Translator: Nox

The Mansion Awaits Spring

Chapter 23

At that exact moment, when the sound of the door moving came from Pezin’s direction, April frantically sprinted back up the stairs.

“Don’t close the door! Pezin! Keep it open!”

“I didn’t close it, the wind—”

Pezin’s response, shouted back in haste at her terrified voice, cut off abruptly.

As he rushed out, he caught April with one arm like a net, steadying her as she stumbled.

The moment she regained her footing outside, April glared at Pezin and demanded, “Why did you… why were you trying to close the door!”

“I didn’t. The wind was trying to blow it shut, so I caught it.”

Pezin spoke calmly again, but the fear blanketing April’s face did not fade easily.

Her eyes brimmed with tears as if she might weep at any second, yet she gripped Pezin’s sleeve tightly, suppressing her emotions.

His presence caused the fear to recede, but its residual heat summoned bad memories—memories of being helpless inside a prison cell.

It was inside those walls that she had heard the news that her parents’ execution date had been set.

Whether in a cramped space or a vast one, she had no freedom. Everything was collapsing around her, and she felt a sickening self-loathing at her own powerlessness.

She shook her head to dispel the revulsion and spoke to Pezin.

“I heard a sound… I heard a person’s voice down there.”

“…A ghost?”

Pezin’s body gave a visible flinch at his own question.

Absurdly, his trembling coaxed a faint, hollow laugh out of April.

“Are you scared too?”

“Ghosts are a bit much… especially if they talk.”

“I must have misheard. I was too tense.”

She figured it wasn’t strange to hear hallucinations in that profound darkness, especially when she’d gone down with nothing but a single oil lantern.

April said, “I’m going back to check. To see what that sound was.”

“You just came running up here; how are you going to go down alone again? Stay here. I’ll go this time.”

“You?”

“I should check if there’s a sound. It’s my job to figure out as much as I can about the suspicious things regarding Runos.”

When April looked up at him without answering, Pezin grumbled.

“Don’t look so doubtful. I won’t break anything. Just hold this.”

Pezin held out the rope to April.

Once April took hold of the rope, Pezin snatched the lantern and strode down the spiral staircase.

April stared blankly at the staircase, which plunged into darkness the moment the lantern light passed. The rope slid slowly through her hands.

Pezin marched down the spiral stairs and continued walking without hesitation once he reached level ground.

Upon reaching the southern end, Pezin knocked on the wall.

“It’s Pezin Dieus. Open up.”

At his command, a section of the wall opened like a door.

A policeman clad from head to toe in a hazmat suit offered a salute and asked, “What is it, Headquarters Director?”

“Quiet. Your voices can be heard outside.”

Startled, the policeman stiffened and asked, “What? You mean the sound is leaking out?”

“Yes.”

“I-I apologize. No one from Runos ever came to the basement, so we didn’t know.”

During the brief pause while he stood there, April gave the rope a tug.

Pezin pulled the rope back repeatedly so April wouldn’t get suspicious, then asked the man in the suit, “Have you figured out why April Runos is unharmed?”

“We haven’t found out yet. I’m sorry, sir. We’ll find out as quickly as possible.”

With those words, Pezin signaled, and the policeman closed the door again.

Pezin glanced at the lantern he was holding. The light was dancing wildly like it was possessed by an evil spirit, reacting to the fumes seeping inside.

After the door was shut, Pezin lit a candle on the wall of the third basement level and called out.

“April, come down.”

At his call, April descended the stairs. She looked around with a surprised expression.

“It’s even larger than I thought.”

“And full of things.”

“I had no idea.”

The third basement level, piled high with an enormous amount of goods, looked like a museum showcasing the history of the Runos family.

April spotted her mother’s vanity among the hoard and quickened her pace.

She ran her hand over the dust-covered vanity.

“So this was here.”

“The one Madame used?”

“Yes.”

As she had descended to this third basement level, April had been suffering from a headache so severe she felt like cutting her own head off.

She assumed Pezin was also suffering at least as much as she was, if not more, despite his stoic front.

April lifted the panel that covered the top of the vanity and fitted the supports into the grooves on both sides to keep it upright.

Pezin looked down at the display case beneath the panel and remarked, “Fortunately, the jewelry is still here. I suppose she hid it away with this intention from the start.”

April nodded in agreement. However, her brow furrowed as a question occurred to her, and she muttered, “I just don’t know how she knew people wouldn’t be able to come down here.”

“She probably just hid them as best she could, and it just so happened that people couldn’t make it down this far.”

“You know my mother. She wasn’t the type to calculate things so haphazardly.”

At April’s words, Pezin searched his memories before nodding. “Fair point,” he conceded.

Madame Runos had been a fastidious and meticulous woman.

Pezin had heard from his elders that his mother and Madame Runos had despised each other back when they first entered society.

They said that April Runos and Heidi Basanta didn’t even hate each other that much compared to those two…

Of course, the emotions April felt toward Heidi were closer to amusement and anger than hatred, so there were nuances that made it different.

Pezin lifted the vanity with both hands and said, “Let’s get out of here quickly.”

“Let me look around a bit more.”

“If you collapse, I can carry you up, but if I collapse, you’ll just leave me and pretend you didn’t see anything. I’m the one at a disadvantage here.”

“What do you take me for? I wouldn’t just let a person die.”

April grumbled her complaint, but she was frightened that Pezin might actually collapse at any moment, so she took the lantern and led the way up.

Pezin carried the vanity up, and as soon as they reached the first floor, he ordered his subordinates to move it to wherever April wanted.

Once the vanity full of jewelry was placed in the dressing room connected to April’s bedroom on the second floor, Pezin looked out the window and spoke to the police.

“If you’ve got nothing to do, fill in those holes where the stakes were. You should at least clean up after yourselves before you leave.”

“Yes, Superintendent!”

While Pezin was handing out orders, April checked the jewels inside the vanity one by one.

Because she had tried so hard to forget, it seemed she had truly lost all her good memories; she couldn’t remember them even looking at the items.

“I don’t know which ones are okay to sell,” April murmured as Pezin returned.

He peered inside and pulled out a square sapphire necklace.

“I remember this. We used it when we practiced dancing when we were eight.”

Hearing Pezin’s words, a fragment of childhood memory that had been submerged in mist rose to the surface.

April asked in wonder, “You remember that?”

“Of course.”

Pezin replied, shaking his left wrist at her. April burst into laughter, knowing exactly what that gesture meant.

It was around the time when April had passed her eighth birthday, but Pezin was still seven.

April and Pezin were learning to dance for a ball for children their age that was to be held a few days later.

Social events for peers served as the foundation for crucial networking on the Right Island.

The children of prominent families, soldiers, and the wealthy all gathered to learn dancing and get to know one another.

April and Pezin had met before that, and for their sins, they were forced to be dance partners.

At the time, Pezin was more than half a palm shorter than April, and neither was particularly pleased with the other.

“She’s too tall!”

“He’s too small.”

The two of them had pointed at each other almost simultaneously, complaining to the dance instructor.

However, not a single victim among the other children—especially those who were older—wanted to be partners with the two youngest ones there.

In the end, the two had no choice but to learn to dance while constantly stepping on each other’s feet or poking one another.