The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 134

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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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Episode 134
* * *
In the small hours of September 7th, April looked up as Pejin entered the bedroom.
“Give it back.”
She extended her hand, asking for the key she had entrusted to him so he could slip in undetected, and Pejin placed it in her open palm.
She had given him one key, but he returned two, which made April pause.
“Why two?”
“One is my house key. The place I keep in the Empire Capital.”
“What for?”
“Just in case. Keep it on you.”
“What reason would I ever have to carry your key?”
“In case I suddenly miss you.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Or you get so angry at me all at once that you feel you must slap me across the face or you’ll go mad.”
“That one’s possible.”
At April’s acknowledgment, Pejin let out a loose, incredulous laugh.
April, however, returned his key to him, and he took it back without protest.
April asked him something.
“How far is the factory from here?”
“Not far at all.”
Pejin pulled a glass bottle from his inner pocket as he spoke.
“Eat this first.”
“Candy?”
“You’re going to get very angry from this point on. You need something sweet, or your insides will twist up.”
“How much are you planning to upset me?”
“Think carefully about this. I’ve already upset you plenty. If you get any angrier here, it’ll only tear you apart inside. I’ve already caused you enough harm.”
Wondering what he could possibly say to turn her world upside down, she took the glass bottle from him. Then Pejin gestured for her to follow.
When Pejin reached the Lobby and began heading toward the Basement, April’s footsteps stopped.
Pejin spoke to April, who was glaring at him as if she might kill him.
“I told you. You’d get angry.”
……
“I’ve been thinking about different ways to handle this situation.”
Pejin paused for a moment, meeting April’s gaze directly.
He clasped his hands behind his back and spoke.
“None of them seem like they’ll work. I’ll just stay quiet.”
……
With those words, he turned and walked into the Basement, lit a lamp, and arrived at some hidden place. He set the candle on the ground, then inserted a file into an extremely narrow crevice and pried it wider.
Once the gap was wide enough to fit his fingers, he pulled on the wall, and a door appeared behind it.
Before opening the door, he turned to April and spoke.
“You brought the gun?”
“Yes.”
“If you want to kill me, wait until after we check the factory.”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Because you need me?”
“You’re helping me right now.”
April jerked her chin toward the door as she spoke.
“I’ll bear the anger. Open it. Now.”
“Sometimes when you’re really furious, you’re like someone completely unhinged.”
Pejin muttered this half to himself before opening the door.
The moment he opened it, the speed with which he drew his gun and aimed it was something April found herself admiring before she even had time to be startled. The speed was so fast her eyes couldn’t quite track it. He possessed an exceptional degree of Dynamic Vision.
April spotted a young man in a Protective Suit standing where Pejin had aimed the gun and spoke to him.
“……Everyone from the Empire’s supposed to be off, aren’t they?”
“The factory doesn’t only employ people from the Empire.”
Pejin replied calmly and walked toward the young man in the Protective Suit.
“P-Police Chief?”
“You recognize me even with the Mask on. I suppose I have a strong presence.”
With those words, Pejin holstered his gun and covered his mouth with his hand, then drew a small, sharp blade and slashed the employee’s arm, drawing blood. As the employee sank to the ground in sudden pain, Pejin spoke.
“Leon Kiss. Your family rents a room on the third floor, room number 12, in the 220th building to the east of the Empire Capital, don’t they?”
Leon Kiss’s eyes widened at Pejin’s words.
Pejin gestured to the wound and continued.
“Don’t worry. As long as you’re on my side, I’ll have no reason to find that room.”
With that threat made, he turned to April and spoke.
“We need someone who knows the internal situation.”
* * *
The factory employee’s name was Leon, and he said he was the only worker there today because he was the only one originally from the Dieusz Grand Duchy.
Pejin had brought First Aid Medicine, which he’d originally planned to use to inflict a threatening wound. Seeing Leon in a somewhat dazed state, April pushed Pejin away with her hand as he poured the medicine directly onto the wound without touching it.
“Step aside. Let me do it.”
“I learned it at the military academy. I’m good at this.”
Even as he said this, Pejin moved aside, and April grasped the employee’s wound with her hand to stanch the bleeding. When she began stitching the wound with her other hand, Pejin furrowed his brow and asked.
“How do you know how to do that?”
“I lived for seven years without a doctor. What can’t I do?”
“……Where were you hurt?”
April ignored Pejin’s question and, after securely stitching the wound, poured the strong liquor Pejin had brought over it for disinfection.
Leon Kiss writhed in pain, but the Narcotic Painkiller that Pejin had given him when he covered his mouth began to take effect, and he soon calmed down.
As Leon Kiss quieted and April caught her breath alongside him, she spoke.
“This is only a temporary treatment. He needs to get to a hospital soon.”
“Is that a scar on your thigh? Did that happen during those seven years?”
“Yes.”
Though it had healed considerably, the long scar was something Pejin, who had studied every inch of her body, couldn’t have missed. Back then, he had pretended not to see it for April’s sake, but now he couldn’t.
“How did you get a wound like that?”
“Digging potatoes. It was my first time.”
Pejin screwed up his face and pressed his lips together, but April continued speaking.
“Potatoes are easy to grow. Did you know that?”
“Why would I ever grow potatoes?”
“I thought you wouldn’t know. I wanted to tell you something new.”
“Are you asking me to try planting them?”
“It’s more fun than you’d think. Potatoes are hard to kill. That’s probably why they grow even in this harsh Dieusz Grand Duchy.”
As April was saying this, the employee pushed himself up with his hands, barely raising his upper body. Then he found his Glasses that had fallen to the floor, put them back on, and spoke.
“The potato’s native habitat is mountainous regions, and it’s originally a crop cultivated in cool places. In the Empire, they tend to rot quite easily, making them difficult to grow. Because of all the rain.”
“How nice, to know so much.”
Pejin spoke sardonically and strode forward, blocking the employee who was crawling toward the phone. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up, then asked.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but…… I don’t need money. I don’t need my family either. What is wrong is wrong.”
“That’s odd. People with this kind of loyalty usually have patriotism too.”
“Haven’t you seen the Empire’s military power? The Dieusz Grand Duchy won’t last even a day.”
“I’m with the Empire Police. I know that better than you.”
“Yes. But what are you doing now, Police Chief? Do you want to see the Dieusz Grand Duchy fall even faster?”
“This is Lunos Fiefdom, though. The lord of this land wants the factory. As a police officer, it seems right to me. When a thief comes, you arrest them.”
At his words, Leon paused. Then he turned to look at April and spoke.
“That……I apologize.”
April nodded to show she understood.
Pejin continued speaking.
“Think about it while you recover. I’ll come back when I need you.”
When Pejin turned around after saying this, April was already walking toward the door.
Pejin bound Leon securely and, retrieving a key from his pocket, rushed after April.
When they came through the door, there was another door, and then another.
Signs displaying department names like Exploration and Development hung on the doors, all of which were locked.
Pejin took the lead, guiding the way, and spoke.
“I haven’t been inside those offices, but I know where the drilling well is located.”
April followed him without a word.
When Pejin opened an iron door and saw what lay beyond, April’s entire body went rigid.
It was theft conducted with a brazenness that was almost shameful.
A Pipeline extended from a massive Drilling Well deep into the earth, frozen in place.
Because she had learned that Gas Leakage was particularly dangerous to the factory workers, the gauge measuring the Gas Concentration in the Basement continued to move slightly even when there were no people around.
On the blackboard hanging on the wall, there were traces of the numbers being continuously updated.
April had once seen a merchant vessel being built as a child. The most vivid thing from that memory was the scale. That enormous scale had filled the child, for whom the whole world already seemed vast, with awe.
Now she was overwhelmed by the scale of the Pipeline laid out beneath her fiefdom.
Right Island didn’t have the technology to create such a massive Pipeline. It certainly didn’t have the technology to construct a Drilling Well like this.
April spoke to Pejin.
“I’m frightened.”
Pejin, who had been looking at her, turned his gaze toward the Drilling Well the moment their eyes met.
“What frightens you?”
“The gap between the Empire and us. Now I understand what you were afraid of.”
“If you’re frightened, should we stop and leave? I can deal with that employee.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
April shook her head and continued speaking.
“In the end, all of that is mine. It’s a resource the Empire doesn’t have.”
“That’s right.”
Pejin turned his gaze to April’s face as she spoke.
April continued.
“Seven years of lending out technology we didn’t have was only fair.”
Pejin stared at her face as she spoke of having “lent” it, then let out a soft laugh.
Right now, April’s face was like that of the young girl from House Lunos whom he remembered.
April Lunos, supremely confident and unrivaled.

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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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