My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 38

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Husband Lives in a Painting 038
There was no point in entertaining such doubts now. Nothing would change.
The lady dropped Pagoda from the tree branch onto the floor with the casual violence of discarding trash, then set an old wooden chair before him.
She crossed her legs and sat, gazing down at him with cool indifference as he knelt like a penitent.
“Start talking.”
Faced with that overwhelming stare, Pagoda found his will to resist evaporating. He opened his mouth slowly.
“I’ve thought for some time now that Gail—that imbecile—would cause trouble eventually.”
As the story began, Kamiyuu, wearing the mask of Ob, narrowed her eyes with focus.
“So I followed the two of them at the banquet, and I was able to stop him just before he struck Kamiyuu in the back of the head with pottery.”
“Why did you stop him?”
“There were eyes everywhere! If a commotion started there, it would all be over. The moment that fool got handed to the guards, my adoption would come tumbling out for everyone to see.”
“So you saved my husband.”
How would I have profited from killing Kamiyuu? I had no motive to begin with.”
“Hmm…”
Kamiyuu stroked her chin thoughtfully, then tilted her head.
“You had a fantasy about widows, didn’t you?”
“So I killed her for that?”
He nodded as if the answer were obvious, and Pagoda’s face flushed crimson.
“I pursue natural encounters! If I engineered a widow into existence myself, what meaning would that have—”
“Shut up and keep talking.”
“Yes, yes of course.”
Pagoda, who had been sprawling his ridiculous philosophy with spittle flying, choked when a shovel planted itself threateningly at his feet.
He swallowed hard and hurried on with his account.
“I brought Kamiyuu back to the Banquet Hall and we drank together. Then Densum arrived and asked me to step away so he could have a private conversation with her.”
“Densum? The last of the Three Musketeers.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The two of them moved to the Terrace, he said.
“Didn’t that strike you as odd? Moving to another location for a secret conversation?”
“Not particularly. Kamiyuu and Densum were unusually close. Or more precisely, Densum treated Kamiyuu with special regard.”
“And then the incident occurred on the Terrace?”
“Yes. Presumably.”
Pagoda elaborated.
The two of them talked on the Terrace for quite some time, he said.
Heavy curtains hung beyond the glass doors, obscuring the interior, and the noise from the Banquet Hall made it impossible to hear what they were discussing.
So when his attention had wandered, he suddenly spotted Densum emerging from the Terrace alone.
“Feeling something was wrong, I checked inside the Terrace immediately, but there was no one there. So I asked him.”
“Densum, where did Kamiyuu go?”
“I don’t know.”
“I saw her go to the Terrace with you. But when I checked, there was no one inside.”
“What’s with all the questions? I’m exhausted. I’m leaving now.”
Kamiyuu, who had been listening to Pagoda’s account in silence, pressed on the inconsistency.
“But that’s all circumstantial. Don’t you have anything more concrete?”
“Ah, I was just about to explain that.”
After Kamiyuu’s death, the three remaining men met in secret on the day of the funeral.
And in that clandestine gathering, a conversation emerged that transformed suspicion into certainty.
“I’m afraid. Really afraid. I won’t be blamed as the killer, will I? I didn’t actually commit murder…”
“Gail. Be quiet. Only I know what you did.”
“But…”
“The more you panic, the more suspicious you look. You need to be bold.”
Gail trembled with anxiety while Densum maintained his silence throughout, but finally he could hold back no longer and let slip a loaded remark.
“Keep your mouth shut, Gail. We won’t be implicated.”
“What?”
“What evidence could possibly come from a corpse that fell? Hmm? Did you wear your brain as a decoration?”
—Fell to death.
The moment Kamiyuu heard those words, the color drained from her face.
“So it was an accidental fall?”
“Yes. Kamiyuu’s cause of death was never officially disclosed, yet Densum somehow knew it. Isn’t that strange? It aligns with his odd behavior at the Banquet Hall. And besides…”
Pagoda’s lengthy exposition no longer reached Kamiyuu.
Still circumstantial, but a conviction that grew harder to deny was rising within her.
‘An accidental fall. That would give him the nerve to boast like that.’
An Accidental Fall is difficult to distinguish between suicide and homicide through Autopsy alone. This is because the multiple fractures, organ ruptures, and head trauma that occur from a fall appear commonly in suicide, homicide, and accidental death alike.
‘If someone had pushed from behind, there wouldn’t even be Defense Wounds. That’s why I can be so confident.’
……But still,
“Is that all?”
“Pardon?”
“Is that all you have?”
“Y-yes, well…that is, why do you ask?”
Kamiyuu pressed her lips firmly together instead of answering, her eyes narrowing to slits.
At the end of the heavy silence that followed, the small doubt that had vaguely surfaced sank back into the depths, swallowed whole.
“Hmm~ It’s nothing.”
And the moment Kamiyuu abruptly rose to her feet, Pagoda—trembling with fear—gasped aloud and lifted his head.
A gentle arc formed at the corners of Kamiyuu’s lips as she looked down at him with a chill.
“Pagoda, your statement has been most useful.”
“R-really?”
“Indeed. It seems Densum is certainly the culprit.”
“Then will you let me go now—!”
A thin glimmer of hope kindled in Pagoda’s eyes.
But that light shattered pitifully the moment he saw where her hand was reaching. Her fingertips had found not the bound Rope, but rather the cold handle of a shovel.
“W-wait! What are you doing, madam!”
“Madam? Ah, yes. I suppose there’s no need to keep up this appearance any longer.”
“……What?”
In that instant, moonlight poured down.
Beneath the pale blue moonlight, a shimmering veil of light began to wrap around the body of Madame Ortega from head to toe.
And moments later, when the pink hair came into view, Pagoda could not hide his shock.
“You, you, you are——!!”
“Haha!”
Pagoda, his face drained of all color, began crawling desperately across the ground to escape.
Watching him creep like an insect, Kamiyuu’s cheeks flushed crimson.
“Now it’s time for you to pay the price for your final sin, Pagoda.”
“F-final sin? What do you mean—!”
The raised shovel caught the moonlight as it descended.
A sweet, demonic voice rang out through the darkness.
“The sin of coveting my wife.”
* * *
Meanwhile, in the reality outside the Painting,
“Where on earth could the master have gone?”
Led by the head steward of the Boutier Marquis household, a search for Pagoda continued.
But he, vanished without a trace, was nowhere to be found in the Mansion.
“Perhaps he went out alone? Maybe he’s spending time with some woman he fancies.”
Click.
The knights who had checked the Marquis’s Bedroom stepped out and closed the door behind them, continuing their conversation.
“But he always brought knights along when he went to the Red Light District.”
“This time, it seems he doesn’t want to show his companion to the knights.”
“Perhaps so.”
The knight who tilted his head in confusion moved to follow his companion.
It was just then.
“H-help me!”
“……What!”
The knight spun around in alarm.
“What’s the matter?”
“D-didn’t you hear that just now?”
“Hear what?”
The knight approached the door cautiously and held his ear to it, holding his breath.
But no sound came.
“Th-that’s strange. I could have sworn I heard a voice.”
The other knight chuckled softly.
“Ah~ it must be coming from the Gramophone. It starts up by itself sometimes.”
“The Gramophone?”
“Since you haven’t been here long, you wouldn’t know, but our Marquis has rather peculiar tastes.”
The knight glanced cautiously around before leaning in and whispering something in the other’s ear. In that moment, his companion’s face twisted with disgust.
“Heavens, heavens! You have such vile tastes?”
“Which is precisely why we should leave it alone. If you meddle, you’ll only bring trouble on yourself.”
“Tsk, these nobles really are……!”
The knight clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Let’s go.”
Soon after, the sound of the knights’ footsteps faded down the corridor.
“Ah, it hurts. Please, stop……!”
Even now.
Pagoda’s voice, trapped within the Painting, seeped through the crack in the door.
“Ah…… I can’t…… anymore…….”
Yet in the end, no one was there to heed his voice.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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