The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 31

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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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# Episode 31.
Diane felt Demian’s grip weakening and was just about to extract Erisha from his arms when—
“Your Highness, I’m stopping now.”
“Just a moment more.”
Demian spoke with effort.
“Let him speak.”
“Your Highness!”
“Quickly.”
Diane felt tears threatening to spill.
This man, truly.
Why must he be so stubborn even now?
Diane clenched her teeth.
“This is really the last thing.”
Demian nodded.
“Who took the Greenhouse Key?”
Gaitel’s eyes darkened.
“Who was it?”
“Elena Basili.”
The daughter of Baron Basili.
Gaitel knew the name.
That timid young lady who always hid behind someone else and smiled.
“It’s in her room.”
“The key?”
“In the second drawer beneath her bed.”
Demian’s voice had nearly vanished.
“She said it crying. She said she’d only heard that locking it would be enough. She didn’t know it would kill.”
In that moment, Demian’s body collapsed forward.
Diane cried out as if screaming.
“Stop!”
The Holy Power severed.
The burnt smell that had been drifting through the room vanished abruptly.
Demian nearly crumpled to the ground.
Liam, who had been standing by, rushed over and caught him.
“Your Highness!”
Demian breathed heavily.
His face had gone deathly pale.
His lips were blue.
Diane grasped his hand and channeled Holy Power into him again.
“Don’t tell me you’re fine.”
“…I wasn’t going to.”
“You were about to.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s written all over your face, Your Highness.”
Demian laughed weakly.
“Now you can read my face too.”
“Is this really the time for jokes?”
“No.”
He conceded honestly.
That made her even angrier.
Diane pushed Holy Power into him, her voice wavering.
“Next time, you absolutely cannot push yourself like this.”
“I understand.”
This time too, Demian answered without resistance.
He looked truly exhausted.
Gaitel watched quietly from where she stood.
Tears still clung to her cheeks, but her expression had changed.
Gaitel looked down silently at the Ribbon on her wrist.
A little blood was smeared on it.
She did not untie the Ribbon.
Instead, she tied it even tighter.
“Duke Rowen.”
A low voice.
“Baron Basili.”
And.
“Elena Basili.”
Names fell into the room one by one.
Like a verdict.
But Diane bit her lip hard.
Something didn’t add up.
‘Why?’
They’d tried to kill Erisha. Inside the Greenhouse within the Imperial Palace, no less.
All that—forging notes and setting fires—just to murder a single young girl?
“Sir Liam.”
Liam bowed his head while supporting Demian.
“Yes.”
“Everything you heard in this room today represents circumstances confirmed during the Holy Maiden’s sacred investigation.”
“I will remember that.”
“Demian.”
Demian raised his head with effort.
“Yes.”
Gaitel paused.
Then spoke very quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
Demian looked at her.
“It’s not your fault.”
Sister.
The word had come so naturally.
Gaitel’s eyes wavered.
“Still—”
“And.”
Demian drew a breath.
“I’m beginning to understand now that you never hated me.”
The room fell silent.
Gaitel couldn’t speak.
Those words struck her more suddenly than Erisha’s confession had.
“I never hated you.”
Gaitel barely managed to say it.
“Not once.”
“Then why did you always keep your distance?”
“Because I was afraid you’d be hurt because of me.”
Gaitel closed her eyes.
“So I couldn’t bring myself to come closer.”
Demian didn’t answer.
The silence wasn’t anger—it was the silence of understanding.
Diane watched the two of them, then quietly bowed her head.
Gaitel looked back at Diane.
“Holy Maiden.”
“Yes.”
“I have hidden much from you.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you angry?”
Diane considered for a moment.
Should she be honest.
Should she speak as a Holy Maiden would.
In the end, she simply chose honesty.
“A little.”
Gaitel smiled faintly.
“I thought you might be.”
“But I understand.”
“Why?”
“I keep secrets too.”
At those words, Gaitel regarded Diane for a long moment.
Such a small child.
One who had seen too much and was hiding too much.
Her crimson eyes gleamed sharply beneath the candlelight.
There lived Gaitel Belium.
“My name is Gaitel Belium.”
She spoke quietly.
“I am the Imperial Princess of the Belium Empire and the sister of Demian.”
Diane bowed her head in silence.
“It is an honor to know you, Your Highness.”
“And the fact that I approached the Holy Maiden under the name Idel was a lie.”
“Yes.”
“But.”
Gaitel paused, drawing breath.
“The desire to become friends with the Holy Maiden was not a lie.”
Diane’s eyes wavered.
That was somewhat unexpected.
Friends.
A strange word.
For Diane, it had always been something distant, uncomfortable, difficult to believe in.
“So did I.”
Diane said softly.
“Though I suspected you greatly at first.”
Gaitel laughed very quietly.
“How honest.”
“I heard that friends must be honest with each other.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know. I picked it up somewhere.”
For some reason, that made Gaitel laugh harder.
Very briefly.
But the laughter did not last.
Gaitel turned her gaze toward the door.
Her eyes grew cold.
“Holy Maiden.”
“Yes.”
“Will you help me?”
Diane clenched her fists.
She was afraid.
This time, the living frightened her more than ghosts ever could.
And yet,
“Yes.”
Diane nodded.
“I will help you.”
Gaitel nodded slowly.
Then she walked toward the door.
Her hand upon the doorknob, she spoke.
“We’ll finish it before the day is through.”
Diane blinked.
“Today?”
“Yes.”
Gaitel’s voice was far too calm.
Which made it all the more frightening.
Diane reflected.
Of course.
Perhaps the Imperial family were beings more terrifying than ghosts?
* * *
Gaitel did not move at once, and yet I found her frightening.
I had thought that now that she knew the truth, she would storm the Marquis’s house or the Count’s at any moment.
……
For some reason, Gaitel remained composed.
The woman before me had gathered her flowing black hair into a neat knot, her crimson eyes turning through documents with methodical precision.
It was the first time I’d found the sound of rustling pages so unsettling.
Tap. Gaitel’s finger came to rest on one name.
“I’m thinking of starting with this one.”
A familiar name—Elena Basili.
The one who’d locked the Greenhouse door herself.
“Why her?”
“She’s the weakest.”
It was an assessment so chillingly detached it made my skin crawl.
“Besides, I’ve heard she’s been tormented by guilt.”
Gaitel slid a document across to me. On it was written the social assessment of Elena.
In brief: for years after her debutante presentation, she’d stopped attending major events, and recently she’d begun showing signs of a nervous breakdown.
The reason seemed obvious enough that I muttered aloud.
“She’s been living in fear all this time.”
Like Gaitel, she was probably withering away under the weight of her guilt.
“Could we use threats to make her confess?”
When I asked carefully, Gaitel gave an unexpected answer.
“No.”
……!
“A confession extracted by coercion is weak. It could be overturned later.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We make her confess of her own accord.”
Gaitel spoke with a dry gesture, as though spitting out the words.
“Especially regarding the location of the key. The fact that she hasn’t thrown it away yet suggests it weighs heavily on her.”
“Ah…….”
“People burdened by fear usually can’t bring themselves to destroy evidence. Doing so would make them truly guilty.”
The method of exploiting her guilt sounded sound, but how exactly?
I glanced sideways at Erisha beside me.
It would be wonderful if other people could see ghosts too.
“Could the Holy Maiden help us a little?”
“Me?”
Help how, exactly?
That was when it happened.
[Those suffering from nervous breakdowns may be able to see spirits.]
The status window helpfully informed me.
I blinked.
‘Ah.’
I thought I understood.
Ordinary people cannot see ghosts, but those whose spirits have been greatly weakened, who are crushed by guilt and cannot sleep properly—they are different.
Elena Basili was already unraveling. She hadn’t attended major events in years.
And the fact that she still hadn’t discarded the key meant she hadn’t forgotten her crime.
‘So if Erisha were to appear before her directly…….’
It wouldn’t be a threat. No one would be holding a knife to her throat.
Simply this: Elena would face her own guilt on her own.
The day she locked that door. The excuses she’d made—that she never meant for her to die.
All of it.
“Erisha.”
Erisha slowly raised her head and fixed her gaze upon me.
Ever since she’d possessed Demian’s body, she’d begun responding, bit by bit, to my words.
Though she still couldn’t speak, of course.
“Don’t hurt Elena.”
She nodded slowly.
“And don’t frighten her too severely.”
I chose my words with care.
“Just…… show her.”
That because of the sin she committed, I am still here.
Gaitel’s crimson eyes narrowed. She spoke quietly.
“So.”
“Yes.”
“You touch their guilt, but don’t break them completely—so they’ll confess willingly?”
“……Yes.”
Hearing it said aloud sent a chill down her spine.
“How delightful.”
She smiled, her lips curling with satisfaction.
“I’ll make them open their mouths of their own accord.”

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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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