My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 177

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

Of course, since the real Gabriel had been smuggled away, it would be Rico standing on the altar. When I spoke anxiously, the Duke shook his head.

“Bishop Marik will choose you.”

Both Gabriel and the Duke seemed certain that I would be the sacrifice. The Duke stared at my face for a long while, as if wondering how I could not know the reason, then opened his mouth.

“…Because you resemble Lea.”

“Lea?”

That Lea who rebelled against the Sun God and got backstabbed by the founding king? That Lea who was the original sacrifice? I look exactly like Amaranth, so does that mean Amaranth also resembles Lea?

But the Duke wouldn’t make a statement that would dishonor Amaranth.

“Those red eyes of yours. Lea is said to have had such red eyes. Even after her head was severed, her resentment overflowed, and all who met her glaring eyes are said to have died breathless.”

Sure enough, what the Duke said resembled Lea was not my face, but my eyes.

…Ah. Come to think of it, Amaranth in my memories didn’t have red eyes like mine. Amaranth’s eyes were amber-colored like the Duke’s.

Now that I think about it, Viscount Rohanson also just has black eyes, so where did Evangeline’s red eyes come from? Don’t tell me she really is an illegitimate child like I only suspected…?

“This is the first time I’m hearing that Lea had red eyes.”

Actually, I first heard about Lea when discussing the sacrifice ritual. The Sun God’s presence was so overwhelming after all. Now Lea is being treated as more wicked than an evil god. The reason heretics are so despised is also said to be Lea’s fault.

The Duke nodded and added.

“The fact that Lea had red eyes isn’t widely known.”

“How do you know about it, Grandfather?”

“That’s… Ah. Didn’t Viscount Rohanson’s people ask me to look into a refuge before? Let me tell you about it now.”

The Duke awkwardly changed the subject instead of answering, making it obvious. The Duke spread a map across his messy desk.

“Since you seem to be planning something at the sacrifice ritual, it would be safer to evacuate them beforehand.”

The Duke continued rambling while pointing to a corner of the map. Where the Duke pointed, there was a rough sketch that seemed to be added by the Duke over the original map.

“It’s not shown on the map, but that makes it all the safer. It’s dangerous being at the forest’s edge, but if the Plauros Knights go together, safety would be guaranteed.”

Beyond the Duke’s domain, deep into the forest, there was apparently a village. It was such a remote frontier that it could hardly be considered part of the Duke’s domain. The Duke pointed it out to me.

While glancing down to memorize the location well, I otherwise just watched the Duke silently, and he finally sighed as if he had given up. Then he revealed why he knew about Lea’s eye color.

“Because I heard it from someone who saw Lea directly.”

Saw Lea directly? How? Wasn’t Lea said to be dead…? Was he talking about reading records left from that time…?

The Duke buried his face in his hands. It was another action that seemed to turn away and avoid something. The Duke rubbed his face with both hands several times as if frustrated, then turned his head to look at me.

“…Do you have any intention of meeting Agera?”

“Lady Agera?”

The Duke nodded. I asked about Lea but he suddenly brought up Agera – was he planning to change the subject again?

“She asked me to tell her about Amaranth. As you well know, I was an inadequate father, so I don’t know that much about Amaranth. There would be far more stories she could hear from Agera than from me. The same would go for Lea’s red eyes.”

Ah. I roughly got the gist of it. Agera probably didn’t just dig up earth somewhere to use sorcery and summon demons.

And if the demon Agera summoned was influenced by Lea, then Agera, who knows about summoning circles for calling demons, would be more knowledgeable about Lea too.

Did she hear about Lea from the demon she summoned? If it was connected to Agera’s transgression, I could understand why the Duke was reluctant to speak about Lea.

“Alright. I’ll go visit her.”

I nodded and promised to meet Agera.

Besides, Agera had just regained her memories. Since these memories might leave Agera again, now was the most appropriate time to ask what I wanted to know.

The Duke seemed to think so too. Leaving behind the sound of the Duke’s deep sigh, I took the map and left the Duke’s office.

***

They say to strike while the iron is hot. Thinking that I would only have leisure time now since I’d be busy with the sacrifice ritual soon, I went straight to find Agera.

Agera was receiving devoted care from the maids.

“Could you… could you leave us alone for a moment?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Since the person Agera requested a private audience with was me, the maids bowed and left the room without much resistance.

“Kanna, would you like to go out with Pudding?”

Kanna, who had followed me, also left the room taking Pudding with her. Pudding had transformed into a cat and was dangling from Kanna’s arms. He had a rebellious look in his eyes, seeming displeased about leaving me alone with Agera.

“What a truly adorable cat.”

Agera smiled gently. Rather than laughing out loud cheerfully like before, she only lifted the corners of her mouth in a smile that was impeccably aristocratic.

Her voice wasn’t as spirited as before, like a carefree young girl. Like the saying that married couples grow to resemble each other, she was serious and seemed crushed by something, exactly like the Duke.

I bowed my head slightly. It felt very strange that she didn’t run up to me shouting “Amaranth!” and hug me, but kept her distance instead. It seemed Agera found it strange too.

“This is our first proper greeting. You’re called Evangeline, right?”

“I’m Evangeline Rohanson, Lady Agera.”

It felt like I was truly meeting Agera for the first time. I couldn’t find any trace of the innocent Agera from before, and while I knew this meant Agera’s recovery, one corner of my heart felt somewhat disappointed.

“Julian calls you Grandfather. Won’t you call me Grandmother…?”

Perhaps Agera felt the same disappointment, as she asked cautiously.

The reason I call the Duke grandfather isn’t because I think of him as a grandfather, but because the Duke dislikes acknowledging me as his granddaughter, so I do it to deliberately irritate him.

“Since you called me your daughter, I couldn’t call you Grandmother.”

I answered carelessly, then looked at Agera with an “oh no.” I had vented my resentment toward the Duke in the wrong place. I hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, but my tone came out sharp without me realizing it.

If the Duke had been there, he might have flared up in anger, saying that a disowned granddaughter had no right to make his wife uncomfortable. Ah, maybe he wouldn’t do that now.

“I’m sorry, I was being shameless…”

“From now on, since Lady Agera will remember me, it wouldn’t matter if I called you Grandmother.”

Seeing a hint of despair on Agera’s face, I quickly cut her off.

“Right, Grandmother?”

When I smiled charmingly and sought her agreement, Agera followed my lead and smiled, lifting the corners of her mouth. Still, our introduction passed safely enough.

I had successfully completed even the extremely difficult conquest of the Duke, so winning over Agera would be very easy. Compared to the Duke, it was like a tutorial game.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.”

Perhaps because I had regular tea time with Agera when she suffered from dementia, she offered me tea. When I firmly declined, Agera looked disappointed for a moment, then seemed to snap to attention and changed her expression. Hiding her disappointment, Agera looked at me with very warm eyes despite being rejected.

“I heard you suffered because of this old woman. It couldn’t have been easy catering to a demented old woman’s whims…”

Agera seemed to have heard from the Duke roughly how things had progressed. Then I could ask what I was curious about, right? I had so many things I wanted to ask.

“Grandfather said there are many stories I could hear from you, Grandmother. That you could tell me many stories about Mother. And about my eyes too.”

“Julian told you all that…?”

“We made that promise. In exchange for getting rid of the rats, I would hear my mother’s story. Since Grandfather transferred the obligation to you, Grandmother, I should hear the story from you.”

I conveyed that the Duke had roughly passed the buck, telling me to hear the story from Agera. Agera’s eyes widened in surprise, then she smiled gently.

“He must trust you greatly.”

Though that trust was built through contracts, threats, violence, and gaslighting, let’s not reveal that.

The Duke wouldn’t have told Agera that he threw a wine glass at me in anger, and I also didn’t want to confess that I had gaslighted the Duke, so we both kept our mouths shut. There was no way Agera could know that our trust was built on accumulated discord.

“Have you recovered all your memories?”

“Yes…”

Agera clasped her hands together tightly and hid them. It was behavior suggesting she didn’t want to show her shameful self. Agera seemed to vividly remember everything, including the moment she summoned a demon to make a wish.

“Including when you summoned the demon, Grandmother?”

Agera wiped away all traces of laughter and nodded with difficulty.

“Shamefully… You must have heard from Julian why I dabbled in sorcery?”

“Yes. I heard roughly from Grandfather and Rico.”

Agera looked at me as if groping with her eyes. Based on my experience dealing with Agera so far, that was the look she had when thinking of Amaranth.

“…You resemble Amaranth. You really look so much like her. No wonder my lacking self called you Amaranth…”

Well, she couldn’t instantly let go of the daughter she had thought about so deeply that she even summoned a demon. Agera’s eyes were still full of lingering attachment.

“I wanted to see that face. My regret at not properly fulfilling my role as a parent and letting my daughter go remained as lingering attachment. I made a wish to the demon with the desire to see my daughter.”

I understood why Agera used sorcery. What I was curious about was how Agera knew about sorcery, about Lea’s eye color, and about the summoning circle that appeared from Amaranth’s diary.

But even though I’m impatient by nature, I wasn’t so conscienceless as to harshly interrogate someone who had just regained their senses.

Or perhaps the habit of treating Agera as kindly as possible while she suffered from dementia had solidified, making me show uncharacteristic consideration.

“Evangeline, do you know what’s needed to summon a demon?”

“A summoning circle and a sacrifice.”

Though I couldn’t read the annotations of the summoning circle from Amaranth’s diary, recalling Donau’s actions and the birthday celebration, what was needed would be a summoning circle and a sacrifice. Agera added more explanation as if I was correct.

“Right. A summoning circle drawn with one’s own blood, an innocent sacrifice unrelated to my wish, and strong yearning. Only by offering all of these with a desperate heart can one summon a demon.”

So it wasn’t simply a summoning circle and sacrifice, but had additional conditions. An innocent sacrifice… What naturally came to mind was the sacrifice from the sacrifice ritual. It was truly ridiculous that what happened at an event hosted by the temple for the Sun God resembled a demon summoning ritual.

“Did you also offer a sacrifice, Grandmother?”

Did she use an innocent person for her own wish? I asked with discomfort.

Though the demon Agera summoned burned down the Rohanson estate and used the people of the Duke’s mansion as hosts, even if it used Agera as a pretext, it wasn’t Agera’s fault.

But if she had sacrificed an innocent person for her own wish, that would have been Agera’s sin.

“Yes. I missed Amaranth so much, and I couldn’t believe that child was gone from this world…”

If that were true, I wouldn’t be able to view Agera favorably like before. Agera’s words weren’t finished yet, so I kept my mouth shut and waited for what would follow.

Agera looked at me intently. With tears welling up in her eyes as if remembering Amaranth, she continued speaking.

“I offered myself as the sacrifice.”

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