The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 122

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

Chapter 122
* * *
After hearing from Jeff about his brother’s transgression in the Merrow Residence library, Pejin made straight for the Grand Duke’s Residence where April had gone.
When he arrived, Miller and April were quarreling in the office.
Pejin tidied the area around the office, stationed police to ensure no one could harm April, then headed for the Church himself.
He couldn’t say why his feet carried him there. His unconscious mind simply drew him to that place.
He remembered how devout April was. So he’d thought, almost carelessly, that she would go to the Church. And his intuition about April’s actions proved exactly right.
April entered the Church in such an exhausted state that she didn’t even notice the police positioned around the perimeter.
He handed her a gun and stepped outside the building.
To allow her to devote herself to prayer, Pejin ordered the Church closed immediately.
The priests initially objected to the sudden closure, but fell silent when they saw that Pejin and the rest of the police were all armed.
While he was moving to secure her prayer time, he mercifully felt nothing at all.
He waited in the Church Courtyard, smoking, for her prayer to end. Only then did he find himself recalling the sound of April’s voice.
“Cold.”
Pejin murmured.
To him, April Lunos had always been like a roaring flame. He’d thought that even in the moment she discovered his betrayal, she would burn with that same heat.
But when April discovered that Pejin Dieusz was constructed entirely of lies from beginning to end, she grew cold instead—cold as the Dieusz Grand Duchy’s deepest winter.
Because he’d spent little time in the Duchy, that coldness frightened him. It was as though his blood itself had frozen over.
Now, when the Dieusz Grand Duchy was in its warmest season, Pejin felt a chill run through him as though he had a fever, and his face twisted.
A man named Paul approached him, his expression full of concern.
“What will you do from here on?”
“What can I do? Just clean things up and head back to the Empire.”
“And Miss April……”
“April will keep quiet. Until the food supply is secured. Just leave her be.”
“Of course she mustn’t come to any harm—Miss April, that is. You needn’t make any excuses.”
Paul shook his head and continued.
“After all, any policeman here knows full well you wouldn’t lay a finger on Miss April.”
……
Pejin, watching Paul’s response, let out a short laugh.
It struck him as funny that it was so obvious to everyone else’s eyes.
He watched April emerge from the Church near dawn, viewing her from a distance. She glimmered in an almost uncanny way.
It was strange to see her shine so brightly, given the misfortune that marked her youth.
In this dizzy world, it seemed as though light would follow wherever she went.
Pejin felt himself trapped in shadow. He felt as though he could never, ever draw close to where the light was.
* * *
After lingering before the Church for some time without deciding on a destination, Pejin received word that April had reached the Lunos Grand Residence and finally made his way to the Grand Duke’s Residence.
Miller, seized with extreme anxiety upon learning that April had discovered everything, rushed toward him the moment he saw Pejin’s face.
Miller couldn’t decide whether to welcome him or fear him. So he spoke tentatively.
“Pejin, April found out.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“You heard?”
“Even if I hadn’t, I knew you’d tell April about me. That’s why I came.”
Pejin looked down at Miller and spoke in a flat voice.
“I’m going to become the Commissioner of Police for the Empire.”
“……I know. Why are you telling me?”
“And I’m not going to kill April Lunos. Because I love her.”
Miller looked bewildered at Pejin’s determination to have both conflicting things.
“What…… are you even saying right now?”
“Just what you heard. So don’t interfere with me. April will keep quiet, and so you should pretend not to have heard that she knows.”
“You’re worried I’ll report it to the Empire?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m worried about. I can’t predict just how far you’d be willing to destroy the Duchy.”
Miller’s expression hardened at Pejin’s sarcasm.
“I’m not destroying the Duchy. Don’t say such things carelessly.”
“Your quarrel with the previous Head of the Lunos Family—it wasn’t only about the betrothal, was it?”
At Pejin’s words, Miller hesitated and stepped back.
“……How did you know that?”
“So it’s true. The Empire became involved from that point on.”
Pejin asked in a hollow voice.
“What exactly did you do for your love? What lengths did you go to?”
……
“Did you bring the Empire into it? Into that affair?”
“I wasn’t the one who brought them in first.”
Miller spoke firmly and, attempting to soothe Pejin, gripped his arm.
“The Emperor himself made the proposal. When I was struggling because I couldn’t marry Heidi. He said there was a massive deposit of fuel surrounding the Lunos Family Fiefdom. He asked me to let him build a factory to extract it. He offered to share the profits generously.”
“The Lunos Family refused.”
“They did refuse. But what was I to do? When the Emperor decides to act, how could the Duchy refuse? It was unavoidable.”
“You thought it worked out well. You could marry the person you wanted.”
“It’s not that I thought it worked out well……”
“The Empire helped. To bring down the Lunos Family. That’s right—there’s no way such a great house could fall to the strength of a single Duchy.”
“Pejin.”
“All for love. Just for love, you did all that.”
Miller was rendered speechless by the contempt in Pejin’s gaze. As he struggled to think of a way to placate him, Pejin continued.
“But do you know? The Duchy’s fuel reserves are so enormous that a factory could have been built anywhere—not necessarily on the Lunos Fiefdom. It wouldn’t have mattered.”
……What?
“The Empire wanted to eliminate the Lunos Family. They were the only thread connecting this Duchy to the outside world.”
……
“And you cut that thread. All because of love, you borrowed the Empire’s power. Even as the Fog killed the Duchy’s people, even as everything here was being stripped away, you kept your eyes closed.”
Miller stared at Pejin with eyes full of conflicting emotions. Then he opened his mouth.
“How could anyone have stopped it? The Emperor gets what he wants in the end anyway. Still, look how much progress we’ve made now. More than anything, you’re…… you’re an Empire citizen.”
At Miller’s words, Pejin was struck momentarily silent.
Miller continued.
“Pejin, don’t be confused. You’ll go back to the Empire, and you’ll live there happily. So……don’t worry too much about what happens here. I’ll handle it.”
Faced with Miller’s attempt to distance him from all of this, Pejin finally burst into laughter.
He remembered how April would laugh when she was angry. He understood now why she did it. This rage beyond control—laughter was the only way to let it out.
He couldn’t cry.
April Lunos wouldn’t cry in front of her enemies. So she would laugh instead.
Pejin had managed, all this time, to adapt reasonably well to his life in the Empire.
Because that was the life given to him.
The life requested by his only caregiver, the person most precious to him in all the world.
And now, Pejin Dieusz had come to deny his entire existence.
Nothing in his life had ever been real.
Miller watched Pejin with a bewildered expression as he laughed. Then, as if to confirm his state of mind, he carefully grasped Pejin’s arm.
“Pejin?”
“Miller.”
Pejin gazed quietly into Miller’s eyes for a long moment, then pulled him into an embrace with both arms.
“Miller.”
At his name being called, Miller went still.
Pejin called his name once more.
“Miller Dieusz.”
……
“Someday, I’ll kill you. With my own hands.”
At his words, Miller’s body went rigid.
As Miller tried to pull away, Pejin held him tighter and spoke close to his ear.
“If you ever say a single word—truly, even one word—about April, I’ll kill not just you, but your entire family.”
……
“Ask me if I can do it. If you’re curious.”
With those words, Pejin slowly released him.
His face still bore traces of a smile, but his eyes were filled with a sorrow whose depths could not be fathomed.
Pejin murmured as he regarded Miller.
“For my brother, for April……”
……
“This time too, my love has failed.”
With that, he turned and left the Grand Duke’s Residence.

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