The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 107

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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 107
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Jeff Marrow dredged through his memories of Twin Mountains thoroughly.
He knew well that his brother and sister-in-law traveled to Twin Mountains periodically.
There was an ore vein there, and they mined the minerals they needed from it. He remembered making dye from those minerals.
Jeff was the most introverted of the brothers, a man who preferred sitting in a study reading books to wandering about outside, and his older brother, knowing this well, rarely took him along to Twin Mountains.
Yet even he had been there a few times. Around the time April’s engagement was falling apart.
“Later, teach our daughter how to get here.”
He let his brother’s words slip past his ears then.
The path to the ore vein was so treacherous that even when he was considerably younger than now, he simply had no energy left to heed anyone’s instructions.
Still, his mind was sharp enough that from the words he’d let slip past, he extracted what mattered and condensed it into notes written in his own systematic cipher.
He hadn’t looked at that cipher in so long he’d forgotten it entirely, but since a cipher inevitably carries the maker’s habits, after days of deliberation he finally deciphered its contents.
Now that he’d found the location, it would be fine to go with April, but he realized that a mountain he could barely manage to climb when he was eight years younger, with legs that now required a cane from years of disuse, would only be a burden to her.
So he handed over the notes to his son, Kayani, who was spending his final semester in school.
Kayani was to deliver these notes directly to April, and afterward guard the Lunos Residence while its head was away.
Jeff stressed the point several times over.
“Tell April to be careful, and also…… tell her to be careful. She has no idea how treacherous that mountain is.”
At Jeff’s concern, Kayani smiled and nodded.
“Yes, I understand, Father.”
“And you guard the Lunos Residence well.”
“I will.”
“Good, you’ve grown up, my son. Grown enough that the head of house trusts you with it.”
Jeff drew Kayani into a tight embrace and continued.
“How could you have grown up so well?”
Kayani laughed, his eyes meeting those of his mother, who stood behind his father with her arms crossed.
For reasons she couldn’t quite name, Eleonore had never liked the idea of April—this daughter-like girl she’d only just gained—venturing deliberately into such a dangerous place.
She couldn’t understand why the head of house would bother to go herself down such a treacherous path.
Moreover, for Eleonore, who had despised the Lunos Family for all the time Jeff had been silent, accepting that her youngest son was going to guard the Lunos Grand Residence would surely be difficult.
Kayani spoke to Eleonore.
“I’m sorry, Mother, that I’m going away like this.”
“I looked into the Lunos Family a bit.”
“……You did?”
“Apparently that’s just what they do. In any case, it’s a family that can’t survive unless they do dangerous things…….”
Having made an effort to understand it in her own way, Eleonore looked at Kayani with a cool expression and went on.
“Don’t forget. You’re a member of the Marrow Family too.”
Kayani had things he wanted to say, but he kept his mouth firmly shut.
Eleonore had come to Right Island as the dowry from the Marrow Family—a dyeing factory.
The moment April finished her research on dye, she’d said she would entrust the dye extraction and dyeing work to the factory Eleonore owned. It was news that would have pleased Eleonore.
But since the very fact of going to gather dye was a secret from Mother, he couldn’t speak of it.
Kayani smiled and nodded.
“Yes, I will absolutely not forget.”
“Tell April to come back alive, even if she gets hurt. Save her life and come back.”
“Yes, I will relay that.”
After answering thus, Kayani left the house.
When he arrived at the Lunos Residence, he found Empire Police gathered in great numbers.
Though they wore plain clothes of sorts, they had “police” written all over their faces.
With rifles in hand because wolves were plentiful in the direction of the Mountain Range, the group looked threatening as anything.
Kayani greeted April, informed her about the notes, and came back outside.
Then Pejin approached him and spoke.
“You’ve grown, I see.”
Pejin’s words sounded somehow barbed.
But Kayani, who thought that’s just how the man’s tone was, answered without taking it seriously.
“Yes, I’m still growing.”
“No thoughts about joining the police?”
“My sister said that if an officer were to ask me to become a police officer, I should refuse.”
“Refuse, or ignore?”
“……”
“Right, she’d tell you to ignore them. She’s not one to use pretty words like ‘refuse,’ that April Lunos.”
……Why is this man saying such pointless things?
Kayani thought it, but considering Right Island’s custom of deferring to elders, he tried to smile it off without answering back.
Yet Pejin didn’t stop, continuing to address him repeatedly.
“School?”
“I mentioned I’ll be absent for about two weeks. A professor will be visiting the Lunos Residence to teach me.”
“You’re graduating this year, aren’t you? You should keep your attendance up.”
“I’m a model student, so I’m always diligent.”
Why is he acting so friendly?
But why does it feel like he’s picking a fight?
As Kayani frowned in thought, April emerged from inside, ready to depart.
Seeing April in a thin emerald dress with a cardigan knitted by Fred’s grandmother draped over her arm, Kayani smiled.
“This was also knitted by Fred’s grandmother, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. She knitted flowers for spring.”
Though daytime temperatures were only three or four degrees, occasionally reaching ten, it was a season when people of Right Island could properly enjoy spring weather.
The Empire needed all flowers in full bloom to appreciate blossoms, but people of the Grand Duchy began flower-viewing the moment a few wildflowers bloomed.
Conversely, when snow in the Empire fell without piling up on the ground, all movement ceased, whereas on Right Island, people didn’t give up going outside until half the houses were buried. Thus Empire people loved snow, and people of the Grand Duchy loved flowers.
Pejin, pointing at the garment embroidered with large yellow flowers, spoke.
“It suits you well.”
“What’s this about?”
As April challenged him with these words, her eyes narrowing, Pejin extended his arm and pressed on.
“Why do you take issue when I compliment you?”
“Because when you compliment something, it feels like you’re up to something.”
That man—why did he quibble with their head of house, or so Kayani thought in bewilderment, yet watching them bicker this way while he escorted her and she accepted his escort, they seemed to get along well.
Kayani came to understand belatedly why Pejin had seemed to be picking a fight with him.
Even when speaking with April, his tone was the same as when speaking to Kayani, but his expression was entirely different.
Pejin was smiling.
Not broadly, but continuously in small, subtle ways that expressed joy.
Kayani could tell, just from a glance, that Pejin was in love with April.
It was likely that Pejin had treated him like a child because within the Dieusz Family, cousin marriages were not uncommon.

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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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