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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Ghost and the Visitor
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I stared blankly as the little one scrambled up the stairs.
[…When on earth did he get here?]
How could I have been so careless? Even if I’m invisible, I should have been more cautious.
What did he see? Could he have seen my form because his life force is weak? Was he terrified? He still has to eat, though… All sorts of stray thoughts flooded my mind.
For some reason, all the energy drained from my body. My chest felt hollow, and the little one’s terrified face kept flashing in my mind.
I’ve known from the beginning that he was afraid of me, but to be reminded of it so starkly felt somehow—
[…Strange.]
I lost all motivation. I stood there blankly for a moment before noticing the half-cooked steak.
Since I was in the middle of cooking, I finished it and placed it on a plate.
It looked delicious at a glance.
I cleaned everything up, leaving no trace of myself behind except for the plated food.
[He’ll come down when he’s hungry.]
He must have been quite startled, so he wouldn’t come out right away.
I just waited for Lucian to calm down and emerge.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour, two hours… and then the sun rose.
The steak, left out for nearly half a day, had hardened and lost all its juices. The vegetables, once as fresh as if they’d just been picked, were now limp and dehydrated.
I stared at the cold, ruined food for a long time before throwing it in the trash.
[Right, he can probably skip dinner.]
It seemed he was more frightened than I had thought. He’s probably had some sleep by now, so his fear should have lessened since yesterday.
I immediately prepared a new breakfast.
But even after nine o’clock, Lucian didn’t come down.
So I threw away the breakfast and made a new lunch, then threw away the lunch and made a new dinner.
I waited all day for Lucian to come down, but he never did.
I went so far as to catch a fox crossing the border between the forest and the garden, worried he might be hungry, but my sincerity never reached him.
[…Then again, when has it ever?]
Never. He had simply mistaken me for a person, and I had misunderstood, thinking he was seeing me for who I truly was.
After watching over him for nearly a month, I thought I had gotten to know him, that we had grown closer, but it was all just a one-sided relationship.
To Lucian, I was nothing more and nothing less than the Ghost Bride—a terrifying specter he was unintentionally married to.
If anything, I was more despised than the humans who had sent him here.
Rumble—Flash!
The dark night sky flashed, and two seconds later, thunder roared. Immediately, a downpour began.
Leaving the cold dinner behind, I left the kitchen and went outside.
It was the kind of rain that would have soaked a person to the bone in an instant, but it passed right through my body, having no effect at all.
[Ha, haha….]
My chest felt so empty, like I needed to let something out, but I had no idea how.
If I were human, would I have cried?
But I am a ghost.
I can’t smell, feel, taste food, or cry like a normal person.
For a long time, I stood vacantly in the downpour, trying to soothe my hollow heart.
All through the rainy dawn.
* * *
Growl~
“I’m hungry…”
Lucian, who hadn’t set foot outside his room since the incident, clutched his starving stomach and paced before his door.
He wanted to go to the kitchen, but he was terrified the Ghost Bride he’d seen might still be there.
“Ah, no. Maybe it wasn’t the Ghost Bride, but a person.”
He hadn’t actually seen the Ghost Bride. Just objects floating in mid-air. If it were truly the work of a ghost, why wouldn’t it have come to get him by now?
“Could it be my benefactor?”
Considering someone had been cooking for him, cleaning his room, and doing his laundry, they surely meant him well.
What if it was the benefactor, using some kind of magic because they didn’t want to show themselves?
“…I should go check.”
Summoning a small bit of courage, Lucian cautiously headed to the kitchen.
Just as he’d expected, breakfast was laid out on the table. But it had been sitting there for a while and was completely cold.
Lucian poked at the French toast on the plate before popping a piece into his mouth. Even cold, it was delicious.
“It really was my benefactor.”
Right, the Ghost Bride? That’s ridiculous. How could a ghost possibly hold things or cook?
He felt guilty for jumping to conclusions and running away in fear. Lucian finished his belated breakfast, clearing the plate, and approached the sink to wash it.
Just then, he noticed the lid of the food waste bin next to the sink was slightly ajar.
Lucian was about to close it against the faint, foul odor when he saw that the bin was full and froze.
He cautiously opened it wider. Inside, perfectly good food, now trash, had been thrown away.
For a moment, Lucian was speechless.
“…I have to apologize.”
While he had been cowering in fear, his benefactor had continued to prepare three meals a day for him.
Lucian closed the lid, washed his dish, and then lingered in the clean kitchen, unsure what to do.
Neigh—
An unfamiliar sound reached his ears. The sound of a horse.
Lucian looked up and scanned his surroundings. Through the window, he saw someone approaching the mansion.
It was the first person he had seen in the month since he’d arrived.
In that instant, all thoughts of his benefactor and the Ghost Bride vanished from his mind as he dashed outside.
* * *
“Sigh… why do I have to do this…?”
James, age eighteen.
He lamented his fate as he led a pony pulling a cart.
Having just joined the imperial palace staff a month ago, James was the lowest of the low, which was why he’d been stuck with an errand to the haunted mansion.
The cart was loaded with supplies for the mansion: a small amount of money, food, and clothes.
Why on earth would a place as obviously empty as a haunted mansion need any of this?
Among the imperial palace servants, the haunted mansion was the subject of whispered ghost stories.
No one knew when the mansion, perched conspicuously on a forest slope not far behind the palace walls, had been built, or for what purpose.
Rumor had it that it existed even before the empire was founded, which would make it at least three hundred years old.
Stories of a ghost haunting the place were so rampant that occasionally, reckless youths would go there to test their courage.
Countless were said to have entered boldly only to faint or collapse, foaming at the mouth.
“…Should I just leave?”
The moment he reached the fence, he was hit with the urge to turn right back around.
No one had come with him, and it was far from the palace. No one would know if he just went back.
And it looked like there was a hefty sum of money in there.
James slyly tucked the money pouch inside his tunic.
“Excuse me…!”
“Ah, I didn’t touch anything! I swear!”
A voice from somewhere made James’s heart plummet, and he hastily made an excuse. He looked behind him, but no one was there.
“W-What? Is no one there? Then the voice I heard was…?”
“Excuse me, mister!”
“Aargh!”
This time, the voice came from right in front of him.
James and Lucian stared at each other with terrified eyes. After a long moment, they both let out a sigh of relief.
“You scared me! Who are you?!”
“I-I’m sorry…”
“You should make some noise or something! Where did you even come from…! Wait a minute…”
James’s grumbling trailed off as he recognized a familiar face in the boy before him.
It was the same noble face he had glimpsed just two days ago while bowing his head.
The color drained from James’s face, and he hurriedly bowed his head.
“P-Please forgive my impertinence, Your Highness! I have spoken out of turn!”
“…What?”
“I-I never expected to see Your Highness here… Please, spare my life!”
As James suddenly began to grovel on the ground, frantic, Lucian could only watch in bewilderment.
“Um… please raise your head.”
“How could I dare to look upon the face of the Crown Prince?”
“But I’m not the Crown Prince.”
“…Pardon?”
Confused, James snapped his head up. But no matter how he looked, it was the Crown Prince. As he started to lower his head again, he felt something was off and looked at Lucian’s face once more.
“…Then who are you?”
“I’m Lucian.”
“Lucian? Who’s that?”
“…I don’t know?”
The completely disjointed conversation left them both with question marks hanging over their heads. In any case, James was deeply relieved that the boy wasn’t the Crown Prince.
Still, his striking resemblance to the Crown Prince and his golden eyes, the symbol of the imperial family, lingered in James’s mind. Even if he wasn’t the Crown Prince, it meant he was royalty.
He couldn’t understand why a royal child would be in an empty place like this.
Suddenly, the Head Chamberlain’s words from just before he left came to mind.
‘Whatever you see there, you saw nothing.’
‘Pardon? What do you mean by that?’
‘Exactly what I said. Don’t you go blabbing about whatever you might see. I’m telling you this for your own good.’
At the time, he’d thought it was just a threat, but now he realized it must have been a warning not to tell anyone he’d seen this child.
“Oh! Food!”
Lucian’s exclamation snapped James back to his senses.
“Yes, I was ordered to leave this here.”
“Oh? So you’re from the imperial palace?”
“Basically, yes.”
Lucian’s expression brightened instantly.
“Then, mister! Do you know who works here?”
“Someone lives here?”
“…Pardon?”
“Are you, by any chance, Lucian… sir… living here?”
Seeing the look of shock on James’s face, Lucian gave a bewildered nod.
“Um, so, do you happen to know who works here?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything.”
“Oh…”
“I’ve never heard of anyone living here. This is an abandoned mansion, so it’s not maintained. People don’t come here.”
Lucian’s face grew pale. The sight of the small child trembling was so pitiful that James felt a pang of unease.
“Well, I was just sent to deliver this, so I’ll just leave it and go.”
He had originally planned to just drop the things by the fence, but now that he’d met Lucian, he had no choice but to move the supplies inside.
James led the pony to the mansion entrance. Lucian followed slowly behind him, a dazed look on his face.
Glancing at the boy, James began unloading the supplies at the entrance.
“Alright, that’s the last of it.”
As he set down the last box of clothes, he felt the heavy weight in his tunic. The money he had secretly pilfered.
For a moment, he was conflicted about whether to return it.
[You’d do well to leave it all behind.]
Just then, a strange voice echoed not in his ears, but inside his head.
He timidly raised his head in fear and saw, not too far away, something with disembodied legs floating in the air.
‘A terrifying maiden ghost lives there. They say she sucks out all of a man’s life force.’
Why, of all times, did the words of his colleague come to mind?
Barely able to breathe, James trembled as he placed the money pouch from his tunic on top of the box of clothes.
And just like that, the mysterious legs that had been visible moments before vanished.
“Wow, is this all for me?”
James, who had been standing there dumbfounded, took a sharp breath and clutched his wildly pounding chest.
‘I have to get out of here. Now.’
“I-I’ll be on my way now! I’ll be back in a month!”
“Ah…! Wait!”
Before Lucian could stop him, James was already far in the distance, leading his pony away.
Left all alone, Lucian watched James’s retreating figure fade away before looking down at the boxes.
“…He said no one was here.”
His benefactor was clearly here, yet the man claimed there was no one else but him.
He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t bring himself to.
Because…
‘I’ve never seen another person here.’
They just appear and disappear like a ghost.
Lucian stood blankly for a moment, then rose and trudged weakly up the stairs.
The boxes were left abandoned at the entrance.
About three minutes after Lucian had disappeared,
the Ghost Bride appeared.
She stared vacantly toward the stairs where Lucian had gone, then began to tidy up the supplies one by one.
Soon, her afterimage faded, and the entrance was once again pristine, all the boxes gone as if they had never been there.
Creeak—
The wide-open door swung shut, and silence enveloped the mansion once more.
