The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 121

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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 121
* * *
April left the Grand Duke’s Residence and began to walk.
She wanted to go to the Church.
Even after the confinement began, even after it ended, she could not go to the Church. There was a fear that a priest would appear and without hesitation judge her, cast guilt upon her, and it would feel as though she would be burned at the stake right there.
But now nothing mattered to her.
Love was a lie, hatred was a lie, and this land, the sky, the sea—all of it was a lie.
She wanted to confess this false world to the priest.
April Lunos stepped into the Church. A handful of people who had been praying noticed her and left with expressions of displeasure.
In the empty Church, April folded her hands and prayed to God. Though it was more accurate to say she was praying to herself than to God.
A prayer seeking answers about what she should do from now on, what heart she should carry.
Not long after, a priest who had heard the rumor that she had appeared came rushing over.
“What do you think you’re doing, coming into this place!”
“It’s a Church, isn’t it?”
“The fire at the Lunos Residence still hasn’t been explained! We don’t even know what kind of sorcery it was, and here you are, coming into this place and angering God—what were you thinking!”
That was the essence of religion.
In a world where there was nothing one could believe in, a system built solely on faith—the only such thing.
She needed faith desperately.
“…I wish I’d had a gun.”
April murmured. If she had, she could have shot this priest who slandered and blocked her, and enjoyed the world of faith to her heart’s content.
“W-what did you just…?”
“I’ll lend you one.”
Then a voice came from behind.
A world of false virtue.
The man standing at its center held out a gun to her.
“Use it.”
* * *
The priest took one look at the gun and fled in terror. The Church held only April and Pejin.
The Church, located near the Grand Duke’s Residence, was renowned for possessing many Holy Relics. Even priests from the Rasa Empire visited this Church on several occasions.
April turned to look at the gun Pejin was offering.
The gun felt familiar. Looking at it more closely, it was one Pejin had lent her once when they climbed the Twin Mountains.
Pejin had shown her how to use this Break-Action Revolver at that time.
He held the barrel. April grasped the grip in that position and curled her finger around the trigger.
The muzzle pointed at Pejin, and if she pulled the trigger from here, April could erase one piece of hypocrisy from this world.
Pejin, as if understanding her heart, did not lower the gun and simply looked at her.
April opened her mouth.
“You.”
“Yeah.”
“You asked for forgiveness once, didn’t you?”
With that question, Pejin knew that April had discovered his lie.
He answered in a calm voice.
“Sorry. I’ll take that back. It’s not something worth forgiving.”
“I’m glad you say that.”
As the night grew late, light from the White Night poured through the stained glass.
Pejin sometimes thought that the dawn of the White Night looked like a fake sun hanging in the sky. Though it was bright, it was somehow different from the brightness of daytime. It seemed that the time of day carried its own emotion.
Even after Pejin released the barrel, the muzzle still pointed at him.
He lifted his gaze to the Holy Relic on the platform behind her. April asked him then.
“When did you find out?”
“Just before I was assigned here. And conveniently, April Lunos already had a rumor going around about her being a witch—perfect for pinning the Empire’s shame on.”
“…”
“You can pull it right now.”
At Pejin’s words, April shifted the muzzle slightly and fired the gun toward the wall of the Church.
The silenced shot’s bullet gouged out a corner of a wooden chair—something she hadn’t aimed at at all.
It was a difficult gun to shoot. It recoiled heavily. But it seemed that with multiple shots, she could hit a target the size of Pejin.
April asked.
“So you treated me well for a reason?”
“Yeah.”
“There was always a reason.”
“There was.”
“You must have been sorry—my apology was sincere.”
At her words, Pejin clasped his hands behind his back and nodded.
“You were sorry. Your sincerity was real.”
“…”
“What if you love me? That makes no sense.”
“…”
“You can kill me. Originally, on Right Island, traitors are put to death.”
“Yeah, that’s how it was.”
April’s trembling hands gradually stilled.
And with a voice that had never trembled from the beginning, she continued.
“But there’s one other way.”
“Was it taking a ship and going far out to earn your life’s price?”
“Yeah.”
April nodded and spoke to him.
“Earn your life’s price.”
“I’m expensive.”
“I know. So you’ll have to stay on a ship, going out for your whole life.”
April looked up at his face.
The young man’s face, awash in the dawn’s light, was painfully beautiful.
Ah.
I believed in Daeus, didn’t I.
The realization was absurd.
There had been so many situations where belief was impossible. So many warnings. And yet she had believed in him. All while turning away from those countless warnings.
She lowered the gun.
April had desperately needed prayer. Before she could even remember herself, cradled in her parents’ arms, she had sought the Church. She had hoped that the Church would accompany her birth and, in the end, her death as well.
April asked.
“For the Empire’s honor, do I have to be a witch?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s your mission?”
“It was.”
“I heard the director of the Special Investigation Bureau is going to change, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“If I continue to be the cause of the Fog’s appearance for the Empire’s honor, the new director would have no reason to harm me.”
At April’s unexpected words, Pejin’s brow narrowed. She continued in a cold voice.
“So you keep doing your job. I’ll stay quiet. It seems the only thing I can do in this situation is secure provisions.”
Pejin was startled to realize that April was thinking exactly as he was.
He had assumed that if April knew she had been betrayed by him, she would never even use him again.
That was why he had already spoken to Jeff beforehand today. If April refused to see him, he asked, then use me instead.
But that was something only someone who still didn’t know her well could say.
Even within such fierce betrayal and anger, her rationality remained solid.
Pejin thought that this part of April was completely opposite to his brother.
When April said nothing more, Pejin asked.
“Nothing else to say?”
“Nothing. It’s over.”
“Over?”
Pejin found himself asking again, watching April’s excessive composure.
“Why are you so composed? Shouldn’t you be angrier?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“You’re not a person from the Empire.”
“…”
“Why waste anger on someone I won’t be seeing for long? It’s a waste of time.”
Having said that, April held out the gun.
“Take it. I don’t need it today.”
Then Pejin handed over even a spare Ammunition Magazine and spoke.
“From now on, you need to carry a gun with you at all times too.”
April looked at what was given to her, nodded, and opened her mouth.
“Now go. I don’t know when I’ll be able to leave, so I’ll stay a bit longer.”
“I’ll have the Church closed until you come out.”
Pejin said that and left the Church.
April remained in the empty Church and looked again toward where the Holy Relic was kept.
Prayer was necessary.
A very long prayer.
* * *
It was morning by the time April returned to the Residence. She placed the gun Pejin had given her on the table.
The Lunos Residence was utterly silent—the children had not yet awakened.
It was a silvery Break-Action Revolver. She recalled the story Pejin had told her when she went looking for the Twin Mountains.
The Break-Action Revolver had the disadvantage of only holding relatively weak ammunition, making it unsuitable for hunting, he had said.
Shaper had said it was better to have a more destructive gun, even if reloading was slower. But Pejin said that this one could kill people easily enough, so a fast-reloading gun was better.
In a crisis, if one remained composed, one could achieve victory against the vast majority.
At that time, Pejin had been thinking that humans were more dangerous than beasts.
That Pejin had made her familiar with the Break-Action Revolver seemed to be because he had thought she would need a gun to use for a long time.
Would there come a time in her life when she had to kill someone?
April picked up the revolver again, its manufacturer’s mark from the Rasa Empire imprinted on it.
This time she gripped it firmly with both hands so it wouldn’t shake, and imagined someone directly in front of her. She hoped that when she actually faced that moment, she would not hesitate before taking a life.
If she had to kill just one person, who would it be?
Until now, April had always assumed it would be Miller Daeus. Never once had she doubted that thought.
But somehow, Pejin’s image kept appearing and then disappearing.
“It’s not you.”
He gave her no reason to be so angry.
Pejin Daeus was nothing.
Just a man who crossed into the Empire and would be done if he never appeared before her eyes again.
Hatred was too precious to waste on him, yet he kept appearing in her mind.
April closed her eyes and counted. All she had for him was emotion, and once that emotion disappeared, it would be over.
If only she could get rid of that, her relationship with him could return to zero, she thought.
She counted the numbers and opened her eyes again.
Everything returned to normal.
Yet still, it was not Miller Daeus standing before her.
If only one bullet remained in her gun, she had no intention of using it on her lifelong mortal enemy.
Before her stood the emblem of the Rasa Empire’s Emperor.

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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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