The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 129

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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 129
They would strike on September 7th, the day commemorating the Rasa Empire’s victory.
Seeing April laugh at a plan where anger and joy coexisted, Bauman, who had just brought fresh tea, asked with equal cheer.
“Has something pleasant happened, miss?”
April, too amused to answer, left it to Pejin instead.
“I told her an amusing story.”
“Did you indeed? Well, it does my heart good to see our young lady smiling.”
After Bauman set down the fresh cup and departed, Pejin spoke again.
“So the date is settled. I’ll handle the remaining arrangements to ensure there are no problems. We can work out the details in a meeting later.”
“Send someone. Don’t come yourself.”
“Who would I send to something this dangerous? We should do it together.”
Pejin caught April’s arm before she could chase him away, signaling the conversation was done. Then he arranged his features into an expression of practiced tenderness—a gift of being loved.
“Bauman seems to be with Eve. Let’s go check.”
“How did you know?”
“The sugar cubes.”
Pejin gestured at the ceramic bowl where the sugar cubes were stacked.
“Bauman always stacks them flat—he likes the stability, being an architect and all. Eve always stacks them so they get narrower toward the top.”
“That’s rather keen observation for a man, not a lawman.”
“I was always elite.”
Pejin led the way with shameless confidence, and April, curious about the dynamic between Bauman and Eve, followed him down the hall.
True to Pejin’s word, Bauman and Eve were conversing together, their voices drifting out from the dining room.
Pejin pressed his ear to the door and spoke quietly.
“Bauman’s being scolded.”
“He is.”
April, equally intrigued, listened at the door and agreed.
Pejin went on.
“That’s love, that much.”
“……How so?”
“She’s paying close attention.”
April, initially puzzled, soon came around to Pejin’s logic. Eve’s voice was thick with affection.
Realizing they shouldn’t listen further, April withdrew from the door and noticed Pejin watching her. Their eyes met.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re interested.”
“But I am interested.”
His eyelashes rose and fell slowly as he answered.
When her gaze landed there, Pejin closed his eyes.
“Why are you closing your eyes?”
“You told me not to look like that. But I can’t help being interested.”
Even with his eyes shut, April didn’t leave. Pejin posed a question to her stillness.
“You’d like me to be unhappy, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good timing, then. I’m going to be unhappy anyway. Love always fails, and my life will have no meaning—none—not now, not ever.”
He murmured these words without opening his eyes. In that silence, April walked past him.
After she left, Pejin opened his eyes. The summer of the Dieusz Grand Duchy remained before him, nothing more.
* * *
“They say Lunos Harbor doesn’t charge settlement fees.”
Fin Tus, the archetypal fisherman of the Dieusz Grand Duchy—taciturn, devoid of warmth—caught fragments of the townspeople’s gossip as he worked.
The scandal between Miller Dieusz, Heidi Basanta, and April Lunos had carved itself deep into the memory of the Grand Duchy’s people.
Most vivid among them was the memory of April Lunos, who had tried to obstruct the current Grand Duke and his wife’s love.
While she raged at the world, wielded curses, and remained locked within the Grand Residence, the Fog had begun. After that, countless rumors spread across the entire Duchy.
Wicked woman. Witch. The source of the Fog.
While the voice of anyone who might defend her was silenced, the people’s rage never once abated—it reached its fever pitch.
Then, when April Lunos emerged into the world, water was first poured upon that fire.
Knowing their object of hatred was real, the emotion began—slowly, yes—to cool. Yet those who had spat curses at April for so long found their own cooling to be especially gradual, and these townspeople were among them.
The people of this village, situated near Lunos Harbor, had watched the flames that engulfed the Lunos Residence for all seven of those years. They had no doubt that behind those towering walls danced a wicked sorceress, writhing in the fire.
On bountiful fishing days, they gave thanks to the gods; on lean days, they cursed the witch of the Fog. For such people to accept even the possibility that April Lunos was not a witch came hard.
Fin Tus pretended not to listen as he worked, picking impurities from his nets with practiced indifference.
“Taxes are too high everywhere these days, but if you settle somewhere that doesn’t collect them, at least you won’t starve.”
“But why wouldn’t they collect taxes there?”
“How should I know what rich people think?”
“It must be some kind of scheme, don’t you think?”
Fin Tus did not join the townspeople’s chatter, merely listening from a distance.
Once the Winter Market, originally held by the Lunos Family, had passed into the hands of the Grand Duke and the Empire, many fishermen and merchants found themselves displaced.
Looking at the townspeople, one could sense they were curious about Lunos Harbor but held back by fear of retaliation and lingering anger from truly visiting.
Fin Tus, peculiarly reserved, had never uttered insults against the Lunos Family’s new Fiefdom Lord, so his fear was less pronounced.
After finishing his net work that evening, for once he did not drink. He needed a clear mind for the important visit that awaited him tomorrow.
The next day, he took a break from fishing.
Leaving a fishing boat idle on such a fine day was a significant loss, but it couldn’t be helped. He left his boat moored in the harbor for the day.
The harbor was a jumble of the Empire’s great trading vessels and the relatively modest fishing boats of the Dieusz Grand Duchy.
Among them lay not a few ships that had been damaged, never repaired, and simply abandoned.
When the Lunos Family held the Winter Market, such abandoned vessels had been rare. Once left unattended for a certain period, the family would claim them, repair them, and sell them cheaply—a method of clearing out old stock.
They were cold merchants, and so they had earned no small measure of resentment from the fishermen. Yet looking back now, in an era when the police system was not yet properly established, it was they who had performed the work of maritime patrol.
Fin Tus left his boat and returned home, drawing out his finest clothes and dressing carefully.
For the first time in ages since leaving the boat, he drank no alcohol, and with clear mind he prepared a bottle of Black Beer.
The people of the Dieusz Grand Duchy took such pride in their Black Beer that they said if you took it far from where it was made, it became not beer but merely black water.
So he moved with haste. He had to deliver it as quickly as possible to show it at its proper taste.
Fin Tus, whose cart had always been laden with fish, now loaded it with Black Beer and urged his horse toward Lunos Fiefdom.
As he climbed the hill where the Lunos Grand Residence stood, Empire Police stopped him, and upon hearing his stated purpose of meeting the Fiefdom Lord, they escorted him.
After searching him at the gate, an attendant met him at the residence and gave him another suspicious examination, conducting a second search of his person.
Just as anxiety began to grip him—would he be turned away without ever meeting the Lord?—he was finally guided to the Reception Room.
August.
On a day that felt oppressively warm even to the people of the Grand Duchy, Fin Tus was wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief when the Fiefdom Lord of the Lunos Family appeared in the Reception Room.
He had seen photographs in newspapers, but the printing quality was poor and he couldn’t quite make out the features; he had seen sketches, but they were so stylized they told him nothing either.
The new Fiefdom Lord of Lunos, stepping into the Reception Room, had a face like a porcelain figurine and eyes like jewels, and she regarded an unannounced guest whose business was unclear with manifest displeasure.
She was utterly unkind, just as the previous Lunos Family heads had been. She seemed to have no tolerance.
Yet one could not judge by appearance alone. She had already shown tolerance in her own harbor, collecting no settlement fees.
Fin Tus chose to believe this.
“My name is Fin Tus, and I am a fisherman, Fiefdom Lord.”
He continued, speaking to April Lunos, who regarded him with those sharp eyes, silent and unmoving.
“I have come to tell you something.”
“If this concerns Lunos Harbor, you may use it however you wish. Fishing boats, trading vessels—it matters not. Use them as you see fit. There are many derelict houses; if you find one you wish to live in, repair it and make it your own.”
April spoke coldly, but everything she said matched exactly what the townspeople had been saying.
Fin Tus, his expression stolid yet respectful, replied.
“There are many damaged ships abandoned in the harbor at the Winter Market.”
“……That’s not our family’s concern anymore. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because repairing and selling such ships was once one of the Lunos Family’s sources of income, and I thought you should know.”
“But one cannot simply take it upon oneself to dispose of ships in another’s harbor, can one? Unless you brought them to my harbor instead.”
She had clearly shown interest at the mention of a revenue source, made that interest apparent, and already proposed a method—moving the ships to Lunos Harbor.
She was the image of what one imagined a Lunos Family Fiefdom Lord to be.
Fin Tus spoke.
“Allow me to explain further. However, Fiefdom Lord…….”
“Yes?”
“The beer is growing cold.”
He wondered if his remark had seemed presumptuous given her already-sour expression, but April replied.
“That is indeed a grave matter for a person of the Dieusz Grand Duchy.”
Her teasing tone eased Fin Tus’s tension somewhat.
Surrounded by Empire people at the Winter Market, navigating fishing waters, the answer “a person of the Dieusz Grand Duchy” had never felt so reassuring.

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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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