The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 58
He kept checking his watch, and exactly on the stroke of midnight, as the new year arrived, he spoke to April.
“It’s the New Year.”
“Mm….”
“To think you’re the first person I see this year….”
April opened her eyes slightly and shot him a look, prompting Pezin to quickly follow up.
“No, I mean I like it. Because it’s you.”
“…….”
“I mean it.”
Pezin smiled as he said that, and just as he made a move to leave the bedroom, April caught him by the wrist.
April looked up at Pezin with half-asleep eyes. Her voice wouldn’t come, so she didn’t tell him not to go, but the look in her eyes and the strength in her hand were more than enough to convey her message.
Pezin sat back down on the edge of the bed and said,
“What do you want me to do? Sitting by your side to talk is one thing, but sleeping next to you is another.”
“…….”
“Fine. I won’t leave until you’re asleep.”
Only then did April look satisfied.
She closed her eyes with that expression, and just when it seemed she had fallen asleep because of the silence, her voice drifted out.
“……Why did you come today?”
“…….”
“Why did you come here?”
In the middle of the night, he had walked up the hill and arrived here without any particular purpose.
Instead of answering, Pezin took April’s hand, which had slipped from his wrist, and placed it on top of his own.
“Your hands are beautiful.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“To give you New Year’s greetings.”
“…….”
“I hope things go well for you this year, too.”
At his words, April let out a snort, her eyes still closed.
“I hope you’re ruined.”
Pezin laughed at her muttered words.
Listening to the sound of that laughter, April drifted off to sleep.
Pezin felt somewhat disgruntled that April had fallen into a deep sleep so instantly, even while he was staring right at her.
“Asleep? You’re not even flustered when a man who looks like this is watching you?”
Pezin grumbled as if he couldn’t understand it and stood up.
April’s hand, which had been holding his, began to slide away, and Pezin instinctively caught it.
It felt like holding a handful of snow.
As if she might melt away and vanish from his palm.
She had been pale ever since the first time they met.
April had spent a childhood similar to Pezin’s, born with a silver spoon and raised in a golden cradle. Nevertheless, their perspectives on ‘family’ diverged greatly because he was a second son, while she was the sole child of the Lunos line.
Pezin thought that if he were in April’s situation after her confinement ended, he would have immediately liquidated the estate and left the Grand Duchy for the Empire.
That was far easier than living amidst foul rumors and the Grand Duke’s displeasure.
In fact, when Pezin first arrived in the Grand Duchy, he had devised a plan to tie her feet to the territory, anticipating the moment she might try to leave.
However, April had been determined to protect her family name from the start.
He realized, watching April choose only the opposite path, that he himself always looked for the easiest way out.
A plan that sacrificed one to save the many, a decision to ignore the future to preserve the present—that was the choice Pezin Dieus made.
Ultimately, the Grand Duchy would fall.
He was merely pushing that collapse back one day, and then another.
The fog would grow steadily worse, and the Empire would become the roots of the Grand Duchy, making it so the territory could no longer absorb nutrients on its own. Eventually, this Right Island, its roots severed, would become a mere part of the Empire.
The reason the young boy who had just arrived in the Empire felt despair was not because he saw the Empire’s strength, but because he saw the Grand Duchy’s severed roots.
Because he saw the misery of his motherland, which did not even realize it had lost its ability to survive and was greedily swallowing the poison others offered.
In such a situation, he hadn’t thought for a moment that April could do anything about it.
Unaware that she was a flower placed in a vase for show, she was struggling desperately to bloom anew.
Even if a flower were to bloom from the stem by some chance, it would soon wither and die.
If April ever became able to launch a merchant ship, he thought he should send her away from this Grand Duchy.
To somewhere far away, to a place where she could truly live….
He needed to reach the sunrise spot on the eastern side of the Grand Duchy before dawn, but looking at the time now, there was no way.
The people of the Right Island loved their liquor, were bellicose, and every single one of them was unimaginably large.
The brawlers who bulked up on endless alcohol were particularly massive, possessing the powerful arm muscles characteristic of the people of the Right.
There was a saying: never compete with a person from the Left Island in leg strength, and never compete with a person from the Right Island in arm strength. Thus, sports involving kicking balls developed on the Left Island, while sports involving using arm strength to send balls flying far developed on the Right.
Regardless, the people of the Right, who enjoyed spirits so strong they didn’t even consider beer to be alcohol, were unpredictable in what kind of trouble they might cause.
A person or two dying in a fight was unavoidable, but the real problem was when drunks tried to run up the adjacent mountain range.
The Primeval Forest began just a short way up the mountains, and because the view from there was spectacular, intoxicated people would often try to crawl up there the moment they turned their heads.
The Primeval Forest was a place where even groups of armed hunters did not venture.
To prevent at least the major accidents, every single policeman had been mobilized. Since he was this late, he had no choice but to trust that Paul was handling his share.
Pezin set out on the dawn road quietly, ensuring he didn’t run into anyone.
The snow immediately erased his footprints.
Walking through snow piled up to his knees, Pezin looked back at the Lunos manor several times, even though his head told him he had no time.
Even amidst the heavy snowfall, the gas lamps of the Lunos manor shone brilliantly.
Seen from the outside, the light was so bright it truly looked like a house where ghosts lived. It wasn’t for nothing that the people of the Grand Duchy whispered that a witch lived there.
Pezin missed this year’s sunrise.
However, he didn’t even have time to regret it. Once the sun rose, the drinking parties began in earnest, and that was when the real trouble started.
At the sunrise location, not only the Grand Duchy Police but also a large number of police dispatched from the Empire were deployed to maintain order.
“It’s a total mess.”
Pezin agreed with Paul’s assessment.
People who had gorged themselves on alcohol were causing accidents simultaneously.
The police were struggling to subdue them, drawing and swinging their batons, but they were short-handed. Pezin frantically gave orders to the officers, wishing the sun would just hurry up and climb higher.
Just when it seemed things were settling down—those who were going to pass out were already lying on the beach, and those going home were on their way—a small hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Pezin’s arm. It was his nephew, Joshua Dieus.
“Mother told me to bring you, Uncle.”
“I suppose it looks to her like the police have nothing to do since no major accidents have happened yet.”
“She doesn’t think that.”
Joshua spoke while tugging at Pezin.
Thinking about how much police force must have been used to get this little boy, who had only just passed his sixth birthday, all the way here made him feel a surge of irritation, but he suppressed his anger, as his nephew was quite a cute little thing in his own way.
Pezin picked Joshua up with one arm and gestured for his subordinates to escort him.
Joshua wrapped both arms around Pezin’s neck and asked,
“Uncle, what are you going to wish for?”
“To find something I need.”
“What do you need? I’ll buy it for you.”
“No matter how much of a second son I am, I still have more money than a toddler.”
Pezin teased him and walked along the breakwater toward the lighthouse where the Grand Duke couple was waiting.
The child asked,
“Do you know what my wish is?”
“Not interested.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you anyway. My relative, Shafer-hyung, told me to keep it a secret.”
“That bastard is probably preparing some piece of trash behavior again.”
Shafer Meyer was the son of Pezin’s maternal uncle, Devin Meyer.
Shafer Meyer, who would inherit the Meyer family as the eldest son, was a twenty-five-year-old naval officer who had done nothing but cause trouble since he was young.
Since his mother was a princess of the Empire, Shafer Meyer certainly had a powerful backing for his arrogance.
Every time Shafer Meyer acted out, relying on his mother, Pezin was reminded of why his brother Miller had to marry the daughter of the Lunos family.
If Miller had married April….
“Uncle!”
Just then, Joshua interrupted Pezin’s thoughts.
Pezin suppressed his annoyance and asked,
“What?”
