My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 193
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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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Rafaela focused again on the other person who fell within Evangeline’s range of concern. Daisy looked on edge and sensitive, but it seemed to be because of the young siblings she felt responsible for.
There were quite a number of people at the Rohanson Estate that Evangeline and Daisy had rescued.
Indeed, one should not judge a person by looking at only one side. I had no idea Daisy was such a devoted person to her family. Hena Greenwood, who I only knew as a brother-obsessed fool, had actually clung completely to Bishop Marik.
“Oh, right. Daisy. That coachman said he originally worked under Lady Rohanson. Do you happen to know him?”
Rafaela suddenly asked about the suspicious coachman.
Daisy looked toward the coachman and frowned, unable to get a clear sense of him. While muttering and trying to guess the coachman’s identity, her eyes widened.
“If he worked as a coachman under the young lady… could that be Melek?”
“Melek!”
“Mary, shh. You can’t say that.”
The children reacted to the name Melek. Though they hushed it up as if there was some story behind it, surprisingly Daisy and the children seemed to know about Melek.
So it wasn’t a lie that he worked at Rohanson. Rafaela let out a sigh of relief.
Thinking she had done her best, Rafaela gave up any lingering thoughts and finished preparing to send off the carriage.
“Travel safely.”
With the final farewell to Daisy, the carriage carrying the Rohanson people and the Pararos Knights departed, leaving Rafaela behind.
She didn’t bother saying goodbye to her colleagues. She would see their faces again soon enough anyway. Rafaela stepped forward to catch a nearby carriage.
It was time to return home after a long while. It was time to pick up again the identity of a ducal heir that Rafaela herself had cast aside for the Captain.
In the eyes of the faithful, Rafaela would be quite the heretic. She had secretly helped the cursed Gabriel become a Holy Knight and stayed by his side until he rose to the position of Knight Captain, and now she was even trying to help Evangeline Rohanson.
But there are people in the world who follow personal feelings rather than grand beliefs. Rafaela would help Evangeline for the sake of her Captain and the Rohanson people she had perhaps spent only a short time with.
Simply because she personally felt drawn to them.
The journey back was long. Rafaela felt a bit regretful.
“Ah. I should have asked them to drop me off at the ducal residence.”
***
The supply wagon had left the capital and was traveling toward its destination for quite some time. When little Mary said she was hungry, they decided to stop briefly for a meal. They had plenty of provisions. Thanks to Pudding delivering a considerable amount before the carriage departed.
People were eating their meals and chatting busily. Daisy watched Weder, who was enthusiastically engaged in conversation. Even though it was all Rohanson people, Weder had easily blended in among them.
The topic of conversation now was about what happened when they were just trying to leave the capital.
“I really thought we were going to get caught.”
Weder, recalling the situation at the time, gulped down a bottle of water as if her throat was parched, then let out a sigh of relief.
Perhaps because the sacrifice was approaching, the inspection was very thorough. Not only carriages entering the capital, but even cargo leaving was checked completely.
Even before news of the Rohanson people’s escape had spread, whether they had anticipated it or were being thoroughly preventive, either way, the obsessive response was chilling.
“If it weren’t for Melek, we would have been caught, right?”
The topic soon shifted to Melek, who had gotten off a while ago.
“Right. At first I thought he was some suspicious person…”
Everyone had initially found Melek suspicious. Daisy too would have been wary without knowing Melek’s true nature if it weren’t for her siblings’ situation.
She had been curious why he was only accompanying them to the city gates, but thanks to Melek they were able to easily pass through the inspection.
When Melek approached the guards and said something to them, the guards didn’t properly examine the supply wagon and just let them pass after a cursory glance. The guard acted as if he couldn’t see that the cargo compartment was full of people.
“But what did he do to let us through?”
“It must be this, right?”
Someone curled their hand into a coin shape. To others, it would have looked like Melek had bribed the guards with gold coins.
Daisy didn’t add to the speculation. Bribe the guards? The guard standing there was actually wearing the sun’s insignia. Since the temple side would have put him there, he would have been a person of firm faith. Daisy thought it was Melek’s ability, not gold, that worked.
What would happen to the guard’s treatment after the Rohanson people’s escape was discovered? Daisy briefly imagined the guard’s future but soon erased the thought.
This wasn’t the time to worry about unknown strangers. If they had been caught by the guard and failed to escape in time, everyone here would have died. This was the best outcome.
Daisy picked up some provisions and headed to the driver’s seat.
“Knight, I brought some food.”
“Ah, Daisy.”
Michel greeted her with a kind face. The honorifics from a knight still didn’t sound familiar.
Melek had gotten off the carriage as promised after leaving the city gates. Some people worried about how he would return in such a deserted forest, but Melek calmly replied that with many people gathering in the capital for the sacrifice, he could catch a ride on a carriage.
He also said he had left an important person behind and needed to hurry back. Daisy guessed he would return by some extraordinary method. Michel took Melek’s place.
Michel was a peculiar person in many ways. You could tell just from how he deliberately used honorifics with Daisy. He was particularly kind to Daisy compared to others. When asked why, he answered, ‘Because you’re the young lady’s maid.’
Even the words he spoke were strange. Despite being a Holy Knight, Michel seemed like a devotee worshipping Evangeline. His sister Misha also had a talent for praise, but Michel was a bit more extreme.
Listening to Michel’s praise, Daisy grew a bit tired of him. Daisy now held goodwill toward Evangeline too, and had lived with Kanna and Pudding who had their own talent for flattery, yet somehow Michel’s praise felt more uncomfortable.
The talk about Evangeline bewitching knights probably included not just Gabriel but this person’s share as well. Moreover, from Daisy’s memory, Evangeline and Michel had no particular connection.
As if reading Daisy’s doubts, the straightforward knight quietly gave her a hint about Michel’s circumstances. It was a more serious matter than Daisy had expected. Apparently, when his whole body was on fire and he became a spectacle, Evangeline had helped him.
Daisy ended up understanding Michel’s feelings just a little bit. Sometimes a person’s entire life gets mortgaged by just a brief moment, an instant. Just as it had been for Daisy.
“How much further do we need to go?”
“It’s not much farther.”
Michel offered a hopeful prediction that if they pushed the horses, they could arrive within the day.
“Really?”
Whether the conversation was heard inside, Weder’s face suddenly popped out. Daisy examined Weder’s face. If she was returning to her hometown after a long time, she should be happy, but Daisy only sensed anxious emotions from Weder.
She had said her hometown was a closed-off place. Daisy became curious about the place where they would be hiding temporarily. When trapped at the Rohanson Estate, she had thought anywhere would be good as long as they could escape danger. But now that they had actually passed through the inspection and escaped, worries about the refuge where they would have to stay for a while began to rise.
Had Weder said her hometown was severely exclusionary toward outsiders? She wasn’t sure if they could live well in such a place.
“What kind of place is Weder’s hometown?”
“It’s a place where people like you gather.”
“People like us?”
“Yes. People who have fled.”
Weder smiled brightly. It was quite ironic that a village severely exclusionary toward outsiders was actually made up of fugitives.
Weder mentioned names she remembered, and the descriptions following each name were uniformly notorious. There was some meaning in warning them in advance since they would be living together for a while.
A woman who fled after committing fraud. A couple who eloped with their lover to avoid a forced marriage. An old woman who wandered in while searching for her dead son. A servant who fled after murdering his noble master.
They were all uncomfortable characters to deal with. Hearing there was even a murderer, her food wouldn’t go down well. In the end, Daisy couldn’t finish even half her portion by the time she cleaned up her meal and the carriage was ready to depart again.
Her stomach felt uncomfortably heavy, but Weder didn’t notice that her companion’s mood had dropped and continued the conversation about the village.
“Oh right. Aunt Pakira was the greatest contributor to me becoming a maid. She said she originally worked as a maid before coming to the village too. At Ro, Ro… where was it.”
Ro? The first thing that came to mind was the Rohanson Viscount’s house. But before she could recall the name, Weder opened her mouth in surprise.
“There it is!”
“What?”
“We’ve arrived! That’s the entrance to our village!”
Weder began making a fuss.
Daisy frowned slightly. She could see a human figure at what was supposed to be the village entrance. As the carriage got closer, it began to become clear.
It was an old woman carrying a child on her back. But the child on her back was a bit strange. The body was upside down with feet sticking out toward the head. From a distance, it looked exactly like she was carrying severed feet. The sight was eerie and Daisy was speechless.
But unlike Daisy, Weder jumped off the carriage and ran to embrace the old woman from behind.
“I’m back, Grandma.”
She hugged as if to crush the person, but no child’s crying could be heard.
“It’s a doll.”
Michel explained calmly. As the carriage stopped, people began getting off one by one. The village was said to be located deep in the forest. They would have to walk a bit more, so Weder volunteered to guide the way.
At the very front were Michel and Weder, and the old woman Weder was looking after. The old woman carrying the doll hummed and sang a lullaby. Her voice echoed and lingered, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
For someone who didn’t seem mentally sound, the old woman was remarkably fast on her feet. Even Daisy found it hard to keep up.
Leaves and branches were tangled together forming the ground, making each step difficult. Occasionally, she felt something soft under her feet.
Weder wasn’t taking a proper path. She weaved between trees with no regularity, making it questionable whether Weder was guiding them on the right path.
Daisy went deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees became more lush and dense.
The dense trees blocked even the color of the sky from view. Feeling somehow chilled and cold, she adjusted the blanket she was wearing.
“Sister, I’m scared.”
Mary and Yulma hid behind Daisy. The hands gripping Daisy trembled. If it looked eerie even to Daisy, the fear would be multiplied for the children. After walking like that for a while longer, Weder finally stopped.
“Have we finally arrived?”
Hopeful murmurs could be heard from behind, but it didn’t resonate well with Daisy. The village that was their refuge looked larger than expected.
A village hidden among dense trees – with the sky barely visible, it could be believed to be a tree cave rather than a village.
“Indeed, it’s a fitting place for heretics to hide.”
With the sun blocked by trees, it seemed like a very suitable place for heretics to flee from God.
Daisy was curious. Was that statement made as a faithful Holy Knight, or was it a self-deprecating remark from his position of following Evangeline?
Michel entered the village without hesitation. Daisy took her siblings’ hands in both of hers, took a deep breath, and followed.
On the day Bishop Marik suffers complete defeat, they would be able to leave the village again. Until then, the village would protect the Rohanson people.
Bishop Marik and the Holy Knights wouldn’t be able to find this place easily either. Perhaps what Weder said about rejecting outsiders might have been referring to the forest’s geography rather than the village residents.
Daisy scoffed. It was indeed a fitting place for heretics to hide.
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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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