My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 67

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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 — Episode 67
By the time Densum had drained his fourth glass, guests had begun trickling into Silnakwon one after another.
As raucous laughter and the clink of glasses assaulted his ears, he furrowed his brow and rose from his seat.
Ilos appeared occupied enough that Densum slipped out quietly without offering a farewell.
Ding—
The cool pre-dawn air wrapped around him like a shroud.
After surveying the dimly lit alley, its glow filtered through streetlamps, he took a step forward—and something caught beneath his foot.
“What is this…?”
Gillet bent without thinking and picked it up, then froze.
A necklace with a round pendant.
The very thing Ilos wore around his neck without fail, every single day.
“….”
Now that he thought about it, had Ilos been wearing it today?
His mind had been too full of other concerns to pay the pendant any attention, so he couldn’t quite recall.
Densum’s fingers found the button on the pendant’s right side and pressed it open.
Inside lay the photograph of Meden that he had seen countless times before. But….
‘Was it always this blurry?’
Densum rubbed his eyes.
Yet even after rubbing them, the photograph remained hazy and somehow crude.
‘Perhaps the alcohol has settled better in my stomach tonight.’
Densum thought little of it and turned to return the necklace to Ilos.
But before he could reach the tavern door, he stopped in his tracks.
“….”
Something he had always longed to possess.
A photograph of Meden—something he lacked.
It had fallen into his hands.
Even if he kept it, Ilos would never know who had taken it.
So then… wouldn’t it be all right?
‘And perhaps he has many more photographs besides this one. No—he surely must.’
Densum rationalized the thought away with remarkable ease.
And with the necklace slipped into his pocket, he turned and walked on.
The path to the Manor felt longer than usual that night.
‘How fortunate I am this evening.’
A faint smile played across Densum’s face as his fingers toyed with the pendant in his pocket.
And that night.
Densum dreamed of Meden.
* * *
“Master, please try this.”
“Master?”
“It’s Plum Blossom Tea brewed from flowers I harvested myself. The fragrance is quite lovely, isn’t it?”
“Master!”
Clap!
Densum, who had been staring into empty space, snapped to attention at the sound of hands clapping before his face.
In the same instant, the spoon he’d been holding slipped from his fingers.
Clang—
“Oh my!”
“…Ah.”
The fallen spoon struck the table with a raucous clatter.
By reflex, his gaze dropped—and he saw a bowl overturned beside the spoon.
In that instant, a maid’s sharp voice lashed out like an arrow.
“Really now, I thought we’d narrowly avoided it, but you’ve gone and knocked it over after all! Why have you been like this lately?”
“…What?”
“I’ll tidy the table, so please go upstairs. I’ll bring your breakfast to your room again.”
It was only then that he realized—it was he who had overturned the bowl, not the maid.
Yet even as he rose from his seat, Densum could not make sense of the situation.
Behind him, as he left the Dining Hall, came the maid’s irritated voice.
“Truly, if this keeps happening every morning, what am I to do…?”
“….”
A mere maid castigating him without restraint.
Under normal circumstances, he would never have tolerated it—he would have seen to it that she could no longer work in this Manor.
Yet strangely, Densum felt no anger rising in him at all.
Why was that?
The moment the question formed, Meden’s voice echoed through his mind.
“Does that really matter? What matters is that you and I have met again!”
Words that Meden, encountered again in dreams, spoke with habitual ease.
Whenever Densum recalled reality, she would insist that such trivial things were utterly unimportant.
At first, her words had struck him as strange—a mere phantom of the dream world speaking as though dreams mattered more than reality itself.
But when he thought it through, those words aligned perfectly with something else she had repeated like a refrain.
“All of this is God’s Will.”
‘Could it be that God, taking pity on me, has granted me the chance to see Meden once more?’
Yes, that was it.
It was a perfectly rational, perfectly clear interpretation.
Who in this world could meet again with a beloved who had already departed from life?
‘This is surely a blessing bestowed upon me because God loves me.’
So the maid’s words meant nothing. They were beneath his concern.
What mattered now was something else entirely.
‘Go. Go to Meden.’
His footsteps quickened as he made his way toward the Bedroom.
* * *
The young viscount had never been a demanding master to serve.
Though he did not mingle closely with the servants as some nobles did, neither did he wield the whip carelessly as others of his rank were known to do.
Proud, yet dignified.
Such was the assessment that those around Densum had come to hold.
But lately, for reasons none could quite name, the way the servants looked upon him had begun to change.
“Psst—the young master’s coming.”
At a maid’s whispered warning, those scrubbing the floors hastily concealed themselves behind pillars.
Though their ambush was clumsy at best, Densum passed within arm’s reach without noticing them in the slightest.
The moment he disappeared around the corner, the maids burst forth with chatter.
“Did you see his face? I told you—the man’s completely lost it!”
“Then… then that rumor is true?”
“What rumor?”
“That the young master has fallen into Madness!”
“Hush, hush! The steward’s coming this way!”
The maids scattered with their cloths as though nothing had happened, moving in perfect unison.
Rumors always spread in such a manner.
They began in the highest reaches of the Manor and swept down to the lowest corners in an instant.
It had been two weeks since the duke had departed on official business, claiming he would handle matters of a cadet branch.
In his absence, the young viscount left to guard the Manor had become engulfed in whispers of Madness.
Of course, such talk had not begun unprovoked.
There was a clear reason why this rumor had spread so rapidly.
For instance, there was an incident one day.
“Young master, are you all right…?”
“……”
“Young master?”
Seeing Densum’s vacant stare, the frightened maid found herself shaking his shoulder without thinking.
‘Oh no, what have I done!’
As terrified as she was, it was unthinkable for a servant to touch a nobleman’s body; her face drained of all color.
But then Densum, his eyes opening slowly, turned to her and spoke in a way she could never have anticipated.
“…Meden?”
“Yes?”
“Meden, what were we just talking about?”
“Uh, um…?”
The bewildered maid’s eyes darted about in confusion.
Her name was not Meden but Alice, and there was no maid by the name of Meden in this Manor.
Yet Densum continued with a response that made even less sense.
“No, that’s right. We were having tea together, weren’t we?”
A faint smile crossed his face as he reached for a small teacup resting on the table.
“Plum Blossom Tea—yes. The taste of the Plum Blossom Tea you brewed for me is wonderful. It’s as if I’ve returned to my childhood.”
“Y-young master, that isn’t Plum Blossom Tea, it’s—”
“What shall we play today? If we want to avoid Father finding us, we won’t be able to venture far again.”
At this strange succession of words, the maid found herself stepping backward without thinking.
But in that very moment, Densum—his demeanor suddenly transformed—seized her arm without warning.
“Meden. Where are you trying to go, leaving me behind like this?”
“Young Master, please—please let go!”
“You promised me you wouldn’t leave me anymore! You swore we’d live together forever in this dream!”
Drop. Drop. Tears began to fall from the maid’s frightened eyes.
“Surely you haven’t forgiven me yet? I told you I was sorry. Back then, I had no power to stop my father.”
“C-Chief Steward! Chief Steward!”
“But it’s different now! I won’t lose you again, I won’t—”
The commotion that day came to an end when knights, hearing the maid’s cries from below, rushed upstairs and intervened.
Yet incidents of that nature continued to unfold relentlessly thereafter.
Faced with these sudden and bizarre occurrences, the servants of the Manor were uniformly at a loss.

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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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