The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 29

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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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The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 29

“So you’re saying that after that day, you and Ria got along well.”
[She couldn’t stay for long since she was busy, but she’d visit from time to time and tell me about the world outside. Now that I think about it, if you hadn’t been here, wouldn’t I have gone mad long ago?]
“…Wh-what? Praise? Out of nowhere?”
Kaiser squirmed at the compliment, his ears turning red. But Ria was sincere.
The fact that he visited regularly to keep her company, and brought countless gifts from the outside world, had given her daily life the breath of fresh air it desperately needed.
“It’s nothing special.”
As Kaiser, blushing, tried to change the subject away from Lucian, Lucian shook his head with great excitement.
“No! It’s incredibly, incredibly special! Because it means you were Ria’s first friend!”
“Hmm, I suppose so.”
“I wish I’d been there with you back then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can only live sixty years at most. Better to be grateful you met her now.”
“Why?”
“Because in five years I’ll undergo the True Dragon Ceremony! Once I do, all limitations disappear!”
As it stood, he hadn’t yet undergone the ceremony and couldn’t stay outside for extended periods.
Moreover, had Kaiser met Lucian in childhood, there was no guarantee they would have grown as close as they were now.
Back then, Kaiser had been far more arrogant and willful — it was questionable whether he would have accepted a mere human like Lucian.
“By the way, Kaiser. Don’t you want your own mansion anymore? Or did you find another villa?”
Kaiser’s original reason for coming to the mansion was to acquire a private residence. But this mansion wasn’t his.
His periodic visits weren’t to take over the property, but to see Ria. Still, Ria found herself curious about it too.
“No villa. Soon enough I’ll have my own lair, so I don’t need one anymore anyway.”
[Really? I thought you’d gone quiet about asking for the mansion because you’d already found a new one.]
“If I asked, would you give it to me?”
[That’s not happening.]
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
Kaiser clicked his tongue, calling her stingy.
“I looked into it back then because I needed a personal space. But thinking about it now, I realized I don’t really need one. Even as a villa, I’d visit maybe once or twice in five years, and if I settled in the Human Village, wouldn’t the locals think something was off?”
True enough — he could only stay for a month anyway, so if the mansion’s lights were on just once every five years, the humans would certainly find it suspicious.
“And I found out later that this mansion doesn’t belong to nobody. It’s owned by the Imperial Court.”
[Really?]
“Truly?”
When Ria and Lucian were taken aback, Kaiser gave them a dull look, as if they should have known.
“Yeah. Once I heard that, I dropped the whole idea. My parents said to never get involved with the Imperial Court. And there were times when humans would occasionally settle in here, remember?”
[That’s right.]
The periods and durations varied, but roughly once every thirty to forty years, someone would move in and live here.
“So what happened to all those people who lived here?”
[They died.]
“Cough! Really?”
Kaiser choked suddenly, and Ria nodded at him. He shuddered, saying it gave him the creeps.
“When you think about it, the rumors about this place aren’t baseless. It really is haunted by a ghost, people really do die here, and not a single human who visits here leaves unscathed.”
[What are you talking about? I don’t kill people.]
“That’s not what I mean. Among the humans who visit here, has anyone ever left standing? They all either faint, wet themselves, or something.”
Hmm… was that true? It seemed like it, and yet it didn’t.
[Ah, now that you mention it……]
Something flickered through Ria’s consciousness.
Kaiser’s eyes gleamed at her reaction.
“What is it? Something bothering you?”
[Hmm… how do I put this. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen someone who lived here die with my own eyes.]
“Huh?”
[Now that I say it out loud, it’s strange. I never saw them die with my own eyes, so why did I think they were dead all this time?]
A human who was living fine yesterday would suddenly vanish without a trace the next day.
“Then they didn’t die — they just left the mansion, didn’t they?”
[That’s not it either… Usually when someone’s planning to leave, they pack up. But there was never any sign of that. And all their belongings are still here.]
That’s why she’d decorated a room dedicated to the humans who had lived here.
“Ria doesn’t sleep, right? Was there anything strange before they disappeared?”
[Well…]
As Lucian said, Ria doesn’t sleep — she’s a ghost.
She’s conscious all twenty-four hours, and yet for some reason, on the days the humans disappeared, her memory would become hazy, as if storm clouds had gathered in her head. Then, before she knew it, Ria opened her mouth.
[…Once every ten years, there are times when I lose consciousness.]
This was something she’d never even told Kaiser. And no wonder — she’d only discovered this fact thirty years ago.
“What are you talking about? You lose consciousness?”
[Literally. Once every ten years, my consciousness disappears entirely.]
Her awareness simply vanishes as if a puppet’s strings had been cut. Then as dawn breaks, she returns to normal.
The process is so seamless that Ria doesn’t even notice it happening, and it took quite a long time for her to realize it was occurring at all.
[Oh, wait.]
Something gnawed at her mind. She rose and headed to her room.
She felt Kaiser and Lucian’s confusion, but there was no time to turn back.
The moment she entered, Ria rummaged through her diary — one she’d been keeping since about a hundred years after she came here.
As she pinpointed when each human who’d lived here had vanished, she found one common thread.
[Ha, haha… I must be crazy…]
Her spirit trembled. How could she have failed to notice something so important all this time?
Year 137, year 187, year 207, year 217, and so on…
All the years humans disappeared.
All of them ended in the digit ‘7’. The intervals were irregular, but that wasn’t the important part.
[My consciousness disappears every ten years… and the year my consciousness fades is…]
The last digit of the year: always seven.
The timing of Ria’s loss of consciousness perfectly aligned with when the humans disappeared. Struck by this shocking realization, Ria clenched her fists.
She never skipped writing in her diary, even if just a line or two.
But one day while organizing her diary, she found she’d skipped a single day’s entry.
When she wondered why, she realized she couldn’t remember what happened that night.
That’s how she came to understand that this gap was no accident — it was a clear pattern.
Days before losing consciousness, she would unconsciously zone out more often, becoming like a mindless ghost.
Finally, as darkness fell, she would lose consciousness entirely, and when she opened her eyes, dawn was breaking through the window.
It was strange, but she’d never paid it much attention. After all, she’d been abnormal from the moment she became a ghost, and losing consciousness for half a day shouldn’t cause problems.
But now things were different. Lucian was living here.
What if something terrible happened during those half-days when she was unconscious and had no knowledge of it?
[What year is it…?]
Year 315. Two more years until the year ends in ‘7’.
[Damn it, there’s not much time left.]
Why had she been so complacent about this? If she’d been more suspicious and investigated, she might have come up with some solution by now.
Ria—! Where did you go—!
Hey! Where did you suddenly go off to! What’s wrong!
As she held her head in distress, she heard the voices of Lucian and Kaiser calling for her.
‘That’s right. Worrying alone won’t solve anything.’
Besides, she had about two years before anything would happen, so she could ask Kaiser for help somehow.
Ria came down from her room and headed to the living room where they were waiting.
As Ria descended from the ceiling, both of them rushed over.
“What’s wrong? Your complexion is pale.”
“Hey, ghosts are always pale.”
“Oh.”
Ria largely ignored their banter and told them what she’d discovered.
Upon hearing it, Lucian clung to Ria in fright, while Kaiser, realizing the gravity of the situation, folded his arms and drummed his fingers on the table.
“You’re sure about this? A ten-year cycle?”
[I just told you. I didn’t write in my diary on those days.]
“Do you know when this started?”
[Since I started keeping a diary, it’s been happening all along. I’ve been writing for about a hundred years, so it’s been going on for nearly two hundred years.]
“It’s been happening that long?”
[That’s the minimum, not the maximum. For all I know, it’s been happening since before I started the diary.]
It was frustrating that her memories of such ancient times were completely unclear.
[I have two years left. If nothing happens, I suppose that would be fortunate. But with Lucian here, I can’t help but worry.]
As Ria embraced Lucian, Kaiser stared intently at her.
“It’s definitely suspicious. When someone vanishes, they stay vanished forever — they don’t disappear and reappear.”
“Ria disappear? No! Ria can’t disappear!”
As Lucian shed tears, she offered a half-hearted explanation that she wouldn’t disappear forever.
“Who knows? This time you really might disappear for good.”
“Waaah! Ria says she’ll disappear…!”
[Lucian, it’s not like that. Kaiser, why are you making him cry!]
“Did I make him cry? Blame yourself for hiding something like that in the first place.”
As Ria comforted Lucian while glaring at him, Kaiser looked away innocently.
It took a while to calm Lucian down. Once he’d settled somewhat, he sniffled, his nose red, and looked up at Kaiser with glistening eyes.
“Kaiser, you’re a dragon. Don’t you know a way to keep Ria from disappearing?”
“How should I know? Even she took a long time to figure it out. Unless I witness the phenomenon myself, it’ll be hard to find the cause.”
At his firm words, Lucian’s face fell.
“Fine, so it happens every seven years — I understand that. But what about the timing? Does the date line up?”
[The timing?]
“Yeah, I mean the specific date, not just the year.”
She hadn’t considered that. Ria went back upstairs and checked the marked dates in her diary.
Then she found something surprising.
[It all happened in summer. From late June to early August.]
“So we should think of it as happening around July. Exactly two years from now, then…”
Kaiser pondered deeply, but unable to find a clear answer, he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
“For now, I’ll come back in two years, around this time. You said there are warning signs, so I can at least prepare for something. If we’re lucky, we might even find the cause.”
[If anything dangerous seems to be happening, prioritize Lucian’s safety above all. Lucian must be safe.]
“Hmph, what do you take me for? That goes without saying.”
Gruff as he was, he had a kind heart. Ria was grateful he agreed so readily.
“Anything else strange? Don’t think there’s much left to shock us here anyway.”
Kaiser groused about having to scrape together scraps. Now there was one more thing she hadn’t told him…
“Oh! The basement! Ria, isn’t there something in the basement?”
…There was. There was.
“The basement? There’s a basement here too?”
Since the basement was normally locked, it wasn’t surprising that Kaiser didn’t know of its existence.
Lucian revealed what he’d experienced when he’d gone there before.
Kaiser’s expression turned bewildered as he listened.
“No, how are you telling me this now! This is the most important clue!”
[…I’d forgotten about it too.]
“Yeah, I know your memory well enough.”
The sarcasm stung, but since Kaiser was the only person—no, dragon—who could explore the basement, Ria could only tremble silently.
“Show me. Let this one check it out.”
Ria led him to the basement. Lucian, who had a trauma from the basement, followed close behind, clutching Kaiser’s sleeve.
Seeing the small door in the remote location, Kaiser raised one eyebrow.
“No wonder I never knew. I thought it was a storage shed and never bothered to look inside.”
“It’s dark, so take a lantern. And the room I told you about—absolutely! Absolutely! Don’t go in!”
Kaiser accepted the lantern Lucian handed him and ruffled the boy’s hair.
[So, shall I open it?]
Whoosh—
The Magic Circle that had been placed there was revealed. As he dispelled the magic, a series of locks clicked open.
“Be careful, Kaiser.”
[If anything goes wrong, just scream. Understood?]
“Hmph, does anything exist in this world that I should fear? Except for my mother, there’s nothing to fear in this world.”
Kaiser flicked his head with supreme confidence.
Ria and Lucian held each other’s hands tightly as they watched Kaiser descend the stairs.
Hopefully he would find something…

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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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