The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 180

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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 180
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The damaged Merchant Ship drifted aimlessly across the Sea.
Survival prospects dwindled by the hour, yet the crew’s nerves remained taut at the sound of the Trumpet blown at regular intervals on the captain’s orders.
“I’m sick to death of this.”
Hopelessness without hope was worse than nonexistence. The crew, having lost their Will to Live, had fallen into a pathological despair.
At last, one sailor who could bear it no longer lurched to his feet and shouted at the Navigator.
“Can’t you at least change the rhythm! Give us something to feel alive about!”
The Navigator replied with a sardonic expression.
“And what if a rescue ship passes by thinking we’re just a bunch of cheerful folks having a good time?”
Despite his tone, the crew understood he meant it as a jest, and they laughed weakly. The sailor who’d stood answered:
“Look at us—even the devil would cluck his tongue in pity. Any ship that passes will help, whoever they are.”
The crew’s argument was hardly unreasonable, so the Navigator glanced back at the captain for permission. Even then, she was busily managing the grain stores.
The captain seemed not to entertain the possibility that this ship might drift endlessly and founder.
The Navigator asked:
“Captain, what should we do?”
“If anyone can play music, let them try.”
At the captain’s unhurried reply, the Trumpet Player grumbled.
“Quite the demanding one, aren’t you.”
Despite his words, his body itched to show off his skill, so he settled himself properly and began playing the Trumpet with genuine enthusiasm.
It couldn’t be precisely called music. Yet somehow it made every listener hum along to a rhythm and melody they seemed to recognize. Strangely, that action gave them strength.
Captain Irsa Joyce grumbled that the sound made her lose focus, but seeing the spirits of the other crew members clearly lifted, she didn’t order him to stop.
Even as the crew enjoyed the music in their minds, the captain herself continued managing the grain stores.
Most of the Grain was durable enough to last, but insects appeared frequently from nowhere. She had been repeating the task of managing the constantly reappearing insects since the day they began drifting.
That the captain possessed Will to Live proved more helpful to the crew than she might have realized.
The fact that she could ask for music to be played—a request utterly unrelated to survival—itself stemmed from her Will to Live. And everyone aboard shared in it.
Because Right Island had many seafarers, the names for winds were equally numerous. Every wind from every direction had a name. The humid winds and the dry winds all had names.
The reason it was difficult to sail east from Right Island was the East Wind that specifically barred the way. But the return journey was blessed by that same wind at their backs, bringing them here in less than half the time it took to depart.
Yet the fortune that had followed the entire voyage exhausted its fortune when Right Island lay nearly in sight.
Thick Fog rolled in, stealing their vision.
Fortunately, they hadn’t collided, as the recorded reefs were noted ahead, but when they turned the ship sharply, it seemed some damage had occurred. Once the Wind cleared the Fog, the ship itself came to a halt.
There was no leak, but the ship had no way to move. They tried everything, but only the Wind could push this ship forward.
From that moment, the captain of this ship became the Sea itself. Carried by the whimsical Wind, they drifted endlessly.
The ship overflowed with Grain, yet no one knew where it was heading. Even with provisions, survival seemed impossible, and the crew lost their reason one by one.
Adrift in the vast expanse of open Sea.
Irsa Joyce looked over the provisions stacked on the ship.
Whether survival was possible mattered little to her. Her only thought was to place these Grain sacks into the hands of the ship’s owner.
Irsa Joyce remembered the day she first met April.
In her mind, April was like the West Wind.
Which is to say, a headwind.
She was a person who resembled the kind of Wind that would cross the ordinary winds that blew daily. The very fact that she’d hired herself as captain proved as much.
To find a ship drifting in the vast Sea would require money far beyond possibility—money to spend recklessly.
The search costs could exceed the value of this Merchant Ship and all its cargo combined. Moreover, the likelihood of finding anything was low, and the ship would certainly be damaged.
What ship’s owner would come searching for such a ship? But…
She was hardly an ordinary person.
So there was a trust that seemed certain to blow here. From somewhere unexpected, from nowhere.
And truly, that West Wind blew toward where she was.
Irsa Joyce did not miss the sound of that Wind.
“Hey, Trumpet! Stop for a moment!”
As if possessed, Irsa suddenly emerged from the storage and had the Trumpet Player lower his instrument. She narrowed her brow and strained to hear a very faint vibration.
The crew seemed not to feel that vibration; they stared at their captain with uneasy faces.
Most unsettled of all was the Navigator. He knew that if the captain—the only one who had remained steady in this situation—collapsed, no crew member could bear it.
Then Irsa, who had been watching the Sea intently, spoke to the Trumpet Player:
“Play again.”
“Y-yes! Yes, understood!”
At that calm command, the Trumpet Player raised his instrument and blew a long note in haste.
Irsa then stopped the Trumpet, waited once more, and had him play again.
The crew, whose every physical faculty had deteriorated to the extreme from the prolonged drift, could not fathom what their captain was doing.
When this repetition had lasted nearly three hours, one sailor positioned far from the Trumpet suddenly sprang to his feet.
“Ahhh! C-Captain! I heard it too! The Trumpet sound!”
“Finally, one of you heard it, you dull lot!”
Irsa shouted with delight.
The crew scattered about the deck began to stir at the sound of their exchange, rising one by one.
“What did we… ah!”
“I heard it! I heard it too!”
The Trumpet sound reached the Navigator’s ears as well.
He considered whether they were hearing a Siren or had collectively succumbed to auditory hallucinations. He, who evaluated everything negatively, could not abandon the possibility that all aboard had lost their minds to false hope.
Yet it was only when the bow of an actual ship began to appear in the distance that he accepted the Trumpet sound had not been an illusion.
As the crew cheered and danced, the Navigator cried out:
“You’ll punch holes in the ship before we’re rescued! Stop that!”
At his words, the crew and even the captain laughed heartily.
Like the East Wind and West Wind, utterly opposite to each other, the optimistic captain and pessimistic Navigator’s ship met, without incident, with fellow people of the same land.
* * *
April struggled desperately to maintain her daily routines even after the ships had departed on their search.
With Pejin gone, the Merchant Ship unaccounted for, and the rescue team beyond reach, maintaining routine and composure was no simple task.
Moreover, from almost the moment the rescue team departed, the Harbor’s weather had not cleared for a single day.
In the worst weather, she had to prepare for the worst outcome as well.
The families of the Merchant Ship’s crew gazed endlessly toward the Sea.
Should the Merchant Ship not return, she would suffer enormous losses, yet she could not abandon the families of those sailors.
The sailors aboard this high-risk, high-reward Merchant Ship were often the only family members capable of work. Without their return, these families could not survive grief—they could not survive at all.
She believed what must be done should be done.
Over several days, she visited the families, faced their sorrow, and explained what compensation she could provide if the sailors did not return.
Then, on a day in August, the ships that had departed from the Harbor for rescue finally began to appear one by one.
At the news that the ships were returning, April went to the Harbor.
The rescue ships appeared first. And soon after, she discovered the sturdy Chain connecting those ships, pulled taut in the rescue team’s hands.
She clenched her teeth to hide her trembling and traced that Chain with her gaze.
“Th-the Merchant Ship! The Merchant Ship is returning!”
A person from the Harbor town cried out.
At the end of that Chain lay her ship.

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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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