The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 50

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

# Chapter 50.
There had been no word from Gaitel since then.
Still, it seemed that the nobles had been talking behind closed doors about the fact that she’d reviewed documents using the authority the Pope had granted her this time.
But it appeared Gaitel had cleaned the whole mess up herself.
‘Information I can get through Liam, and I’m grateful she handled the aftermath so well.’
Since the Imperial Palace and the Temple regarded each other with caution, it still didn’t feel real that the Imperial Princess—Gaitel, who held the palace’s true power—was on my side.
“Holy Maiden. I’ve returned.”
Liam, who had come back after four days, looked as though he’d been through an ordeal.
His clothes were thick with dust, his boots caked in mud. The look of someone who hadn’t slept in days was plain across his face.
Compared to his usual composed appearance, it was clear he’d been running without rest.
“……Did something happen? You look exhausted.”
“I covered three villages. I walked on foot to places the carriage couldn’t reach.”
Before Liam had even sat down, he pulled out his Notebook.
So impatience wasn’t just my failing.
“And I found it.”
At his words, I shot up from my seat.
“Really?!”
“Or rather, I uncovered it.”
Liam opened the Notebook. It was densely filled with notes.
“After Hanna left the Rochelle House, she settled in a village and lived by taking in sewing work.”
My chest sank. Something felt wrong.
“But whenever the topic of her family came up, everyone would clam up. Only one person told me anything.”
“……What did they say?”
“That her daughter died of a fever while she was still working at the Rochelle House.”
Even though I already knew this, my breath caught.
That petition record I’d seen in the Blessing Records Hall flashed before my eyes again.
Those few short words about a two-year-old child who died of fever.
“So that daughter…….”
“Yes. The baby in the record you found is certainly her.”
Another puzzle piece clicked into place with an audible snap. But it brought me no joy.
Instead, a heavy weight settled in my chest.
“But there’s something truly strange.”
“What else?”
“After that happened, she changed completely. She used to get along well with her neighbors, but afterward she locked herself away for years. Then one day she simply disappeared, without even a word.”
Disappeared again.
I swallowed hard.
“But just before she vanished, there was one crucial thing.”
Liam lowered his voice.
“A villager heard Hanna muttering to herself: ‘If those people hadn’t stopped me, my daughter wouldn’t have died.'”
A chill ran down my spine.
In those few words lay thirty years of accumulated resentment.
“Was it that night? The night Selena Valet died?”
“Very likely. The dates align exactly.”
“Did anyone mention anything about families besides the Rochelle House?”
“The villagers didn’t know much about that. They only mentioned that there were a few baronial houses close to the Rochelle House back then.”
Other families. The Bern Family and the Doren Family I’d seen in that newspaper clipping might somehow be connected.
“Can you look into those as well?”
“Yes. I’ll confirm it as soon as I finish this investigation.”
An image formed in my mind.
The night her daughter was dying, Hanna couldn’t leave the mansion because of the ball being held there. Someone had stopped her.
And that same night, her daughter died alone.
With no one by her side, her small body wracked with fever.
At that same moment, Selena Valet also died. But only her death had been remembered in high society for thirty years.
Because of her noble blood, some deaths are forgotten while others are endlessly resurrected.
Every Debutante season, people spoke her name with pity and regret.
But no one remembered the other child who died in the same mansion on the same night.
“……Who on earth stopped her.”
For the nobility, a Debutante was nothing less than a grand occasion—the opening of a young woman’s life in society.
That day, everyone would have been busy preparing for it.
A single maidservant couldn’t be spared from such a grand affair.
Perhaps the people who stopped her weren’t noblemen at all.
‘No, I’m almost certain they were.’
The taste in my mouth turned bitter.
“It seems the only certain method would be to ask Hanna directly.”
His words were sound. This was no longer a stage where I could rely on mere speculation.
“Where is she now, then?”
“I’ve discovered that as well.”
Liam unfolded the final page of the notebook for me to see.
“Just before she left, there was testimony that she entrusted a letter to a neighbor. Apparently it was being sent to a small village in the Capital Outskirts.”
“So she had someone there she knew.”
“Yes. If we send someone to that location, it shouldn’t take long to find her.”
Hearing that, my heart somehow felt lighter. It was almost humbling—when I’d first taken this burden upon myself alone, yet now so many people were running alongside me.
“But Liam, have you eaten? Your face looks absolutely gaunt.”
“…I ate a piece of bread in the carriage on the way here.”
“You managed three villages on just one piece of bread?”
Liam replied so matter-of-factly that worry crept in instead.
“Don’t overextend yourself.”
His position as Holy Knight Commander must be extremely high, yet he moves without hesitation whenever I ask. I felt both grateful and guilty about that.
After Liam left, I opened the notebook again and read it from the beginning.
A mother who lost her daughter. A woman who spent years confined to her room, then one day quietly disappeared. And one bitter murmur.
‘If only those people hadn’t stopped her.’
That single phrase kept haunting me. Who on earth had barred the way of a mother trying to reach her dying daughter?
‘How could anyone do such a thing?’
Was there truly someone who would force a maid to stay at her post, even as her child was dying?
But if this was true, and a mother could do nothing but watch her daughter slip away because of a nobleman’s command—
‘I understand.’
She had more than enough reason to curse the shoes.
“…What a sad story.”
As I murmured this absently, Cheese lifted his head from where he’d been curled up beside me.
Meow.
The short cry sounded almost like he was agreeing with me.
“But that doesn’t mean what Chloe suffered just goes away, either.”
The twisted legs, the tears streaming down. That terrible night came rushing back.
No matter how painful Hanna’s past was, the fact remained that an innocent child had suffered so horribly.
‘Honestly, what did Chloe do wrong?’
She was merely a victim. An unfortunate young lady whose already-difficult Debutante was completely ruined.
The desire to understand, and the need to stop her.
Both pressed down on my chest at once. I couldn’t easily set aside either one.
Cheese crept closer and rested his head on my knee.
Whether he was trying to comfort me or simply felt drowsy, I couldn’t say, but it helped me settle a little.
I stroked his back a few times, letting my turbulent thoughts subside.
“It won’t be much longer now.”
I murmured this while gazing up at the dark sky beyond the window.
What would Liam uncover in that small village, and when I finally met the real Hanna at the end of all this, what would I say to her?
Truth be told, I’d sensed it dimly from the start.
The tasks the Status Window gave me to resolve weren’t merely frightening—they had depths I hadn’t understood.
They all had their stories.
Those who couldn’t achieve Ascension because of wrongful death, because they loved someone, because something remained for them to protect—people with their own reasons.
But this time was different, somehow.
Not the dead seeking revenge, but the living mourning the dead and yearning to retaliate—
“Still, fear is fear, no matter how you rationalize it.”
As I muttered this half-hearted justification, Cheese let out a deep sigh.
Oh, come on. Really?
You’re a ghost—you don’t understand how I feel.

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