My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 115

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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At the Duke’s words, the Duchess burst into even louder sobs. Only after crying for a long while did the Duchess lean against her husband and fall asleep as if fainting.

The maid who had been strangled was helped out of the dining room by other servants. Though she who had been threatened with death could no longer look at the Duchess with envious eyes, she would instead be given a substantial amount of gold coins.

“Your Grace, do we really not need to tell the Duchess that there are rats?”

The one who asked was the servant who had just discovered the rat. The rat the servant found was immediately placed in a tank filled with holy water. Another layer was added on top of the layers of corpses already piled up. The small rat, once submerged in holy water, soon died as its internal organs melted.

“I don’t wish to consider what’s inside that rat as my daughter.”

The Duke dismissed it while looking at the corpse with contempt.

The tank full of corpses would be moved to the glass greenhouse where sunlight shone brightest. After trial and error and obtaining Gabriel’s advice, they concluded this method was most suitable for disposing of the ‘rats.’

However, even after catching hundreds of rats, there seemed to be no end. They had to quickly exterminate them to prevent rats from constantly appearing near his wife.

“…Amaranth.”

The Duchess called her dead daughter’s name even in her dreams. The Duke’s heart was torn apart. Everything was the Duke’s fault. If only the Duke hadn’t let Amaranth marry the Viscount. If only he hadn’t severed ties with his daughter. If only he had prevented his wife from going to the Temple…

After repeating countless regrets, the Duke stroked his wife’s cheek, where white tear stains were clearly visible, and made a resolution.

“My dear. I will bring Amaranth back.”

What came to mind was the monster that looked exactly like his daughter, which he had seen on the day of the banquet where the Crown Prince died. He didn’t want to bring such a thing into his house, but he could no longer delay. If his wife saw that thing, she wouldn’t consider the ‘thing’ gnawed by rats as Amaranth.

If there were equally disgusting choices, he would at least choose the one that retained traces of his daughter. Of course, the Emperor’s threats and Gabriel’s advice also greatly influenced the Duke’s choice. Gabriel had said that Evangeline Rohanson might be able to eliminate those ‘rats.’

Though the Duke had loudly denied it at the banquet hall, he ultimately had no choice but to bring Evangeline into the manor.

Ridiculously, everything seemed like a comedy flowing against the Duke’s will. The mother and daughter who looked so alike were both regret and misfortune for the Duke.

***

After her husband declared severance from their daughter, Agera Hosaqueen became an extremely devout follower of the Sun God. She donated massive amounts of money, and the Temple Authority was so pleased that they even provided Agera with a personal prayer room.

There, Agera prayed that the Sun God would please forgive the impurity her daughter had committed. Despite praying daily until her knees ached from the cold, Agera’s wishes were not fulfilled. Amaranth left this world abandoned by God, unforgiven for the foolish act she had committed so briefly.

But Agera could not stop praying. Even though her wishes were not granted, she became an even more blind believer.

Since they had already severed ties, Agera didn’t even have the right to attend her daughter’s funeral. Perhaps because she couldn’t properly say goodbye, Agera began to confuse whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Forgetting Amaranth’s death, some days she would pray to the Sun God to forgive her daughter. Then when she came to her senses, she would repeatedly pray for her dead daughter. Such prayers were repeated for over seven years.

However, despite Agera’s fervent wishes for her daughter’s well-being, according to the Sun God’s doctrine, Amaranth could not find peace even in death.

Her daughter had committed a sin that could not be washed away even if reborn. According to the priest, she deserved to suffer eternally.

Enduring harsh words, Agera prayed every day.

And one day, in response to Agera’s prayers, an angel descended. The angel, whose limbs were burning yet spread its wings wide while bearing the sun, told Agera the answer to save her daughter.

If she would suffer in death and suffer even if reborn, all Agera had to do was summon her soul and keep it by her side.

The answer was ‘sorcery.’ The Duke and Duchess knew very well the power that sorcery circles possessed.

Agera sought out sorcery circles and secretly brought in a sorcerer. Then what Agera had done reached the Emperor’s ears, causing the Duke to become indebted to the Emperor. But it was fine. Her husband would understand Agera once he saw their reborn daughter.

Due to her husband’s surveillance, Agera crouched and waited for an opportunity. Then one day, a golden moment arrived. On the Crown Prince’s birthday, the Duke was away. It had been raining for days, and even the sun was hidden behind clouds, unable to look down upon the earth.

That day, Agera used sorcery to summon her daughter. The rain that had been falling fiercely enough to tear the earth suddenly reversed, gifting Agera with a being beyond reason.

What Agera summoned was a pitch-black mass burned by fire, like the angel she had seen in paintings. The mass seemed to writhe and call Agera ‘Mother.’

When the Duke saw Evangeline Rohanson at the Crown Prince’s birthday celebration, there was no way to stop the surging anger.

After throwing a wine glass at that ‘thing’ that looked so much like Amaranth as if venting his anger, the Duke returned to discover a red mass wrapped in charcoal, pulsing rhythmically as if proving it was alive.

Seeing his wife prostrate and crying over the sorcery circle, and the traces of sorcery remaining in the room, the Duke realized he was too late.

Agera introduced the red mass as Amaranth. Though the Duke lamented that his once-devout wife had resorted to sorcery, he could not take Agera’s words at face value.

Such a hideous thing could not be his daughter. While convinced of this, he also felt despair wondering if it might truly be his daughter who had risen from hell, given Agera’s desperate attitude.

However, his living wife was more important to the Duke than his dead daughter. Even if that thing was his daughter, it didn’t matter. If the fact that Agera had dabbled in sorcery was revealed, it could mean the destruction of their entire family.

The Duke did not hesitate to cut the thing in half and kill it. His wife wailed as if her heart was being torn while watching the mass being split.

He thought that would end the matter. However, what seemed dead had survived the next day, divided into separate parts.

The Duke chopped it very finely so it could not survive, then scattered it in rat traps for the rats to devour.

The Duke, who had focused only on eliminating the wicked mass, never dreamed that the finely ground pieces would survive even in the rats’ bellies.

Agera would be startled upon seeing rats, then after having what barely resembled a conversation, she would hold them in her arms as if the rats were her daughter and refuse to let them be taken. The Duke ordered that rats be caught and killed on sight.

However, the reproductive power of the rats that had eaten the thing was strong, so no matter how many were killed, there seemed to be no end in sight. Following Gabriel’s advice to soak the dead rats’ corpses in holy water, the number of reproducing rats finally decreased somewhat.

Agera reacted as if her daughter was truly dying each time a rat was killed, and afterward, she lost her mind completely.

In fact, there had been signs even before. The very fact that Agera had dabbled in sorcery was evidence that his wife had been suffering from madness. Agera prayed only for her dead daughter, while sometimes acting as if her daughter were still alive.

Meanwhile, as the red mass she had summoned, the thing she regarded as her daughter, was revived, cut into hundreds of pieces, died again, came back to life, was eaten by rats, experiencing repeated deaths, Agera went completely insane.

The dementia-like condition was merely a convenient excuse the Duke had fabricated. Even if she were suffering from dementia, the Temple would view it unfavorably, but if it became known that Agera had directly performed sorcery and lost her mind, she would surely be swept up in the current heretic massacres and burned to death.

That’s why he had tried to avoid getting involved with Evangeline Rohanson, but Agera’s condition kept worsening, leaving him with no other options.

***

Not long after the day Hosaquin Duke made his decision, he secretly extracted Evangeline Rohanson from prison and brought her out. He had surely planned to meet slowly, but because the Duchess arbitrarily deviated from the walking path, a sudden encounter occurred.

The maids who had failed to properly attend to the Duchess and were unfortunately caught in that scene by Butler Ricoradka received severe scolding before being allowed to return to serving the Duchess.

“Nigella, you hurry and help too! The Duchess is going to the glass greenhouse!”

She hadn’t expected to be caught up in such commotion immediately upon returning. Nigella thought of the masses submerged in tanks in the greenhouse and nearly retched.

“What? But in the greenhouse there are those… corpses of small monsters?”

“That’s why it’s urgent! You take this too.”

Nigella received cloth longer than her height and momentarily staggered, unable to maintain her balance.

“Why is this…?”

“What else? To cover them!”

Nigella and the other servants of the Duchess diligently carried cloth to cover the tanks stacked in the glass greenhouse. Since only a very few people in Hosaquin Duke’s household knew the greenhouse’s secret, others simply thought major construction was taking place in the greenhouse and paid little attention.

Nigella and the other servants diligently pushed the tanks into corners, stacked them up, and covered them with cloth. The process was so urgent that even while holding piles of rat corpses in their arms, the disgusting feeling only came much later. Thanks to this, they were able to meet the time the Duchess had announced.

“Amaranth, how is it? Quite pretty, isn’t it?”

The Duchess circled the glass greenhouse for a long time, boasting about it. Nigella followed behind, hoping the Duchess wouldn’t become curious about the cloth covering the corner. However, Nigella’s hopes were dashed as the Duchess showed interest in the cloth.

“This gets the best sunlight, so it’s good. But what’s that covered thing over there?”

“The sunlight was too strong, so we temporarily covered it with cloth to prevent the flowers from wilting.”

“I see.”

Fortunately, since the Duchess cared for flowers, she easily accepted this without further questions. Instead, she ordered tables and chairs to be brought over, saying she wanted to enjoy refreshments right near the cloth.

“Unable to see sunlight and having to stay in shade… Amaranth, let’s sit next to the poor flowers and keep them company.”

Rather than risk the Duchess, who had finally found stability, crying and throwing childish tantrums again if they tried to persuade her to go elsewhere, the servants simply followed her orders. Who knows how much she had cried until the Duke finally permitted her to take Amaranth for a walk to the glass greenhouse.

Nigella set the table, served tea, then stepped back to look at the table.

In the warm sunlight at the end of summer that hadn’t yet faded, in the lush rear garden of Hosaquin Duke’s mansion, a tea party like a children’s game was being held with piles of rat corpses just one cloth away.

An old woman with white hair braided childishly on both sides and wearing a bonnet stamped her feet.

“Amaranth, hurry and try it.”

At the Duchess’s urging, the girl picked up the teacup, brought it to her lips, then without drinking, only savored the aroma before setting the cup down again. The series of actions was extremely precise, as if pre-arranged.

“It smells lovely.”

Without even wrinkling her nose to smell it, she smiled sweetly and uttered the lie. Remembering this was nothing more than a children’s game, the girl’s calm lie seemed forgivable. It wasn’t even prepared as cold tea, so there was no way tea would steep just by being dipped in cold water.

After the Duchess had poured hot soup on maids, seriously injuring one person, the Duke never allowed warm tea to be served during tea time.

One colleague, claiming her throat had been strangled, received substantial gold coins and left for the countryside. Getting enough money to live lavishly until death in exchange for nearly dying once didn’t seem like a bad deal to Nigella.

“Right? I asked them to prepare the tea you used to enjoy.”

“Thank you for your consideration.”

Even at the ceremonial greeting, the Duchess smiled brightly as if she owned the world. The servants watching this scene each let out sighs.

“How long has it been since the Duchess smiled?”

When an elderly maid who had served the Duchess for a long time spoke first, echoing sounds of agreement followed.

“Most of all, it’s so amazing that she can have a proper conversation…”

“When His Grace the Duke suddenly said he was bringing Amaranth, no, Lady Evangeline, everything went dark before my eyes…”

“Exactly. She can’t remember anything else. She even completely forgot Butler Ricoradka, but she remembers her married daughter so vividly. It’s truly mysterious.”

“It’s just like the young lady has returned.”

Since Nigella had never actually seen Amaranth, she could only acknowledge and accept that the Rohanson lady greatly resembled her birth mother.

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