The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 48

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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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# Chapter 48.
I was unsettled.
The thread that had begun with the Red Cloth Fragment had led me to the name Rochelle Household, but it stopped dead there.
With only a maid’s name left behind, every other path seemed to have closed off.
After days of carrying this frustration with me, I finally sent a letter to Gaitelle.
I asked how things were progressing with the records on the Rochelle Family’s side.
It was the matter he’d said he’d look into when we examined the Newspaper Fragment together before.
The reply came the following evening.
I’d waited a full day, and all that time I’d been lost in thought, turning things over in my mind.
Your Holiness,
I’m sorry to say that the matter regarding the Rochelle Family remains uncertain.
The records are so old that the staff are all at a loss.
It seems we’ll need more time. Please be patient a while longer.
It was obvious that Gaitelle would be occupied managing the aftermath of what had happened at the debutante ball. I was grateful that he’d remembered to reply to me at all.
Yet receiving such an unsatisfying response left me feeling uncomfortable.
As I folded the letter, I swallowed a sigh.
That night, I called for Liam separately, late in the evening.
“Liam, I have a favor to ask.”
“Please, speak.”
“Could you look into the Rochelle Family for me? I need to know if anyone who worked at that mansion about thirty years ago is still alive now—a gardener, a stable master, anyone at all.”
Liam’s eyes widened slightly.
“……Why so suddenly?”
I hesitated for a moment, then explained briefly what had happened so far.
The aftermath of the Red Shoes incident, the Red Cloth Fragment, and the connection to the Rochelle Family and the other households involved.
Liam’s expression grew steadily more grave.
“Such things happened? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“……I didn’t want to involve people in something I wasn’t even sure about.”
“I understand. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have people investigate.”
“Thank you.”
“And, Your Holiness.”
Liam added this as he stood to leave.
“Next time something like this happens, tell me at once. You don’t need to carry it alone.”
Those words stuck with me in an odd way.
After Liam had gone, I sat on the edge of my bed and went over what I’d done that day. I’d already made my request to Gaitelle, and now I’d made a new one to Liam.
I’d done all I could.
Yet my heart didn’t feel any lighter at all.
If anything, the weight only grew—the burden of having set more people in motion because of me.
Sleep wouldn’t come, so I left my room.
Becky would have something to say if she found out, but I couldn’t bear to lie still any longer.
The truth was, when I was alone, frightening memories would surface.
That grotesque form—bones shattered, joints twisted—dancing on and on left me shaken in ways I couldn’t fully control.
With each step my cold feet took on the corridor floor, my thoughts became more tangled. The Rochelle Family, the maid’s name erased from all records, the death of that two-year-old child.
And between all of it, other memories kept intruding.
The fact that I’d asked Liam and Gaitelle for help only made my heart heavier.
Everyone was trying so hard, yet no answers came—what if I’d only sent them on a futile errand?
……And then there was that day. When I’d shouted that I would go and treat Becky’s sibling.
The day I’d raised my voice in front of the Pope for the first time.
Since then, I hadn’t properly faced him eye to eye.
More precisely, I’d been avoiding it. When he’d apologized, I’d turned away without answering, and that kept gnawing at me.
‘How could I possibly look at him now?’
As I walked, organizing my thoughts this way, I found myself near the Pope’s office.
I hadn’t meant to head in that direction—my feet had simply carried me there of their own accord.
“Diane?”
At the familiar voice, I stopped short.
It was the Pope.
‘Ah, I didn’t want to run into him.’
Through the half-open office door, he stood holding a candlestick, apparently having been reviewing documents late into the night.
“……Your Holiness.”
“What brings you here at this hour?”
I’d been caught.
“I, I just couldn’t sleep, so I was taking a walk.”
It wasn’t a lie.
The Pope looked down at me quietly. That gaze was so cautious it made me ache even more.
He seemed like someone who still wasn’t sure how to treat me.
“You don’t look well. Is something troubling you?”
“……”
Words wouldn’t come.
Should I brush past this and return to my room, or lay everything bare right now?
‘Since we’ve already crossed paths.’
I took a deep breath.
“Your Holiness, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Inside the study, I laid out everything I’d uncovered so far.
The Red Shoes case, the Red Cloth Fragment, the erased petition I’d found in the Blessing Records Room, even the family name Rochelle itself.
As the story grew longer, the Pope’s expression hardened bit by bit. Candlelight flickered, casting shadows across the heaps of documents.
“……So you’ve been investigating all of this alone, then.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you beforehand.”
I hesitated for a moment, then decided not to let this one pass vaguely.
“……Since then, I haven’t known how to face you.”
“You mean about Robin?”
“Yes. I said some terrible things then—that I felt treated like a tool, that I was disappointed. And when you apologized, I didn’t respond at all. I just left. That’s been weighing on me ever since.”
The Pope lowered his eyes.
“I’ve thought about it too, every time I’ve seen you since that day. You were right. Under the guise of protecting you, I made decisions without asking you anything at all.”
It was unexpected.
The Pope rose from his seat and lowered himself to meet my eyes.
“Diane, I apologize again now. I was truly sorry then. What you wanted wasn’t a comfortable life—it was to do the things you’re capable of doing.”
My eyes grew hot.
“……I was too harsh on you then too.”
“No. You were right. So will you accept my apology?”
“……Yes.”
Speaking those words, something I’d held in for months—no, longer—seemed to unwind and dissolve.
“Thank you.”
The Pope smiled softly.
It was different from his usual stern face—something lighter, unburdened.
“Then, shall we return to the matter at hand?”
The Pope straightened and spoke.
“You mentioned Rochelle. I’ve already asked Gaitelle and Liam to look into it.”
“Yes. But they said neither has found anything certain yet. The Rochelle records themselves are so old.”
The Pope fell silent in thought for a moment.
“It’s common for old noble family records to be difficult to verify. Especially servant records. But if the Temple moves in its own name, that changes things.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. The Royal Registry Management Office is required to keep copies of noble household employment records on file each year. But that place can only be accessed with investigation authority in the Temple’s name.”
I hadn’t known that. So there was such a method.
“Then we should proceed in the Temple’s name from now on.”
The Pope smiled faintly.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll officially grant Temple investigation authority. So you can access all records related to the Rochelle family.”
My chest swelled with emotion.
“Thank you.”
“But this time, don’t bear it all alone. You’re still a child.”
“……Yes. I really will this time.”
The Pope looked at me with a deliberately stern expression.
Yet within that gaze lay both concern and affection.
Walking back to my room, my steps felt oddly light.
The heaviness that had weighed on me for days, the knot of resentment lodged in one corner of my heart—tonight it all seemed to come undone, piece by piece.
‘Perhaps I’ve wanted to reconcile with the Pope all along.’
Perhaps I really have been thinking of him as my father.
[Hidden Quest]
Try calling the Pope “Dad.”
Reward: Good Deed Gauge +1
There is no set time limit.
My Status Window quietly slipped me a quest I’d forgotten about.
“No. That won’t happen.”
Of course, the Pope fulfilled his role as my guardian faithfully. He supported me more generously than anyone else could.
But a father was something else entirely.
Because that required love, fundamentally.
Having never known a family’s love, the only way I could approach the Pope was to ask permission to complete quests.
‘Look. Your Holiness uses me for the Temple’s benefit anyway.’
A relationship where neither side had anything to lose. A win-win arrangement.
I’d never dared lay love on top of that.
How could I, someone like me.
I’d held myself back countless times from expecting too much, but even so, when a quest like this appeared, I couldn’t deny there was hope somewhere in my heart.
‘Don’t hope for anything.’
If I did, I’d be the one who got hurt.

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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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