anyone here!”
The place she arrived at was the shabby shop she had visited a few days ago.
Unlike her previous cautious visit, fearful of being seen, Elajan frantically began searching for the person who had created Jestin for her.
“What can I do for you, customer?”
“...!”
Elajan, who had been busily scanning the surroundings in the darkness, searching for the owner, was startled by the silent approach and words of Shainos.
“The item is strange!”
But that surprise lasted only a moment before she urgently blurted out the reason for her visit, her voice trembling.
“Strange, you say?”
“It… it’s crying.”
“Hmm.”
“It looked at me with resentful eyes!”
“...”
Despite Elajan’s trembling voice, Shainos simply smiled faintly, as if amused, and remained silent for a moment.
“...! Hey! Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
“No, I’m not.”
At Shainos’s demeanor, Elajan frowned deeply and challenged him in an angry tone, believing he didn’t trust her words.
“Such cases happen sometimes.”
“Pardon?”
Only then did Shainos slowly begin to walk somewhere, speaking as he went.
Even in the darkness, he accurately approached a table, sat down, and smiled faintly.
Elajan wore a displeased expression at his overly relaxed demeanor, which contrasted sharply with her urgent and fearful state, but since she needed his answer and help, she quietly waited for Shainos’s next words.
“There are instances where a soul, having met an unjust death, enters a doll that resembles them.”
“...! W-what did you say?!”
And a moment later, as Shainos leisurely continued speaking, Elajan felt her breath catch in her throat.
Her legs instantly lost all strength, and she couldn’t help but collapse onto the floor.
“A soul that doesn’t know they’ve died… that doesn’t know where their corpse is, sometimes possesses a doll that looks exactly like them.”
“...!”
Her already pale face turned impossibly white.
It meant that the doll she had been with all this time was truly the deceased Jestin.
Elajan visibly began to tremble with fear.
“What should I do… what can I…?”
“There is a way.”
“...!”
Elajan, whose mind had gone blank on how to resolve this situation, quickly raised her head and looked at Shainos at his words.
“A-a way?”
“Yes, there’s a way to make that soul disappear.”
“...! W-what is it?”
At the mention of a way to make the soul possessing the doll disappear, Elajan sprang to her feet as if she hadn’t just collapsed and quickly approached Shainos.
“What is that method?!”
“Find the dead body.”
“...What did you say?”
“You need to teach the soul that the doll is not its body… that it has died.”
“...!”
“Find the corpse and burn it. That’s the only way.”
“...”
Elajan remained silent for a long time at Shainos’s words, who smiled faintly and spoke as if it were the simplest solution.
‘Find the corpse…?’
Then, Elajan repeatedly mulled over his words inwardly, standing there like a stone statue for a long time, lost in thought.
***
Dark clouds enveloped the sky, as if rain would fall at any moment, concealing even the moonlight.
A thick fog also settled, making the already dark night world even darker.
“Hurry.”
“Yes, understood.”
Yet, through that darkness, a group moved secretly and swiftly.
By a lakeside not far from Count Devilran’s Estate, several adult men appeared, quickly launched a boat, and headed into the lake.
And watching and directing them was Elajan.
“It was near there.”
“Yes.”
Following Elajan’s instructions, the men on the boat, carrying magic lights that weren’t very bright but wouldn’t extinguish underwater, jumped into the water.
They then dove deep, beginning to search for something.
“...”
How much time passed? The men, who had been repeatedly surfacing and diving in turns, seemed to have found what they were looking for.
“...!”
And a moment later, the men, pulling something onto the boat, quickly approached where Elajan was waiting.
“...”
What was retrieved from the lake by the men was Jestin’s corpse.
Seeing it, Elajan couldn’t stop her legs from trembling.
But she soon forced strength into her trembling legs and moved closer to where Jestin’s corpse lay.
“Gasp!”
However, upon approaching and seeing Jestin’s face illuminated by the light, Elajan couldn’t help but let out a surprised cry.
“Why…!”
Not a single part of the corpse had decomposed.
Jestin looked exactly as he had in life, as if he had just died, and Elajan couldn’t control her trembling heart.
The men who had retrieved the corpse felt the same.
“...There was one more strange thing.”
“What is it?”
At that moment, one of the men cautiously spoke to Elajan.
Not only was the corpse not decomposed, but there was one more unusual detail.
“The stone tied with the corpse was different from the stone we tied before.”
“...What?”
They had tied Jestin with a large stone before throwing him into the water to prevent the corpse from floating.
But just now, when they cut the rope tied to the stone while retrieving the corpse, they realized the stone was different from the one they had used.
“Different, you say? You remember the shape of the stone?”
Elajan looked at the man as if she found him pathetic. How different could a stone’s shape be? And how could he distinguish it in the dark water?
“Back then, it wasn’t one large stone, but several small stones tied to the corpse.”
“...! What?!”
But at the man’s continued words, Elajan’s eyes also filled with bewilderment. She couldn’t understand why the tied stones had changed.
“...For now, hurry.”
However, that surprise lasted only a moment. Elajan, realizing this was no time to simply be surprised, ordered the men again.
They needed to burn the corpse as quickly as possible, as Shainos had instructed, before anyone saw them.
“Yes.”
At Elajan’s command, the men quickly lifted the corpse again and approached a pile of wood prepared beforehand.
Oil had already been poured onto the wood, so all they needed to do was light it.
The men picked up a torch that had been set aside and began to light the wood where the corpse lay. No, they tried to light it.
“Do you know that concealing a corpse is a greater crime?”
“...!”
If only that unfamiliar voice hadn’t sounded at that moment.
Elajan quickly turned her head towards where the sound came from.
“Who are you?!”
“...If you knew who I was, would this situation be any different?”
At Elajan’s question, the other person clicked his tongue in disapproval, as if she was pathetic, and slowly approached her.
The one who gradually revealed himself from the darkness was Sei-an.
“...Handle it.”
“Yes.”
Elajan, momentarily flustered by Sei-an’s appearance, soon ordered the men.
As he said, it didn’t matter who Sei-an was. Since he had seen her and Jestin’s corpse, all she had to do was not let him live.
Swoosh!
“Take one more step towards that child, and you’ll die.”
“Of course, either way, you’ll die eventually.”
“...!”
“...!”
But at that moment, swords silently appeared at the men’s throats, as Lucian and Cliff emerged.
The men, who had been rapidly approaching Sei-an, couldn’t help but freeze with hardened expressions.
Elajan was no different. She, too, couldn’t hide her bewilderment at the sudden appearance of Sei-an’s party.
“Aunt… no, I suppose I can’t call you that anymore.”
“...Cliff.”
The first to approach her and speak was Cliff.
Elajan, seeing him close, only then recognized who he was and slowly sank to the ground. Now that Cliff, Count Devilran’s nephew, knew of Jestin’s death, everything was over.
“Why, why?!”
Cliff couldn’t believe, even with his own eyes, that she had killed Jestin.
She had always shown more affection and love for Jestin than for her own son, which made Cliff’s sense of betrayal even greater.
“Why did you do such a thing! Jestin… how could you do that to Jestin…?”
“Because I hated him.”
“...What did you say?”
At Cliff’s accusatory words, Elajan, who had been sitting on the ground, lost in thought, began to mutter.
“Because I hated him so much.”
“...!”
“Because I loathed to death the way he always looked at Jestin so warmly and embraced him!”
She hated Count Devilran for giving everything to Jestin, and she hated Jestin so much she wanted to kill him for monopolizing his love.
And her own son, growing up without his father’s love, pained her heart so deeply that she ended up committing such an act.
If it wasn’t his father’s love, she wanted to at least pass on the count’s estate to her son.
“...”
Cliff sighed softly as he listened to her words.
While Count Devilran did have such tendencies, it was merely out of pity for Jestin, who had lost his mother at a young age, that he poured more affection into him.
Count Devilran had once told him he feared Jestin would become even lonelier if he were to shower affection on Bellison, his second son, when Jestin had no birth mother.
Cliff couldn’t help but sigh in regret, knowing that Count Devilran’s thoughts and feelings hadn’t been conveyed, leading to this incident.
That said, he had no intention of understanding or forgiving her actions completely.
Not everyone in the world commits murder for the sake of love and affection their child hasn’t received.
Ultimately, she had killed Jestin merely to gain the count’s fortune and satisfy her own greed.
“You will pay for your crimes.”
“...”
She would likely face the death penalty.
Cliff helped Elajan, who was still sitting on the ground, supporting her as he pulled her to her feet.
He intended to transport her and all those who helped her conspire in this matter to the Capital Guards.
“Would you mind waiting a moment?”
“...?”
But then, Sei-an quietly approached them, stopping Cliff’s actions, and spoke.
“Why is that?”
“...”
Despite Cliff’s question, Sei-an remained silent and continued to walk towards a certain spot.
“Come out.”
“...?”
Then, he uttered something incomprehensible towards a large tree.
At this, Cliff and everyone else nearby looked at him with puzzled expressions.
“...”
“...!”
But the next moment, a person slowly emerged from behind that large tree, startling everyone.
