The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 76
She sat up and narrowed her eyes at the excessively opulent bedroom.
“……Am I dead?”
It was a question worth serious consideration.
She got up and tried the door, but it was locked. This time, every window was also firmly bolted.
Just as April began to feel a creeping sense of dread, the door opened and Fezin stepped inside.
He flinched as if he had expected her to still be sleeping.
“You’re up early.”
“Where is this?”
“My house. I’m originally from here, you know.”
“No, you’re from the Grand Duchy.”
“That’s just what you think.”
Fezin walked in and tossed a key toward her.
“The key to the locks. I heard you escaped from the Academy, so I locked them.”
“Ah.”
Fezin repeated himself, as if he still couldn’t believe his own words.
“Impressive. Escaping? From the fifth floor?”
“It looked doable.”
“You could have died if you fell.”
“I felt like I’d die anyway if I just stayed still.”
“Do you think we’re some neighborhood thugs? Do you really think we have a way to secretly kill a woman from a family like yours and just get away with it?”
When she had met Pezin Dieus on the Left Island, she had been glad to see him, but at the same time, she realized why he felt like a stranger.
Even more than the Pezin Dieus of the ‘Dieus Family’ she had seen on the Right Island, the Pezin Dieus who was an Imperial Police officer here felt like an existence she could never truly associate with.
April straightened her posture and looked Fezin in the eye.
“We?”
“Don’t nitpick my words.”
“I don’t mean here.”
April drew a circle in the air, gesturing toward him and the space behind him. Then, she drew another circle with her index finger between Fezin and herself.
“This is ‘we’.”
“That depends on how I choose to think.”
At his response, April asked with a mocking smile.
“So? Is that what you think?”
Fezin, who had recently been living under the impression that he was quite the adult, suddenly felt his age—twenty-two—feel remarkably young.
Conversely, April, who was mocking him childishly, seemed like the adult for the first time.
Fezin remained silent for a while as if pondering an answer, but in the end, he didn’t respond to the question and shifted his gaze to the clock.
“Let’s eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It’s not poisoned.”
“I just don’t want to eat anything.”
When April refused, Fezin placed his hand on her forehead with an annoyed expression.
“You won’t get better if you don’t eat. You get sick just from crossing the sea once? And you call yourself a person of the Grand Duchy?”
“It’s because I couldn’t sleep.”
“Sleep some more, then get up.”
April was exhausted, so she returned to the bed as if she had been waiting for the suggestion.
After Fezin left, she took the medicine a maid brought her and slept again. By the time she woke up, the sun was halfway down the horizon, and the air felt relatively warm.
When April stepped out of bed, she found her condition much improved, as if the medicine had been quite effective.
A white dress that looked like everyday wear was hanging in the room, along with a note from Fezin.
[They say it’s needed for the experiment.]
She didn’t know why a dress was necessary, but April changed into it and left the room.
The moment she opened the door, April stared at the long gallery stretching out before her with a look of disbelief.
On the Right Island, where winter was eternal, a gallery like this—with no walls on either side—did not exist.
If a building were to be constructed with such a long connection there, it would be built as a long house with thick walls.
As she stepped into the gallery, she found the temperature bearable even without fastening her outer coat.
To someone from the Right Island, who had lived in temperatures around minus 20 degrees Celsius for two months, the weather, which had risen slightly above freezing, felt like a warm spring breeze.
The sound of a commotion drifted in from outside a door some distance away from the gallery, and April turned her head toward it.
It hit her then that she was in a completely different country.
Though the trees were bare now, seeing them filled with flowers and fruit suggested an environment where such things could thrive. April felt a small pang of envy at that fact.
While she was observing the fruit trees from the gallery, the iron gates opened and a carriage came rushing in.
The carriage stopped near her, and Fezin stepped out.
Most of the clothing worn in the Grand Duchy was influenced by the Empire. Since the uniforms were the same, his was basically the same structure, though it differed slightly in detail.
He was wearing a white uniform with silver-threaded buttons, perhaps having just returned from the Imperial Palace. Compared to the extreme cold of the Right Island, it seemed he had prioritized style over practicality.
“Why are you so dressed up?”
When April asked, Fezin replied.
“They’re giving me a lot of work because the Foundation Day festival is coming up.”
“I see.”
Since the Rasa Empire was a nation, it had a Foundation Day.
It was a standard event, but to someone from the Grand Duchy, it was an unfamiliar celebration.
Fezin caught a glimpse of April, who was wearing a white, easy-to-move-in dress instead of the excessively ornate gowns typical of the Grand Duchy.
April looked down at her dress and said, “The clothes are light since it’s not cold here.”
“Is it comfortable?”
“Physically. But why is it white? It’s not even a nightgown.”
In the snow-heavy Grand Duchy, white was not a preferred color, so that part seemed to bother her.
Fezin grumbled, “I buy you something and you still complain.”
“It was just a question.”
“You don’t like it. It’s written all over your face.”
“Then I’m sorry.”
April apologized immediately, feeling she might have disregarded the sincerity of the person who bought it. Fezin turned his head slightly and let out a soft laugh.
“Ah, I didn’t used to laugh this easily.”
Fezin muttered to himself and then reached out his hand.
“Let’s go.”
“To the Academy?”
“Yeah. We’ll go there, look at the festival in the evening, and then head back to the Lunos estate.”
“Alright.”
Since she was under arrest, she assumed that instead of the Lunos estate, she would be returning to the Right Island, and her destination would be the Grand Duchy’s prison.
However, since telling him to send her back to prison felt ridiculous, April didn’t point it out and let his words pass.
Compared to the bad first impression it had made yesterday, the Academy during the day was a beautiful building.
April stepped inside, fascinated by the atmosphere so different from her memory.
Both on the first day and today, the scent of flowers lingered within the Academy.
Seeing the ceramic potpourri jars decorating the halls, April once again thought of the gift Fezin had brought her.
She didn’t know why those ceramics kept overlapping in her mind, but she tried not to let her focus drift in that direction.
She was certain she had to find out how the scholars here were able to produce this mist.
Until now, April had believed the mist was nothing more than a natural phenomenon.
A disaster for humans, but for nature, simply a destiny, something flowing according to an order firmly engraved in the passage of time.
But when she came here and learned that the scholars could artificially create what she believed to be a natural phenomenon, a small seed of doubt sprouted in April’s mind.
Being able to create it meant they knew the cause. If so, why had they never told the Right Island?
They said they would investigate April to find a way to deal with the mist.
That was certainly something to be grateful for.
But if they were doing such a noble thing, why hadn’t they invited her formally? Why did they have to kidnap her?
What was it they wanted to hide?
With her mind racing, April stepped into the laboratory where the mist had been artificially generated, just like yesterday.
As usual, she felt confident that nothing would happen to her inside the mist.
She had even wondered if she truly possessed the power of a witch. That was why she feared the Church even more.
She worried that the Church might discover some unknown power within her that she herself was unaware of.
“……Huh?”
However, April collapsed to the floor before she could even take two steps into the mist.
She felt her breath instantly catch in her throat.
“Miss April?”
She heard a scholar calling her name, but she didn’t have the strength to answer.
Only now did April understand the hearts of those who had collapsed in the mist. And that extreme sense of terror.
The voice calling her name grew further and further away.
