The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 20

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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 20
Fortunately, she spotted a young boy not far away.
As she approached, she realized he wasn’t breathing.
She grabbed the rope. After hesitating for a moment, she pulled it once.
Remaining in that position, a tall man came running through the fog, guided by the rope.
Even with the mask on, she could tell it was Pejin. How she knew, she couldn’t say herself.
He was tall, but there were many men that tall among the Imperial Police officers. There were other physical features that could have identified him, but they weren’t visible clearly enough through the fog.
Yet she knew. It was strange.
“Move aside.”
Pejin spoke to April and took her place.
He immediately grasped that she’d pulled the rope only once to summon an officer quickly, and rather than scold her, he first checked the child’s condition.
He placed two fingers on the boy’s chest and began pressing at a steady rhythm.
He paused once to check for breathing, performed Artificial Respiration, then resumed the steady compressions. The moment the child expelled breath with a cry, Pejin removed his own mask and fitted it over the boy’s face, then had the officer who’d arrived take the child and rush toward the bus.
He stood up. As Pejin turned to leave, he came back and grasped April’s arm where she stood, moving with her out of the lake.
The mask had clearly played a crucial role.
As they climbed the stairs leading out of the lake, Pejin stumbled in the thick fog, and when April tried to steady him, she nearly fell with him.
Fortunately, Pejin quickly caught April’s body with both hands as she was about to tumble over the railing, and the accident was averted.
He may have grasped the railing, but he had caught the person.
April’s body was suddenly drawn into Pejin’s embrace, and for just a moment, the two hearts drew close.
There was surely bone and flesh between them, yet somehow her heart felt tangled with his. At least, that was the strange sensation April felt.
Pejin released her and spoke.
“Where’s your mask?”
“I gave it to him. You did the same.”
“I have a duty to save people. But you don’t.”
“I gave it to him because I knew I’d be fine.”
“Don’t play the saint.”
At Pejin’s words, April looked up at him. Whether from the fog’s effects or something else, he wore an expression of pain.
April answered as she walked.
“I don’t want to be suspected of causing someone’s death.”
She answered deliberately sharply. For some reason, Pejin’s pained expression seemed to ease slightly. Perhaps he’d found her playing the saint unbearable to watch.
The two soon reached the top.
April now knew for certain that Pejin was remarkably healthy. All three of them who emerged from the lake had lost consciousness.
On the bus heading to the hospital, April found herself wondering why she alone seemed unaffected by the fog.
The thought that she might actually be creating this fog made her overly rational.
Since April held the clear premise that she was not a witch, she was confident that reaching an answer wouldn’t be difficult.
The basement.
She decided she needed to go there first.
* * *
Capital Hospital was already crowded with people.
Inside, ventilation fans powered by turbines worked to block out as much fog as possible, but amid the worst air quality, patients’ conditions continued to deteriorate relentlessly.
After sending April back to Lunos Mansion, Pejin underwent a brief examination at the hospital.
Pejin spoke with a tired expression.
“I’m fine. The Imperial Police are short-handed right now, so why am I sitting here?”
Then Pascal, the butler who’d rushed over upon hearing that the Young Master had been in the fog by the lake, spoke up.
“You wouldn’t be here if you were fine, would you, sir?”
Pascal, who was always gentle and accommodating to whatever Pejin said, pointed this out.
Soon the Deus Family’s physician, Hus, who had examined his condition, said:
“You’re in good condition.”
“See?”
Pejin looked at Pascal confidently, and he replied:
“It’s not ‘see,’ sir—it’s fortunate.”
Hus, paying no attention to the two bickering, rose to his feet.
“Then I’ll go check on the other patients.”
The Grand Duchy had sent all its physicians to the hospital, and following that example, other prominent families had done likewise.
After they’d left, Pascal turned to Pejin. In a soft but worried voice, he asked:
“What are you hiding?”
“Hiding?”
“Yes, you are hiding something. Since you returned to the Grand Duchy, there’s been something…”
At Pascal’s words, Pejin looked up at him.
The butler sensed the temperature in the Young Master’s eyes—the kind that signaled an unwillingness to be questioned further—but he did not stop.
“I may not need to know, sir. But His Highness the Grand Duke…”
“I am an officer of the Imperial Police.”
“…”
“And the head of that police is a position even His Majesty watches carefully. I will reach it. Absolutely.”
By whatever means necessary.
The butler finally closed his mouth and nodded.
At least it was now clear that Pejin had arrived in this Grand Duchy carrying a secret he couldn’t share with others. That much was a gain.
* * *
Upon returning to the mansion, April wanted to go straight down to the basement, but with police present, she couldn’t afford to act suspiciously.
The newly arrived officers were from a completely different precinct than the one Pejin came from, and April now understood how gentlemanly the officers from Pejin’s station had been toward her.
“Why don’t we just throw her in the fire and see?”
“I heard witches don’t burn?”
“Who knows, but she’ll probably pull some trick.”
April tried to ignore the voices of the officers speaking loud enough for her to hear.
Methods of identifying witches were always primitive and laced with malice.
She now acknowledged that the Church had harbored malice, but that malice had bred like any living creature.
One officer, in what he thought was jest, waved a burning log from the fireplace in front of April. As April stared coldly at the laughing officer, she stood up.
She pulled a burning log from the fireplace in exactly the same manner he had. And she waved it in front of the laughing officer.
The officer recoiled in shock at the approaching heat. Sparks flew onto his uniform, burning holes here and there.
“What—what are you doing!”
“If I’m not a witch, what’s your plan?”
April asked carefully.
“If I feel the same heat and fear you’re feeling right now, what then?”
“That, well…”
“Or is it fun to see me fear heat and pain? That would be rather base. Unworthy of a human being.”
After speaking thus, April placed the log back in the fireplace.
She folded her arms and addressed the superior officer of the one who’d been playing games.
“Is it not a disgrace to that officer’s family, to the Imperial Police, and to the Grand Duchy itself that such a base person serves as an officer?”
“That… well, I will take measures.”
“Please do.”
April turned her attention back to the fireplace.
As more time passed in that silence, Hannah, who had been occupied soothing the chicks for the past three days, noticed the window rattling and spoke up.
“Oh! The wind is blowing, miss!”
At the mention of wind, April walked to the window.
Just as Hannah said, the wind was blowing, and the fog was moving.
The fog that the citizens of the Grand Duchy couldn’t dispel no matter what they did began to thin within an hour of the wind picking up, and after three or four hours, visibility had recovered sufficiently.
April stepped out of the mansion and looked up at the piercing blue sky she hadn’t seen in three days.

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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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