She hadn’t been unable to taste from the beginning.
‘Don’t eat sweets. You’re a good girl, so you’ll listen to Mommy, won’t you?’
‘Why didn’t you get first place?’
‘Choose your friends carefully. What benefit is there in associating with a poor child who gets such low grades?’
She had merely suppressed her own wishes, pressing them down deep.
‘Everything I say is only because I love you.’
Obeying nothing but her parents’ orders at every turn.
‘Our daughter is the best-behaved child in the whole world.’
…At some point, she had become incapable of tasting anything at all.
Naturally, she hadn’t been able to tell her parents.
If they discovered a flaw in their only daughter, they would never have let it rest.
‘There are many causes for losing one’s sense of taste.’
Searching it on the internet back in middle school, she had merely assumed it was due to ‘excessive stress.’
‘To think my sense of taste still won’t return, even in a world without my parents.’
Was her subconscious still held captive by them?
“Haa…”
Her chest felt hollow.
Things she liked, people, food, possessions… not a single one existed.
Even what she disliked remained vague.
Aside from anything related to the game Utopia.
That was precisely why this world inside the game was so special.
‘I wish Likens could simply acknowledge what he genuinely enjoys, too.’
Having something you love is a blessing, after all.
“Is it too much to ask of someone like me?”
Rodi sighed as she finished the dishes.
As the villainess, perhaps it was impossible for her to change his heart.
Lost in such thoughts, Rodi lay down on the bed.
A few hours later.
Goosebumps broke out across Rodi’s skin in her sleep.
The chill seeped right through her blanket, forcing her eyes open.
“…Ah?”
She doubted her own eyes.
‘Am I dreaming?’
She rubbed her eyes, pinched her thigh, and even slapped her own cheek, but the sight before her remained unchanged.
“It’s not a dream…”
Muttering under her breath, Rodi sat up completely.
“A real… ghost?”
It was true.
A hazy human silhouette swayed only a short distance from the bed.
Looking closer, it was a tall, middle-aged man wearing a gloomy expression.
“And here I didn’t believe in ghosts.”
Rodi rubbed her arms, sinking into thought.
‘I suppose the rumors about this mansion being haunted were true after all.’
She swept a cold gaze over the apparition.
“I have no idea why on earth you’re here.”
She pointed a finger at the door.
“Get out this instant. You’ll tank the property value.”
Frankly, she didn’t give a damn about ghosts or spirits.
What mattered was the house itself.
More precisely, its real estate price!
“…”
The ghost said nothing.
It merely stared intently at her.
“What do you want?”
When she demanded sulkily, the ghost gestured for her to follow.
An ordinary person would have been paralyzed with fright, but Rodi, who feared nothing, followed the ghost without a fuss.
The ghost led her toward the mansion’s garden.
Since she hadn’t touched the garden during the interior renovations, an eerie desolation hung over the overgrown weeds.
The ghost silently pointed toward a corner of the grounds.
“What’s over there?”
“…”
“Don’t tell me you want me to dig?”
The misty figure nodded slowly.
Unless she got rid of this ghost, she wouldn't be able to sell the house.
Resigned, Rodi fetched a shovel and began digging up the dirt.
‘Shoveling dirt in the middle of the night, of all things!’
Digging was harder than expected. Before long, sweat began to bead on her brow.
Clack.
Just when she felt she had dug a fairly deep hole, the edge of the shovel struck something.
“Huh…?”
Setting the shovel aside, Rodi gently pushed the soil away with her hands.
And resting inside was…
“What is this?”
None other than…
“A-a skull?”
It was someone’s bleached skeleton.
✦ ✦ ✦
The following morning.
Rodi’s mansion was bustling with a crowd of visitors.
“Just so we’re clear.”
Looking at the man who had arrived leading several knights, Rodi vehemently pleaded her case.
“I didn’t kill him.”
Likens replied impassively,
“I know.”
He approached the remains his subordinates had diligently excavated since morning.
“The corpse has already turned to bone. It has easily been dead for several years.”
Trotting right behind him, Rodi asked,
“Still, does the Imperial Palace Knight Commander usually come out in person to crime scenes like this?”
“I don’t typically come in person. However, every murder that occurs within the capital is reported to me. I merely stopped by because the address in the report looked familiar.”
“I see… Have you identified the body?”
Likens glanced at her. Despite being the one who had discovered the corpse, she showed no sign of fear whatsoever.
‘Is she truly born of high nobility?’
The noble ladies he knew would faint at the sight of a few drops of blood.
Likens showed her the locket necklace that had hung near the corpse’s neck.
Inside rested a faded portrait of two people who appeared to be father and daughter.
“The deceased is Robers, the former owner of this estate who was processed as missing several years ago.”
At those words, Rodi clutched her head.
‘I’m ruined!’
The former owner, believed to have vanished without a trace, had just been unearthed as a corpse in the garden. Once word got out, no one would buy this place.
She had taken the ghost rumors far too lightly.
‘To think it was actually real.’
“After his daughter succumbed to illness, Robers lived alone before suddenly disappearing one day.”
Likens continued,
“Everyone presumed he took his own life or fled far away, unable to bear the grief of losing his daughter. To imagine he would be found dead in his own yard…”
Just then, Rodi, who had been clutching her head in despair, looked up.
“He lived alone and was ultimately registered as missing, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, may I look at the picture in that locket once more?”
Likens held out the necklace without objection.
“…”
Rodi stared fixedly at the photograph.
A father and daughter with dark blond hair were smiling warmly at each other.
She muttered,
“They’re blond.”
“…?”
Likens looked puzzled.
“Yes, blond.”
Like someone struck by an epiphany, Rodi lifted her head and stared up at the sky for a long time.
For a moment, it sounded as if she were cursing under her breath.
“Lord Magzeta, have missing persons or suicides seen a spike recently, by any chance?”
At that question, Likens’s expression hardened.
“…I cannot disclose that to a civilian.”
“Of course not, ah, ah!”
Tousling her hair frantically, her face turned pale.
Alarmed by her sudden change, Likens asked in concern,
“Are you all right?”
Biting her lip, Rodi spun on her heel.
“…Excuse me for a moment.”
“…”
Likens watched her retreating back in confusion as she rushed inside the estate.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, Rodi was in utter turmoil.
‘No way!’
Rushing back into her room, she dug out the sheets of paper where she had recently outlined every route in Utopia.
‘Don’t tell me this event is triggering already?!’
Rodi quickly scanned the section summarizing Likens’s route.
—Likens's Route: Bodies of missing persons begin turning up. Investigating the cases, Likens discovers they are linked to the past deaths of his parents.
In Utopia, each capture target had a distinct scenario.
‘For instance, Yubar’s route progresses by searching for his mother’s jewelry box and unraveling her last wishes…’
Yet unlike with Yubar, she hadn't done anything to trigger this, so why had she suddenly crossed into an event from Likens’s route?
“Don’t tell me this world isn’t locked to a specific route, but has all the routes intertwined?”
It was a thoroughly plausible hypothesis.
What if the world she was in held the potential for events from every route to occur simultaneously?
“I really can’t tell whether this is a good thing or bad…”
After agonizing over it for about ten minutes, Rodi shook her head vigorously.
‘Let’s focus on the problem right in front of me first.’
That wasn’t what was important right now.
‘If things unfold according to Likens’s route, I still have a chance.’
Namely, the chance to sell this mansion to Likens!
‘In the first place, his obsession with becoming a flawless heir is tied to his parents’ deaths.’
Once the truth behind their deaths came to light, Likens would finally be able to embrace the things he loved without shame.
‘Selling him the mansion after that will be perfection.’
Having reorganized her plan in her head, Rodi stepped back outside.
Seeing her reappear just as abruptly as she had vanished, Likens gave her a bewildered look.
“Where did you run off to in such a rush?”
Rodi answered shamelessly,
“I had an urgent need to use the washroom.”
“…”
“Lord Magzeta, have any other long-missing persons been discovered recently besides this place?”
“I am not at liberty to tell you.”
Figures.
Rodi gave up without hesitation.
“Very well, Lord Magzeta. Then let me offer you a single piece of advice.”
“Advice?”
She smiled smoothly.
“Why not look into the cases handled as suicides or left unresolved over the past fifteen years?”
Rodi whispered conspiratorially,
“Who knows? You might just discover something entirely new.”
